Sometime during the tranquil 1970’s, Punk Rock came crashing to earth like a cultural meteorite intent on wiping out all the dinosaurs. Punk wasn’t simply another musical movement, it aspired to influence fashion, politics, literature and art. The Sex Pistols revolutionary, “Never Mind The Bollocks” with it’s now classic Jamie Reid designed cover signaled a drastic change to the 70’s rock aesthetic and ushered in a whole new era of graphic design. In less than one year after the Sex Pistols album was released, half a world away in the sleepy cultural backwater of Vancouver, Canada, the Pointed Sticks issued their first 7 inch single, “What Do You Want Me To do?” on fledgling local label Quintessence Records. The 45 single was issued with 5 different D.I.Y. coloured sleeves and the b-side was “Somebody’s Mom”. It was the first ever “production” by a young Bob Rock and it is now a highly sought after collectors item amongst the “Killed by Death” crowd.
Pointed Sticks were part of a new wave of West Coast Punk bands that included, The Modernettes, D.O.A., Art Bergmann‘s Young Canadians and The Subhumans, who all released classic albums between 1978 – 1983, albums that were essentially banned from the airwaves by the corporate rock establishment! Despite being shut out of the mainstream, the late 70’s and early 80’s saw an explosion of music released into the underground scene. This was the period that gave birth to the “independent” record label. Alongside the new wave of musical groups came a new wave of graphic designers and artists. Album covers became deliberately loud and colourful to get people’s attention and for the first time in music history, small labels sought to seriously compete with the majors.
Out of London’s mid-seventies “Pub Rock” scene, came Stiff Records. Stiff Records brought the world, the first official punk release (The Damned‘s debut) as well as Elvis Costello, Lene Lovich and Nick Lowe, all in an array of eye catching creative packaging courtesy of their legendary in-house graphics designer, Barney Bubbles. Thanks to small labels like Stiff, picture sleeves and picture discs flooded into the New Wave music market, which upset the majors, because they cost more to produce and reduced their profits!
Fittingly, The Pointed Sticks became the first Canadian band to sign to Stiff Records. Stiff released the Brinsley Schwartz produced “Out Of Luck” 7 inch in 1979, but due to the chaotic business practices of the label, the band’s debut was shelved after an aborted session with The Police’s producer, Nigel Grey. Disillusioned, the Pointed Sticks broke up in 1981 after releasing their now seminal power pop debut, “Perfect Youth“. The album cover, as well as the inner sleeve and label, was designed by legendary pop artist Jim “I Braineater” Cummins. Just as the Pointed Sticks had given Bob Rock his start, “Perfect Youth” was Jim Cummins first rock album commission, he went on to create iconic cover art for PURE‘s debut “Pureafunalia” and Skinny Puppys “Too Dark To Park”.
PERFECT YOUTH LP 1980 Quintessence Records
“I remember before I could get the album art finished, we had a Braineaters gig in Edmonton! So the band drove up without me. I flew in the day of the gig and flew back the next morning, finished the album cover and handed it in on Monday just in time for the deadline! The amount I got paid for the album was eaten up by the plane ticket. So I got to play the gig in Edmonton, finished the album artwork and wound up broke. Very rock n roll…” – Jim Cummins
“It just seemed so perfect at the time (no pun intended) for us to have a Jim Cummins cover! Of course, he worked some considerable self promotion into the image as well! The colours are brighter on the original 4′ X 4′ oil painting, which hangs in our ex-managers house, much to my chagrin… I wish it was mine. It was a pretty iconic cover for us. Most people think that the girl on the front is Nancy Gillespie, a scenester from back then, but Jim says its a composite of all the Pointed Sticks girls from that time. And there were lots, we were truly a girls band…” – Nick Jones
“The girl and man are made up. The creature she is drawing is something (…and I do mean something!) that we saw in a alley in the west end. Sandra and I, were going to her place and there it was, it looked at us! We kept driving in shock. We got home and locked all the doors and windows at her place. A couple of weeks later I started the album cover. I had about two weeks to get it done… and I can still see that creature to this day.” – Jim Cummins
The Real Thing 7″ Single 1979 Quintessence Records
“The Real Thing…. Our manager, Steve Macklam came up with that image. The Chinese characters ask the question “Who have you been fucking on the railroad tracks?” The answer of course being Pointed Sticks…” – Nick Jones
Real Thing/Out Of Luck 7″ (Back Cover) 1979 Quintessence Records
“Out Of Luck photo by Ron Nelson of Private School.I can’t really remember why we chose this shot, just seemed cool at the time, Gratuitous crotch shot of Tony Bardach.” – Nick Jones
Lies 7″ 1979 Quintessence Records
“I think we swiped that picture from some comic book…. Quintessence always gave us free reign on any artwork we wanted to use! We had this old drum skin that Ian Tiles found, and loved. I think it was from a Sears catalog drum kit, probably early sixties? That’s the image that was on the bass drum skin.This dates back to the very first weeks of the band, when we were practicing in an old warehouse next to the Sun building. $125 per month for the entire floor, and it had a freight elevator!” – Nick Jones
Lies/I’m Numb 7″ (Back Cover) 1979 Quintessence Records
“Sheila Adams, a friend of John Mackies did that drawing. We wanted something kind of 1950’s cool/Joan Miro looking. I think she pulled it off.” – Nick Jones
Out Of Luck 7″ 1979 Stiff Records (BUY59)
“Ah, the old slab of meat image! First time we saw that was when we held the finished record in our hands. There was no emailing graphics for approval back then! Blame Stiff entirely for what was undoubtably the worst graphic in the Pointed Sticks cannon. It’s a terrible photo as well… The shoot was done in Vancouver with a guy called John Sherlock, and the only consolation is that there are far worse shots from that session.” – Nick Jones
Power Pop Santa 7″ 2012 La Ti Da Records
“The “Power Pop Santa” single was recorded as a free download in 2008, La-Ti-Da put it out as a giveaway for the Fall Down, Get Down festival in 2012, which was meant to be our last gig. Not sure why we ever said anything that stupid, except for the fact that we were going through a rough patch at the time. I’m very proud of both sides of that single, its not easy to write an Xmas song! The graphics are all La-Ti-Da… something about “continuity with their brand”?? BTW, that single is completely sold out, and won’ t be reprinted!” – Nick Jones
My Japanese Fan 7″ 2009 Sudden Death Records
“A Richard Chapman/Ian Tiles collaboration. The whole airmail envelope concept is great, the original Japanese version of the cover is amazing, before the Sudden Death art department got a hold of it and “cleaned it up”. Jeez, it looked that way for a reason!! The song itself was the first original song that the reformed band wrote. It was Gord Nicholl’s idea, inspired by the ridiculous response we got when we first played there, and everyone from the band has at least one line in the lyrics. Nice double entendre as well. Plus the song starts with the chorus, oldest trick in the book. After we had played in Japan, we had realized pretty quickly that playing 25 year old songs was fun, but incapable of sustaining our long term interest. So we wrote that one, and now its 2015 and we’ve put out 2 LPs and 2 singles of new original music.” – Nick Jones
Three Lefts Make A Right LP 2009 Northern Electric
“By this point, Richard Chapman was in control of all the graphics for all things Pointed Sticks. The saying was mine, based on an old North Van story, too long to tell, but if you sketch it out, it is indeed true that 3 lefts do make a right. Obviously a play on “2 wrongs don’t make a right”…. I wanted the cover to look like the original Rueben and the Jets LP, colour and lettering wise, and for it to be a cartoon. The boxing gloves were Richards idea. Again, I love this cover.” – Nick Jones
The Stiff Sessions CD 2008 Japan
” Its our friend Bernadettes dog Odin. Its actually a re-enactment of what could have been a very unfortunate scene. When we came back from the UK (1980) after making that record, and ultimately having it rejected, we were all at a party at Steve Macklams house one night. He had a cassette dub of the recordings, and Phil Smith decided that he needed to make a copy of it for himself, on the spot. So he made a dub using Macklams double deck (remember those?) and took it home with him when the party was over. The next morning when the Macklams arose, their dog Elvis had taken that specific original cassette and strewn it from one end of the house to another, chewing it to pieces while doing so. The copy Phil made was/is as far as I know, the only one left in existence of those recordings, and what we used to master the CD. So, that music came within hours of being lost forever, and thats what the cover illustrates.” – Nick Jones
The POINTED STICKS will be performing Saturday Nov. 28th 2015…
POINTED STICKS – VAMPIRE BATS – POLLY – NERVOUS TALK at THE RICKSHAW!
POINTED STICKS – VAMPIRE BATS – POLLY – NERVOUS TALK at THE RICKSHAW!
SECRET AGENT RECORDS MAGAZINE 