Cal Schenkel

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Cal Schenkel was a visual collaborator of Frank Zappa. Calvin Schenkel is responsible for the art & design of many of Frank Zappa's best albums covers (as well as work on the film 200 Motels). Today he's an active artist and a contributor to alt.fan.frank-zappa.

The king of rendered absurdities, painter, designer, and illustrator Calvin Schenkel was entrusted by Frank Zappa to design the lion's share of Zappa's album covers. And though foremost an artist, Cal provided vocal for Lumpy Gravy.

Schenkel: "When I first met him in New York, the art studio was in his apartment - but that was only for a brief period. I didn't actually live there [as widely reported], but I would commute to work at his place. When we moved to LA...he had rented the log cabin, I had a wing of it. It was my living quarters and art studio, which I rented separately from them."

Cal provided artwork, graphics, and/or design for We're Only In It For The Money (in which he appears crouching at the feet of Jimi Hendrix), Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, Uncle Meat, Hot Rats, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Chunga's Revenge, Fillmore East - June 1971, 200 Motels, Just Another Band From L.A., Waka/Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo, Over-Nite Sensation, Apostrophe ('), Roxy & Elsewhere, One Size Fits All, Bongo Fury, Zoot Allures, Tinsel Town Rebellion, the Does Humor Belong In Music? album, The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life, Playground Psychotics, Ahead Of Their Time, Cheap Thrills, Mystery Disc, Son Of Cheep Thrills, Threesome No. 1 slipcase art, and Threesome No. 2 slipcase art.

Schenkel also provided artwork and design for Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica.

Cal gets a namecheck in the title for the track For Calvin (And His Next Two Hitch-Hikers) (from The Grand Wazoo). When Frank Zappa came to register his son Dweezil's birth name, the hospital refused. The first acceptable names that came to mind were Ian Donald Calvin (after Schenkel) Euclid Zappa.

Though a production designer for the film 200 Motels, Cal can be seen in the Zappa movies Uncle Meat and Video From Hell. Conceptual Continuity: the artwork for Burnt Weeny Sandwich was originally done for an Eric Dolphy album.

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This article incorporates text from this web location: [1], which has been licensed by its author under the GFDL.


Cal Schenkel also designed Emitt Rhodes' first record "Emitt Rhodes."