Cal Schenkel (born January 27, 1947) is an artist specialising in album cover design. He was the main visual collaborator of American composer, guitarist, record producer and film director Frank Zappa. Schenkel's work is iconic and distinctive in style. A forerunner of punk art and the new wave era, he is responsible for the art and graphic design of many of Zappa's most well-known album covers. Schenkel is an active artist who lives and works in Pennsylvania.

Background and education

Calvin Schenkel was born in January 1947 in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. For a long time Willow Grove was home to one of the premier amusement parks in the United States, but by the time Schenkel was of age it had been eclipsed by Disneyland. Schenkel attended the Philadelphia College of Art but left after one semester and set out to find his own way in the fast developing world of art. As an unemployerd artist in the late 60's he met Essra Mohawk (otherwise known as Sandy Hurvitz), who introduced him to the composer Frank Zappa. Schenkel's interview in Eyemagazine

Schenkel and Frank Zappa

During the late 1960s album cover design became a highly significant part of the emerging music and art culture in Europe and the U.S.A, primarily as an expression of artistic vision and intent. Gatefold cover, (a folded double cover), and inserts, often with lyric sheets, made the album cover a desirable cultural artifact in its own right. One of the first artists to realise the significance of album cover design in the perception of image and artistry was the American composer, guitarist, record producer and film director Frank Zappa. By fortuitous circumstance, in 1967 he met and was introduced to the young artist Cal Schenkel. Schenkel wrote,

"When I first met him in New York, the art studio was in his apartment - but that was only for a brief period. I didn't actually live there [as widely reported], but I would commute to work at his place. When we moved to LA...he had rented the log cabin, I had a wing of it. It was my living quarters and art studio, which I rented separately from them."

Then followed a period of over 10 years when Schenkel, either holed up in an annex of the Zappa household, or at work in his own studio, attempted to give visual form to Zappa's music while developing his own, distinctive, raw edged 'ratty' style.

"I love naive and folk art, art that has an unfinished look. I don’t like the polished for the most part. Now what that means or where it comes from I’m not sure. But I was probably influenced graphically by artists I saw in school. And of course there’s the comic book look – like Krazy Kat. A part of it was just lack of skill. Trying to take advantage of my own naivety. I’d really only had a semester of art school, so I hadn’t evolved my style when I was doing all of this. It just comes natural, too."

A king of rendered absurdities, painter, designer, and illustrator, the instinctive novice in the 1960s art scene, the young Calvin Schenkel was entrusted by Frank Zappa to design most of his early album covers, because as he puts it "he was someone who could get the job done", though it is probably more true to say that Zappa realised his potential. One of the many classic and iconic images that Schenkel worked on for Zappa's fast growing music empire at this time was the cover for We're only in it for the Money: a parody of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper album.

This was the first project he had worked on with Zappa. Schenkel built the plaster figures, helped set up the staging for the photo (at Zappa's direction), and put together the collage of people in the background.

He also provided artwork, graphics, and/or design for Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, Uncle Meat, Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Chunga's Revenge, Fillmore East - June 1971, 200 Motels, Just Another Band from L.A., Waka/Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo, Over-Nite Sensation, Apostrophe , Roxy & Elsewhere, One Size Fits All, Bongo Fury, Zoot Allures, Tinseltown Rebellion, the Does Humor Belong in Music? album, The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life, Playground Psychotics, Ahead of Their Time, Cheap Thrills, Mystery Disc, Son of Cheep Thrills, Threesome No. 1 slipcase art, and Threesome No. 2 slipcase art.

Though foremost an artist, Cal provided vocal for Lumpy Gravy. He also gets a namecheck in the title for the track "For Calvin (And His Next Two Hitch-Hikers)" (from The Grand Wazoo). When Frank Zappa came to register his son Dweezil's birth name, the hospital refused. The first acceptable names that came to mind were Ian Donald Calvin (after Schenkel) Euclid Zappa.

Schenkel was production designer for the film 200 Motels (see external links below) and can be seen in the Zappa movies Uncle Meat and Video From Hell. Conceptual Continuity: the artwork for Burnt Weeny Sandwich was originally done for an Eric Dolphy album.

When Zappa signed with Herb Cohen, Schenkel began work with a number of other artists represented by Cohen. These included Tom Waits, Tim Buckley and Don van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart. He was also the art director on Zappa's production of the Lenny Bruce Berkeley Concert in 1969.

Schenkel and Captain Beefheart

Schenkel created the artwork and design for Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, described by the BBC's DJ John Peel in these terms:

"If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then Trout Mask Replica is probably that work."

And the critic Steve Huey wrote that the album's influence "was felt more in spirit ...as a catalyst rather than a literal musical starting point. However, its inspiring re-imagining of what was possible in a rock context laid the groundwork for countless experiments in rock surrealism to follow, especially during the punk/new wave era."

Schenkel went to a local fish market to buy the carp's head that he wanted to use on the album cover. He hollowed out the head leaving just the face, like some absurd carnival mask. Van Vliet, easing seamlessly into character, instinctively picked it up and held it to his face – and the image of a thousand cultural references was created. Looking out at the world through the eyes of the raw stinking fish head, he sat for over two hours while Schenkel took photographs. Inside the mask the smell was choking and intense but the Captain was good-natured about the whole process. The creation of the album cover was as surreal as the album itself. At one point Beefheart picked up the saxophone and started to play something 'raw' through the mouth of the stinking fish. Schenkel has 'footage' of 'the carp playing sax'.

Legacy

When the 'Zappa machine' shut down for a while in 1977, Schenkel returned to his home town of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, hoping to jump-start an art career separate from Zappa and, more importantly, from the record industry. There he began his own 'mail order' art business.

Schenkel's artwork, influenced at first by the comic strip Krazy Cat and by Mad , had by then developed its own 'primitive' 'ragged' surrealist style. In 1976 together with Don Van Vliet, Schenkel held an exhibition of his artwork in Greenfields Gallery, at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, where the young Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons was a student.

References

1. For examples see the gallery below
2. The actual credit on the album cover is: "PLASTER FIGURES & ALL OTHER ARTWORK: CAL SCHENKEL (holding eggs lower right front cover)"
3. Source United Mutations interview with Schenkel

Gallery

Image:Frank Zappa - Cruising With Ruben & the Jets.jpg|Cruising with Ruben and the Jets. Album artwork, Cal Schenkel 1968.

Image:Frank Zappa The Grand Wazoo.gif|The Grand Wazoo, Album artwork, Cal Schenkel, 1972.

Image:Playground Psychotics.jpg| Playground Psychotics, Album sleeve design, Cal Schenkel, 1992.

Album Artworks Credits

(pending)

External links

• Cal Schenkel's Website www.ralf.com
• 200 Motels: Dental Hygiene Dilemma