An exceedingly rare poster advertising the opening two nights of the UFO Club, London — December 23 and 30, 1966. This was the first poster the club ever produced, and is one of the earliest posters advertising performances by Pink Floyd.
The design is an early one by Michael English, before teaming up with Nigel Waymouth as Hapshash and the Coloured Coat. Across the face of Karen Astley — then Pete Townshend's girlfriend, and a regular at the club — he painted the words 'Nite Tripper' in psychedelic lettering, evoking the running, melting wash of Pink Floyd's projections. At the time of these shows, the club’s name wasn’t yet decided— the evening went out as 'UFO Presents Nite Tripper', as founders John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins and Joe Boyd had yet to choose between the two.
The poster promises ‘pink floyd-sounds’, along with movies by Warhol and Anger and, drily, a line reading 'heating-warm’, quietly reassuring anyone who had shivered through the International Times launch party at the Roundhouse two months earlier.
The UFO opened in the Blarney Club, an Irish dancehall in the basement of 31 Tottenham Court Road. Launched in late 1966 to raise money for the underground newspaper International Times and, in Boyd's words, to make a space for experimental pop music and "the mixing of medias, light shows and theatrical happenings." Pink Floyd played the opening night and the following Friday. IT editor Barry Miles later wrote that UFO became "synonymous with the Pink Floyd's rise to fame."
Only a handful of this poster were printed, of which few survive. This one is from the collection of the late Graham Keen, the future art director of International Times, the paper UFO was launched to fund.
An example of this poster is in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in its Prints & Drawings collection.
An exceedingly rare poster from the earliest, pre-technicolor moment of the London underground, and one of the most significant posters of the period.
In overall Excellent collection, with a tiny flattened crease to the lower left corner; slight age-related toning; and a few faint moisture spots on the back.
17 1/4” x 23 1/2"
Graham Keen (d. 2019) documented the London underground from inside it, photographing Pink Floyd at one of their earliest light-show performances, working alongside Barry Miles, and serving as art editor and later art director of International Times for issues 29–70. In 1969 he was one of four IT directors tried and convicted of conspiracy to corrupt public morals over the paper's gay contact ads, the £2,000 fine effectively breaking the magazine. A first UFO poster held by the man who would go on to design the paper it was raised to support.
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Recordmecca's Jeff Gold was named by Rolling Stone as one of 5 Top Collectors of High-End Music Memorabilia. He authenticated previously unknown Bob Dylan manuscripts for PBS's History Detectives, appeared as a featured appraiser on VH1's Rock Collectors, and has been profiled as a top dealer and collector in the books Vinyl Junkies and Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to it's Own Past.
Gold is author of the acclaimed books Sittin' In: Jazz Clubs of the 1940s and 1950s; Total Chaos: The Story of The Stooges/As Told By Iggy Pop; and 101 Essential Rock Records: The Golden Age of Vinyl a survey of seminal rock albums, featuring contributions from David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Johnny Marr and Graham Nash.
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