Show of Hands – Formerly Anthrax album art
From Discogs:
In 1971, Jerry McCann moved to San Francisco, where he released an album on Elektra with a group of musicians with whom he had done a couple of gigs in the mid 60s. When the group was signed to Elektra, they were called Anthrax. In one of the many meetings, Jerry suggested to call the group “Formerly Anthrax”. After arguing, the Elektra staff proposed to call the band “Show of Hands” (which Jerry used during his argument) and call the album “Formerly Anthrax”. The group agreed, but when they played gigs or were asked what the name of the band was, they called themselves “Formerly Anthrax” and called their album “A Show of Hands”. Shortly after the album came out, Jim Morrison passed away, Elektra was sold to Kinney Corp. which owned Atlantic/Atco/Warner Bros./Reprise and Mad Magazine. The new owners came in and fired everybody from the janitors on up and the saga of which came first, the album title or the band name came to a quick and final demise. About 10 years later, Elektra signed another band called Anthrax. (Source: Jerry McCann)
West Casa Blanca is in use for the debut and only album by Show Of Hands / Formerly Anthrax, released in 1970. Robert L. Heimall is credited for art direction, meanwhile Rita Kuhnke is credited for the cover painting as well as Ed Caraeff for photography.
Casa Blanca was designed by Dave West and appears on page 323 in PLINC’s One-Line Manual of Styles. It’s somewhat similar to Cheee (2018) by OH no Type Co, specifically the Oldskool / Smortious style.
Back cover. Note that the image was rotated by 180 degrees. The text is actually upside-down, and the image wraps around the gatefold.
Detail
4 Comments on “Show of Hands – Formerly Anthrax album art”
Thank you, Reybach. That’s the first documented Use of West Casa Blanca, congrats! I’ve started compiling a sample for it, but it’s still pretty patchy. We’ll need to find a couple more Uses in order to complete it – having an a would help a lot. :)
I bet you looked into the letterforms for “Show of Hands” as well. I did, but came up empty. Kirovac Keyhole and some later releases like Domino and Bau have similarly small circular counters, but aren’t a match. It might be lettering.
Thanks for the addition! I do actually have another use of Casa Blanca coming up right now. And thanks on the note about the Show Of Hands lettering btw.
Are you sure, because I sworn I see repeating letterings as I look at the S & H
@Javi: sure of what; of “Show of Hands” being custom drawn? I wrote that it might be lettering, because I wasn’t sure. I just did a quick overlay of the repeating letters. Turns out they’re not identical, see especially the size (S) and position (H) of the counters. This suggests to me that it’s indeed lettering.