More on the Cooley bird from our good friend Jyl:
To GW in IA who has truck dreams: check out our friend Jim's truck
http://bikenutz.com/shoptruck/- Wes did the dashboard ( see 'dash job' page ) and will also be
doing some more stuff, soon as Jim tells him what he wants. Way cool
that his tail gate was courtesy the man who did many of the Mail Pouch
Tobacco Barns - an incredible stroke of luck.
http://bikenutz.com/shoptruck/dashjob/+++++++++
The Cooley Bird /Cooleybird
Despite what some may think, the name Cooleybird originated here at
Willard's Garage by yours truly, not long after Wes showed it to the
band as a prototype for their record "Decoration Day". I just
thought "Cooley Bird" sounded funny, and it did remind us of Cooley
in some ways. I think maybe around then Patterson had started calling
it "The Death Bird", which I never liked, as it sounded cliche and
goth and the bird really had nothing to do with death. But in years
since, a lot of people would call it that not knowing that P. or the
band also used that from time to time - funny how it makes people
think of death. I guess storks deliver babies so black flamingoes
are The Grim Reaper ? I don't know...
I guess you could say it's origins were kinda/sorta 'goth' - Wes had
this idea for a painting of a punk rock ( I guess) trailer with
black, rather than pink, flamingoes all over the front yard. He
resurrected the bird to see if the band wanted it for DD,
When he showed it to the band, they were unsure about it - and who
could blame them ? At the time there was no secret meaning or
subtext relevant to anything to do with DBT or us, just a weird
image. I think the band kind of reluctantly, at first, decided to
go with it - along with the rest of the DD art, but when they did
give it the "go ahead", Patterson was quite adamant about them
owning the bird. He said emphatically, "That bird is OURS!" - sort
of like the flying cat was Cracker's for awhile. About 10 minutes.
I love David, Johnny & Bob, but they really didn't use that cat image
to its full potential. So Wes reclaimed it. We don't like it when
animals are homeless.
That's why Wes can't / won't use it for other people's logos and
such ( some have asked...), or for commissioned pieces. Tattoos are
fine, of course. Public domain and all, and frankly at this point
it's fun to think that it may one day be one of the most popular
rock and roll related tattoo images of all time. People all over the
world have Cooley Bird tattoos. Crazy.
More trivia: Originally there were two Cooleybirds. This was back
before we had the technology to just email the band artwork & get
immediate feedback, so Wes initially told P. about it over the
phone. He said, "Yeah, there's two black flamingoes looking over a
sinkhole with a cross over it."
That was received with a very, very long period of silence. Then Wes
said, "Maybe you need to see it..." !!!!!!! Hilarious. Who
knew, right ?
Some years ago one of our regular customers dubbed it a "crowmingo" -
and I see others have thought of that same thing, too. I love that.
Wes has always loved crows, so... you know. "It's all good.",
as the kids say.
So that's prolly more than anybody wanted to know about the bird(s) -
sorry to disappoint anyone, but there's no reason for them being
other than "they look cool", however, as with song lyrics, art is
really about what you choose to see anyway, so feel free to invent
any stories you like. We get a kick out of hearing them !
Much love from all of us at Willard's Garage - DBT fans are birds in
this world. Non pareil.