After exhaustive research of the very crowded field of contenders, Skate And Annoy is finally able to give you the definitive top 2 record covers featuring violinists playing while riding a skateboard. In the interest of fairness, I’m going to list them in chronological order. Drumroll please… First there was the country, rock, Cajun and calypso sounds of Steamin´ Freeman, a guy who once hailed from Bellingham, Washington. Who knows, maybe he can be found lurking at the Bellingham skatepark. Then in 1979, Rounder Records released Mark O’Connor’s “On the Rampage,” which he recorded at the ripe young age of 17! So it likely wasn’t the record company’s idea that he pose on a skateboard. According to this review, he was an excellent bluegrass player. UPDATE: Added videos of Mark O’Connor concert performed on skateboards.

Frank De Lim Presents – Da Year Of Da Moke could have been yours for $11, delivered in the US. Totally worth it, regardless of what I sounds like. I was watching the auction with the intention of buying it, but the seller was such an annoying twit that I refused to on principle. “Hey, can I see the whole cover? Sure, as soon as you win the auction and unwrap it.” Yeah right. How effing lazy do you have to be? He scanned the photo and only part of it fits on the scanner. I’ve actually run into this before when buying records online, but usually the seller is smart enough to realize a little cooperation can result in a higher bid. I just don’t get it. Point your cellphone at the cover and shoot the whole damn thing. It’s worse then when people sell something on Craigslist and don’t include any picture. Usually the same mindset of a person that will list something for sale on Craigslist and leave town for the weekend immediately after posting it. OK, rant over. Even though I showed him by not bidding… I’m thinking I should have swallowed my pride and bid…

I obviously don’t know how to write about music, because I could never come up with “something less like VHS-dubbed memories-of-memories than an underwater DJ set,” as Marc Masters did in his Pitchfork review of Cankun’s Culture of Pink. That has got to be Rodney Mullen on the cover, like some grainy, rubylith masked 35 mm enlargement from a newsprint magazine… Dang. Don’t know how write about album covers either. [Photo: Restoring Sounds] – Thanks to Charles Glover for the tip.