Down In The Basement

Did you ask the woman where she learnt the stitching technique? If you see her again, I suggest you try to glean if she ever spent any time in the vicinity of Droitwich. I take it that this is a wholly different lady to the old laughing elk you met in the road last week (the image of such a scene in my head makes me think of 'Grandma Death' from the film Donnie Darko). Old ladies are often wise beyond expectation and the insights possible from such sources should never be underestimated. Allow me now to recount what was gleaned from another Old Hand from the labs...

The evening with Dr. Epstein (in which he explained to me the guilt-free method of donut theft) yielded the following unexpected discovery of sorts. As the jazz music filtered through the post-dinner chat, there had been metion of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes and the mistaken belief was held that they were redcorded in 1968. An hour or so later, a copy of Thelonious Monk's Underground was noticed on the table, copyright information showing an original relase date of 1968.

The artwork on Monk's record depicts the artist in an underground bunker, a basement of sorts. In this basement, Monk is at his piano surrounded by assorted objects thus: cheese, grapes, guns, a haybucket, several wine bottles and glasses and a gestapo officer tied to a wooden chair. In the background (the image has a strong sense of depth) is a woman holding a rifle, staring at the viewer from a distance. Monk also sports a gun, strapped to his back out the way of his hands for freedom on the keyboard yet in easy reach should he decide he requires it's use. A detonator connected to a string of explosives lies at his feet in the foreground and Viva La France is grafittied on one of the walls [above the nazi]. The image is rendered in dark earthy hues and has a natural textural quality to it.

Now, i happen to know the Dylan record fairly well and am familiar with its sleeve art. The two are very similar. The artist is also situated in a basement with his instrument of choice (in Dylan's case a mandolin, being played in the manner of a fiddle). Earthy tones, seemingly random objects and characters abound. There is also a man in military dress similar to Monk's Gestapo prisoner. A woman also stares at the viewer from the back of the picture.

Working on the assumption that both records were recorded and released in the same year, it struck me that these two pieces of work were a further example of two people having the same idea, separately, but at the same time. However, upon returning home and checking my copy of the Dylan record, I discovered that it was in fact released in 1975 and so would not seem to be the evidence I initially supposed. One further thing did strike me about the two covers - both artists are wearing wool - Monk a fine suit and Dylan in a striped cardigan reminiscent of South American patterns and colouring.

Now, I am not for a 16th note suggesting that these two seminal musicians were involved in the beginnings of the soft-core group, but I have a hunch that there may be some significance in all this similarity and mistaken belief. If the softcore group have been in hiding for the last 3 years, where have they been? Based on the insights gained from these record sleeves, I have a strong suspicion that when the group went 'underground' they did so literally and have been living subterraneously since 2005. Given their suspected plan of trying to submerge a city, or even a state, it seems likely that they would possess the means to hide themselves underground also, something mentioned as a possiblity with regard to the stateline existence you hypothesized recently.

Of course this theory would have so much more weight to it if the two records in question had been released in the same year.