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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Concert Posters
Volume Five - 1969 - Page Five
Ironically, while The MC5 were performing in San Francisco, Janis Joplin was playing a show in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University Events Building, sponsored by the Canterbury House, March 15, 1969. This poster, one of finest of the Michigan posters, was created by a University of Michigan student Allan Reid, his only known concert poster work.
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Black-light image of Allan Reid’s poster for Janis Joplin in Ann Arbor on March 15, 1969.
Nice newspaper ad by an unknown artist for Janis Joplin in Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 15, 1969.
Another newspaper ad for Janis Joplin in Ann Arbor, Michigan, March 15, 1969.
Newspaper ad by Dave Baker for the Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Michigan with the announcement of the March 15, 1969 appearance by Janis Joplin.
Poster by James Render, credited to Spectrum Design, for the Silverbell in Auburn Hills, Michigan with the fifth, and final, Michigan appearance by the San Francisco band Moby Grape on March 15, 1969, with Group Therapy and Maru.
The New York band Group Therapy had also opened for Moby Grape the night before, at the Hideout #3 in Clawson, Michigan.
It is likely, however, that both shows were cancelled, as Moby Grape is said to have disbanded after their show at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco on March 9.
Group Therapy – Wait (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02f4e49RlM0
Poster by “Gordon” with Alice Cooper opening for the Mothers of Invention in Fullerton, California on March 15, 1969.
Perhaps the earliest print appearance of the phrase “Hip Hop”, in this March 16, 1969 ad from Icelandic Airlines.
Meanwhile, back in California, John Sinclair was having a hard time finding gigs for The MC5. They offered their services for a benefit show for the San Francisco State Strike Fund at the Fillmore, but when they showed up, Bill Graham blocked their entrance and launched into an obscenity-laced tirade that lasted a half-hour and ended with "those %^#@$#% will NEVER play on my stage!"
The band had a gig lined up at a club called Scenic Sounds in Pasadena, which turned out to be a Bill Graham venue and Sinclair received a phone call saying the gig was over-booked with too many bands so The MC5 were being dropped from the bill, they later found out that the Grateful Dead were added after the call.
Sinclair landed a Wednesday night gig for a benefit for the Liberation News Service at the Finnish-American Cultural Center in Berkeley, March 19, 1969. On their way, one of the cars in their caravan was pulled over by the police and all 15 occupants were arrested on a variety of bogus charges, all of which were dropped just in time to make the show, although Fred Smith would have to return to court the following week for the charge of resisting arrest.
Gary Grimshaw made the poster, the Motherfuckers behaved themselves, happy with the free beer and wine, and the free flow of joints, The MC5 felt at home, and they “got off completely for the first time in ten days”.
Over the next days, with time on their hands because of the cancelled Pasadena show, Dennis Frawley and Sinclair met with the Black Panther candidate for the upcoming election of the Berkeley City Council, got another candidate to declare himself as a White Panther candidate and when the two agreed to form a solidarity Black Panther-White Panther ticket, another party was called for. It was going to take place, again, at the Finnish-American Hall, but the idea of a political alliance between the Panthers and the hippies, spurred by out-of-town radicals from Detroit and the Lower East Side of NYC was a bit too much for the Berkeley police and they convinced the owners of the hall to cancel the show.
Newspaper ad for the MC5 performing a benefit show for the Liberation News Service at the Finnish-American Cultural Center in Berkeley, California on March 19, 1969.
An ad for the MC5 performing a benefit show for the Liberation News Service at the Finnish-American Cultural Center in Berkeley, California on March 19, 1969.
Newspaper story about the denied permit for the Black Panther/White Panther party, planned for March 21, 1969, at the Finnish-American Hall in The Berkeley Barb.
The trip out west re-united The MC5 with many of their trans-planted friends from the Trans-Love days. In addition to Gary Grimshaw, they saw Jerry Younkins, who was among the arrestees in the traffic stop bust, and they also ran into one of their oldest friends, photographer Emil Bacilla. Bacilla had been going back and forth between Detroit and San Francisco during the years of 1966 through 1968, and moved to San Francisco permanently at the beginning of 1969.
When the Finnish-American hall cancelled the Black Panther-White Panther benefit show, the party was moved outdoors to Provo Park in Berkeley, where Bacilla documented the event with photos of the MC5’s performance.
Nice newspaper ad for The Four Seasons at Masonic Temple in Detroit, Michigan, March 21, 1969. The group's success was on the wane from its peak years as Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons and they would soon join Motown Records for a brief period.
Poster by “O’Connor” for the Village Pub in Birmingham, Michigan, with Third Power, March Brothers, Intrigue, and Madrigal on March 21, 1969, and with Unrelated Segments and Ebony Tusk the following night.
Poster by James Render, for the Amboy Dukes with the Underground Wall and Wind at the Silverbell Hideout in Auburn Hills, Michigan, March 22, 1969.
Full-page Elektra Records ad in the March 22, 1969 issue of Billboard magazine, which shows that the label was spending money to promote the first MC5 album, although by the time of this publication they may have already dropped the band because of the “Fuck Hudson’s” debacle. This may be the only full-size ad for the MC5 to be published in Billboard magazine.
A full-page Motown Records ad in the March 22, 1969 issue of Billboard magazine for the single “I’ll Try Something New” by the combined group of the Supremes with the Temptations.
A different looking poster for The Village Pub in Birmingham, Michigan, March 23, 1969, by an unknown artist. The band Tea, from Rochester, Michigan, would later be picked up by Punch Andrew’s management, changing their name to “1776” and releasing an album on the Palladium label.
Ad for Johnny Cash at the Civic Center in Lansing, Michigan, March 23, 1969.
Stevie Wonder performed 19 shows during a tour of England over the month of March 1969. This is the poster for the show in Coventry, England on March 23, 1969, the 16th show of the tour.
Presented by MC Emperor Rosko, the bill also included The Foundations, a British group with a distinctly Motown Sound, and The Flirtations, whose masterful “Nothing But a Heartache” we wrote about previously, and who were able to be billed as “America’s Glamorous Recording Stars” when performing in the UK, and were also able to be billed as “England’s Glamorous Recording Stars” when performing in the US.
The Foundations – Baby, Now That I’ve Found You (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuHhLiRkxNM
Starkly stark ad for The Sunliners at Grandmother’s in East Lansing, Michigan, March 24, 1969.
A pair of Motown Records ads in the March 27, 1969 issue of Billboard magazine, for the Supremes’ song “The Composer”, who was, of course, Smokey Robinson.
The Supremes – The Composer (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6pm1hwtsrQ
Poster for Stevie Wonder at the Lewisham Odeon, London, England with the Foundations and the Flirtations on March 27, 1969, the final show of the month-long UK tour.
A full-page Gross-Out Comix #3 by Dave Baker in the March 28, 1969 issue of the Ann Arbor Argus newspaper.
Poster by James Render for SRC and the Underground Wall at the Hideout club in Clawson, Michigan, March 28, 1969.
Poster/ad by CREEM artist, Linz, for what would have been The Doors’ third appearance in Michigan, scheduled for March 28, 1969 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit, however, the tour was cancelled following Jim Morrison’s infamous Miami show three weeks earlier. Frost and Sky had been set to open the show.
A collection of ads, including one by Matthew Radofsky (lower right), and a pair of cancellation notices for the Doors show at Olympia Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, planned for March 28, 1969, a few weeks after Jim Morrison’s “Miami Incident” brought an end to the tour. Frost and Sky had been set to open the show.
Janis Joplin, back in California following her appearance in Ann Arbor two weeks earlier, happened to catch up again with the MC5, opening this show in San Bernardino, March 28, 1969. Poster is by California artist Kate Christensen, using a photograph by Jim Marshall.
Poster by an unknown artist for the Village Pub in Birmingham, Michigan, March 28-29, 1969, with the Shaggs and Poor Richard’s Almanac on the first night, and the Bubble Puppy with Stuart Avery Assemblage on the second night.
For a young teenage brain, already buzzing with “Journey to the Center of the Mind”, the song “Hot Smoke & Sasafrass” by the Bubble Puppy was a perfect synapse to add to the circuitry. The Bubble Puppy emerged from the International Artists label in Houston, Texas, the home of the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Krayola.
The Bubble Puppy unceremoniously played two shows in Detroit, both at the height of the success of “Hot Smoke & Sasafrass”, at the Crow’s Nest West and Village Pub teen clubs in March 1969.
Bubble Puppy – Hot Smoke & Sasafrass (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qja2ptq_p7I
A newspaper events calendar with the 129th weekend at the Grande Ballroom, March 21-23, 1969. The Jeff Beck Group, Sweetwater, and Dick Rabbit performed on the first two nights, with Sweetwater and the Red, White & Blues Band on the third night.
A nice grouping of ads in the Ann Arbor Argus newspaper with shows at the Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Iron Butterfly in Toledo, Ohio, and Dave Baker’s “lightning bulb” Grande Ballroom ad, with shows beginning with The Nice and Sweetwater on March 28, 1969. (Apparently, The Nice cancelled, but they did make it for the three shows at the end of the listing, opening for the Velvet Underground, April 11-13.)
The “lightning bulb” ad by Dave Baker for shows at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, Michigan starting with the 130th weekend, March 28-30, 1969. It appears there were some schedule changes after the ad was printed, going by other ads and posters, The Nice did not show up for the March 28-30 shows, leaving Sweetwater as the headliner for three nights. Wicked Religion replaced Frost on the first night, Ebony Tusk and the Flower Company opened the next two nights.
In other changes for upcoming shows, the MC5 were replaced by the James Gang on March 30, and Jethro Tull and Savoy Brown switched places, with Tull, April 7-8, and Savoy Brown, April 9-10. The Nice made their Michigan debut opening for the Velvet Underground, April 11-13.
Poster by James Render, for SRC with the Underground Wall at the Silverbell in Auburn Hills, Michigan, March 29, 1969. The same line-up that was on Render’s poster the night before for the Hideout club in Clawson, Michigan.
The MC5 concluded their West Coast itinerary with a slot at the “Pop Expo ‘69” in Hollywood, California, during the weekend of March 29-30, 1969. During their week in Southern California, the band had also gone into the Elektra Records studio in Los Angeles and recorded tracks for their second album.
John Sinclair and Danny Fields missed out on the MC5 shows in Southern California, as they had jumped on a plane from San Francisco to NYC to hash things out with Elektra Records. All up and down the coast, as Sinclair had visited radio stations, record stores, and distributors to check on the sales of the “Kick Out the Jams” album, he constantly found that they had either not received stock, or not been doing any promotion, a plan to distribute free copies through Rolling Stone magazine had been switched to using an Ike & Tina Turner album instead, at one promoter’s office they discovered the records in a trash can. The albums that were on the market were the “Brothers and Sisters” versions, no more “MF” versions, and as an even bigger affront, Sinclair’s liner notes, which had also included the forbidden word, had been removed.
Sinclair demanded that Elektra live up to their promises to support the band against any consequences of the obscenity charges, pointing out that it had been the label that had pushed for releasing the original version, with multiple assurances that the label would protect them against these very things. Elektra, still stinging from the Hudson’s debacle, decided right there and then to drop the band.
Fields tried to make the case that the label was still supporting Jim Morrison through his increasing troubles with The Doors, the band that Fields had brought to Elektra, and which had earned Fields his high status at the company. Elektra responded by firing Fields too.
Sinclair and Fields decided to go to Florida to join up with The MC5, scheduled to appear at the Easter Rock Festival in Fort Lauderdale that started on March 30, 1969, when they got the word police in Florida had orders to arrest the MC5 if they entered the state because of a crude photo of members of the band that had just been published in The Berkeley Barb newspaper.
Florida was cracking down in the aftermath of The Door’s performance in Miami at the beginning of the month. Although no arrests had been made at that concert, the state had issued arrest warrants should Morrison ever return to Florida, and there had just been a large “Miami Decency Rally” held in the area that reinforced the stand that Florida was taking that there would be zero tolerance for any shenanigans at any more rock concerts in that state. Sinclair contacted the MC5 before they left California and told them to return to Ann Arbor.
Second poster by the artist from CREEM magazine, Linz. Show at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, March 30, 1969 by Blood, Sweat & Tears. This was the first big gig for a band from Ann Arbor, by way of Dearborn, Michigan, called The Sunday Funnies.
The Sunday Funnies were formed out of two high school bands, The Lexingtons and The Daytonas, which had been playing as far back as 1962. Once the line-up had solidified, lead singer Richard Fidge convinced log-time friend Al Nalli, who would later own Al Nalli Music store, to manage the band, changing their name to Sunday Funnies.
Through Nalli, the band came to record a single on Punch Andrews’ Hideout label, a cover of Bob Seger’s “Heavy Music”, but Andrews’ motive turned out to be a ploy to get a reluctant Seger to go on tour, which worked, Seger did the tour and in exchange Andrews dropped the record and the band.
Robin Seymour saw the band at a club and became their manager, booking them to open for BS&T. The band had a prior engagement for the night so they only played the afternoon show. Unfortunately, Seymour had arranged for Motown to come to the evening show, where, instead, they saw, and signed, the band Rare Earth.
Their cover of “Heavy Music” was purely that, Andrews had simply recorded their vocals over the original Seger backing track, but the flip-side was an original composition recorded by the band.
Sunday Funnies – Path of Freedom (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD1Ypugq9yI
A different poster, artist unknown, for Blood, Sweat & Tears, Rationals, and Sunday Funnies at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, March 30, 1969.
A newspaper ad for Blood, Sweat & Tears with the Rationals and the Sunday Funnies at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, March 30, 1969.
Poster by James Render, with a nice 3D effect simply by the color choices, for the Bob Seger System at St. Maron’s Hall in Detroit, Michigan, March 30, 1969.
One more ad for Blood, Sweat & Tears with the Sunday Funnies and the Rationals at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan on March 30, 1969.
Newspaper ads for the Trust Buster’s Ball at the Ann Arbor Armory, March 30, 1969, featuring Amboy Dukes, SRC, Commander Cody, Terry Tate Blues Band, the UP, “plus 5 others”.
An excellent poster by Gilbert Shelton (Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers) for “5 Days of Music” at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, California, with an appearance by Alice Cooper on March 30, 1969.
Newspaper ad for Bob Seger and Madrigal in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, March 31, 1969.
Turns out, what had been keeping Carl Lundgren busy throughout February and March 1969 was the creation of his first comic book, Tales from the Ozone #1. Russ Gibb had taken note of the emerging underground “comix” scene in San Francisco and wanted to produce Detroit’s first underground comic, tied in, of course, with promoting the Grande Ballroom. Lundgren enlisted the help of Gary Grimshaw, along with other artist friends, Jerry Younkins, J.A. Copely, Vaughn Bode, Gilbert Shelton and Robert Crumb to produce the first issue in the spring of 1969.
As you should have guessed, the very first comic books, which began to appear in the 1920’s were pornographic. Known as “eight-pagers”, among a variety of other names, much later referred to as “Tijuana Bibles”, these books depicted popular newspaper comic strip characters in graphically explicit, libelous sexual escapades, a good ten years before the “funny books” ignited the Golden Age of comics.
The artists were anonymous, as was most of the production and distribution, but there seem to be relatively few of them, later given names like Mr. Prolific, Mr. Dyslexic, and Blackjack by collectors and curators. Millions of copies were circulated in their heyday, but they pretty much came to an end in the 1950’s as the glossy girlie magazines started to become more provocative.
But as the underground newspaper scene developed in the late sixties, artists such as Bode and Crumb, and others, had a platform for developing their work, and found that the world’s oldest art form of cartooning, i.e., porno, went well with acid-drenched visions.
The books became known as “comix” to set them apart from mainstream comic books and to emphasize their X-rated nature. San Francisco was the center for the comix scene, due to it being the home of the major underground publishers, Apex Novelties, Rip Off Press, Last Gasp and the Print Mint.
The back cover of Tales from the Ozone #1 was an illustrated calendar for shows at the Grande Ballroom for the month of April, 1969, created by Carl Lundgren. As mentioned in the previous post, Russ Gibb was the backer for the comic publication, it may have been a consolation project after he lost out on financing CREEM magazine because Barry Kramer had stepped in, at any rate, Uncle Russ had once again brought a bit of San Francisco to Detroit.
(This back cover is examined in greater detail on the next page.)
A unique feature of Tales from the Ozone #1, compared to most of the underground comics, was the full-color insides of the cover. This Gary Grimshaw page is the inside of the front cover, perhaps a little joke that the inside front cover was page number zero?
Two inside pages by Gary Grimshaw from Tales from the Ozone #1. With no attempt at narrative storytelling, Grimshaw’s pages in the book, and Carl Lundgren’s as well, were more like abstract mini-posters, although in the issue, Lundgren also provided the art for a story written by Jerry Younkins.
Two more of the pages by Gary Grimshaw from Tales from the Ozone #1, April 1969.
Volume Five - 1969 - continues - HERE
