A terrific psychedelic piece by Victor Moscoso., this is also signed by the artist. Begging to be seen under black light, this poster was not part of the Neon Rose series but very well could have been . Both Bill Graham and Chet Helms – who promoted this concert – were committed to exposing their audiences to a wide variety of music they might not normally listen to, in this case John Lee Hooker.
Moscoso describes creating this poster, “Based on the astrological reading on the date of the dance, this was going to happen during the retrograde of Mercury. The picture of the band was taken at the De Young Museum in front of a small Chinese sculpture of a rhino. I had to deal with a horizontal photo of the band and a vertical layout for the poster. Promoter Chet Helms gave me the title ‘from the plains of Quicksilver’. Using the title, I thought of Mercury, so I made my letters into a planet and this letter form appears in a positive, negative, positive, negative. In other words when you read down, the lettering alternates. Because it is a circle, the photograph fit in perfectly, with no top or bottom.”