Janis Joplin/Big Brother 1966 S.F. Hells Angels Concert Poster (AOR-2.247). ...

Description

Janis Joplin/Big Brother 1966 S.F. Hells Angels Concert Poster (AOR-2.247). An original first-printing concert poster for Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, plus the Merry Pranksters, playing a Hells Angels dance at Sokol Hall in San Francisco, CA on Saturday night, November 12, 1966. This poster has always owed its popularity to the jeans-jacket motif created by the graphic artist Gut (real name Allen Turk), a Hells Angel himself. It was only one month after this that Big Brother went into a Los Angeles recording studio and recorded their self-titled debut album for Mainstream Records. Measures 14 1/8" x 20" and grades to Very Good condition. From the David Swartz Concert Poster Collection. COA from Heritage Auctions.

Literature: See Grushkin, Paul, The Art of Rock: Posters from Presley to Punk, Abbeville Press, New York, 1987, p.207 (illus.).

More Information: Obviously, the top half of the poster might be what a biker's "colors" look like on the back. This theme is carried all the way down to the jeans-like venue strip at the bottom. "$1.00 Per Head" continues the renegade ethos, as does "No Minors"... Hells Angels parties were not for kiddies or the faint of heart.

According to the web site for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (art.famsf.org), the designer of this poster, Allen "Gut" Turk, was "the past president of the San Bernardino Hells Angels chapter, the manager of the rock group Blue Cheer in the late 1960's, one of the Merry Pranksters led by Ken Kesey, and for a time, an owner of Joynt Venture, a head shop in San Francisco's Mission District." Mr. Turk passed away in 2018.

Condition details: Poster has light surface blemishing throughout, such as in the top margin (up from the "G") and the two lower corner areas. There's a 2" diagonal crease in the upper right corner. The bottom margin has a nick down from "Page." Verso has tape lifts in all four corners from when it was posted, and is somewhat dirty throughout. Hardly discernable is a series of surface creases going down the center of the poster, much more visible on the verso.


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