Monday 14 December 2009

The story behind the album cover

Some frequently asked questions these days are mostly about the album cover. Did you guys photoshop it? Did you guys paint it? No, we didn’t, we're not that talented to come up with such a beautiful painting. For those who've come to our album release party would have probably seen the actual painting, which is as huge as 8 feet talll. So who's the artist who turned our nude bodies into something beautiful thru his magic brush strokes? The acclaimed Simon Birch is the answer.

Thanks to Time Out Hong Kong for the hook up, Simon has then sent us the first email regarding the album cover, going straight ahead to explain to us his philosophy in his art. With the desire of expressing on self with absolute honesty, we've found ourselves so lucky and blessed that we've got Simon on board.

I forgot who suddenly rose "Let's paint us nude!" during a discussion with Simon about the album cover, with Simon replying a "Why not", the painting was then officially kicked off.

With not any further confirmation about what to do with the album cover, we went up to Simon’s studio on a Sunday afternoon. "Come on guys, clothes off." That's what Simon said when he got his camera in hands. Standing in front of the huge plain canvas naked, we got ourselves started to pose. Unlike posing naked in front of a mirror in your own bathroom, it isn't easy at the beginning to pose naked in front of a camera. Les and Jan's great efforts are inspiring, getting the whole team into the mood very quickly. With our clothes back on, the last step for us is to lie on the canvas, while Simon outline us with a chalk on it. It's pretty interesting that we are being outlined by a chalk while we're still in consciousness, as normally when you got outlined by a chalk you’d probably be lying in the middle of a highway, dead or half-dead.

In just 4 days, the painting was finished. We're all so amazed. This painting means so much to us, it has marked our debut CD release, our first nudity in public, as well as our friendship with Simon.

For the stripe over the painting, that is no one's idea, and that's nothing anyone wants. Big applause to the Hong Kong stupid censorship system for classifying the cover as "indecent content", in which if we don't put something to cover up our "painted dicks", our CD won't be allowed to sell to people under 18. We'll keep spreading the words to the world of how civilized Hong Kong is.

(We'll try to save money to run a limited edition with the original painting on the cover, to show our respect to the painting, and the artist.)

To know more about Simon Birch's work, please visit
www.simon-birch.com or monkeymodified.blogspot.com

Go and take a look, we promise you'll be very impressed!

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