Tuesday, July 26, 2005

My drug of choice



Since I was 13 years old I've collected vintage and current concert posters. Living in San Francisco, I have been in a perfect place to feed my jones. I used to shop at the Poster Mat in North Beach, run by Ben Friedman. He suggested my first poster should be BGP 162, Grateful Dead, Fillmore West February 26, 28, March 1 and 2. The album Live Dead took selections from these shows.

Over the years I've collected many posters over the years, mostly from the 60's psychedelic era. In the early 1990's there was a renaissance in poster making. Great artists like Coop, Kuhn, and Frank Kozic began to make a huge impact on the concert poster scene. I very quickly began to approach my local merchants, who hung the posters in their windows, and asked them for the posters after the show had passed. I knew from experience, these posters would jump in price soon.

This week I am attending a workshop through the National Foundation for Teaching Entreprenuership (NFTE). About a block away from the workshop sits the premire concert poster merchant in the city, if not the world: Artrock. I stopped by there during lunch today and could not help but pick up two Kozic posters. Both posters seem to harken back to the days of Stalinist Russia. As a matter of fact, one of them has Stalin on it.KZ94043 and KZ93033A

My wife has been an archive framer over the years and she has done an amazing job framing my posters. If you are interested in hiring her, shoot me an email.

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