POP MUSIC : The Poster Book of Rock ‘n’ Roll

When the Stray Cats come to town next week, promotional posters will no doubt be slapped up all over town, only to be covered up the following week with a different poster touting the next performer on the touring treadmill.

Ink still wet from the printers, these posters seem to most observers as disposable as torn ticket stubs. However, there are those who covet, hoard and study them with the reverence one might bring to a Leonardo da Vinci drawing.

This exotic hobby receives it due in “The Art of Rock: The Art of Rock Posters From Presley to Punk” (Abbeville Press), a book written by Paul Grushkin, a Bay Area pop historian who feels the artistry of rock graphics has gone largely unappreciated.

“Rock art is still a bastard child. . . . It’s still James Dean times five,” Grushkin declares during a phone interview from his San Francisco office at Bill Graham Presents, where he works as an archivist. “The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently had a show called ‘100 Years of Poster Art’ and there was hardly any rock art in it!,” he adds indignantly.

A pictorial history of the advertising art of rock culture, Grushkin’s exhaustively researched book opens with a 1955 poster for a Faron Young concert that lists an unknown rookie named Elvis Presley at the bottom of the bill, and sputters to a close 30 years later with punk, which inspired the only burst of innovation to hit rock graphics in the past 15 years. Dressed up with 1,500 color illustrations, the book carries a steep price tag of $85 and weighs in at a hefty 10 pounds; this may be light reading, but you can forget about toting “The Art of Rock” along on your vacation.

Described by Grushkin as an oral history, the book’s rambling text is sprinkled with first person commentary and anecdotes from various figures on the poster scene.

“Rock ‘n’ roll is a living thing and is not about an image on a wall,” says Grushkin about the sense of renegade energy he attempts to convey with his book. “Rock ‘n’ roll is hearing Eric Clapton riffs pour out and falling on your butt, and clenching your fist and rushing the stage; these posters represent the clenched fist.”

Born in New Jersey, Grushkin, 36, graduated from Stanford, but his experience in “the Haight” during its halcyon era of the ‘60s was the dominant formative episode in his life. In 1983, he scored a commercial success with his debut book, “Grateful Dead: the Official Book of Dead Heads,” which led to his current book.

“Bob Abrams (president of Abbeville Press) is no fool and he knew how successful my Dead Head book was,” boasts Grushkin in explaining the genesis of “The Art of Rock.” “He flew out to California and said, ‘Hey, are you the guy who’s gonna do the poster book?’ I said yes, and at that point I knew that for the next five years I was going to do battle.

“I looked at 25,000 pieces of art and went down bloody alleys where it was dangerous and upsetting,” he continues. “I had to use all my charm to make people believe in my vision, and in fact, the hardest part of the book was generating a spirit of camaraderie among the people whose work I wanted to include. These people--both the artists and collectors--are like lone wolves. I mean, these are not union guys! It took a person like me who loved it more than they do to pull this book off.”

Broken down into chapters on early R&B;, punk, mainstream rock and psychedelic art, the book illuminates three distinct periods and approaches to rock graphics: the “boxing style” posters for R&B;, which favor simple block lettering emblazoned on horizontal rainbows of color; the hallucinatory imagery of the psychedelic era which incorporates elements of Art Nouveau and Art Deco; and the raggedy, tear-and-paste “ransom note” style of punk.

With nearly every page a new sub-category (specific venues, dance crazes, promoters, et al) that bears little relation to the preceding or following one, the book fails to illustrate the evolution of graphic styles, focusing instead on musical events and social history. Moreover, the book is flawed with an obvious bias toward San Francisco; in place of a disinterested inquiry into the significance of recurring graphic motifs, we’re given capsulized nuggets of music history (usually Bay Area music), and sentimental recollections of first experiences with drugs.

“The golden age of poster art took place in San Francisco in the ‘60s,” says Grushkin about the editorial decision that played a central role in shaping his book. “Drugs had a lot to do with the creation of that visual style, and many of the artists were influenced by Art Deco and Art Nouveau. Those styles were popular because they were loosey-goosey and free-flowing.

“Posters are a reactive, rather than a studied art form,” he continues, “and when they’re sophisticated it’s usually because of the artist’s chops. The Bay Area artists that the book highlights--Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley--all had major chops.

“Their development as artists was nurtured by the incredible music scene they were part of. However, the quality of art doesn’t always reflect the quality of the music. The art for late-’70s mainstream rock was pretty bad, as was the music, but on the other hand, the folk music of the early ‘60s--much of which was brilliant--spawned consistently weak art. It was, by necessity, boringly self-effacing because obviously you can’t advertise Pete Seeger as flamboyantly as you advertise James Brown.”

Asked to describe the typical rock poster collector, Grushkin says, “The average collector is deeply into the music and responds to the art because of what it represents.”

So, unless a person is involved with rock ‘n’ roll, this art isn’t likely to speak to him?

“There would probably be something lacking, “ Grushkin confirms. “Collectors tend to be male, except for in the punk world where it’s increasingly female. I’m not a punker and when I started meeting with punk collectors I discovered a whole different world. Punk was a real equalizer; you could be ugly or an outcast and get along on that scene just fine.”

(Grushkin’s lack of familiarity with punk shows in his book, which fails to include many classic punk posters and doesn’t even mention Jamie Reid, the British artist credited with inventing the punk graphic style).

“Collectors are friendly with one another because you need the connections to pick up on things,” he continues, “but basically everyone is on their guard and is out to take advantage of the next guy. Collecting is most intense in New York, San Francisco, L.A. and Ann Arbor, and the most sought-after posters are the ones done in the ‘50s boxing style, most of which advertise R&B; acts. They’re hard to come by because there aren’t many of them left on the market and lots of people love that music to death.

“The boxing-style posters are the most sought after, but the most controversial poster was a piece depicting explicit lesbian bondage for punk band, the Mutants--it got the band busted. The most expensive poster is the mythical ‘Fillmore 74’ made for a show in Toronto of the Airplane and the Dead.

“It was printed in very small number and there’s a big mystery about how and where it was printed and how it was distributed. Only about 25 of them have turned up so far, so now they’re valued at about two grand. But you don’t have to be rich to be into posters and bargains can still be found. There are thousands of gems out there waiting to be found.”

There may be bargains yet to be found, but the rock poster appears to be entering the September of its years. Part of a tradition that’s been dealt a body blow by high-tech mass communications, posters are no longer a cost-effective promotional tool. Rock videos have encroached on turf that was once the domain of posters, and the corporate mentality currently governing the music business hasn’t been good for them.

“During the belle epoch of poster art, it was the promoter and the graphic artist he hired who decided the way a poster would look,” says Grushkin about the changing fortunes of poster artists. “Neither the bands nor the record companies were playing any kind of role at that point, but these days you can’t do anything without the approval of the band--and that hasn’t been good for rock art.

“By the mid-’70s everyone discovered there was money to be made in rock, and the bands realized they were really in control--more so than the promoters. None of these developments were good for the graphic artists, and at this point, the Dead is the only band that offers much of an opportunity for free expression to graphic artists.”