by Morgan Davis
I remember the first poster I stole pretty clearly. I was living in Houston and was finally considered old enough to be allowed to go to concerts with friends instead of close adult supervision. My first real “show” was at Fitzgerald’s, a divey punk bar with legit history and the band was called Groceries, a stupid name they later changed to Bring Back the Guns, which still pales in comparison to their original moniker Gandhi in Vegas. I convinced my friends to drive out there with me because the Houston Press had written up Groceries and they seemed fascinating (they were, they became my favorite Houston band, but more on that some other time). It doesn’t matter for the context of this piece, but that was about as great a first “show” as you can have, with Groceries displaying some weirdo strand of indie in support of out of towners El Gato (a Denton group that sounded like the more fun, earlier era of Flaming Lips) and Pink Noise (a Louisiana band with a strong but charming Blue Album fixation). I wanted to remember it, so I ripped one of the posters Groceries’ Matt Brownlie made for the event off the wall, and I haven’t stopped obsessing over band posters ever since.
That first one was pretty simple, just some blurry family photo Matt had blown up of a kid wearing a makeshift cape, exploring a backyard jungle. But in the time sense I’ve grown to appreciate a wider range of poster art, moving from the sloppy DIY aesthetic of the punk sphere to the minimalist modern chic Transmission in particular likes to use here in Austin to the psychedelic designs that arguably first made people consider poster art to be, well, art. It’s this latter scene that the new book Homegrown: Austin Music Posters 1967 to 1982 and for good reason: Austin basically invented that style. Austin emigrant Chet Helms and his Family Dog collective may have taken that style out to San Francisco and popularized it there, but Helms was an Austin native, who graduated from UT and ran with Janis Joplin. Editor Alan Schaefer has curated Homegrown as a sampler of Austin poster history, from that original psych era right up to Austin’s punk heyday, and while he would probably refuse to say it’s a definitive collection, Homegrown is a truly immersive experience that does more than simply connect the dots from the Family Dog to punk, it makes a case for better preserving this art form that seems dangerously close to dying off today.
Paired with music journalist Joe Nick Patoski and Nels Jacobson, better known as the Austin designer “Jagmo,” Schaefer not only collects posters from some of Austin’s most prolific and fanciful eras but places it within a smart historical context. While some of what is on display has cycled back to being en vogue, like Gilbert Shelton’s heavy psych material for the original Vulcan Gas Company or Jim Harter’s collage works or even Bill Harum’s retro modernism, a significant chunk of the material is a sharp contrast to today’s styles. Danny Garrett’s blues portraits helped create the Antone’s aesthetic, and they also function today as valuable artifacts, putting blues greats like Muddy Waters and the late B.B. King on the same level as the early presidents whose images we mostly know through similar drawings. Garrett is quoted in the book as saying that Clifford Antone “absolute prescribed that every poster be a portrait,” striving for “respectful portraits that were free of exaggeration or comic touches.” Garrett even stated that they would always try to get more relaxed, non-publicity still photos, often relying on local photographer Burton Wilson to help with this. The result is a collection of portraits that may not fit what we currently expect from concert posters but which preserve their subjects with energy and vitality rather than the expected staid historical artifacts.
Homegrown also functions as an impressive history of Austin’s most important designers, handily laying out their own evolution and deviations. Jim Franklin, who is credited as kicking off that portrait style’s renaissance, is well-represented in the book but his style is ever shifting, unified by his inhuman ability to be at the catalyst of so many Austin trademarks. Franklin not only ushered in the portrait boom, he’s also recognized as the artist who made the armadillo the symbol of Austin (a tradition that of course carries on to our own publication). Of course, Franklin’s compatriot Gilbert Shelton is equally important in the development of an Austin style, from his underground comix work with The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers to the psych material that has made such an impression on the Black Angels-led Austin neu-psych scene to his influence on later Austin underground comix-affiliated poster artists like Jaxon. Both artists also symbolize the streak of collaboration and community that solidified the Austin poster art community, something which seems to be nearing a comeback today with the rise of Recspec and other art collectives.
Where Homegrown could use a bit more depth is in the later years of its collection, as the punk posters gathered seem to be more limited. Guy Joke and Noxx stand out with their more experimental and abstract styles (Juke’s is even pegged as “cubist bepop” by peer Michael Priest), and Cam King and Randy “Biscuit” Turner pop up with looser, scrappier aesthetics, but there is less of a narrative in the punk section than in the book’s ’60s and early ’70s material. That could be because less of the posters have survived or ::fingers crossed:: it could mean that Homegrown has a sequel on the way and it will contain more work from the ’80s on up to today. Nonetheless, Austinites with even a remote interest in the city’s artistic and musical history will find plenty to love in Homegrown‘s pages. This isn’t a stuffy museum piece, it’s a vibrant collection containing work that still seems as lively and vital today as it must have when it was first glimpsed.
Homegrown: Austin Music Posters 1967 to 1982 is available now from UT Press and this Sunday, May 31st, Alan Schaefer will be signing copies of the book at Antone’s Records starting at 3 pm.
Morgan Davis sells bootleg queso on the streets of Austin in order to fund Loser City, the multimedia collective he co-runs. When he isn’t doing that, he plays drums for Denise and gets complimented and/or threatened by Austin’s musical community for stuff he writes at Ovrld, which he is the Managing Editor of.