Monday, January 14, 2008

Dan Seagrave. The man. The myth. The muffins.

Dan Seagrave was part of the early 90's death metal holy-trinity. If you were going to make it in the biz back then you needed these three things (though some got by with only two):

1. Be from Florida
2. Record at Morrisound Studios
3. Get Dan Seagrave to do your album cover

As part of this holy-trinity, it's hard to criticize the man who brought to life such amazing artistic statements as the deer/man creature with a circular saw on the cover of Suffocation's "Human Waste". Nevertheless, I feel that enough time has passed, that we can now safely look a bit closer at some of his work. With time, we have gained insight, and with that insight we can look closer at the cover for Sepultura's "Arise".

A perfect example of his mid-career work, this piece exemplifies the kind of monochromatic fantasy worlds that populated his work during that time. Upon closer inspection, however, viewers will notice two things. First, Dan Seagrave was hungry (surely due to being broke, because I'm sure painting the cover to the second Lawnmower Deth album is not getting you dessert at Red Lobster.) Second, the man was horny. I'm sure girls didn't exactly think their dreamboat had just docked when he explained what he did for a living, "Well right now I'm working on the new Pestilence cover. I actually have to get home soon to retouch the floating sphere made of knives on that one. I should also do some work on the time machine that the robot is sitting on to go back in time and kill Jesus in the Nocturnus cover"

The proof




1. Clearly depicted here are two lobster claws holding dental floss.
2. Three blueberry muffins.
3. A woman bent over backwards for no reason at all.

7 comments:

  1. There can be no denial of these facts. Death and Cynic both recorded there and there is no fighting those bands. Mmmm. Cynic.

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  2. morrisound was a huge plus...but in the case of bands like Hellwitch...it did little for them. ughhh. hellwitch.

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  3. this cover was done by michael whelan but its really stupid if you ask me. what the hell is it? and whys it all brown? and look at the logo- it looks like a little kid traced it with a yellow crayon...

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  4. Mmmmh...Dan Seagrave DID NOT draw the "Arise" cover, that is a second choice because Roadrunner used the original "Arise" cover art for Obituary's "Cause of death".

    However, I liked Dan's work, especially the covers for the mighty "Left hand path" and "Dark recollections".
    I loved the thrash covers done by Kent Mathieu and Ed Repka, too.

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  5. ...and he didn't paint the cover for "Human Waste" either. Great research, dude!

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  6. "Beneath the remains"was the second choice cover.Monte from Roadrunner fucked the Sep boys over and gave it to "Obituary".No wonder they were pissed,"Cause of Death" is heaps better artwork.

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  7. Learn your artists. This was NOT done by Seagrave. It was done by Michael Whelan. Maybe look inside of your album cover before you post

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