In the man-cave in which JGMF happens, I mostly work while facing this wall. My aim is to build a poster collection (which might, naturally, spill over onto other walls) with posters for as many Garcia On The Side configurations as I can. I don’t have a ton of money for this, so I often get stuff that’s dinged, folded, torn, etc. I think that gives it character. The good news is that GOTS is less collected than GD, so there isn’t that much demand for what I am looking for.
1. Is the Stanley Mouse’s “Purple Pig” for the Carousel (late spring ’68) Tuesday Night Jam sessions. This is the only one of this size I have ever seen. This is more or less the GOTS uhr-moment, since the handbills show Jerry’s name, outside the GD, for the first time in the GD era.
2. Mickey and the Hartbeats, October 1968.
3. Probably the first color-printed mention of the New Riders of the Purple Sage. This is the back page of a complete copy of the Seattle Helix vol. 9 no. 3 (ca. August 19, 1969), billing GD and NRPS at the Greenlake Aquatheatre on August 20, 1969. Of course, this gig was canceled and we know from Corry that the fellas went and played some bar in Ballard instead.
4. Family Dog and the Common on the Great Highway offer “Magic at the Edge of the Western World”, including NRPS on 11/18/69. Strictly speaking this and #5 are redundant, but, well, sue me. I like “the Common” a lot, and I like the catch-phrase, and I like the colors.
5. NRPS headlining the Fillmore West. I like this for the arc of the NRPS that it describes, shepherded by Midas Garcia from the local hofbrau to the top of the poster, eventually to strike out on its own on the foundation that Jerry laid, including big-time record contract with Clive Davis.
6. JGMS 11/8/72, one of the few posters I have seen that lists Tom Fogerty.
7. JGMS with Martin and Sarah Fulcher, Legal Aid at Winterland 10/2/73. This one is signed by artist Randy Tuten, but that’s sort of like having a Bob Feller-autographed baseball card – they’re rarer without the signature.
8 & 9. Two beauties from the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, lots of neat icons and such. These posters were hanging in the AWHQ lobby in advance of the shows, the story goes, and have the pinholes to prove it.
10. Reconstruction at Temple Beautiful, 8/10/79.
What’s missing?
JGMS pre-Fogerty: there’s a poster from the Matrix for the February 2-3, 1971 shows
Garcia-Wales: there is a beautifully colorful poster for 1/22/72 in Syracuse, but boy is it rare. I hadn’t even heard of the show, let alone seen poster, until it came to be in my blogging capacity. I don’t recall any other posters from the short east coast tour.
OAITW: very few to choose from. The most common one is from Bimbo’s on 5/25/73, which had Bill Graham’s involvement in support of a school support program called “Sumerland”. I really, really, really want a copy of that poster, but it’s expensive. The copy you see at the link, as beat up as it is, is retailing for $725 at Wolfgang’s. Even handbills are several hundred. There is some advertising for 10/5/73 in Santa Cruz and 11/4/73 at Sonoma State, but I can’t tell if these are posters rather than handbills or advertisements.
Great American String/Music Band: No posters that I can think of, though the 7/7/74 canceled gig is a near-miss, and I’d gladly put a clean copy on my wall for giggles.
JGMS 1974: I presume Tutt was drumming for the Austin shows, so it’d be great to have posters for the group with Kreutzmann (1/17/74 through 9/2/74) and Paul Humphrey (ca. 10/12/74 through November). There are random handbills here and there — I’d love a copy of the Rheem Theater 2/9/74 paper, whatever its dimensions— , but I can’t think of posters for either of these configurations, and any that exist would be very, very rare (and correspondingly dear). I can live without representation at that level of granularity.
JGB #1 with Nicky: Looks like there is a poster for the De Anza College gig on 10/10 that has at one time been available through Wolfgang’s Vault. It must be very rare. Any others? edit: I see one from St. Paul, 11/22/75.
JGB in the Keith and Donna era: several to choose from. I am eyeing the one from the Del Mar Theater on 8/16/76, which has some great icons. There are others from this three year period – I won’t be picky about drummers.
JGB in the Ozzie/JohnnyD era: very few to choose from, one from Stony Brook, probably a few others. Very hard to find.
JGB pre-Kemper – not that many out there, I am not chomping at the bit to find one. Kemper era things are plentiful, and I already have several (not pictured). Post-Kemper, not sure there are any posters, per se – maybe for some of the SoCal shows. But I am not too worried about that.
In brief, though, if you have something you think I might need, please let me know! I am into smaller stuff, too, any Garcia ephemera, really, but it doesn’t end up on the wall.
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