Over the weekend, when the sad news spread about the passing of Tommy Ramone, a really touching image circulated online, showing the Ramones debut LP, then the same cover with Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee Photoshopped out, and then, at last, Tommy removed as well. Dangerous Minds even shared it on our Facebook page.
 

 
The middle image, of Tommy standing alone in front of that iconic brick wall, seems to have come from a Tumblr called “Live! (I See Dead People),” which is devoted entirely to skillfully removing deceased musicians from their LP covers—sort of like “Garfield Minus Garfield,” but with a more serious intent. The subjects range from cult figures like Nick Drake to canonical rock stars like Nirvana and The Doors, and the results are often quite poignant. The blog hasn’t been updated in almost three years, so it seems unlikely the artists behind this project, Jean-Marie Delbes and Hatim El Hihi, will re-do that Ramones cover. Indeed, their Morrison Hotel still features Ray Manzarek, who passed on a little over a year ago.
 

New York Dolls, s/t
 

Ol Dirty Bastard, Return to the 36 Chambers
 

Nick Drake, Bryter Layter
 

The Who, Odds & Sods
 

Johnny Thunders, So Alone
 

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass
 

Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
 

Jeff Buckley, Grace
 

The Doors, Morrison Hotel
 

John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy
 

The Clash, s/t
 

Elvis Presley, s/t
 

 
Hat-tip to Derf for this find.

Einstürzende Neubauten’s ‘Jewels’ visualized in 3D.
 
Flavor Wire hipped me to the research and experimentation studio Realität. Their latest project is called Mircosonic Landscapes which is “An algorithmic exploration of the music we love. Each album_s soundwave proposes a new spatial and unique journey by transforming sound into matter/space: the hidden into something visible.”

According to Flavor Wire:

“Each piece was created with the open-source, three-dimensional data visualization programming language known as Processing, and then printed via a programmable machine that can print in plastic called MakerBot.”
 

Portishead’s ‘Third’ visualized in 3D.
 

Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ visualized in 3D.

Visit Flavor Wire to see 3D-printed visualizations of Antony and the Johnsons and the composition “Für Alina” by Arvo Pärt. I wonder how an album of music that is much more rhythmic and syncopated than any of these examples, say something where Tony Allen was drumming? A Phillip Glass piece? Bitches Brew? Sea santies? “Rapper’s Delight”?

 
Nick Drake died in 1974 at the age of 26. But his brief life had a lasting and profound impact. It took a television commercial to rescue his music from cultdom and introduce it to an international audience.

In A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, a haunting tribute to Drake and his music, his sister Gabrielle takes us through the Drake family history as director Jeroen Berkven’s camera meditates on the almost mystical landscapes of the English village of Tanworht-in-Arden where Drake was born and lived.

I was introduced to Nick Drake’s music while he was still alive. A poet friend of mine who suffered from depression (as did Drake) turned me on to “Five Leaves Left” and I was immediately enchanted. My friend was obsessed with Nick’s music and found solace in its sweet sadness and a kind of kinship that tempered his loneliness. When Nick died it was a huge loss for all of us who were just beginning to discover and appreciate his work. I had felt this same sense of loss before when Tim Buckley died and would feel it again when Tim’s son Jeff drowned in the Mississippi River. Musical geniuses who died much too young.

Safe in the womb
Of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can
Give the brightest light
Safe in your place deep in the earth
That’s when they’ll know what you’re really worth
Forgotten while you’re here”

Lyrics from “Fruit Tree.”
 
Other than a few childhood home movies, no film footage of Nick Drake exists. So director Berkven had to create a sense of Drake through other means. That he succeeds is quite remarkable. He is enormously helped by Nick’s mother Molly. Her own music uncannily evokes her son’s and creates a deeply emotional dimension to A Skin Too Few.

Here’s A Skin Too Few in its entirety. Pour yourself a glass of wine or a cup of tea and enjoy this 48 minute tone poem. The quality is good enough that you can watch it in full screen.

 

 
I really like these hand-painted vinyl records from artist Daniel Edlen. According to his web site, Daniel also does drawings of authors on their books. I’m partial to the Zappa, natch.

 

 
See more of Daniel’s work after the jump…

“I always say that Nick was born with a skin too few,” Gabrielle Drake on her brother.
 
It took a ‘99, Pink Moon-accompanied Volkswagen commercial to jumpstart the posthumous career of the great Nick Drake.  The following year, Dutch director Jeroen Berkvens came out with a documentary on the tortured British singer-songwriter, A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake.

Featuring interviews with Drake’s sister Gabrielle, producer Joe Boyd, and principal arranger, Robert Kirby (who died last October), A Skin Too Few’s a fascinating look at Drake, who, sadly, took his own life at the age of 26.  It’s been floating around in pieces on YouTube, but the below video’s in one high-quality piece. 

 
Bonus: Nick Drake’s Blues Run The Game