VINYLART #7


THE OUTSIDERS CQ


Netherlands, 1968 Artwork by Anton Van Der Gulik


Graphic artist and life- long Outsiders fan DAN ABBOTT gets minimal as he appreciates the incredibly ahead of its time design that adorns the cover of their seminal 1968 album CQ.


few months and the new songs were darker, more mysterious and experimental than ever before.


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But how to present this new sound visually? A radical approach was required.


The man for the job was rising pop-artist and band acquaintance Anton Van Der Gulik. Van Der Gulik was obsessed with the visual language of technology and communication, working in his Kubrik-esque white washed Amsterdamstudio creating multiples of enlarged and heavily abstracted symbols by spraying flat areas of colour and black lines onto metal plates.


The album’s title, CQ, suggested by studio engineer Erik Bakker, refers to the code used by amateur radio hobbyists when scouring the airwaves for other users. Literally, “seek you”. When successful radio contact is achieved, users post each other their own specially personalised QSL cards to confirm the connection between the two stations.


74


olland, 1968. The Outsiders were about to give birth to their third album. Their music had undergone considerable mutation in the past


The lightbulb went on in Van Der Gulik’s brain and he set about creating a four part foldout cover based on abstract Outsiders QSL cards. The band’s label Polydor, however, baulked at the cost and the package became a more standard gatefold sleeve.


Nevertheless, the resulting design was stunning. A bold geometric motif with yellow, white and metallic grey fields separated by thick black lines. All standard late ’60s rock stylings are absent –no swirly fluorescent lettering, no Alice In Wonderland rips, no solarised band photo and no Hindu iconography!


Similarly missing are the band’s name and the album’s title. Just flat colours and hard black lines, inhuman and unsentimental, perfectly complimenting the often unnerving, paranoid atmosphere that permeates the record.


It’s as far away from flower power as a washing machine instruction booklet. The cover of CQ refuses to entertain or engage the viewer in any normal way. It just stares back, as if to say, “You don't know what this is, do you, Mr Jones?” In short, a statement of supreme confidence on the part of the band.


A subtly different version was placed on the rear of the cover. Open up the gatefold and you’re greeted by four monochrome portraits of the boys, taken by photographer Wim Davids. No explanation is offered as to why they have IBM reel-to-reel computer drives superimposed over their faces. It just adds to the general unnerving feeling of “It’s 1968 and things suddenly ain’t so groovy any more.”


The cover is a rare triumph of music shaking hands with art, but the pop world wouldn’t be ready for stark graphics like this until the late ’70s when post-punk bands got all arty and minimalist with their sleeves.


Though it would have stood out a mile in the racks at the time, CQ failed to resonate musically or artistically with most fans and the ordeal left The Outsiders mortally wounded. It was to be their last album.


What tragic irony that even such a beautifully striking cover design, born out of the desire for communication, failed to halt their increasing isolation and alienation.


With thanks to Jerome Blanes and Floris Bergkamp.


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