A Tribute to Dr. Strange 1965 Seminal S.F. Dance-Concert Handbill (AOR-2.8). ...

Description

WHEN THE FAMILY DOG WAS JUST A NEWBORN PUPPY

A Tribute to Dr. Strange 1965 Seminal S.F. Dance-Concert Handbill (AOR-2.8). An original and rare paper handbill advertising "A Tribute to Dr. Strange," the very first dance-concert of the San Francisco psychedelic era, held at Longshoreman's Hall in S.F. on Saturday night, October 16, 1965. This "Rock 'n' Roll Dance Concert" featured the sounds of the nascent Jefferson Airplane w/Signe Anderson, the Great Society w/Grace Slick, the Charlatans not long after their Red Dog Saloon/Virginia City stint, and Oakland band The Marbles. The affair was MC'ed by Russ "The Moose" Syracuse, all-night DJ on "Super Freak 1260" KYA, a top 40 radio station in San Francisco.

And the super-special provenance for this piece is that it is the exact item photographed for, and used in, the Art of Rock book, on page 93. It's given the full-page treatment, and you can easily see the little red stain on there, which is the dead giveaway.

The legendary artwork found here was designed by Alton Kelley and the little-known Ami Magill. Kelley's girlfriend was Ellen Harmon, so together those two made up half of the new, little, informal Family Dog. When they planned their first, and then second & third, dance-concerts that fall, they named their freaky shindigs after comic-book characters. Dr. Strange got the honor on this one; Sparkle Plenty and Ming the Merciless would follow in short order. (Perhaps Batman and Superman were too mainstream or establishment.) The Art of Rock book realized this artwork's importance by giving it a full page all to itself.

And now we're proudly selling the handbill for the first time ever. We sold the poster for this event, same artwork, in 2021, and it realized $28,750. Measures 8 1/4" x 11" and grades to 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.93 (illustrated), pages 69-70 (discussed).

More Information: As Alton Kelley told the Art of Rock, "We named the first dance 'A Tribute to Dr. Strange.' I don't know why exactly, other than it was a groovy idea. Maybe because Ellen was so into Marvel comics at the time. It might have been because we were inspired by the names of the bands - Jefferson Airplane, Great Society and all that. It was sort of a hip gimmick, and it worked out very nice."

This handbill is all the more amazing when one realizes that in the fall of 1965, no artwork like this existed, at least tied to entertainment. Up until this moment, all posters and flyers advertising live music and cultural events usually used just conventional block lettering, often with photographs or some colorful but standard graphics. Then this thing comes along, way before psychedelic music had taken hold... this was 10 months before even the Beatles' first-ever psychedelic track, "Tomorrow Never Knows." And almost two years before the Summer of Love.

It's interesting how the handbill's design can almost be divided up into four even quadrants. In the upper left area, you have the name of the promoter and event, in the wildest variety of fonts & lettering you'll ever see in your life. In the upper right, you have the aforementioned event description. In the lower left quadrant, they give us the talent line-up and ticket-buying locations. And in the lower right, we're given the date, time, venue and ticket prices. It's actually quite orderly compared to what would come later.

The design of this handbill begs to have been printed in color, but the Dog's budget was incredibly limited in these earliest days so color printing on the posters and handbills was out of the question. So they were printed monochromatically like this, and then the artisans at the Family Dog would sometimes color them in by hand. But this is definitely the flyer's original state, just how it left the printers in the fall - or maybe even late summer - of 1965. (There was a color "Dr. Strange" silkscreened concert poster made as well, with an entirely different look emphasizing the Charlatans.)

Musically, this was Jefferson Airplane's first-ever show outside of the shoebox-sized Matrix club. Their bassist was still Bob Harvey, to be replaced by Jack Casady within a few days. This was the second-ever gig by Great Society, who had debuted publicly just the night before; three Slicks were present (Grace, her husband Jerry on drums, and her brother-in-law Darby on guitar - who also happened to write "Someone/Somebody to Love"). The Charlatans, with George Hunter and Dan Hicks and featured on "The Seed" poster, were only about a month back from Virginia City. And the Marbles hailed from across the bay.

Quicksilver Messenger Service didn't quite exist yet, but in a way they were born at this event: guitarist John Cipollina met guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore at this dance. Within a few days, Cipollina was forming QMS.

As for the event itself, what can you say except that Bay-Area music history was made. In his book Summer of Love, San Francisco journalist Joel Selvin writes, "A roomful of freaks. More than a thousand strangely garbed, wild-eyed malefactors who had crawled out of the woodwork. Most were blasted sky-high on LSD. A subterranean community was meeting itself for the first time. These people had been holed up, growing their hair, getting dosed in the privacy of their own [homes], without knowing that across the city, hundreds upon hundreds of others were doing the same thing under the cover of their rooms. This tribal rite brought them out. The mere title - 'A Tribute to Dr. Strange' - coupled with the scrawled handbill with lettering that looked like drippings from a candle carried the message to the people it was intended to reach."

Journalist Gene Sculatti, in his book San Francisco Nights: The Psychedelic Music Trip 1965-1968, observes, "Having already hosted a Count Basie concert and an official visit by Nikita Khrushchev, Longshoreman's Hall would now be the site of the semi-official coming-out of S.F.'s latest claim to fame: the 'hippies.' Here they were, frugging, jerking and freaking freely at a booze-less, hassle-free costume ball."

But let's hear from somebody who was actually there, and playing. Thirty years ago, Great Society guitarist Darby Slick published his memoir, Don't You Want Somebody to Love: Reflections on the San Francisco Sound. He addresses this very important night thusly: "The overwhelming part of the experience, for me, and I think for virtually everyone who attended, was the certainty of the birth of a scene. We - the collective we - had arrived, and there were so many of us, and we were weird, interesting and loveable.

"The large round concrete building was full. The excitement was intense and vibrant. The atmosphere was completely different than at the commercial concerts put on by Big Daddy Donahue at the Cow Palace. This was not only a party, it was our party - by and for the people. The fact that money was involved was very unimportant. Few of us were married, and fewer still had kids; we weren't saving up for braces for their teeth. Oh, we wanted to get paid... we wanted money for rent, food, drugs, gas and car repairs. One thousand dollars per month could easily support a whole band and their attendant families."

About S.F.'s new "hippie" scene, Darby writes, "There were, at first, almost no imitators, or interlopers, because word hadn't gotten out. This was probably never truer than at the first Family Dog show."

Condition details: Small amounts of paper loss in the top two corners. Quarter-inch edge tear on the left side, over from the top of "Jeff." Another one half that size over from the left of "The Great." Red stain in the middle of the circle to the right of "Charlatans," and small light-brown stain to the left of "DOG." Two pinholes at top center, one above the thin black line and one below it. Four pinholes in the bottom white margin, evenly spaced and not touching any black. General toning throughout. Verso has a pair of long vertical creases that for some reason aren't visible on the front, and there are three instances of professional mending tape sealing edge tears.


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