Artist of the Month for June/July
The Art of Rock: Concert Posters
This edition of the Artist of the Month is a bit strange because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of artists that are included here. What I've selected is something near and dear to my heart. Music. For as long as anyone can remember, there have been advertisements for shows, whether it was a speech by Aristotle, one of Bill Shakespeare's plays, or a Norwegian death metal festival. The people who put on the shows want as many people to show up as possible. How you do that? Make a poster! I've collected a very, very tiny sample of the music posters that have graced billboards, light poles, and store windows for generations. While these adverts were meant to hang for a couple of weeks and get tossed in the garbage, a lot of people have collected them and even framed them for their homes and offices. Once you see some of the art, you'll understand why.
In the early 1950's a lot of the posters resembled advertisements that you might find in a newspaper selling cars and laundry soap. That's because some of the same guys that were doing those ads were asked to make flyers and posters for Howlin' Wolf, Tex Ritter, and Frank Sinatra. They were usually well put together. Maybe a little stiff and lacking flare, but think about the times. Most of the country was pretty straight laced. The posters were familiar. That made people want to go see those performances. Flash forward to the 1960's.
In a little burg called San Francisco, maybe you've heard of it, a few artists got a wild hair and decided that the posters that advertise the up-and-coming bands of the 60's shouldn't look anything like the stodgy old man posters of the 50's. So the got creative. (Understatement!) Graphic designers like Bob Fried, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, and Bill Graham (to name a few out of dozens in that era) started playing with images that didn't have much to do with the band they were advertising but they caught your eye. They also toyed with fonts. I don't know about you, but if I was stoned out of my gourd and tried to read one of their posters, I would have no idea who was playing or when they were going to be there. The graphic fonts went gonzo. As you can see in some of the sample posters below, they had a good time filling in every nook and cranny of the page. It was new artistic movement and it became an graphic wonderland.
The 1970's saw the rise of punk in the latter half of the decade. Everything about that movement was DIY, Do It Yourself. Punk bands played their own instruments and repaired the instruments that would inevitably get damaged at a show. They drove their own vans, booked their own gigs, and...made their own posters. For me, the quintessential band for DIY posters was Black Flag. Raymond Pettibone was the mastermind behind a great deal of their one-of-a-kind gig adverts. Before a show, an army of devotees would canvas the town where the punk band was going to be and posters could be seen on every corner and on every surface that wasn't moving. Well, some, like buses were moving, but you see what I mean.
The 1980's saw posters that had more of a magazine feel to them because, like the 50's, the people that designed magazine layouts were asked to design posters as well. You can see a couple of prime examples below with the David Bowie and Elton John posters.
From the 80's on, posters have remained a great source of getting people to show up to your band's gig. With the advent of the internet and social media, word gets out much quicker. But as you can see by the examples like Metallica and Nirvana, a well crafted poster hasn't gone out of style. And from what I've seen at all the Warped Tour shows I've been to, posters will be a thing that will live through the ages.
If you're a music nerd like me and you want to know more about posters like the one's I've displayed here, you can try and track down a copy of an outstanding book. I've owned it for a really long time, and once in awhile, I drag out this 516 page tome and look through it again. This wonderful coffee table book is "The Art Of Rock" by Paul D. Grushkin. If you find one, cherish it like I do.
In the early 1950's a lot of the posters resembled advertisements that you might find in a newspaper selling cars and laundry soap. That's because some of the same guys that were doing those ads were asked to make flyers and posters for Howlin' Wolf, Tex Ritter, and Frank Sinatra. They were usually well put together. Maybe a little stiff and lacking flare, but think about the times. Most of the country was pretty straight laced. The posters were familiar. That made people want to go see those performances. Flash forward to the 1960's.
In a little burg called San Francisco, maybe you've heard of it, a few artists got a wild hair and decided that the posters that advertise the up-and-coming bands of the 60's shouldn't look anything like the stodgy old man posters of the 50's. So the got creative. (Understatement!) Graphic designers like Bob Fried, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, and Bill Graham (to name a few out of dozens in that era) started playing with images that didn't have much to do with the band they were advertising but they caught your eye. They also toyed with fonts. I don't know about you, but if I was stoned out of my gourd and tried to read one of their posters, I would have no idea who was playing or when they were going to be there. The graphic fonts went gonzo. As you can see in some of the sample posters below, they had a good time filling in every nook and cranny of the page. It was new artistic movement and it became an graphic wonderland.
The 1970's saw the rise of punk in the latter half of the decade. Everything about that movement was DIY, Do It Yourself. Punk bands played their own instruments and repaired the instruments that would inevitably get damaged at a show. They drove their own vans, booked their own gigs, and...made their own posters. For me, the quintessential band for DIY posters was Black Flag. Raymond Pettibone was the mastermind behind a great deal of their one-of-a-kind gig adverts. Before a show, an army of devotees would canvas the town where the punk band was going to be and posters could be seen on every corner and on every surface that wasn't moving. Well, some, like buses were moving, but you see what I mean.
The 1980's saw posters that had more of a magazine feel to them because, like the 50's, the people that designed magazine layouts were asked to design posters as well. You can see a couple of prime examples below with the David Bowie and Elton John posters.
From the 80's on, posters have remained a great source of getting people to show up to your band's gig. With the advent of the internet and social media, word gets out much quicker. But as you can see by the examples like Metallica and Nirvana, a well crafted poster hasn't gone out of style. And from what I've seen at all the Warped Tour shows I've been to, posters will be a thing that will live through the ages.
If you're a music nerd like me and you want to know more about posters like the one's I've displayed here, you can try and track down a copy of an outstanding book. I've owned it for a really long time, and once in awhile, I drag out this 516 page tome and look through it again. This wonderful coffee table book is "The Art Of Rock" by Paul D. Grushkin. If you find one, cherish it like I do.
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