DJJD Volume 13

Created By:  Jonathan Dysart (DJJD)

Original Creation Year:  2005

Year of Re-master:  2010

Song Listing

Side A

1.    The House of the Rising Sun:  The Animals

2.    I Put a Spell on You:  Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

3.    Rock On:  David Essex

4.    (Don't Fear) The Reaper:  Blue Öyster Cult

Side B

5.    Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This): Marilyn Manson 
      [R-rated:  For mature audiences only]

6.    Closer:  Nine Inch Nails
      [R-rate:  For mature audiences only]

7.    This House is Haunted:  Alice Cooper

8.    So Tired:  Ozzy Osbourne

Side C

9.    Spill the Wine:  Eric Burdon & War

10. Ride Captain Ride:  Blues Image

11. I'd Love to Change the World:  Ten Years After

12. On the Road Again: Canned Heat

13. The Sky is Crying: Stevie Ray Vaughan

Side D

14. Georgia Blues:  Jimi Hendrix
       [Does not exist on YouTube anymore]

15. Stormy Monday:  Cream

16. Atlantis:  Donovan

Origin of the Album

            Even though I just finished making DJJD Volume 12, I still had a “writer’s block” in terms of creating these albums.  DJJD Volume 12 was pretty much a collection of female artists, and nothing else.  When it came to the next album, my only thought for a concept was the number 13, which is related to “unlucky”, “superstition”, and in certain terms “horror” – basically dark concepts.

Concept and Theme of the Album

              Still fighting my “writer’s block”, I could not decide whether to make this a horror album or a blues album.  I already started collecting two basic groups of songs:  dark-oriented songs and blues rock songs, with some bluesy “hippie” songs.  For the dark-oriented songs, I've already collected “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals, “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, “Sweet Dreams” by Marilyn Manson, and “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails.  For the blues songs, I've already collected “On the Road Again” by Canned Heat, “The Sky is Crying” by Stevie Ray Vaughan, and “Georgia Blues” by Jimi Hendrix.

            The only idea I had was to combine them as one album, the first half being dark-oriented and the second half being blues songs.  That sounded like a good idea, because I personally could not hear a total of 80 minutes on just strictly dark music.  It would depress me too much.  The blues songs were still somber, but not suicidal.

            Starting with that concept, it was easier to fill in the rest of the album with songs from Blue Öyster Cult, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Cream, Donovan, and many others.  I nicknamed this album the “schizophrenic” album, with its “split personality”.

            Except for some elements in my “Heavy Metal” album DJJD Volume 19, DJJD Volume 27, and DJJD Volume 32, this album is by far my darkness album, fitting right with the superstition of unlucky number 13.

Concept and the Album Cover

              Since the album is half dark and half blues (with some hippie music), I wanted to make a cover that would reflect that.  For the original version of the album, I tried to combine the dark (represented with a haunted house) and the blues (with an actual blues neon sign taking from Chicago), along with a hippie peace sign, a guitar, and the album title.  I was not very satisfied with it, so I used Roxio and try to warp it to give it a surreal feel to it, but I was not satisfied with that either.

            The whole notion of redoing the album covers when I was remastering the albums was mainly due to my dissatisfaction with this album cover.  I wanted to make a front and back cover, with the front cover representing the dark and the back cover representing the blues. 

             During the remastering of this album, I found a great haunted house picture on the Internet that had the eerie green color as its base.  I wanted to overlay that picture with a picture of the “Grim Reaper”, inspired by that Blue Öyster Cult song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”.  Out of about 30 pictures, I’ve found one that I could overlay it just right, having it semi-transparent and making it ghostly.  Then I added the album title using Word Art from Microsoft Word, and applying the same eerie green color to it.  After doing some cleaning, texturing, and minor clean ups, I finished up with front cover.

               On the back cover, I originally envisioned a straight road with an infinity perspective, so it would represent the “crossroads” that are similar to many blues legends.  Unfortunately, I could not find anything similar to that.  Nevertheless, I did find a computer generated picture of an endless road filled with “No Parking” signs everywhere on both sides of the road.  To me, that depicted the same “lonely” symbolism as did the traditional “crossroads” idea.  To make it fit with the blues sign that I wanted to add, I made a black and white version of the picture, with high contrast as the background base.  Then I added the blues sign as well as the song listing and album title (done all in white).  At the end, I adjusted the contrast of the picture and then painted it using Roxio PhotoSuite tools and deep blue color.

              Now I was satisfied with the album covers – one showing darkness and death while the other showing loneliness and the blues.