HOW THE HEADS/FREAKS/DROP-OUTS USED TO ROLL BACK IN THE PSYCHEDELIC SIXTIES.
PIC INFO: Resolution at 2090x2929 -- Spotlight on a "Zig-Zag Man" psychedelic poster design used to promote San Francisco rock bands, BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY with QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE, performing live at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, CA, USA, on June 24-25, 1966. Artwork by Stanley Mouse & Alton Kelley.
POSTER OVERVIEW: "Known as FD-14 in the Family Dog numbered series, this poster comes from the personal archives of Bob Cohen, the man who co-owned the Family Dog and ran it with Chet Helms from early 1966 until the firm's demise in late 1968.
This poster is popular in so many ways it's hard to count them. It was designed by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley in the spring of 1966, when everything was still so young and naïve. In a flash of brilliance, they designed a poster using the logo for Zig-Zag rolling papers, which everyone in their target audience was using to roll joints.
Being such a small, local entity and not making posters to be sold -- or so they thought -- they feared not copyright infringement. It turns out they were right; the Zig-Zag people never came after them. Maybe the suits who owned Zig-Zag saw the irony and humor in what Mouse Studios wrote down in the lower left:
"What you don't know about copying and duplicating won't hurt you." What a great, disarming line to include on this particular poster! The tables got turned, however, when some enterprising bootlegger(s) made unauthorized copies of the poster to sell in head shops in the Haight. Chet Helms & gang ran around rubber-stamping those as counterfeits.
As for the real ones, everyone in the Bay Area wanted this iconic image up on their wall, so they were quickly gobbled up from telephone poles and store windows, and were a mainstay in hippie crash pads throughout the rest of the '60s. "Zig-Zag Man" is truly a cultural icon of the decade, one of the five most important and popular concert-poster images of the entire FD and BG series combined.
Don't forget that Janis Joplin had just joined Big Brother full-time at this point. She may have jumped on stage for a couple of songs as a try-out earlier in June, but this is considered by historians as the first S.F. Janis Joplin concert poster. Another gigantic gold star for this poster!"
Don't forget that Janis Joplin had just joined Big Brother full-time at this point. She may have jumped on stage for a couple of songs as a try-out earlier in June, but this is considered by historians as the first S.F. Janis Joplin concert poster. Another gigantic gold star for this poster!"
-- HERITAGE AUCTIONS (Pop Culture Auctions)
Source: https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/music-memorabilia/posters/fd-14-big-brother-and-holding-company-1966-zig-zag-man-family-dog-concert-poster/a/7221-89107.s.
