1968 and the rock ‘n’ revival as pursued by The Who was in full-flight with ‘Shaking All Over’ and three Eddie Cochran covers added to their set, while The Move, having put ‘Weekend’ on their debut album, issued another Cochran song on their live EP ‘Something Else’. Mick Farren and his pals kept the flame burning bright in the underground press and with his Deviants kept the faith. He also teamed up with Brighton’s Unicorn Bookshop for a run of posters sold under the tag ‘advertisements for peace’ . . . and there was nary a Teddy Boy in sight among these rock history mavens.
Numbers 1–3 are part of a long-ago acquired batch of posters bought by Vinyl Head, Ramsgate. Each is 30 x 20 inches, published in 1968 by Unicorn Bookshop, Brighton with ‘Production: by Mean & Filthy’.
Unicorn Bookshop was situated at 50 Gloucester Road. It was opened by American Bill Butler and ran circa 1966–1974. Its psychedelic–beat–counterculture goods were advertised by a mural that covererd both sides of the shop front and which has recently been restored to its original glory.
There are a number of blog posts on the shop, John May’s site has one of the more detailed accounts [HERE] and there is also a Butler biography by Terry Adams, which gives some background on the selling and distribution of the posters, but there’s little to be found on their design.
Mean & Filthy was a front put together by Mick Farren and Steve Sparkes – Rich Deakin’s Keep It Together has the lowdown on their activities. A revised version of #2 for a Roundhouse gig (with Deviants 3rd on the bill) is reproduced, along with a Dylan, also a Mean and Filthy production, in Mick Farren’s Get On Down history of the rock poster. Based on a cover for Oz, the Dylan was a big seller, designed by Vytas Serelis, artist, sitar player and friend of Marc Bolan.
As Deakin points out, Farren had laid out the thinking behind the series in a piece for IT. . .
Guevara, Dylan, Hendrix and Eddie Cochran – heroes of the revolution
Paul Kaczmarek, who worked with Bill Butler, has very kindly provided the following information about the various rock related posters the shop printed and sold.
There were only three titles directly related to the ‘Rock Revival’ series:
Rock Revival 1 - Gene Vincent (2,622 printed)
Rock Revival 2 – Elvis Presley (2,565 printed)
Rock Revival 3 – Eddie Cochran (2,500 printed)
These three, along with the Dylan and Hendrix, were the only Mean and Filthy productions – all first published March 1968. There are three variants of the Dylan poster (black/grey, orange and green versions). They were heavily reprinted in the early 1970s with some 10,000 in distribution. The numbering system used related to the sequence of release and was not a continuation of the Rock Revival series, so Jimi Hendrix was Unicorn’s 14th poster (with two variants), it was also based on a Vytas Serelis illustration. Other posters that are of interest include:
#8 – ‘Beatles scene’ (drawing by Richard O’Mahoney)
#36 – Paul McCartney (PK has found references to this but has not seen a copy).
#37 – John Mayall
B1 – Maharishi and The Beatles (drawing)
C1 – Eric Clapton (PK has not seen a copy only references to it in sales invoices)
The three Rock Revival posters link effortlessly with Farren and Barker’s Watch Out Kids and with the aesthetic of Ian Sippen and Peter Shertser’s Union Pacific label [HERE] . . . This was greaser rock ‘n’ roll for the new generation and Mean and Filthy had their bedroom walls covered.
My thanks to Phyll Smith, Don Lickley, Paul Kaczmarek and @heaven_mirror for feeding me with material and insights. Paul’s book, Poetry, Publishing and Prosecutions – Bill Butler and Unicorn Bookshop is due to be published in 2023