Gig Posters Volume 2: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century

By Clay Hayes

Readers gave the first Gig Posters anthology a standing ovation—so for your viewing pleasure, here’s one heck of an encore: 700 more incredible posters from the archives of GigPosters.com, the Internet’s premier destination for concert poster art. It’s a mad jam of illustration and photography, collage and typography, bringing the contemporary music scene to exciting visual life for a generation of fans who’ve grown up in the post-album-art era.

Gig Posters Volume 2 showcases bold artistic riffing by a hundred of today’s most talented designers, including David V. D’Andrea, Peter Cardoso, Graham Pilling, Tyler Stout, Marq Spusta, and Nashville’s legendary Hatch Show Print. You’ll peek inside their portfolios and hear the backstage stories of how these incredible art-and-music creations came to be.

You’ll also find 101 perforated and ready-to-frame posters promoting the most dynamic musical acts of the twenty-first century, from the Black Keys, Flight of the Conchords, Ice-T, and My Morning Jacket to Norah Jones, the Avett Brothers, Coheed & Cambria, and many, many more.

It’s an awesome compendium of pop-art-history in the making—and it’s also just what the walls of your apartment or office have been waiting for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quirk Books
• Release date: Feb 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781594749971

Book preview

Bands

Introduction

It is with great pleasure that we present Gig Posters: Volume 2, featuring close to 700 incredible live-music posters from 101 of the most popular and prolific designers working today.

These amazing works of art draw inspiration from the music and imagery of the performers they represent—but the designers take things further than that, pouring their hearts into crafting original, fantastic combinations of illustration, photography, and typography. The result is some truly unique art as well as some highly collectible memorabilia.

Most gig posters you see out in the world are limited-edition screenprints that only end up in the hands of the few. Increasingly, we see gig posters framed in galleries and museums as well as hanging in restaurants, stores, and homes. Collectors are increasing in number every year, and the artistic range of the posters keeps growing. Now, this book (along with Volume 1) makes it possible for every music and art lover to be a part of this exciting and ever-evolving scene.

For more than a decade, GigPosters.​com has been the largest living archive of this unique art form, showcasing more than 130,000 posters from over 10,000 designers around the world. The community has grown exponentially, and its future is bright. I am very proud to play a role in gathering and sharing these amazing works of art—and I hope you enjoy not only the posters themselves, but the knowledge that somewhere, right now, these designers are hard at work creating many more!

—Clay Hayes, Founder

GigPosters.​com

Adam Pobiak

Website: www.​pobiak.​com

Location: London, England (originally Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

Education: B.A. in art history and psychology, Oberlin College

Why do you design gig posters? Much of my work time is devoted to corporate stuff and web design. Posters are my chance to have tons of fun designing and drawing and doing essentially anything I want. It’s also great to get into the studio and get covered in ink and have a stack of real things when I’m done—it brings me a satisfaction I don’t really get from digital design.

Influences: Growing up in Pittsburgh had a big impact. It has several good art schools, and there were a ton of really good bands around when I was there. So there was a constant flow of interesting stuff going on—and the city has a pretty great history in general. Also, I love all the old psychedelic posters, and the silkscreen process itself has influenced my work quite a bit. John Pearson, who taught me how to print, once said something like, If it looks like it was mass produced, then why go through all the trouble of printing it by hand?

Remarks: I owe a lot to the guys from the band Modey Lemon—my whole poster career, essentially. They’re good friends of mine from home, and the first poster I ever screenprinted was for them. They are also the ones who forced me out of a two- to three-year screenprinting hiatus after my move to London—they essentially harassed me enough to finally get off my ass and get myself a studio to make a European tour poster for them in 2008, and the rest is history. Thanks, guys.

Grails, London, England, 2010. Screenprint on metallic silver paper, 16.5 x 23.4 in (42 x 60 cm), edition of 80.

The Black Keys, European tour, 2008. Screenprint, 16.5 x 23.4 in (42 x 60 cm), edition of 400.

Dead Meadow, London, England, 2010. Medium: Screenprint, 16.5 x 23.4 in (42 x 60 cm), edition of 80.

The Flaming Lips, London, England, 2009. Screenprint, 16.5 x 23.4 in (42 x 60 cm), edition of 200.

Sunn O)))/Om, London, England, 2009. Screenprint, 16.5 x 23.4 in (42 x 60 cm), edition of 150.

The Decemberists, London, England, 2009. Screenprint, 16.5 x 23.4 in (42 x 60 cm), edition of 250.

Temper Trap, London, England, 2010. Screenprint on metallic silver paper, 15.5 x 21.4 in (39 x 54 cm), edition of 250.

Alan Hynes

Website: www.​alanhynes.​com

Location: San Francisco, California

Education: Visual communication, College of Marketing & Design, Dublin; Blackrock College, Dublin

When did you start making gig posters? Around 2000

Influences: Fruit stickers, airline tags, postal forms, credit cards, cereal boxes, bus tickets, train tickets, receipts, clothing labels, price tags, cut paper, torn paper, found paper, printed paper, ink, ink rollers, ink blots, ink drips, rubber stamps, china markers, collage, assemblage, decoupage, Letraset, Helvetica, Futura, Compacta, Ivan Chermayeff, Alan Fletcher, Charley Harper, Winston Smith, Bruno Munari, Paul Rand, smokers, cigarette packages, cigars, cigar labels, cats, moths, fish, robots, records, record covers, guitars, heavy metal, punk rock, Hüsker Dü, Warren Zevon, Slayer, King Diamond, Stephen King, My Left Foot, Raging Bull, boxing, boxers, brawlers, fighters, pubs, bars, beermats, beer labels, Guinness, Dublin, San Francisco, sidewalks, streets, skateboarding, skateboards, skateboarders, Hensley, Cardiel, Vans, advertising, ads, commercials, symbols, signs, stickers, slogans, logos, lampposts, and billboards.

Preferred medium/method: As a graphic designer, my approach is pretty consistent—I generally let the problem guide the solution. For a concert poster I ultimately want to combine the band vibe with the music style and possibly the location or venue to create a visually exciting image appropriate for the fans at the show and one that makes sense in relation to the band. I try to make most of the necessary poster elements by hand using cut paper, ink rollers, pencils, ink blots—pretty much anything I can create a shape or interesting mark with. I use the computer only for resizing elements, building the poster, and adding type. I don’t work in any particular style but will look at a band’s existing imagery—record covers, T-shirts, etc.—and possibly take a style cue from there, be it as simple as a dominant color scheme or typeface choice. Working this way leaves me a lot of room for a variety of solutions and doesn’t tie me down to a repetitive visual style, something I feel would be a severe handicap.

Queens Of The Stone Age, Dublin, Ireland, 2008. Screenprint, 18 x 24 in (46 x 61 cm), edition of 110.

Bob Mould, San Francisco CA, 2009. Screenprint, 17.5 x 23 in (44 x 58 cm), edition of 100.

The Dead Weather, Orlando FL, 2010. Screenprint, 19 x 25 in (48 x 64 cm), edition of 190.

Witch, New Jersey, NJ, 2009. Screenprint, 19 x 25 in (48 x 64 cm), edition of 75.

Mudhoney, New York City, NY, 2008. Screenprint, 19 x 25 in (48 x 64 cm), edition of 60.

The Jesus Lizard, San Diego, CA, 2009. Screenprint, 19 x 25 in (48 x 64 cm), edition of 110.

Alana Bailey

Website: www.​alanabai​leybrand.​com

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Education: SAIC-Chicago

When did you start making gig posters? 2004

Why do you choose to design gig posters? My main focus in school was screenprinting, and because Chicago has such a strong poster culture, the obvious next step after I graduated was to continue with that medium. While in school I interned for a year at the Bird Machine, where I got to work closely with Jay Ryan and Mat Daly, and I also got to meet many other awesome Chicago poster makers. I was stoked because before I knew who Ryan and Daly were, I’d seen their work around and always thought it was super rad and that they had incredible techniques. School and the internship ended, I stuck to what I liked and knew how to do, and that’s basically where I am now: I am a screenprinter. I want people to have nice-looking posters for their shows, and I hate printing T-shirts.

Influences: National Geographic magazines, the bands I work for, the 1960s and ’70s, figure studies.

Preferred medium/method: My final films are usually about 95 to 100 percent rubylith. I start with a drawing, and if necessary I scan it and size it in Photoshop, transfer it full size to the paper I’ll be printing on, and draw out the text. I then cut the linework and subsequent layers out of rubylith; I’ve always enjoyed cutting things out with X-acto knives, so I was thrilled when I discovered the material. Years later, I still prefer it because it’s clean and I don’t have to go to the copy shop to get started on my poster.

Neko Case, Chicago, IL, 2008. Screenprint, 20 x 26 in (51 x 66 cm), edition of 165.

Mucca Pazza, Chicago, IL, 2007. Screenprint, 12.5 x 19 in (32 x 48 cm), edition of 100.

Palliard, Chicago, IL, 2008. Screenprint, 19 x 25 in (48 x 64 cm), edition of 100.

Indian, Chicago, IL, 2007. Screenprint, 9 x 22.5 in (23 x 57 cm), edition of 69.

Yakuza, Chicago, IL, 2008. Screenprint, 9.5 x 25 in (24 x 64 cm), edition of 55.

Altieri Art

Website: www.​altieriart.​com

Location: Mohnton, Pennsylvania

Education: B.F.A. in communication design, Kutztown University

When did you start making gig posters? Back in the late 1980s I threw together a couple flyers and used the library’s Xerox machine to make copies; $10 in dimes gave me 100 flyers. My first color gig poster was in 1994. That would be my first and last attempt at screenprinting until 2003.

Influences: Humor is the biggest influence on my designs. I was the class clown and a complete Mad magazine geek in my younger years, and my posters reflect that part of my personality. Everyday life is also a great source for ideas; if you sit back and think about some of the things that happen during the course of your day, a poster idea might be in there somewhere. The pop culture of my youth does turn up in a lot of my work, but I find that, as I get older, fewer people understand the references.

Preferred medium/method: Most of my drawing I do on a Wacom monitor—first a simple sketch in pencil, then the rest on the computer. I’ve been screenprinting most of my work since 2003, but sometimes I just need to get posters to the venue fast, so I print them out on a high-quality laser printer. As far as the creative process goes, I brainstorm until an idea sticks. I might go through two or three ideas until I’m happy; sometimes I’m halfway through executing an idea and a better one presents itself, so I start over. If I need a photograph, I set it up and take it myself.

Cattle Decapitation, Allentown, PA, 2009. Screenprint, 12 x 18 in (31 x 46 cm).

Evil Beaver, Reading, PA, 2006. Screenprint, 17 x 23 in (43 x 58 cm), edition of 34.

Mudhoney, Lancaster, PA, 2008. Offset print, 12 x 18 in (31 x 46 cm), edition of 100.

Jucifer, Allentown, PA, 2008. Screenprint.

Meatmen, Hamtramck, MI, 2008. Screenprint, 26 x 20 in (66 x 51), edition of 50.

Ames Bros

Designers: Coby Schultz and Barry Ament

Website: www.​amesbros.​com

Location: Seattle, Washington

Education: Montana State University

When did you start making gig posters? In 1993.

Why do you design gig posters? Love of the game and a chance to put food on the table.

Influences: Candy wrappers, cereal boxes, comic books, forest creatures, farm equipment, humor, pop art, old encyclopedias, Mad magazine, Looney Tunes, music, ice cream, beer, sports, Sears catalogs, family, mythology, religion, geography, monobrows, buck teeth, and most other things.

Preferred medium/method: Serigraphy.

Remarks: We’ve been working with and producing art for Pearl Jam for close to 20 years. It began out of our mutual enjoyment of screenprinted rock posters and cool design and really hasn’t changed since. We both, Pearl Jam and Ames Bros, truly enjoy every part of the process, especially the end product.

That said, we try not to get too proud of one particular poster. Seems that the second we do, the critics blast it to pieces. Our skin is thick and leathery now.

Linkin Park, New York, NY, 2008. Screenprint, 20 x 26 in (51 x 66 cm), edition of 100.

The Decemberists, Seattle, WA, 2008. Screenprint, 19 x 26 in (48 x 66 cm), edition of 100

Linkin Park, Boston, MA, 2008. Screenprint, 17.75 x 26 in (45 x 66 cm), edition of 100.

Lollapalooza, Chicago, IL, 2007. Screenprint, 16.5 x 26 (42 x 66 cm), edition of 250.

Pearl Jam/Tenacious D/Dave Matthews Band, San Francisco, CA, 2009. Screenprint, 11.5 x 23 in (29 x 58 cm), edition of 200.

Muse, Seattle, WA, 2004. Screenprint, 11.5 x 23 in (29 x 58 cm), edition of 75.

The Futureheads, Seattle, WA, 2004. Screenprint, 18.5 x 24 in (47 x 61 cm), edition of 100.

Anville

Website: www.​anville.​net

Location: Houston, Texas

Education: The Art Institute of Houston

When did you start