Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Ghosts of Versailles

Not sure how I think about this purely as a conceptual art project, but somebody has commissioned portraits of how our dead rock heroes might look today, i.e. if they hadn't died tragically young.

For example -- Kurt Cobain.


Bob Marley.


Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys.


The Lizard King.


Janis Joplin.


Keith Moon.


John Lennon.


And some guy from Tupelo, Mississipi.


The ghoulishness aside, I think the Marley is right on the money, i.e., he looks like George Clinton. And the Joplin works for me too; she would have been a very cool old broad.

The Dennis Wilson and the Morrison are barely recognizable, on the other hand, but that may be the point.

And I like the fact that the elderly Keith Moon is definitely wearing a hairpiece.

7 comments:

Frito said...

I didn't know that Jon Voight was the Lizard King!?! Who knew?

Anonymous said...

Hello all...no, please remain seated,

Saw this online yesterday and my first thought was "Hey! How come these guys all get to keep their hair?". I think you nailed it with Moon. And with Joplin.

Kinda silly but fascinating. It also reminded me...was it you who posited an observation about the "Keith Richards effect"? Something on the order of how throughout the years every new photo of Keith made you think "my god, he looks terrible!" But years later, viewing the same photo you then think "well he didn't look too bad"

I wonder if Keith thinks I got old looking?

regards,

RichD

steve simels said...

The Dennis Wilson looks like Glen Frey, IMHO.

buzzbabyjesus said...

Quite entertaining!

Jerry Lee said...

What's with the turtlenecks? Cobain would have a lot of gray hair if he was still with Courtney Love.

Brooklyn Girl said...

Creepy, but some of them are on the money. Others, not so much.

I prefer the drawing that accompanied "When I'm 64" in the book of Beatles lyrics that came out a billion years ago.

http://www.merryswankster.com/images/beatles_when_64-775101-735171.jpg

Anonymous said...

Christ. I already look like that Elvis and I'm barely 53.

Keith was going to hit a wall sooner or later. What if he'd found God and become Arthur Treacher II?

Death is a wonderful preservative.