The Muddy Basin Ramblers Formosa Medicine Show
泥灘地浪人 《寶島賣藥秀》
CREDIT
Design Company ︎ Onion Design Associates
Creative Direction ︎ Andrew Wong
Design ︎ Andrew Wong, Yang Fong Ming
Client ︎ The Muddy Basin Ramblers
Year ︎ 2013
AWARDS
2015 ︎ 入圍美國第57屆葛萊美獎專輯最佳裝幀設計
Nominated for The 57th Annual Grammy Awards, Best Recording Packaging
2014 ︎ 入圍台灣第25屆金曲獎專輯最佳裝幀設計
Nominated for The 25th Taiwan’s Golden Melody Award for best album packaging design
2014 ︎ Golden Pin Design Award
PRESS
Taipei Times
Packaging of the World
TOP AWARDS ASIA
BRIEF
BRIEF
它敘述著 1900 至 1950 年間在台灣與亞洲流浪的小販、游民、江湖樂手們的故事。在創作的過程中，泥灘地浪人團長 David Chen 將歷史奇想混搭復古樂聲，譜出各個離奇、動心、逗趣的逸聞軼事，並且加上難以抗拒的旋律節奏，以一個專輯走訪爵士、swing、ragtime、藍調、鄉巴佬弦樂、以及航海小調等多種音樂形式。所謂「賣藥秀」指的則是美國 19 世紀中至 20 世紀初所流行的一種普及的熱門巡迴娛樂秀。許多當年著名的藝人都曾經經歷過賣藥秀的歷練。這類賣藥秀多由自稱「郎中」或「博士」的主持人主導，並且販售各種特效靈藥。當然，這些郎中不外乎是演員或樂手，而靈藥仙丹也只是唬弄愚民的玩意。機靈的觀眾早知「郎中」是個蒙古大夫，但是遇上了賣藥秀仍照看不誤。賣藥秀經常利用熱門樂曲吸引觀眾，並且可能在一個場次中搬出鄉村弦樂、爵士、原住民舞團等等多樣化的娛樂。「寶島賣藥秀」同時以 swing 版本的「望春風」對台灣經典樂曲致意。
The Muddy Basin Ramblers is a jug band from Taipei. They play music from the turn of the century such as old-time Jazz, blues, and ragtime. The Formosa Medicine Show is a 23-song CD that is packaged to look like a vintage medicine container from the 1920s. The fold-open cardstock package is the size of an old 45 rpm record sleeve and includes fold-out liner notes modeled on early 20th-century medicine boxes. Most remarkably, the design elements manage to fuse styles from the US, Taiwan and Taiwan’s colonial master of the early 20th century, Japan. The album is a visual distillation of the Muddy Basin Ramblers trans-cultural project. The physical copy of “Formosa Medicine Show” comes wrapped in a 45-RPM record sleeve, complete with lyrics, in English with translation in Mandarin Chinese, printed on vintage newspaper-style broadsheets.
