Take A Trip

A perfect convergence of the explosion of rock and roll music, psychedelic drugs, inspired typography, and promotional motivation created some of my favorite works of art... psychedelic rock posters. Thousands of individual designs were created and printed in limited quantities, starting originally in the San Francisco area (actually, the first was from Virginia City, Nevada) and soon enough the nation (and world) over.

The artistic freedom to create work with wild and impractical (for informational purposes) designs and lettering, combined with bright and contrasting colors and remarkable, possibly drug-fueled creativity created a bold visual cultural document. A beautiful mix of music, art, politics, and culture. Mostly music and art.

I own several books of psychedelic poster art, and without a doubt the masterpiece of the genre is The Art of Rock: Posters from Presley to Punk. This book covers rock and roll posters from the 1950 through the 1980s, with the lion's share going to 1960s psychedelic rock. Over 500 pages of poster that you know and love and ones you've never seen.

Each brightly colored page features anywhere from one large reproduction up to 12 small images. Thousands of posters, grouped by era, region, style, artist, band, or even specific events. I can, and have, stared at this book for hours.

Aside from being the most comprehensive and largest book of psychedelic rock art, it also features some of the best writings and text. Transcribed conversations with the musicians, artists, and promoters of the time give an amazing depth and insight to the works. Shorter texts give some context to the groups and venues of specific geographies. This book is pure gold!

This is the most complete visual and oral history of this art form that you will find. Released by Abbeville in 1987 and cost $85 then. Unfortunately, the book was abridged and re-released in a tiny 3.5 inch format in 1999, and one might purchase this micro (and worthless) edition accidental. That being said, it looks like Amazon has these listed for $45-55 New!
This book is about 14" tall and clocks in at almost 8 lbs. Far out.

Next up is the highly collectible High Art by Ted Owen.

Beautiful reproductions of some of the classic posters of the era, many in full page format. This book also has a good deal of work from British artists and venues (the author was a British music promoter of the era). The writings serve as a good introduction to the artists and their innovations.

This is a beautiful book but is long out-of-print and can cost upwards of $100. It's a little short, as there are just so many great posters I would have liked to have seen included, and I wish it was a hardcover edition. If you see it, get it, but don't break the bank.

The Art of the Fillmore 1966-1971 is another classic document of the entire run of Fillmore posters from Bill Graham's historic venues, with a forward from the legendary promoter himself.

All the posters from the Fillmore, Fillmore East, and other spots like the Berkeley Community Center and the Trips Festival are here. Plus handbills, tickets, and other ephemera from the venues. Printed large and in bold colors.

The posters are presented chronologically, with artist biographies and pictures appearing along with their images in the series as they arise. The most popular and well-known artists of the era all did work for Graham: Wes Wilson, Mouse & Kelley, and Rick Griffin (only two by Victor Moscoso), but some of my favorites are from under-recognized art pioneers like Bonnie MacLean, Lee Conklin, Randy Tuten, Greg Irons, and Mari Tepper.
The 1999 first edition is out of print now, and a 2nd edition (with Griffin cover, both from Thunder Mouth Press) from 2005 is apparently even more rare and expensive.

The final book of this mind expanding blog post is the more contemporary Art of Modern Rock, from Chronicle Books, 2004. Its similarity in size, shape, and page count make it an obviously intended companion to the original Art of Rock masterwork, while having no actual, publishing-biz relation to it, whatsoever. Does it match up, side-by-side on my bookshelf?

As you can likely see from the short-skirted devil girl on the cover, this book covers the wide-spanning yet often yawn-inducing medium of contemporary rock music poster art. It's the kind of book cover I'm embarrassed to have on my coffee table. Within there's plenty of coverage of Juxtapoz coverboys like Kozik, Coop, and Derek Hess, plus the countless derivative variations coming from others. It almost goes without saying the women artist are neglected throughout.

At almost 500 pages and 3-6 posters per page, there are a lot of artists, design companies, and styles on display. The artworks that are reproduced as a poster are originally created in a diverse set of mediums; from woodcuts to 100% digital to watercolors and everywhere in between. Overall, it makes the book feel like one of the Illustrator Directories rather than a document of an art movement. Sometimes a single band will be the only common thread between 8 posters of incredibly diverse aesthetics. I guess this could be seen as an asset for the book overall, or a liability.

However, there are some real gems of design, lettering, and concept in the mix. Like Mr. Reusch's halloween themed gouache poster, Mig Kokinda's stencil-and-spray posters, or Jason Munn's simple and powerful designs. I ended marking about a dozen pages or so with post-its.

Psychedelic poster art (and it's evolution into the now common use of poster illustration in conjunction with live music events) has an interesting history to go with it's eyeball-pleasing and brain twisting visuals. I'm glad to have books like these in my collection as another level to appreciate music. They are a way to learn about these artists and musicians that also inspirine me to work with creative typography and information design as fine art myself. They are innovative (especially when taken in context of there creation), creative, and very accessible. Collecting these posters can be very expensive, so books like these are a great way to get access to a huge quantities of psychedelic images.

There are other poster books out there, psychedelic or otherwise, as well as some of these poster artists having their own books.

I've really beenn enjoying published collections of advertising art, movie poster art, and rock poster books a lot lately, so please comment with other poster art books (or websites or artists) that you enjoy.