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Splatt Gallery's History of Michigan Music Posters
Volume Nine - 1973 - Page Five
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Full-page Reprise Records ad for Flo & Eddie with tour dates opening for Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies Tour, which included two shows at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan (bottom line, first column), April 4-5, 1973.
Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies tour poster by Charles “Prairie” Prince. In addition to album cover art and set designs for multiple artists, from Michael Jackson to Diana Ross’ Super Bowl half-time show, Prince is also the drummer for The Tubes. He was also a founding member of the band Journey, and has toured with dozens of bands, particularly with Todd Rundgren and Jefferson Starship.
The shows that were being booked at the Louis Armstrong Theatre at the Grand Valley State Colleges in Grand Rapids, Michigan were becoming consistently first-rate, and even better, they were consistently producing good posters, such as this one for an appearance by John Hartford on April 4, 1973.
Meets our criteria of having Michigan bands on the bill, and exceeds our criteria for being a way-cool poster, by Michael Krueger for the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois, April 6, 1973, with Brownsville Station and Catfish Hodge.
Another nice handbill for the Ford Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan, by Keith Warren Graphics. This one, for April 6, 1973, is for the British bands Wishbone Ash, in their fifth Detroit appearance, and Vinegar Joe, fresh from their shows at The Brewery in East Lansing the week before.
Record company ads for Wishbone Ash with tour dates including the show at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, April 6, 1973.
Newspaper ads for Wishbone Ash at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, April 6, 1973.
Barnstorm featuring Joe Walsh was also on the bill with Wishbone Ash and Vinegar Joe at Ford Auditorium in Detroit on April 6, 1973. Although Walsh had made his Michigan solo debut six months earlier, opening for West, Bruce & Lang, also at Ford Auditorium in October 1972, this was the Michigan debut for Barnstorm.
An ad for Grand Rapids, Michigan high school alum Al Green at Cobo Hall in Detroit, April 6, 1973, with The Spinners, Bloodstone, and MC “Butterball Jr”.
Poster by Dennis Preston, or possibly by Patrick Irla, for Still Eyes at the Roseville Ballroom in Roseville, Michigan on April 6, 1973.
A nice poster with Commander Cody & his Lost Planet Airmen in Portland, Oregon on April 6, 1973.
Gary Grimshaw poster for the Bowen Field House in Ypsilanti, Michigan, April 7, 1973, with Uriah Heep, Billy Preston, and McKendre Spring.
A full-page ad in the April 7, 1973 issue of Billboard magazine and the gatefold album artwork for the second album by The Dramatics with Tony Hester’s production.
The Dramatics – Hey You! Get Off My Mountain (1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymVAVVJQ2KM
The Dramatics – The Devil Is Dope (1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-oHwBkZAvs
Here are three flyers that Jim Shaw and Mike Kelley postered around the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, creating their ruse to dupe unsuspecting audiences to their presentation of their “Futurist Ballet”.
Promising a debate between Bernadine Dorne and Dr. Fredric Wertham on the question “Does The New Left Still Have Any Meaning?”, a lecture by Chingon Thumpa Rimpoche on “Therapeutic Uses of Necrophilia, or a lecture by Rocco Lodise “On Squares Interceding with Isoceles Triangles Throughout Art History”, all of the events converged in the East Quad Auditorium at 1:15pm on April 8, 1973.
Expecting to witness one of these intellectual pursuits, the audience “was met with noisy and offensive guerilla-style performances which simultaneously combined a pornographic reading, an enactment of an interview with Pat Oleszko, the queen of the Ann Arbor Hash Bash, and noise music produced by vacuum cleaners, untrained musicians, and tape loops”.
Nicole Rudnick - “Return of the Repressed”
“”Tonight we’re going to present a Futuristic Ballet,” announces a somewhat androgynously-clad Kelley, holding a title card upside down. The background is continuous noise, like a hot rod.”
Brandon Joseph – “The Hippie Apocalypse”
It sent most of the audience running from the hall, the perfect planting of the perfect seed for the “band” Destroy All Monsters, which would spout in about twenty-one months.
Newspaper ad for Beck, Bogert & Appice, for their only Michigan appearance, at Cobo Arena in Detroit, April 8, 1973, a full-concert recording was made and can be enjoyed here:
Beck, Bogert & Appice – Live in Detroit (04-08-73)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8UnP3EgRZQ
Beck, Bogert & Appice – Superstition (live on In Concert) (1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyyhm1D7zlI
It was also the first Michigan appearance by Steely Dan.
Record company ad with tour dates for Wet Willie opening for Beck, Bogert & Appice at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan, April 8, 1973.
Poster by “JW-RH” for the J. Geils Band at Grand Valley State College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 8, 1973.
A second poster for the J. Geils Band at Grand Valley State College, April 8, 1973. This show is not in the database and would be the band’s 20th Michigan appearance in just over two years. This was the first of a three-day Michigan tour as the database has them in Hillsdale the next night, April 9, and in Mount Pleasant the night after that, April 10.
Newspaper ad for Tim Buckley and Randy Newman at the Power Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 11, 1973. Being a Peter Andrews’ UAC-Daystar presentation, it should have been a Grimshaw poster. It was Buckley’s seventh Michigan appearance, but his first in two years. He’d make up for lost time with a total of seven shows in 1973, and during those two years away, his style had gone from folk, through jazz, to funky sex-rock.
Tim Buckley – Move with Me (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0EjxoaXo9Q
An ad by an unknown artist in the April 11, 1973 issue of the Oakland Observer newspaper at Oakland University announcing the opening of the Electric Crater disco in Holly, Michigan.
Gary Grimshaw poster for the Future Worlds Conference Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 13-15, 1973.
Dennis Preston, poster for Northwind and Still Eyes at the Lakeview High School in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, April 13, 1973.
We love these posters for the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, when a Michigan act on the bill, and we can include it. This one has Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes with Hookfoot, April 13, 1973. Poster by R. Otis. Some sources have this show as April 12, but we’re going by the poster, and have confirmed that 1973 had a Friday the 13th in April. The Andy Warhol Exploding Plastic Inevitable with the Velvet Underground threw us, but a closer look shows this was a film that was being shown.
A full-page ad from Terry Knight in the April 14, 1973 issue of Billboard magazine. When the protracted court battles with Grand Funk Railroad were finally resolved, Knight was dropped from Capitol Records, and he formed his own label, called Brown Bag Records. He signed and released records by a handful of Mid-West bands, including Mom’s Apple Pie, Wild Cherry, and Faith. None of these could match the success he’d had with GFR and Bloodrock, (although much later, Wild Cherry would have a huge hit with “Play That Funky Music”, and Faith would have a big hit with “Dancin’ Shoes”), and by the end of 1973, Terry Knight permanently retired from show business.
A second full-page ad in April 1973 for the band Faith, managed and produced by Terry Knight. The band photo has been added to the previously stark black ad, but only shot from behind. In typically Terry Knight fashion, Knight claimed that he was legally forbidden to disclose the identities of the musicians until the album was released, fueling rumors of a “super-group” of well-known British musicians. They turned out to be five guys from Indianapolis, Indiana.
The album was the final release on Knight’s Brown Bag Records label, which was fairly prolific, releasing nearly 30 albums and singles in just two years. Knight retired permanently from show business in late 1973.
Volume Nine - 1973 - continues - HERE
Alice cooper on the cover of the April 1973 issue of the British magazine Cream, not to be confused with the Michigan magazine CREEM. It was Cooper’s third cover on the short-lived publication which only lasted from May 1971 through August 1973, giving him the most cover appearances of any other artist.
Poster/flyer by Gary Grimshaw for Radio King at Couzens Hall in Ann Arbor, Michigan on April 6, 1973.
A newspaper ad for the 29th Michigan show by Procol Harum, at Masonic Auditorium in Detroit on April 10, 1973.
A full-page A&M Records ad for the re-release of the debut album by Procol Harum, coinciding with the group’s appearance at Masonic Auditorium in Detroit on April 10, 1973.
An ABC Records ad for the debut album by Steely Dan, coinciding with the group’s first Michigan appearance, opening for Beck, Bogert & Appice at Cobo Arena in Detroit, April 8, 1973.
A full-page Epic Records ad for Beck, Bogert & Appice coinciding with the group’s only Michigan appearance, at Cobo Arena in Detroit, April 8, 1973.
A full-page Polydor Records ad for Rory Gallagher with tour dates that include a show at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 1, 1973.
Mike Brady poster for the Second Annual Hash Festival, on the Diag of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, April 1, 1973.
Pun Plamondon was in jail on trumped-up charges again, this time along with Craig Plazier, both accused of a number of crimes as accused by a police informant drug dealer, with an unusually exorbitant bond. The “Ransom Boogie” was held at the Union Ballroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 1, 1973, to raise funds for the bail. Gary Grimshaw’s poster shows the bands that were billed were New Heavenly Blue, TNT, and Uprising. TNT was featuring Mitch Ryder, so we assume that the Knockdown Party Band was over.
Mackinac Jack’s, the bar with the lumberjack and bent branch logo in Ann Arbor, Michigan had been in operation for just over a year, with over 100 shows, when the fine print in the ad for April 1-7, 1973 noted “under new management”. Closed down after these shows, the venue will re-open in July as the Primo Showbar.
Gary Grimshaw poster for the weekly Wednesday show by Uprising at the Odyssey in Ann Arbor, Michigan, beginning April 4, 1973.
Poster for the movie “The Mack”, released on April 4, 1973, with the soundtrack written and recorded by Motown’s Willie Hutch. He would do the same a year later for the movie “Foxy Brown”.
Willie Hutch – Brother’s Gonna Work It Out (1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3mqqEy4wws
Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies Tour poster, with the listing of the April 4-5, 1973 shows at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan (sixth line, center column).
An ad for the weekly Tuesday show by Radio King & His Court of Rhythm at the Odyssey in Ann Arbor, Michigan, beginning April 3, 1973.
A Motown Records ad in the March 31, 1973 issue of Billboard magazine for one of their most unlikely artists, actress Irene Ryan, who for the previous ten years had been a household name as Granny Clampett on the popular TV show “The Beverly Hillbillies”.
After “The Beverly Hillbillies” ended its nine-season run, Ryan was cast in the Broadway musical “Pippin”. Motown Records provided financial backing for the production, and released the Original Broadway Cast Recording album.
Sadly, just three weeks before this ad appeared in Billboard, Ryan collapsed on-stage from an apparent stroke during the March 10, 1973 performance. She returned to her home in California where she passed away a few weeks later on April 26, 1973 at age 70.
Irene Ryan – No Time At All (1972)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRC46cgJnnI
A full-page Warner Bros. Records ad in the March 31, 1973 issue of Billboard magazine for the third of four singles from Alice Cooper’s “Billion Dollar Babies” album, and the highest charting of them.
Alice Cooper – No More Mr. Nice Guy (1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5y7iHePE0Y
A Motown Records ad in the March 31, 1973 issue of Billboard magazine for the teaming of the band Rare Earth with producer Norman Whitfield.
The front cover of the April 1973 issue of CREEM Magazine by Marvel Comics’ artist John Romita.
A Marvel Comics centerfold in the April 1973 issue of CREEM Magazine.
“Chances are, where you live isn’t Walled Lake”, well, actually it is, thank you very much.
An ad in the April 1973 issue of CREEM magazine, soliciting leads on newsstands, along with a mutant version of Boy Howdy for the “Rewire Yourself” electronics feature.
A page from the April 1973 issue of CREEM magazine with ads from Diversified Management Agency and W4 radio in Detroit, Michigan.
An ad for Lizard’s Bar in East Lansing, Michigan, with a rare (only?) Michigan appearance by Kenneth Threadgill & the Velvet Cow Pasture from Austin, Texas, March 29, 1973 through April 3rd.
Known as the “Father of Austin Country Music”, Threadgill’s Tavern was a favorite locale for Austin musicians, where payment for performances was two rounds of free beer. He was also well known for his very close friendship with singer Janis Joplin, who got her start at the open-mic nights at Threadgill’s.
Whenever we visit Austin, we always make it a point to do Sunday brunch at Threadgill’s.
Here is a cool video, showing the great poster collection at Threadgill’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIl6wT91IVY
Kenneth Threadgill – Yodeling Ranger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhXKW0iKKX8
A single-page flyer from the Ann Arbor Sun Rainbow Community News Service issued on March 30, 1973.
Record company ad with tour dates for Gentle Giant, and a show at Masonic Auditorium, March 30, 1973. They likely also played the night before as well, opening for Edgar Winter both nights.
A newspaper ad for Bette Midler at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 31, 1973.
Poster for Bette Midler at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 31, 1973 with the iconic illustration by Richard Amsel.
An ad for Alice Cooper with Flo & Eddie at Public Hall in Cleveland, Ohio on March 31, 1973.
A newspaper ad for the Masonic Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan with the Edgar Winter Group appearing March 29-30, 1973.
Poster/flyer by Gary Grimshaw for a Dance Party at Markley Hall at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, on March 30, 1973, featuring New Heavenly Blue and Mojo Boogie Band.
When Mose Allison took up a five night residency at Limbo’s Pizza Emporium in Detroit, Michigan, March 28, 1973 through April 1st. The location on Woodward and Six Mile was re-inventing itself, after a fire restoration, from being basically a restaurant with a pick-up bar into a first-rate music venue. Prior to the Mose Allsion gig, Tim Buckley had performed there at least two nights, March 17th and 18th, and possibly some nights prior, as The Fifth Estate newspaper reported on the Buckley show, “Limbo’s was packed. Many of the people in the audience had seen him earlier in the week and were back to see him again”.
An ad with Bruce Springsteen opening for Stevie Wonder in in Kutztown, Pennsylvania on March 29, 1973.
A full-page Motown Records ad for the seventh studio album by The Jackson 5, “Skywriter”, released on March 29, 1973.
