The Poster Queen of the Fillmore

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2023

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Fillmore Auditorium is so chock full of musical history, it feels like the building itself has a soul. Nowhere is that better on display than in the theater's iconic poster room, filled with colorful framed signs for hundreds of shows through the decades. Since 1985, concertgoers have gotten their own free copies of the posters as they leave the theater. But who is the person behind these awesome keepsakes? Reporter Bianca Taylor introduces us to Arlene Owseichik, the creative director responsible for more than 2,000 of them. Additional Reading: Meet the Woman Behind the Fillmore's Famous Posters Check our episode on the Fillmore apples Read a transcript of the episode 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, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, and Holly Kernan.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:02.0	Years ago, Bay Curious listener Ben Kaiser was seeing a show at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium,
0:11.0	the Psychodellic Furs.
0:15.3	It was a great show, the kind he'll remember forever.
0:19.0	Luckily that night, they were offering a free poster to everybody in attendance.
0:23.7	That was my first poster, the psychedelic furs.
0:26.2	It's now framed in his Atlanta home.
0:29.2	It's a very dark and moody poster.
0:37.0	It looks like somebody's standing in an alley walking away from the perspective of the viewer. It's a beautiful poster.
0:47.0	Free posters are a beloved parting gift for concert goers at the Fillmore. They're never guaranteed, only given out at the biggest shows, and they're created just for the film war audiences. So when folks do get one, it's special.
0:57.0	These posters are artifacts, pieces of time. There's much of the concert as the concert.
1:03.0	At this point, the free posters are almost as legendary as the Fillmore Auditorium itself, a center
1:08.4	stage for the counterculture music scene during the 1960s. Bands like Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Janice Joplin's Big
1:16.6	Brother and the Holding Company launched their careers on that stage. The Grateful Dead played
1:21.8	there more than 50 times. The posters, the venue, its history, this all got Ben wondering.
1:29.0	The Fillmore is legendary. The posters at the Fillmore or legendary, the poster wall at the Fillmore is legendary.
1:36.7	But what I would like to know more about is the person behind the poster.
1:40.9	Today on Bay Curious, we've got a rocking collision of Bay Area art, music, and history.
1:47.2	I'm Olivia Allen Price.
1:48.5	We'll be right back. Support for Bay Curious
1:57.1	Bait Curious is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company,
2:00.0	still family owned, operated, and argued over.
	...

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