It’s been a hectic, hard-working year establishing the Firehouse-Goldenvoice Poster Series, art directing and printing all these great posters, with my friend and partner Ron Donovan. Yes, it has been a year, and we are nearing poster number 70.

If you do the math that’s more than one poster a week. Add that to the other posters we produce (read Eric Clapton and Van Morrison to name but two) while at work on the Firehouse-Goldenvoice Series, it’s been a busy year!

Little did we know what a cool year we would have at the Firehouse in 2009. When Chris Shaw introduced us to his landlord Victor Hanson – who was daring enough to rent to us – Chris set us up and we got the new Firehouse studio. We began to call it Hangar 18, the secret military installation in Dayton, Ohio (my hometown) where alien technology is reverse engineered.

After our awesome trip to the United Kingdom in 2008 – organized by the genius of Marc Malakie, founder of Station 4 Gallery, his impeccable site for art prints produced by the Firehouse crew – including the great Emory Douglas – we set to work on the idea of this Series.

The Firehouse-Goldenvoice Series has also brought out the best in Firehouse; the best in me as well, my artwork, and I hope, brought many new faces here to check out my new designs.

The Firehouse-Goldenvoice Series has also brought out the best in all of the fine poster artists who have been invited to take this crazy ride with me and Ron Don. Thanks to everyone included in the series thus far:

Chuck Sperry • Ron Donovan • Malleus (IT) • Dave Hunter • Alexandra Fischer • Chris Shaw • Dennis Loren • Martin Bedford (UK) • Aaron Farmer • Reuben Rude • Gregg Gordon • Jeff Ross • John Howard • Alan Hynes • Frank Zio • Zoltron • Mike King • Scott Johnson

Thanks to David Lefkowitz of Goldenvoice Presents for inviting Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company to produce this poster series, and for having the vision to know it was the right thing at the right time. Mass props and forever indebted and thankful to Doug Dashiell, the Production Manager of the Warfield, who showed David what was possible to do in silkscreen and brought the idea to his attention. In short, Doug put it all together by changing hearts and minds at Goldenvoice.

Doug, armed with his mighty poster collection, enthusiasm and knowledge of silkscreened posters, pushed the idea. All that was left for David and Firehouse was to just do it.

We have been fortunate to show this series in quite a few exhibits in the last year including:

TRPS Festival of Posters • San Francisco 2008

Art of Musical Maintanance • Portland 2008

Lucky 13 • Alameda 2008

Varnish Fine Art • San Francisco 2009

Ogilvy West • San Francisco 2009

TRPS Rock Art By The Bay • San Francisco 2009

The Best of The East Bay • Oakland Museum 2009

Lucky 13 • Alameda 2009

Rock Art Revulsion • Sacramento 2009

And soon TRPS Festival of Posters • San Francisco 2009

There have been quite a few Poster of the Week awards on Expressobeans – that makes me proud – thanks for everyones’ support! There have been many emergency runs to the paper and ink suppliers, thanks to George Gamboa (KAW!) and Stephen Abramson.

Thanks to the Firehouse buddy-studio Political Gridlock run by Jon-Paul Bail has been a constant source of creativity, ideas (and emergency ink!) at the Firehouse – without JP no cool graffiti, no political compass and no fun!

And many kind thanks to Lulu Ehrhard, one of the very best printers in the Bay Area.

What would a workday at Firehouse be like without a visit from JC Hall of Ideal Posters with his daughter Anjelica along for the ride, who has supported us through many years and made “Bowlio” an international silkscreen superstar; Or without a neighborly visit from Flipper Ted (the band not a poster dealer). And thanks to Chela from PsPrint for the offsets and friendly break from work.

Many thanks and a great big shout out to Nick Cernak who created Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company’s first fully functional website, Hangar 18, and gave me the foundation and design for this site you are reading right here.

Sometimes the Firehouse seems like a cast of characters from a movie – thanks to Merle Becker for committing some of this to film in her brilliant documentary, “American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art,” which came out last year while all this was going down.

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On this occasion, Firehouse-Goldenvoice’s first anniversary, I thought it would be cool to revisit my Mogwai poster, and move it here to my new site – begin to move all the posters I’ve done for the Series here – little by little.

Also supplies are getting mighty low on most of my Firehouse-Goldenvoice Series posters from the last year and thought it best to move them here while I still have some to show.

Here’s some posters included in my updated posts:

• English Beat

• Phoenix

• Neko Case

• Mogwai

Rock the Streets

American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art - Movie Poster

The Rise of American Rock Poster Art

Chuck Sperry and Ron Donovan of The Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company have been presenting an overview of their most recent hand printed silkscreen poster work at Ogilvy in San Francisco.

• The Eric Clapton series of ten posters – most recently for two internationally famous venues: Budokan, Tokyo & The Royal Albert Hall, London.
• The Firehouse Goldenvoice series #1 – 40 – Rock art posters produced by The Firehouse for The Warfield and Regency Grand Ballroom from September 2008 through June 2009.
• Original mixed media & installation pieces
• American Artifact movie pre-release film trailer featuring The Firehouse. The American Artifact world premiere will be June 20, 2009 at The Red Vic Theater on Haight Street, San Francisco. Visit americanartifactmovie.com for complete screening & ticket information.

Original run: June 4 to August 4, 2009

Show has been extended through October 2009

Enjoy the rare opportunity to visit ad agency Ogilvy’s art gallery, usually only seen by employees and clients. Rather than adorn it’s walls with traditional corporate-approved artwork, the creative forces at the agency have commissioned a who’s who of pop-artists to adorn their hallways with challenging new art.

Ogilvy
111 Sutter Street
10th Floor
SF, CA 94104

I was working late last night finishing two posters for the Friday and Saturday concerts at the Warfield featuring Gov’t Mule; Dave Hunter and I each designed a poster and printed them together as a two-up (more news on that poster soon!). That’s when I got the news that my Phoenix Poster had won Expresso Beans Poster of the Week.

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Dave was taking photos of the Gov’t Mule two-up poster with his iphone to send a progress report to Ron Donovan who is out in Hawaii on a family visit. Dave suddenly got a text message from George Gamboa and said, “Dude! Phoenix just got Poster of the Week.”

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Thanks everyone! That’s awesome news – your continued support keeps the presses happily running over at Hangar 18.

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Here’s a link to my original post for my Phoenix poster with ordering information

The Malleus posters have arrived, and have been locked away in the dungeon until TRPS.

This coming September will mark the first year of the Firehouse-Goldenvoice Poster Series; it looks like the Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company will reach 60 posters by then! (I’ll post a full breakdown on the first year of The Firehouse Goldenvoice Series in September.)

If you break that down, it’s more than one poster a week. That’s just for Goldenvoice shows at The Warfield and Regency Theaters in San Francisco.

Also this year there were two large editions of Eric Clapton posters to add to Firehouse’s Eric Clapton Series.

Add to that designs I make for other events (that I print too), designs for books, illustrations and comics, and I won’t leave out movie posters, like American Artifact; you’re talking about a lot of work!

It’s been a spectacular year. But where does that fit into The Grand Scheme of Things…

… After all that it was time to bug out for the open desert and gain a little perspective (see – that’s me – below).

So my girlfriend Nancy and I headed out for a week-long roadtrip to the American Southwest. The idea was to take the road-less-travelled, keep to the two-lane roads and see some big wide open desert. Destination: Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Southwest Utah with an excursion to Antelope Canyon in North Central Arizona in the Navajo Nation where we would take a Navajo Guided tour of the canyon.

First day, we stopped in Gold Country 4 hours east of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where we stayed in Sonora, California at the Sonora Inn. The Sonora Inn was built at the main intersection of Sonora in the 1890′s by Italian entrepreneurs, and boasts the oldest elevator in California, which Nancy and I rode because we’re thrill-seekers. We dropped our bags and ate at the Diamondback Grill, which was so good we ate there on the way back too! The Sonora Inn also has a brilliant second-story pool with a beautiful view of Sonora’s old city center.

Second day, headed out of Sonora to go to Yosemite. On the way, we stopped in Groveland, California where Chris Shaw, the brilliant Fillmore poster artist, has painted the whole downtown – he’s decorated the entire outside of the Iron Door the Oldest Saloon in California – the trading post, general store, ice cream shop, and on and on. It’s like Chris Shaw World, and I love Chris’ work!, so we stopped and took a lot of pictures. Here’s some Wild West Chris Shaw work:

Yosemite was packed with people. We found a few private spots to stop and wade in the Merced River. We left pretty quick, but snapped this on the way out.

Picked up speed as we headed out over the Nevada desert to Tonopah, Nevada …

… where we climbed over the fence of the Mining Museum at midnight, and star gazed.

Tonopah Test Range is just to the south of the city and lord knows what goes on in there.

But here’s a few shots of the area.

Also Nancy and I started to collect sage and cedar from the desert which makes for some excellent incense and has a purifying scent!

Stopped in Rachel, Nevada at The Little A’Le’Inn on the edge of the Nellis Military Reserve, gateway to infamous Area 51. Ordered a coffee and an excellent homemade apple pie made by the owners of the A’Le’Inn, Pat and Connie; the pie was delish!

Nancy and I met Pat and her husband 14 years ago, when we went out to Area 51, and camped in the adjacent Tickapoo Valley and hiked to the frontier of Area 51 to see the “non-existent” base.  Nancy and I later wrote an article for San Francisco’s Filth Magazine about the secret base where it was rumored there were tests of incredibly advanced alien technology. We scooped Larry King, who arrived the day we left, to do one of the first ever network television reports on Area 51. At any rate, we had a great two-and-a-half hour visit with Connie (Pat’s daughter), Connie’s son, and a new resident to Rachel, Kurt, who told us a lot of great stories, including one story, where, he said, he has seen several drone-like crafts flying out of Area 51 at supersonic speed and negotiating right angled turns without slowing down. Nancy and I snapped this shot at the Black Mail box which marks the personnel entrance, a 50 mile long “dirt super-highway,” to Area 51.

Stopped for gas in Caliente, Nevada – temperature 112 degrees – and snapped a quickie.

Made it to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Utah by 3:30pm: to set up camp and take a hike into the pink sand dunes and make sand angels.

The night sky here was absolutely pitch black and amazing! The Milky Way was very clear and distinct, because this region of the United States has the very least light pollution in the whole country. Bottle of California wine and lots of shooting stars. Heaven.

Drove to Zion National Park the next day where even the road is pink, and Nancy dressed to match. We hiked down a dry riverbed. We stopped after for some delicious bumbleberry pie. Don’t ask, it’s just good.

That day, I had managed to get up at dawn at Coral Pink Sand Dunes and made a tolerably good pot of strong coffee with my rocket-fuel brewer from home.

So I was revved to drive to Hurricane, Utah where we checked in at noon at the Motel 6 which had an excellent pool, and only three other guests in the whole place.

We swam in the 120 degree heat, and after I called ahead to Page, Arizona in the Navajo Nation to reserve a spot on the Antelope Canyon Tour we planned to take the next day. Then Nancy and I took in “District 9″ at the Hurricane movie theater. Next day we bee-lined to Page to meet our Navajo Guide, Tyra, who was a really cool Arizona State University student working her way through school with a bitchin’ summer job, a great sense of humor and a steady grip on the wheel.

Tyra drove us out to Upper Antelope Canyon in one of these jalopies while we sat in back catching air about once every 30 seconds.

We drove 20 minutes up a dry river bed to the entrance of Antelope Canyon, which has been formed over millenia by rushing washouts that flood through the sandstone there. It’s under Navajo Tribal protection because it’s holy ground. The atmosphere inside is indescribable. Here’s some pictures (Tyra took some of these – there I told you I’d credit you Tyra!):

The entrance and inside

Navajo Tears

The Bear

Many thanks to Antelope Canyon Tours for a great memory, your open hearts and for the lovely white sage smudge stick which will remind me of you and the great time you showed me.

We drove to Las Vegas, home of Charles Bock author of Beautiful Children (which I did the cover for), and all the beautiful children were rompin’ that evening! All I remember is winning about $500, and getting out early in the morning. Vegas, we’ll be back! This trip was about the great outdoors, sorry. Love ya, Vegas, babe.

Back to California, over Hwy. 108 and some of the most rugged terrain in all of the Western US. Even bumped into some Federales; seems the US Marines are doing some training for the next wave of the War in Afghanistan. ‘Nuff said. US 108, the road is rough, weaving, windy, without guardrails, and narrows in several places to one lane, so you gotta love that! My little Toyota Yaris had “had it” by the time we rolled back down into Sonora by dusk. It was dinner time, the Diamondback Grill has the one of the best caramel apple pies west of the Mississippi, a big selection of wine, and – what-the-hey, the Sonora Inn has a great big cool swimming pool. We stayed another night, ate, swam and headed back home to San Francisco in the morning.

Ready for the next batch of posters? YES!