Pulse Quadrophenia Cover Shoot

Art directing the cover of The Pulse’s vinyl issue was a blast. I knew I wanted to recreate a classic album cover and immediately turned to a favorite album, The Who’s “Quadrophenia,” which is both a classic and very easy to mimic. With some washable paint and a donated Army field jacket, I crafted the band’s signature logo, replacing WHO with CHA, Chattanooga’s airport code. At the Brainerd Army Store, we picked up a set of Air Force technical sergeant stripes for the sleeve. The rest was all about a model, location and a scooter. Our clear choice to play the Mod “Jimmy,” was Pulse videographer Josh Lang. He’s young, lithe and fit the bill. The scooter was simple: Borrow a classic Vespa from Friend of The Pulse Dave Smotherman, owner of the ultra-cool Winder Binder Gallery. We had purchased an M-80 smoke bomb to create the Brighton fog effect, but at the last minute, photographer Lesha Patterson secured a fog machine. Because it had rained the night before the shoot, the atmosphere at the loading dock behind The Pulse offices were perfect. On the crisp, clear and still evening of December 8, 2011 (the anniversary of the shooting of John Lennon, incidentally), the entire shoot took less than an hour. Our intent wasn’t to perfectly recreate the cover, but to pay homage, make it Quadrophenia Chattanooga. The video camera rolled automatically, capturing just enough to make this fun video.

The cover itself? Awesome. I’ve designed more than a dozen covers for The Pulse since joining the paper this fall. The final version appears above and was published on Dec. 15, 2011. This is by far my favorite, one of my favorites of my career. View the gallery here. Here’s the original cover of “Quadrophenia” for comparison. I’d say we got pretty damn close on zero budget.



P.S. — That’s my Volvo 240 Wagon in the most of the shots.