Album Covers
show and tell and the true tall tales behind this music
When Stiv Bators was recording what would become his only solo album, it turned out to be a departure from the punk rock for which he was known. DISCONNECTED was power pop. His secret weapons for pulling off that feat were his bandmates: Stiv’s longest-term friend, Frank Secich cofounded Blue Ash, a pioneering northern Ohio power pop ensemble that was signed to Mercury Records by Paul Nelson (he signed the New York Dolls too) and enjoyed success in the USA and abroad. Frank wrote songs and shared vocal duties. David Quinton Steinberg, who we all referred to as The Teenager from Toronto (he was 18 when he joined Stiv’s touring band, replacing Johnny Blitz) had been recruited from The Mods, and they were true to their name. George Cabaniss on guitar had always been an Ohio indie rock MVP. He was in Hammer Damage when he answered Stiv’s call.
Since its 1980 release, and Stiv’s untimely 1990 death, the record has become recognized for its value as a pop record and all of us in the Disconnected family have continued to accept all the opportunities to increase its visibility and longevity. It has been reissued domestically and abroad and there’s no shortage of information and stories about its gestation. Here is a particularly good one from Sugarbuzz Magazine (online) —> click this ←-.
It seemed like it took a long time, but the recording sessions for what became DISCONNECTED only lasted a couple weeks. I was there every day and night, and have a complete photographic record of the process and the pranks. Part of this process included spending time every night to shoot prospective album covers. Stiv loved the look of the first Doors album, and wanted to match that vibe.
My photo of the Disconnected band, posted above, is what we came up with.
If you have, or are aware of the original release of DISCONNECTED on Bomp!, you are familiar with these covers:
I was so thrilled, as was Frank Secich, who worked closely with the team at Munster Records in Spain for the record’s 2025 Record Store Day release, when Munster decided to go with Stiv’s original album cover idea.
It’s possible I’m the person who’s photographed Stiv more than anyone. It is gratifying to see our common goal of that album cover realized 25 years after its conception. The images from the DISCONNECTED recording sessions have been used in various releases, compilations and reissues of this material. Compensation has always been modest, but the consistency and recognition/association is worth as much as anything.
I once met a guy in a Memphis bar who when hearing my name told me, “I have all your record covers.” I thought it was weird if that was a pick up line, and on the other hand, I appreciate a liner-note-reading nerd for sure. The garage/punk bands certainly did look to my camera for their stabs at posterity.
I have tried to maintain a site to showcase them all, but as people read websites less and less in favor of social media, I haven’t updated it as doggedly as I did in previous years - but here’s a link to my tab-keeping on my own work: My Record Covers.
There are two highlights in particular - I was asked to photograph Mary Weiss (RIP), the lead singer of the Shangri-La’s for her 2007 Norton Records album, DANGEROUS GAME. Roberta Bayley (of CBGB’s fame, who shot the cover of the debut RAMONES album) shot the front cover and 9 out of the 13 inner sleeve photos, Mary’s publicity pictures, and the cover of the 7” single, “Stop and Think It Over” are mine.
Billy Miller (Norton Records), Mary herself, and Coyote Studios in Brooklyn are gone now.
You always hear “don’t meet your idols,” but Mary Weiss was worth meeting. I loved listening to her stories of opening for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and James Brown, as well as the trials and tribulations of being teen stars at the mercy of the money machine that is the music business. She was practical and at the same time had a delicious dry sense of humor. At one point during the recording sessions, Shadow Morton called in and spoke with Billy and Greg Cartwright (The Reigning Sound. They were Mary’s band on this record, and most of the songs on the album were written by him. Billy and Greg produced the album) in a sort of benevolent “coaching” and also an inquisitive way. For those who don’t know, Shadow Morton produced the original Shangri La’s records. I feel like I participated in history on this project.
It is not often a random photo you took 17 years prior to the release of an album becomes its cover - and a Greatest Hits album at that!
Huey Lewis and the News played a month of Mondays at the Whisky during the time I worked there. You will only find evidence of two shows on the various concert data bases online, but I hope you take my word for it. I will go scour the LA Times database and take screenshots of all the Whisky a GoGo ads that will prove it!
I know this because I wanted to date this picture for you - all I remember is that is from 1980. I photographed every band who would give me 5 minutes against this wall! Next time they came around, I’d give them prints, and it was no different with Huey Lewis and The News.
You can’t see it on these slides, but that “PHOTO BY THERESA KEREAKES” stamp had my address and phone number on it:
1140 North Clark St., #306, West Hollywood, CA. 90069
(213) 659-9969
When I printed the group photo, Huey was the one who got the picture. Not long after that, I got a call from Johnny Colla, the guitarist (he’s the one on the bottom left of the photos grouped above) asking me if I could send him the same print I gave Huey, and of course I did, and mailed it to him at an address in Redwood City.
I thought nothing of this as it was a routine request. But then, in 1997, I saw this:
No photo credit, but once I advised them where to find me (I was in NYC by then), I got paid well for this photo, not from the record label, but by the band themselves.
A handsome payment is always appreciated, and I am in no way looking down my nose at it, but for decades now, it has been challenging to prove this is indeed my photo. I’ve gone so far as to print out my Library of Congress paperwork and photocopy of the print I submitted together with the copyright registration to wave in the face of disbelievers.
In some reddit style forum several years ago (which I found when Googling myself +/- Huey Lewis), I read a discussion where someone else was given credit for the photo. I HAD TO insert myself there…. and everybody in that forum ASSumed it was the guy who had taken most of the band’s pictures (I guess he was the ME of the Huey Lewis camp the way I was with Stiv)… and that’s why I felt obligated to to produce the receipts.
My upbringing finds bragging most uncomely, but at times like this, and because I am a woman on the internet, I just have to plant my feet down like a petulant brat. I usually also get to say “I told you so,” but trust me, I don’t like to. Don’t make me!
The record cover I had the MOST FUN shooting was for The Pandoras. I don’t have any hi Rez files - they’re all at BOMP! HQ, but one of these days I’m going to visit Suzy Shaw and see if I can’t remedy that. In the meantime…. here ya go - art directed by Paula Pierce (RIP) herself! (If anyone reading this has a copy of the record, a hi Rez scan sent my way would be MOST appreciative and remunerated by a fine art print of something - if you can believe it, my hard copy of the single is in a vault at Christie’s Auction House)
Did the Suburban Lawns ever comment on being featured on Huey’s greatest hits compilation cover 16 years after your orig. photo?
This is awesome. I wrote and published in literary journals a series of 7 ekphrastic poems on album covers. It was really exciting to dive that deeply into them.