A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing Bearsville album cover

A WOOFER IN TWEETER'S CLOTHING - THE ORIGINAL COVER
A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing Sparks Lp album cover
A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing Lp
- Original "blurred shot" front cover Lp -
Sparks - A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing CD Bearsville

The first Sparks' self-titled album didn't sell but the band got a second chance and "A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing" was released in 1972. In order to avoid problems with Bearsville Records company Sparks decided to propose an obvious cover with a very classic photography of the band. - read the story of the Halfnelson "Car Interior" cover...

A photo session was scheduled with photograph and friend Larry Dupont in the basement of the UCLA Ethnic Arts Museum. In that unusual place the band was surrounded by scary African fetishes, masks and spears but all this stuff doesn't appear on any shot.
Ron Mael & Jim Mankey were sitting on chairs while Harley A. Feinstein, Russell Mael & Earle Mankey were standing behind them. Harley Feinstein was standing behind Ron Mael trying to look cool but at this time the drummer was immature and a bit of a jerk and he suddenly tipped Ron's chair back to make the keyboardist think he was falling over backwards... Ron's arms flew up... Larry Dupont snapped the photo with his Hasselblad, a swedish high-quality photography camera.

Ron Mael was involved with cinema at UCLA. He was very keen on silent movies and was a comedian in the mold of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges & The Marx Brothers... Ron Mael obviously liked sight gags. So he probably found the photo amusing and decided to put the blurred shot on the front album cover and a "straight" pic from the same photo session was used as Lp back cover.
The two black and white photos were hand-tinted by Larry Dupond and that's the reason why Russell Mael's famous red & white checkered suit became a green & white one on the second pic. The band liked the idea of the front and back covers being nearly identical.
From the eighties Bearsville Records reissued the first two albums on Cd. But if the Sparks self-titled album still have its original cover, "A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing" Cd got now the back cover as front and vice versa.

These informations regarding the story of A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing cover were obtained from Harley A. Feinstein.


Sparks Halfnelson Bearsville original album Lp cover
Sparks Self Titled Bearsville Album reissue

When it came time to design the very first album cover the band decided to use an old photo which looked like a promotional photo from General Motors of a model in an automobile. The album came out in 1971 under the name "Halfnelson" but didn't have much impact on its initial release...
Bearsville suggested the boys change their monicker and the record company thought the album should be repackaged under the name "Sparks" with a revamped packaging too. - read more about the original cover...

2 Original Of Sparks - Double package Bearsville records

In 1975, after Sparks' huge success in Europe, Bearsville Records reissued Sparks' first self-tiled album and "A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing". This double package was called "2 Originals Of Sparks". This combination of the first two albums came with a revampted cover of the original design of the very first "Halfnelson" Lp and a beautiful deluxe 16 pages large booklet with the history of the band by ex-Sparks' manager Joseph Fleury, photos, lyrics and Ron Mael and Russell Mael commenting each song. This double package is a pretty scarce item nowadays. Most of informations regarding Sparks on this website were taken from this fantastic booklet.

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