Matrix VERY early poster feat. Sopwith Camel on April 26, 1966 * Very Rare

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Matrix VERY early poster feat. Sopwith Camel on April 26, 1966 * Very Rare:
$1250.00

About the Poster

Offered here is a very early and very rare poster at the Matrix in San Francisco featuring Sopwith Camel on April 26, 1966.

This poster is so rare that, not only have I never seen another one, but find virtually no information about it on the internet. I can’t even identify the artist. I have recently received communication by an er who met Terry MacNeil who was co-creator, writer, and lead guitarist for Sopwith Camel. Terry MacNeil was also the graphic artist for this poster.

I therefore have no idea what this poster’s value is. Anyone having knowledge on this poster, I would greatly appreciate your sharing with me.

Moscoso used the bi-plane image of a “Sopwith Camel” for the first performance by the group at the Matrix (this poster is for their second appearance) and the group used the image as their logo from then on.

Sopwith Camel (the musical group) formed in San Francisco in 1965 and were the second S.F. band to get signed to a major label, and the first with a Top 40 hit in \"Hello Hello.\" Their sound more resembled that of The Lovin\' Spoonful than the local psychedelic rock of the area, having shared the same producer and label. Their second record, The Miraculous Hump Returns from the Moon, was released in 1973 but the group broke up soon after, never repeating success of their first album.

Sopwith Camel was the second San Francisco band to be signed by a major record company, right after Jefferson Airplane and before the Grateful Dead. The band was together and it was time to choose a name. Peter just happened to have one available. \"A while earlier, I had been living at Chet Helms\' house. He had a band that he was trying to launch, and we all came up with names for it. My idea was Sopwith Camel. Everybody laughed at me; they thought it was trite and dumb. Their band was finally named Big Brother and the Holding Company. Ours became the Sopwith Camel.\"

The Sopwith Camel (the fighter airplane) was a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter introduced on the Western Front in 1917. Manufactured by Sopwith Aviation Company, it had a short-coupled fuselage, heavy, powerful rotary engine, and concentrated fire from twin synchronized machine guns. Though difficult to handle, to an experienced pilot it provided unmatched maneuverability. A superlative fighter, the Camel was credited with shooting down 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter of the war. It also served as a ground-attack aircraft, especially near the end of the conflict, when it was outclassed in the air-to-air role by newer fighters.

This poster is in excellent condition. I hesitate to identify any poster as “mint” as someone will surely take a magnifying glass and find a spec; although this one looks as pristine as possible. I can assure you though that it as good as they were on the day of production. The print quality colors are very strong.

If you check out my other posters, you will find condition to be a recurring them in my listings. I collected only the best.

Pictures are the best description on the condition of this poster. I have taken many and will provide more upon request.

Date of Performance: April 26, 1966

I have gone through great lengths to insure that my posters have been maintained using only archival materials. I have preserved them on acid free paper mounted by protective corners stored flat in binders. On most of the photos of posters that I will be offering you may notice these corner protectors.

Shipping Info :

To best insure their safe shipping I will therefore recommend usingFedex/UPS tomail this poster flat. Should you want a cheaper alternative and are willing to accept responsibility, please contact me.

I know that many sellers roll the posters into a container which is much cheaper but may lead to slight damage of wrinkling and handling issues which, due to my view of these being not only pieces or art but historical offerings, I hesitate to do.

But if you prefer the roll up method, the poster will be sent in a4\" PVC tube via USPS Priority Mail.

Domestic Shipping and handling policy:

2 Options available :

1. Shipping, Insurance and Handling fee (plus signature confirmation for items $250 and above)for poster roll up in a4\" PVCtube method via USPS Priority Mail - $36.Additional posters will be free of charge .

2. Shipping, Insurance and Handlingfee (plus signature confirmation for items $250 and above) for shipping poster flat within the 48 contiguous USvia Fedex/UPS Ground - $75.

There will be a surcharge of $15 for shipping flat to Hawaii/Alaska.

Additional unframed posters will be free of shipping charge.

If you purchase multiple posters, please wait for the invoice reflecting the shipping discount.

International Buyers – Please Note: Import duties, taxes, international shipping costs chargedby \'s Global Shipping Programare not included in the item price & the domestic shipping cost to \'s U.S. shipping center which will then be handling the international shipping portion. These additional charges are the buyer\'s responsibility. The shipping center will estimate the cost from the center to the buyer--including import charges. Please check with your country\'s customs office to determine what these additional costs will be prior to offerding or buying.

* * We areable to ship this item to international countries that are eligible under \'s Global Shipping Program (The delivery address must be a residence or street address, not a P.O. Box, FPO or APO address. (Exception: P.O. Box addresses in Canada are fine.)

List of eligible countries are : Africa,South United Kingdom.

We are not shipping internationally to countries not eligible under \'s Global Shipping programat this time.

*We do not accept any other form of payment other than PayPal.

I will be offering more Fillmore Posters in the weeks and months to follow.

** Returns are not accepted for this item unless there has been an error in posting.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need to see additional photos of the item and I will respond to the best of my knowledge.

The item(s) are from a smoke-free household.

Pictures are of the actual item being saleed.

The Matrix (club)

The Matrix, a renovated former pizza shop, was a nightclub in San Francisco from 1965 to 1972 and was one of the keys to what eventually became known as the \"San Francisco Sound\" in rock music. Located at 3138 Fillmore Street, The Matrix opened August 13, 1965 showcasing Jefferson Airplane which singer Marty Balin had put together as the club\'s \"house band.\" Marty had persuaded three limited partners to put up $3,000 apiece to finance the opening of The Matrix, giving them 75% ownership, while he retained 25% for creating and managing it.

About the seller

I lived in San Francisco from 1973 to 1993; the last several years in an apartment building on the eighth floor where I could literally drop a rock out of my window down to the Fillmore Auditorium. While living in San Francisco, I befriended Ben Friedman owner/operator of the Postermat located at 901 ColumbusAve one block north of the hustling Broadway nightlife and tourist attractions; the largest purveyor of psychedelic rock posters in the world at the time. Following his purchase of all Avalon posters from Chet Helms in 1969, Ben negotiated with Bill Graham to purchase all posters in Bill’s possession for $.50 each. Bill Graham thought that he was crazy asking “What do you plan to do with them” as the concerts were now over? Ben replied \"I buy them from you for 50 cents and sell them for adollar.\"

Ben and I spent hours over two decades talking about Fillmore posters and the artists, many of whom who drop into the store needing money and selling Ben some of their works. I was fortunate to meet many of them including Rick Griffin before his tragic motorcycle accident. Ben allowed me, and to the best of my knowledge only me, to actually sort through his stacks of Fillmore posters affording me the opportunity to purchase the most perfect. On rare occasion, after closing the store and feeding the resident rats (they actually learned Ben’s routine for closing the store and always feeding them before turning out the lights), Ben and I would go upstairs to his apartment; quite the experience. Ben had no lights upstairs with the only night light coming from the nearby nightclubs and restaurants. Ben had LOTS of cats that he fed with paper food plates that were scattered everywhere. Ben would allow me to forage through boxes of unorganized posters looking for oddities and rarities.

For certain posters, I had to ‘work’ Ben for months. I remember the rare Avalon FD 20 poster that he had hanging on his store wall for years that I wanted, but he didn’t want to sell it to me. Eventually, with great patience taking well over a year, I was able to obtain it. One day I was at the store working on Ben to get another rare poster that he kept in his upstairs apartment as he also didn’t want to sell this one to anyone. Again, with great patience, on this day he agreed to have his companion Blandina Farley go up to get it. As she was bringing it into the store, the Great Earthquake of 1987 hit; the name of the poster that I was purchasing was the Avalon poster FD 21 EARTHQUAKE featuring Bo Diddley. My fiancé had just arrived from out of country three days prior; it was quite a night.

I had made an offer to Ben to purchase about 15-20 posters at one time for $35 each but Blandina intervened and objected to this purchase saying that if he sold many of them at one time that he would quickly run out of these prestigious posters. \"He would never let you buy what you wanted to buy,\" said Paul Grushkin, author of \"The Art of Rock: Posters From Presley to Punk.\" \"He would let you buy three or four max. You\'d have to stand there for hours wheedling him to pull out what you were looking for. Hundreds of us used to be supplicants to thisguy.\" I was one of those hundreds.

I had the good fortune of personally meeting and obtaining signatures of artists Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelly, David Singer, Randy Tuten, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso and Lee Conklin. Eric King assisted me in obtaining the very hard to get signatures of Bonnie MacLean, ex-wife of Bill Graham, who wanted at the time to separate herself from her ex-husband and the entire Fillmore subject. Eric also helped me to obtain several very rare posters including a mint copy of BG 74. Eric King is the renowned expert on Fillmore posters.

I was able to befriend Stanley Mouse to the point where once a year we would have a dinner together. I visited his home and studio in Marin County where I purchased dozens of rare progression posters and other works of art; one of which now hangs over my bed. I was also able to visit Victor Moscoso’s studio where he was working on artwork celebrating the 25th anniversary of Woodstock that he was presenting to Time Magazine. The subject was the iconic bird sitting on the guitar neck; but now the bird was represented as a skeleton. For some reason Time did not select this piece for their cover? I was in the computer business and would trade computer graphic equipment with David Singer for rare posters (many of them non distributed double posters) and signatures. He was quite the soft-spoken gentleman who enjoyed telling me about the progression of his career which now included the exciting new graphic art opportunities with computers. I visited Randy Tuten in his beautiful Victorian home in San Francisco where I was also able to obtain many items and of course signatures. Wes Wilson came to my home and signed well over 60 posters; sharing many stories of how he was chosen by Bill Graham to do virtually all of the early posters as he was the only one that was able to design and print individual posters under the tremendously short time line of a poster a week. They eventually had money disagreements and separated for months.

I have dealt with all of the major dealers including Jacaeber Kastor, Dennis King, Eric King, Ben Friedman, Philip Cushway, Paul Getchell, Ed Walker, Debi Jacobson, Larry Marion, Denis Mosgofian (son of Tea Lautrec Litho Printing owner Levon Mosgofian), Robert Beerbohm, unfortunately Bob Metzler, and many others.

In what is now 40 plus years of collecting, I have assembled what I believe to be one of the finest collections of Fillmore and Avalon posters and handbills. While Jacaebor Kastor, Eric King and Paul Getchell have a more impressive overall collection of early rock and roll posters, I believe that for completeness, condition, and signatures, my Fillmore collection will compare to any. These posters have been maintained in archival books holding approximately 40 posters per binder. These binders are stored in a custom made solid oak cabinet with cocoa bola trim making them to also be what I believe is the most accessible and viewable collection of these historic pieces anywhere.

These posters were all collected by me between 1968 when I graduated from high school until 1993 when I moved from San Francisco. I have not purchased any since that time. This was a hobby of passion, for both rock and roll and the extremely unique and beautiful city of San Francisco where I was privileged to live for 20 years. Therefore, I have very mixed feelings about separating from this collection, but now that I am retired, it seems like a good time to evaluate.

For now, I am starting by selling some of the duplicate Fillmore posters which I will add on to monthly. At the same time, I am in the process of photographing each poster from my “complete set” of Fillmore posters documenting all authentic printed versions and re-verifying versions, condition, and signatures. This will take time so I will list below what I have completed now on this set and update this list in the future. I have no real idea what this complete collection is worth so I will have to figure out how to list it when the time comes. I have no intention to break up this complete set. As described, I have taken great pride and effort in caring for and storing this pieces of history and can assure you that I am offering some of the best condition posters available anywhere.

Bill Graham and San Francisco’s Fillmore West made significant contributions to the history of Rock and Roll in support of many performing artists including on regular basis; Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Bill Grahams ‘house band’ of Carlos Santana. And of course these historical posters giving us the Art of Rock!!!.

I thank you for your interest in looking at them and hope that should you purchase one that you will appreciate the uniqueness of the subject of the San Francisco Fillmore Rock and Roll experience.

Complete Fillmore Poster Set - Book 1

Bill Graham Memorial (Signed by R. Tuten), BG 1 (1st printing, handling marks on edges, no pinholes or creases), BG 1 (2nd printing, single pinhole in each corner, minor color fading), BG 1 (3rd printing in mint condition), BG 2 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 2 (2nd printing, has four very tiny pinholes – three of which are so small that they don’t show up on pictures), BG 2 (3rd copy signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 3 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 3 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 0 (1st printing signed by B. MacLean in pen in mint condition), BG 0 (Variant first printing signed by B. MacLean in pen in mint condition), BG 4 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in blue ink in excellent condition; very slight aging of white and one small pinhole in top corners only), BG 4 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 5 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pen in mint condition), BG 5 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 6 (1st printing – strong purple color - signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 6 (2nd printing – more reddish color - signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 7 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in excellent condition having slight wave on right border and pinholes in each corner), BG 7 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 8 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pen (pencil?) in excellent condition having very slight toning of white border and pinholes in top corners), BG 8 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pen in mint condition), BG 9 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pen in outstanding condition with one very small pinhole in each corner; very hard to see), BG 9 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in ink in mint condition), BG 10 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 10 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 11 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 11 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pen in mint condition), BG 12 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition with two very small brown spots in lower right corner), BG 12 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 13 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 13 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition with several very small brown spots in lower left corner and left border), BG 13 (3rd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pen in mint condition), BG 13 (4th printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 14 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 15 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 15 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition) BG 16 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 16 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 17 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 17 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 18 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition), BG 18 (2nd printing signed by Wes Wilson in pen in mint condition), BG 19 (1st printing signed by Wes Wilson in pencil in mint condition).