One Man’s Trash: Anatomy of a Defaced LP Cover

A few years back, my musical compadre, Mike Sin & I shared a table at the Jersey City Record Riot selling some unwanted vinyl and CDs from our collections.  As I was going through the records I had set aside to sell and putting price stickers on them, I came across a copy of the The Monkees’ self-titled first LP.  I found this LP for 50 cents at a garage sale in my youth.  The vinyl was in poor shape and the original owner had defaced the cover with various writing and drawings.  So I priced it at one dollar and was about to place it in the pile of already priced records, but……I had a change of heart.  The defaced back cover was too damn amusing and worth more to me than the dollar I would have received in exchange.  It is so quintessentially of it’s time.  Straight out of a ’60s teenybopper’s bedroom.  It has a lot of the typical trappings one might find except for one of the most common.  The original owner did not write her name on the LP cover.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume the owner was female.  Anyway, let’s take a closer look, shall we?

The writing is all in green ink with the exception of the random word “blue” which appears in blue ink.  The track listing has asterisks next to six of the twelve songs.  Four of those songs have one asterisk and the other two have a pair of asterisks.  I’m assuming that one asterisk indicated a song the owner liked and two asterisks meant a song the owner really really liked…..as opposed to a five star rating system.  Underneath the track listing, above the words “Meet the Monkees” is the word “lovible” (sic) with a proofreader’s caret indicating that the word “lovible” is to be placed before the word “Monkees”.  The letter “o” in “lovible” is actually the shape of a heart which is colored in.  The letter “s” in “Monkees” is altered to resemble a dollar sign.  There is a bit of scribbling to the left of the track list as well which I will elaborate on later.

At the bottom of the cover toward the left is the word “love” with upper and lower quotation marks.  Again, the “o” in “love” is a colored in heart shape.  Some other things the owner has colored in are the “insides” of certain letters, band members’ teeth and some of the perforations in the film strip image depicted on the cover as we will see in the next picture.

And now we get to the money shots.  The defaced pictures of the four Monkees are the main reason I couldn’t part with the LP.  Mike Nesmith has oval shaped sunglasses drawn in as well as extended sideburns and a goatee.  He also gets a bit of affection from the previous owner, via the word “love” (there it is again but with a standard “o” this time) written on his cheek.

Davy is sporting octagonal shades, a mustache and beard.  One of his teeth is colored in and he’s got a cigarette in his mouth.  What’s in that cigarette, I wonder?  If we follow the trail of smoke, we see the answer written on Davy’s cheek.

It appears Davy has taken the first train to Potsville!  Now on to Peter and Micky…

Peter’s last name has been changed to “Fork” via an extra line added to the “T” and there is a picture of a fork to the right of his “name”. I can hear Ralph Wiggum in my head laughing at this joke.  Pete’s face has been altered to include rectangular specs, a mustache and goatee.  All of his teeth are greened out and he is smoking a cigarette. I’m going to assume he’s having what Davy’s having! Across his jaw is a heart with an arrow through it.  Looks like she digs Pete! (Future occupation: Pete digger).  I’m not quite sure what that marking on his cheek that looks like a sideways “B” is supposed to be.  My only guess is that perhaps it was meant to be a lipstick mark and she forgot to draw in the lower lip.

Micky has got wraparound shades, a goatee and a colored in tooth.  Joining Davy and Peter, he too is enjoying a smoke.  Let’s get a closer look at what is written lightly on his cheek.

Ladies and gentlemen, Micky Dolenz on drugs and percussion!

Getting back to that bit of hieroglyphics near the song titles, it appears that something was written and then covered up with more pen strokes to make it illegible.  It almost looks like it could have been the words “fuck you” before the covering up.  However for that to be true, the “k” would have to have been at an angle or drawn with a curved leftmost line.  Another thought would be that it’s an original owner’s name covered up.  However the same green color ink is used, making it look it was written and covered up in the same sitting (or shortly thereafter).

This graffiti laden cover to me captures a moment in time where the owner is a fan but perhaps on the cusp of “outgrowing” The Monkees.  For a start, she’s got three of the band members smoking weed.  The affectionate writing on the faces of Nez and Peter as opposed to the drug references on the others’ faces gives the illusion that the owner was more into the two “proper” musicians in the group as opposed to the cute one (Davy) or the freaky clown (Micky). If you look at the asterisks next to the song titles, it is generally the more rocking numbers that the owner favored.  None of Davy’s vocal showcases get any love.  Nor does the countrified “Papa Gene’s Blues” or the downright silly “Gonna Buy Me A Dog” which might have rated higher had the owner been a couple years younger.  And if that is indeed the F-bomb lurking underneath those hieroglyphics, it can be seen as a hint of revolution quickly covered up so that mom doesn’t see it.  I can totally see the owner moving on to more “serious” bands in her not too distant future.

I couldn’t part with this record for a buck and I couldn’t reasonably charge any more for it so in my collection it stays. Bit of a Catch-22 thing, you see.