Soundgarden, Mastodon at Verizon Theatre Grand Prairie, Texas
18 x 33
4 colors on archival cream paper
When I heard that the Washington Monument had gotten damaged by the strange but ominous earthquake that shook Washington DC right before the Occupy Movement shook the country – I got to thinking about poor George W. I imagined Mr. Washington, evicted from his condemned monument, homeless and without anywhere to turn. Join the ever growing club, GW.
Anthrax, Testament, Death Angel, Chimaira at the Warfield
October 23, 2011
Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster Series No. 145
18 x 26
Edition of 125
3 colors (with very heavy green silver metallic) on archival cream paper
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT – Thank You!
The Rock Poster Society, Festival of Rock Posters, 2011
18 x 33
Edition of 100
2 colors on dark green linen paper
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT – Thank You!
Primus Santa Barbara, California
Friday, October 21, 2011
17.75 x 25.25
Edition of 200
3 colors on archival white paper
Signed and Numbered
SOLD OUT – Thank You!
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I drew my Primus design the first thing in the morning the day I arrived in Paris, literally waking up after San Francisco’s Rock Poster Society’s Festival of Posters, in France, a little stunned, drinking morning coffee with my friends Léna Balacco who owns Sésame where I had my Paris poster show last Thursday. I started drawing right away laughing and rapping with Léna and husband Charles and their daughter Elvis, my god-daughter. Elvis likes dinosaurs and mythical monsters – so I drew this poster for her on a scrap of paper.
My good friend and former apprentice from the Beaux Arts, Alexandre d’Huy (who printed with me in Milan when I worked there) came over as I finished the drawing and color seps. Alex handed me a motorcycle helmet, and I hopped on the back of his Vespa and we flew across Paris to the silkscreen film-positive maker (a place with thousands of 1950s and 60s French movie posters hanging all over the walls) and made poster film separations. We buzzed south through Paris along the river on his Vespa to his studio in Vitry-en-Seine, a commie town with PCF posters everywhere, and I joked at a stoplight that we should use red, yellow and black like the commie posters pasted all around us, because you just can’t go wrong with that color scheme. Here’s a few photos of Alex and me printing in his secret graffiti lab in Paris.
Alex and I left the posters to dry and went to a little funk club called Les Oubliettes near Notre Dame on the Left Bank and climbed down a steep stone stair case to the catacomb cellar where Hemingway listened to jazz in the 1920’s, and we drank a couple beers in celebration. My San Francisco friend Jorge Gamboa put it nicely, “Chuck came outta cartooning. He hangs out with ultra uber wierdo French cartoonists in France. Him doin’ this in France makes sense. I like it. Primus is a goofy band anyway.”
Primus once called their music psychedelic polka. I was feeling the absurdity of that. Check this out – I flew from San Francisco to Paris to make a poster for a band from San Francisco – and then overnighted the poster back to California the next day – now THAT is goofy!
Y’all were ridiculously cool today. Artists, fans of rock posters and rockers one and all – well – I for one had a very fun day. Thank you!
Chuck Sperry lives in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, where he’s made his particular style of rock poster designs for over 20 years. He operates Hangar 18, a silkscreen print studio, located in Oakland. Learn More…
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