San Francisco Rock Posters & Collectibles, San Francisco

What to buy here: The Jimi Hendrix Experience Poster ($40-275). Between 1965 and 1971, hundreds of posters were pounded out in ink and steel to promote concerts around San Francisco. Content was secondary to psychedelic design. Text and images collided. Commerce was art, and color and wavy lines trumped all in the spirit of free love, wailing guitar solos, and experimental typesetting. The effect was to be hallucinatory, electric, and illegible. Two of the most influential promoters of the era – Bill Graham (also responsible for transforming the Fillmore Auditorium at the intersection of Fillmore and Geary into a fully-functional concert venue) and Chet Helms (founder of Janis Joplin’s Big Brother and the Holding Company and partially responsible for San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love) – contracted over 500 of these advertisements. Graham would also convert an ice rink at Post and Steiner to a music venue named the Winterland Ballroom where, in October of 1968, Jimi Hendrix performed six shows over the course of three days. By decree of the San Francisco City Supervisors, September 13, 2011, was declared Jimi Hendrix Winterland Day in honor of a CD release based on the six shows.

The store: A relatively non-descript storefront save for the large winged eyeball above the window, here is the source for all things rock and roll art related. South of the city, an archival framing outlet serves the San Francisco store which is located in North Beach, just off the main Columbus Avenue thoroughfare.