Have you ever struggled to get a musical passage out of your head? The technical term is endomusia, but the Germans have a vivid word for it: Ohrwurm — “ear worm.” My term for it is “the ditty virus” — and if you don’t believe it’s communicable, just creep up behind someone and hum the riff of “Smoke on the Water.” They’ll be cursing you for hours afterwards.
My graphical memories call up music in the same way. Those of us who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s formed powerful bonds between music graphics and the sounds of the times. Those graphics were grand, yet portable, canvases of the messages within the music. I’ve long had a fascination with music graphics and have examples from through the years, from posters to photos to tickets and tchochkes. Moving to new quarters has become a kind of haphazard, dreamlike treasure hunt, where I stumble across musico-graphical prizes by turns longed-for, burnished and forgotten. Here are a few rediscoveries.
This photo of John Coltrane by Jim Marshall was a gift from my brother, a restaurateur in San Francisco. Marshall, who died in 2010, was a legendary photographer of musicians in the ’60s and ’70s. Commissions were hard to come by in the ’80s, though, and he would on occasion trade prints for his tab. This photo is one of those, dated ’82. The image was used on the cover of the CD collection John Coltrane: The Prestige Recordings. And it was featured in Marshall’s superb book Proof. Sadly, it appears this amazing book is out of print.
The closing of Fillmore West was commemorated in this poster by David Singer. It was the final entry in the numbered series of Fillmore posters — officially BG287 — and was printed twice, in both cases after the show it represents. That’s because this poster wasn’t, strictly speaking, promotional — it was presented to Bill Graham as a kind of tribute following the hall’s closing in 1971. The first printing of the poster was on glossy paper (much rarer) and the second on uncoated for inclusion in the Fillmore: The Last Days LP set (available now only as a truncated DVD). The second printing is what I have — the folding is original.
Many of the early artists associated with the groundbreaking BG poster series — Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley et al — had apparently moved on to other things by the time this poster arrived, and the Fillmore posters had become a bit tired and predictable. Singer was an exception. His design here embodied the spirit and artistry of the very best of them, and I recall my fascination with his sinuous hand-lettering.
I knew I’d owned this poster at one time, along with some others in the Fillmore series, but I figured all had been lost. This turned up in a box of college stuff I’d never opened since graduating. It’s never been on a wall.
Completely forgot about this handbill (or maybe the moving fairies slipped it into my trunk). It’s a version of another classic Fillmore poster, BG242, for a Quicksilver Messenger Service show, and it’s also by David Singer. The Fillmore West posters were printed in full and handbill sizes, along with the occasional postcard-size piece. There were also smaller versions more the size of tickets, which I really don’t know much about. Somewhere I have one of the latter for a Ten Years After show … to await further unpacking.
Above is an early ’70s sketch of David Singer by the artist Lourdes Livingston. She’s now the graduate director of the School of Web Design & New Media at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Both Livingston and Singer remain very active, highly regarded designers and artists.
The poster for Ken Kesey’s Demon Box book tour was printed in Day-Glo inks in the style of classic psychedelia. If it were for anyone but Kesey, it would have looked nostalgic by its time. The proclamation is made that Kesey will be performing with his thunderous band, which is why I’ve included this poster.
I saw him read from Demon Box around the time of the book’s appearance — ’86 or ’87 — during homecoming week at the University of Oregon. There was no band, but he did arrive dressed in white from head to foot, with a retinue of all-female bodyguards.
From the ’60s into the dawn of the digital age, record companies produced point-of-sale items for artists and releases to be displayed in record stores (yeah, I know that’s obvious, but some younger folk may not be aware of it). This two-sided pop-out/3D Bruce Springsteen item, designed to be suspended, promotes the release of his Born to Run LP from 1976. I think this was my younger brother’s. Sorry, Linc, it’s mine now.
Here’s another one I’d forgotten I had. The Rolling Stones’ famous lips-and-tongue logo was designed by John Pasche. The 45-rpm release of their classic song “Tumbling Dice” featured a sleeve with an elaborate version of the logo with die cuts inside and out. As you can see, my copy is plenty beat, but I dig it anyway.
Supposedly Pasche’s design for this logo was inspired by John Van Hamersveld’s iconic “Johnny Boy” illustration. (I wrote about Hamersveld’s autobiography here). A legend in rock graphics, Hamersveld designed the Stones’ classic Exile on Main St. LP, along with a whole campaign’s worth of material promoting it. Check out Hamersveld’s site for some essential rock art. Somewhere I have the accordion-fold postcards that came with Exile.
I think I first learned in Downbeat magazine in 1980 that To Bird With Love, a book of Charlie Parker photographs, was being published. Wherever I heard about it, I knew I had to have a copy. A kind bookseller friend (remember them?) put a lot of effort into tracking down and obtaining a copy for me. Today this book is highly prized by jazz aficionados.
The photos in the book are from the collection of Chan Parker, Charlie’s wife. The book was published by Editions Wizlov, designed by Francis Paudras, and printed in France. It came in the pictured box, which simulates a package addressed to Parker. In the literature about this book, the box is referred to as “notoriously fragile” — all too true. The combination of the poorly made box and the book’s weight made damage almost inevitable. If you have a copy of this book with an intact box, you have something quite valuable.
My twin great aunts loved the theater and collected numerous programs from the productions they saw. I love this program for DuBarry Was a Lady — a Broadway musical with songs by Cole Porter — mostly for its snazzy salmon pink die-cut on the cover.
This book, titled Song of Songs, isn’t musical per se, but its title and my fortunate rediscovery of it grant it inclusion here. With illustrations and some decorative initial caps by Eric Gill, it’s truly an exquisite book in every way.
The text dates to around 900 BC, and the inclusion of this lovely erotic poetry in the bible has been controversial about forever. That may account partly for its attraction to the libidinous Gill, but in any case his illustrations for the volume are gorgeously sensuous and in 1925 were surely daring. I have read that copies of this book were seized by customs agents in New York and dumped in the harbor due to its “pornographic” nature. Maybe that’s why it’s less seldom seen in the States than in the U.K., where it was published by The Golden Cockerel Press.
As the colophon attests, 750 copies were printed, of which mine is no. 263. The colophon also includes “Compositors: F. Young and A.H. Gibbs” and “Pressman: A.C. Cooper.” You have to love that.
Read more about this book here and have fun uncovering your own graphical music treasures. Es liebe die Ohrwurm!
Photos: © 2011 StudioAlex
