Experiment were a jazz/prog/rock/fusion band that made epic twenty minute pieces that could only ever be listened to under the influence of something that made it not matter.

Mollases for the Masses was a double live album of four songs recorded on their world tour of 2005.

I would have had to have been on acid had I gone to see them in concert, not because of the music, but for the light show itself which is reported to be the biggest and most complicatedly expensive ever designed.

One of their concerts was an experience you wouldn’t forget and you would be telling your grandchildren who would be the only ones still interested after the thousandth telling.

But back then I was too much of a purist snob to want to be one of the masses for anyones experiment.

I think some pieces of their music are absolutely brilliant, but you have to wait for them amongst all this other stuff that seems like improvisational filler.
I love improvisational music that knows where it’s going, but that’s me.

The band have sold zillions of albums and have gozillions of fans who are treated with a world tour every few years.

Their concerts are announced a year and a half before it hits the road, giving people enough time to buy the best tickets to fund the first stage of the enormous production. Which is there after paid for by the increase in ticket sales that happens when talk starts to spread around the world about the concert which is usually bigger and better then the one toured before.

The band members have remained anonymous to the public throughout their 15 year career, somehow managing to keep their real identities secret and are only known as Rex, Mex, Tex and Apex.

Who they are is one of the best kept and most sought after secrets in the whole entertainment industry.

A friend of mine reckoned he heard some truth about the band and said their concerts were so expensive, the guys in the band were actually piss poor and lived in some wooden shacks out the back of the Yahoo mountains, writing new songs for the next tour which is already in production before the previous one is finished.

The picture on the cover is actually a small part of a larger picture by Simone’ Dereax, the french surrealist who lived and created throughout the late nineteenth century.

I never liked this cover because of the style of text the record company insisted on.
It clashes with the picture like a fart at a funeral.

I tried to talk about it to the guys in the band but was told they had no time to give me as their business diaries were full until october next year.
I was told the band were happy with the cover and I would be paid by the agreed date.
Door closed, game over.

I think they couldn’t have really given a stuff how the cover looked no matter what I did.
It would sell zillions anyway.

Experiment are more than just a band, they are a slick well oiled multi billion dollar corporation that employs thousands of people around the world so it’s in everyones best interest to make sure it keeps going and keeps getting better.

I can hear Janis Joplin and JImi Hendrix groaning in their graves.

Tags: Album Cover Designer, Album/Record Cover Design

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