Behind the Fillmore's Iconic Music Posters

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

These days, when you see a show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, you might be lucky enough to get your very own poster for free. They’re a highly anticipated parting gift given out at the biggest shows. “The posters are artifacts, pieces of time,” says this week's question asker ,Ben Kaiser. “They’re as much [a part] of the concert as the concert.” That got him wondering: the posters of the Fillmore are so legendary, who is the person behind them? From 1985 to 2019, the answer was Arlene Owseichik. In this episode, we meet the woman behind the posters, and learn about the creative process that went into the creation of each one. Bay Curious answers your questions about the San Francisco Bay Area each week. If you have a question you'd like us to answer, submit it at baycurious.org. Additional Reading: Meet the Woman Behind Thousands of Famous Fillmore Posters Read the transcript of this episode Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Bianca Taylor. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Alana Walker, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Ed Zittron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into Tech's elite, and now they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.
0:10.0	From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google's search.
0:14.0	Better Offline is your unvarnished and, at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech, brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose.
0:22.9	Listen to better offline on the IHot Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from.
0:31.1	From KQED.
0:34.1	Years ago, Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser was seeing a show at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, The Psychedelic Furs.
0:44.8	It was a great show, the kind he'll remember forever.
0:49.0	Luckily that night, they were offering a free poster to everybody in attendance.
0:53.9	That was my first poster, the psychedelic first.
0:56.0	It's now framed in his Atlanta home.
0:59.0	It's a very dark and moody poster.
1:02.0	It looks like somebody's standing in an alley walking away from the perspective of the viewer.
1:07.0	It's a beautiful poster.
1:09.0	Free posters are a beautiful poster.
1:17.0	Free posters are a beloved parting gift for concert goers at the Fillmore.
1:22.6	They're never guaranteed, only given out at the biggest shows, and they're created just for the Fillmore audiences. So when folks do get one, it's special.
1:27.0	These posters are artifacts, pieces of time. There's much of the concert as the concert.
1:32.9	At this point, the free posters are almost as legendary as the Fillmore Auditorium itself,
1:38.1	a center stage for the counterculture music scene during the 1960s.
1:42.3	Bands like Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janice Joplin's Big Brother
1:47.0	and the Holding Company launched their careers on that stage.
1:51.0	The Grateful Dead played there more than 50 times.
	...

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