Bob Masse
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Bob has been into drawing since a child. Born in Burnaby, Canada he had heated drawing contests with a cousin, seeing who could draw the most Bugs Bunnies. He taught himself by using Mad Magazine. He would wait for the magazine to come out and would copy the whole book, drawing characters.
His father being a non believer in allowances got Bob developing the entrepreneurial spirit that has made Bob successful. As a kid he made money creating cardboard Santa Clauses and decorating neighbors windows at Christmas. He also painted pinstriped and flames on cars which invariably got him into the car shows. There he began making Big Daddy Roth style monster t-shirts for kids at school. He was a commercial artist at 11 years old!
After Bob graduated from High School he went to Art school which was "...a big party". He became a regular at the local coffee houses and was soon doing concert posters for the folk acts that came through town. He was paid with free drinks, tickets and the opportunity to meet the musicians. A few months into this they were commissioned to do a poster for an up and coming young hot shot out of New York by the name of Bob Dylan. He wasn't well known yet and Masse unfortunately got his name wrong advertising for a Bob Dylon. I imagine this item is quite collectible nowadays!
As folk became folk-rock Vancouver started getting visited by the rock bands of the day including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Steve Miller, there was a change in attitude. Bob's posters started getting more psychedelic.
In 1966 Jerry Kruz, manager of the Afterthought and promoter of the Afterthought Happenings concerts, asked Bob to join him on a 24 hour trip to San Francisco to complete some business with the Grateful Dead. He was about to learn about real psychedelia! They piled into somebody's borrowed Mustang and headed south. "So here I am the next day waking up in Haight Ashbury. It was wild. It was crawling with people. There were shops all over the place, and everybody had long hair. I hadn't realized how far behind we were. And everybody was into peace and love, they'd give you food, they'd give you smokes, they'd give you dope - on the streets!"
Poster art was in full bloom at that time in San Francisco and there were 2 main venues which produced posters. The Fillmore where Bill Graham promoted shows and Wes Wilson did the posters and the Family Dog run by Chet Helms featuring posters by Kelley/Mouse. Bob was influenced heavily by his visit to San Francisco.
So Bob returned to Vancouver and began applying his newfound influence to local projects. In this time he did a couple of posters for the Collectors, a local up and coming group. He was invited to go to Los Angeles with the idea that he was to do the album cover. The Collectors were to be in Los Angeles for a couple of months and Bob, having stayed briefly in a apartment over the Whiskey A Go Go , eventually rented a suite in Laurel Canyon.
Masse lived the last two years of the 60's in Laurel Canyon. During this time he got to hang around with the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & The Holding Company, and Taj Mahal, among others. He also was producing posters and album covers during this time.
At the end of 1969 Bob returned to Vancouver to continue to create and design posters.
