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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Concert Posters
Volume Five - 1969 - Page Twenty-Three
An ad for the Plum Pit shop by Dennis Garascia from the November 27, 1969 issue of The Fifth Estate in Detroit, Michigan.
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Carolyn Heines had not presented a rock show at the Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan since Steppenwolf back in February, but she picked up on the Moody Blues and Humble Pie bill for Thanksgiving night, November 27, 1969, two weeks after their shows at the Grande Riviera. The bands were treated to an American Thanksgiving dinner at the Heines’ home.
Gary Grimshaw comic strip from the November 27, 1969 issue of The Berkeley Tribe newspaper.
More goodies from the November 27, 1969 issue of The Berkeley Tribe newspaper in Berkeley, California, with Gary Grimshaw lettering and photos by Detroit Annie, who along with writers Sundog (Gary Grimshaw?), and Nixon, was among the Detroit ex-pats working at the paper.
Poster for the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois, November 28, 1969, by R. Crumb. Crumb’s dancing couple will be used over and over on concert posters around the country.
A tranquil poster by an unknown artist for Commander Cody & his Lost Planet Airmen, opening for Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks at the Great Highway in San Francisco, California, November 28-30, 1969.
Dave Baker’s Grande Ballroom logo had finally changed “Ballroom” to “Riviera”, ironic since this would be the last ad for the Riviera. It appears that the advertised show of Jethro Tull, CTA, and Fat Mattress, November 28-29, 1969, never occurred.
Finishing off the month of November, 1969, which had been a month of notably atrocious erroneous information on announcements in the ads for the Grande Riviera and the Eastown Theater. Completely missing in any form is any record of the week before with the Moody Blues and Humble Pie at the Grande Riviera, November 18-19, 1969, following the shows by The Band.
Santana were on a post-Woodstock tour, earlier making their Michigan debut at Welsh Auditorium in Grand Rapids, September 3, as was Johnny Winter, although by some accounts it was actually Edgar Winter that performed here, their Woodstock appearance was the brothers last one together as they branched out with their own bands from that point.
Jethro Tull must have come back home with the MC5 following their joint stand out at The Fillmore in San Francisco. There is no confirmation that either CTA or Fat Mattress actually ever played Detroit.
And especially deceptive, whether it was deliberate or not, it looked like the Rolling Stones were coming (!), they were, but not to the Grande Riviera.
Poster by Royce Emley for the Palm Beach Music & Art Festival in Jupiter, Florida, November 28-30, 1969, with Michigan band Grand Funk Railroad in the line-up. The Rolling Stones were delayed in arriving and went on stage at 4am Monday morning. It was the first of two festivals that the Stones decided to tack on to the end of their tour, the second was a week later at the Altamont Speedway in Tracy, California.
Poster/flyer by unknown artist, most likely a member of the student body that, once again, brought a top rock show to a high school gymnasium, Forsythe Jr. High in Ann Arbor, Michigan, November 30, 1969.
Shown above are the first twelve issues of CREEM magazine, from March through November 1969.
An oddball poster by Stanley Mouse with “Dirty Dog Presents” over the Family Dog logo and text along the bottom that suggest the poster was printed over ad copy for Burger King. The poster is for the Howard Bochelor Experience with the Harry Maynard Consciousness at the Trouser Ballroom. Most importantly, the image was used for the cover of the December 1969 issue of CREEM magazine.
Artwork by Stanley Mouse on the cover of the December 1969 issue of CREEM magazine. The issue carried a story by DeDay LaRene that provided a capsulized history of Stanley Mouse, from his school days in Detroit to his presently residence in Boston with partner Alton Kelley, and showed about a dozen of his posters.
Stanley Mouse story by DeDay LaRene in the December 1969 issue of CREEM magazine.
The fourth installment of Steve Mackay’s “Death City” comic, in the December 1969 issue of CREEM magazine.
A full-page photo by Charles Auringer in the December 1969 issue of CREEM magazine that accompanied a story by Dave Marsh on the Rolling Stones’ show in Detroit, at Olympia Stadium on November 24th, , concluding with, “they really are the greatest goddamn band in the world…no shit”.
Poster by Al Shamie (Bad Dog) for the Stooges, UP, and Carnal Kitchen at the Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, December 2, 1969.
Cover of the December 4, 1969 edition of the Ann Arbor Argus newspaper in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Photo by Tom Copi.
An ad for the Eastown Theater in Detroit, Michigan with Fleetwood Mac (sic), Buddy Miles and Eric Mercury on December 5, 1969.
The Palladium in Birmingham, Michigan continued to employ creative poster artists, this one unknown for the December 5-6, 1969 shows. This is the earliest poster we’ve found with the Lansing band Dog, or the Dogs, a true punk rock trio that we will be see become legend in the decades to come. Also on the bill were Frost, Amboy Dukes, and New Hope.
Poster/handbill by an unknown artist for the Something Different club in Southfield, Michigan, with Everlon Nevermore and the Chip Stevens Blues Band appearing on December 5, 1969, and with the Bob Seger System and the Sunday Funnies on December 6.
There were a few weeks of build-up to a “Battle of the Bands” in Ann Arbor, Michigan near the end of 1969, complete with a dig at the bubblegum pop group The Cowsills, not the first time the Cowsills’ name was used in vain in various hip ads. The contest came down to Love’s Alchemy, Floating Opera, and Lovelight, with Floating Opera taking the crown in the final contest on December 6, 1969.
An esoteric battle of the bands at the Union Ballroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 6, 1969, and here is what the winner sounded like.
Actually, we’ve seen this group in our story before, before they changed their band name to Floating Opera they were known as the Long Island Sound, the band that had to hastily placate the angry crowd when Jim Morrison showed up wasted for the Doors appearance at the University of Michigan Homecoming Dance back in 1967.
The Floating Opera – The Floating Opera (album) (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySNpNG7kn9U&list=PLGkeRiGAYgavwC2ZdBcwUPnjiLoYmW21b&index=2&t=0s
A poster for Rare Earth opening for Steppenwolf at Carnegie Hall in New York City, December 6, 1969. "Introducing" Rare Earth, one of the earliest posters with their name.
There’s an old joke that a tourist couple was trying to find the prestigious concert hall when they spotted a man carrying an instrument case, so they asked him, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The man answered, dejectedly, “Practice”.
The Rolling Stones 1969 tour continued on from Detroit, eliciting similarly rave reviews in nearly every city and could seemingly do no wrong, that is until they decided to perform a free concert at the tour’s end, at the Altamont Speedway in California on December 6, 1969, and everything went wrong.
While it’s been simplistic for historians to use Altamont as the symbolic end of the sixties, that was also the immediate contemporary take on it as well, as every writer in the country drew upon the glaringly obvious evidence for just such a case, Rolling Stone magazine devoted an entire issue to it.
Detroit Annie and a group from The Berkeley Tribe newspaper made the same mistake as thousands of others had, in abandoning their van eight miles away from the site and hiking over the hills. Her perspective, from a spot where the lights from the distant stage was all they could see and the sound was a like listening to a transistor radio, was the experience of most of the 300,000, who only learned of the murder the next day.
The rumor that the murdered man had drawn a gun was confirmed in the footage for the Gimme Shelter movie, which led to the acquittal of the Hells Angel who had stabbed him to death. There are thousands of books, billions of words, and a myriad of intricacies, motives and opinions on the whole subject, but here’s a few things:
The ad for the show was probably the last time a promo shot of the suit and tie Stones would be used for a concert advertisement, this one even still included the deceased Brian Jones. The location is also wrong, the Sears Point Raceway, already the second location after Golden Gate Park fell through, was of course changed to Altamont Speedway. And this ad, which was the “Final, Official and Definitive Last Word on the Rolling Stones Concert” was published on December 4, just two days before the event. This incredibly chaotic planning, and some of the issues with Sears Point, was consequential.
The Hells Angels felt that they had saved Mick Jagger’s life from assassination and they were pissed that everyone gingerly distanced themselves from the biker gang and the Stones lack of support for their court expenses. As a vendetta, a group of New York Hells Angels plotted to murder Jagger, attempting to reach his Long Island estate by sea, but a storm capsized their boat, and barely surviving to get to shore, the angels took it as a sign not to fuck with the Rolling Stones.
The owner of the Altamont Speedway enjoyed his moment in the big-time, shortly afterwards he was announcing plans for next year’s festival, a free concert by The Beatles.
The concert did not end with the stabbing death, as some may assume from the movie, but the day-long violence seems to have ended with it and the band completed the concert with eight more songs, beginning with this world premiere of “Brown Sugar”:
The Rolling Stones – Brown Sugar (live at Altamont 12/06/69)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGEiShfD5ds
The movie was released a year later, in December 1970, the making of the movie itself was partly to blame for why things happened the way they did, possibly a key reason that the Sears Point Raceway location fell through, and including the footage of the killing is morally questionable. We’re definitely grateful to have it, but there were undoubtedly some who saw it as “box office gold”.
The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter (movie) (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySPCKk8Z4-M
And the last thing, in perfect summary:
The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm6a3QZeWyo
In the dedications page of the book “Detroit Rocks”, Gary Grimshaw reveals that it was Fillmore poster artist Greg Irons whom he stayed with while in exile in San Francisco in 1969. In addition to the Fillmore posters, Irons was a prolific underground cartoonist, with his art in multiple newspapers and comics. This is his take on Altamont, spot-on in its implications.
Poster by an unknown artist for Grand Funk Railroad with Fleetwood Mac in Atlanta, Georgia, December 7, 1969.
Newspaper ad for Grand Funk Railroad with Fleetwood Mac in Atlanta, Georgia, December 7, 1969.
Poster by an unknown artist for a benefit for the “Ann Arbor 6” political prisoners at the Union Ballroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 9, 1969, with the bands UP and Shiva from Saginaw.
Newspaper ad for the benefit for the “Ann Arbor 6” political prisoners at the Union Ballroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan, December 9, 1969, with the bands UP and Shiva.
Poster for Grand Funk Railroad opening for Janis Joplin in Rochester, New York, December 10, 1969.
An Epic Records ad for the debut album by Catfish in the December 12, 1969 issue of the Los Angeles Free Press in Los Angeles, California.
Ad for the Sounds & Diversions store in Lansing, Michigan by Dennis Preston. Abbey Road was released on September 26, 1969, and Live Peace in Toronto was released on December 12, 1969.
Newspaper ad for Grand Funk Railroad opening for Joe Cocker at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, December 12, 1969, along with a full-page A&M Records ad for Cocker.
Poster/ad for Grand Funk Railroad in Anaheim, California on December 12, 1969, with two up-coming shows at the Whisky A Go Go in Hollywood, December 15-16. GFR's debut album is also displayed.
An ad for the Eastown Theater in Detroit, Michigan with Valhalla, All The Lonely People, Love Sculpture, the Litter, Magic Veil light show, a Revolution Production, December 12-13, 1969.
This ad for the third album by Minneapolis band, The Litter, is sufficiently bizarre to be thrown in here. As mentioned before, the record labels would often convert an ad for a new release into a concert announcement for an individual market. This one was for a pair of shows in Chicago during the summer. Since the Eastown Theater in Detroit was insufficient in producing any posters for their shows, we have taken the liberty to modify this ad as it might have been for the Eastown shows that The Litter headlined, December 12-13, 1969.
It also gives us a chance for one last song by The Litter, and also a song by opening band Love Sculpture. As we also saw earlier, Love Sculpture, a trio featuring guitarist Dave Edmunds, had just been signed to Rare Earth Records, which may be why they hung around Detroit, also playing at the Birmingham Palladium two weeks later, December 26-27, 1969.
The Litter – Blue Ice (1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMSRvDkzknQ
Love Sculpture – Sabre Dance (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyvy9tORfSc
Out on the west coast, the Family Dog had lost their lease at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, and had moved into an old ballroom out on the beach. Chet Helms initially advertised the site as “Magic at the Edge of the Western World”, but eventually ended up calling it “the Family Dog on the Great Highway”. This ad for Canned Heat on December 12-14, 1969 from the Berkeley Tribe newspaper looks like it could be the work of Carl Lundgren and/or Gary Grimshaw.
Poster by Al Shamie (Bad Dog) for Brownsville Station and Toby Wesselfox at the Borderline in Monroe, Michigan, December 13, 1969.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young made their Michigan debut at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, December 14, 1969, and in this year of the emergence of bootleg rock records, this concert was taped.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Live in Detroit (12/14/69)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIdRSAHLOg
The Jackson 5 made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan TV show on December 14, 1969. They opened with a version of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Stand”, followed by Smokey Robinson’s “Who’s Loving You”, and finished with their own hit single “I Want You Back”, all gathered below:
Jackson 5 – Stand (Ed Sullivan TV show) (12/14/69)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQiJGD1twuw
Jackson 5 – Who’s Loving You (Ed Sullivan TV show) (12/14/69)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtQJXLua85o
Jackson 5 – I Want You Back (Ed Sullivan TV show) (12/14/69)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASwsMOy-pA
A full-page Elektra Records ad with the debut album by the Stooges in the December 15, 1969 issue of the Chicago Seed newspaper.
Poster by David Singer for Grand Funk Railroad at the Winterland in San Francisco, California, opening for Santana, with Noel Redding’s Fat Mattress, December 18-21, 1969.
Poster with illustration by an unknown artist signed R. Wilson for the Contemporary Jazz Quintet at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan on December 19, 1969.
The Contemporary Jazz Quintet –Mystique (1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69u9dwtb7sM
An ad for an appearance by Stevie Wonder at the Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan on December 19, 1969. It must have been published well in advance of the show since the ad is also promoting the club’s Thanksgiving Day Family Dinner.
Frost with the Glass Wall and the Allman Brothers at the Ludlow Garage in Cincinnati, Ohio, December 19-20, 1969 with more of Jim Tarbell’s trademark rug-design posters.
Al Shamie (Bad Dog) used a variation on the theme of his poster from the week before for the Borderline, for this one with the MC5, December 20, 1969.
Towards the end of 1969, Carl Lundgren began taking over Gary Grimshaw’s duties at The Berkeley Tribe newspaper, creating the column headings and sprinkling his wonderful doodles throughout the rag.
The seventh weekend at the Palladium in Birmingham, Michigan, December 19-20, 1969 featured a poster by Darlene Pond. Only slightly smaller than the Eastown Theater, the Palladium was a large enough draw for acts like Fleetwood Mac, and, unlike the regrettable Eastown, they regularly had posters.
Poster by Darlene Pond for the Palladium in Birmingham, Michigan, with Fleetwood Mac, Sky, and Sunday Funnies on December 19, 1969, and with the Bob Seger System, All The Lonely People and the March Brothers on the 20th.
The top logo reads, "Big Devil Presents excitement, humor, love".
Volume Five - 1969 - continues - HERE
