Because I was actually going to art school I wasn’t expected to have a job. I was still living with my parents at the time, so I had no real expenses, so I could do that. Again, I said to the guy, “Hey, you want me to do some posters for you?” I think I charged him ten dollars for the posters and so I got the job. The big auditorium was the Russian community centre in those days. Then the scene somehow migrated over to Fourth Avenue, over to the Kitsilano area, where there was more of a hippie scene. But they and lots of others band were moving to electric. So was the Grateful Dead they were a folk band called The Warlocks. For example, the Byrds, and Jefferson Airplane were originally folk bands. Then the folk music scene merged – it started going electric. But they have limited budgets, so if you can do it for nothing, you can really start building up a good portfolio. As far as any young people wanting to start out, I mean, you can always go to a nightclub or talk to a promoter, they’re always going to want advertising done. But going to the clubs, that was natural. It’s very difficult as a young student to go to an advertising agency to get work. We were these young guys wanting to party. Because we’d do this stuff for free, we’d say, “Hey do you want us to do some promotional advertising posters for you?” So nobody would turn us down, but for us, like I said, we’d go backstage and hang out with Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.
There was another folk club called The Bunkhouse coffee house that opened up in the early 60s. We were young, in our 20s, and just loved hanging out watching all the shows. We ended up doing the same thing: we’d have fun making posters for them and we’d get in for free. Then another place opened in Vancouver, called Inquisition, and it was in a bigger, better location.
#BOB MASSE POSTERS FREE#
We gave them free posters, and we got to hang out for free. Just hanging out there basically lead to us producing some free posters for some of the folk acts who performed at this coffee house. So we’d all hang out at an underground little coffee house near the art school and it was so cool. My best friend was in the same class with me and he had a cousin who was a beatnik. So, now we had to draw a picture, try to paint it, put a frame on it and get it in a gallery.
#BOB MASSE POSTERS HOW TO#
We had all this theory on how to draw pictures. I was attending Vancouver Art School, and for our last year project, we had to do something that was “practical.” Basically, find a client, get a job, negotiate a price, get paid for it, and print it up. How did you get started in the entertainment business?
I would like to thank Bob again for taking the time to do this interview. It was great to get a chance to talk to Bob about his work and how he got started in this business. His poster for U2 at the Reunion Arena has been listed as one of the top 10 concert posters of all time by Billboard Magazine.
As one of the pioneers of the psychedelic art movement, he has worked with everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Doors, and The Cream, to U2, The Red Hot Chilli Pepers, Tool, ACDC, and many more. A rock n’ roll legend in his own right, Canada’s Bob Masse has been creating highly collectible concert posters since the ‘60’s.
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