Complete set of all 14 issues from 1966-67. Teenagers Greg Shaw and David Harris started this zine in with the first issue dated August 8, 1966 which predates Rolling Stone and The Oracle.
Mojo Navigator was the prototype rock and roll insiders magazine that came before any of the others. Greg was a big music fan in San Francisco who went to all the shows and hung out with the bands. With Mojo he captured the zeitgeist of the Bay Area music scene in 1966, the year widely regarded by the locals as being much cooler than the Summer Love which would follow the next year. Greg walked up to the Dead house at 710 Ashbury, knocked on the door and was let in to conduct what would be the first extensive interview with the band ever published.The interview was broken up into 2 parts which ran in issues 4 and 5. Greg also interviewed Janis Joplin and Big brother (possibly their first interview), the Doors, Country Joe and other groups. Aside from the interviews you get record reviews, concert information and the best of all, local music gossip which was just fantastic to read!
In issue 6 you get an announcement for the upcoming Grateful Dead show at the Avalon, a show with the poster known as FD26! Within the pages of Mojo you get one of the earliest press mentions of the Velvet Underground for their first single in August 1966, the local ongoing feud with promoter Bill Graham, in depth concert reviews and so much more! It's worth noting that every single issue has some sort of mention or coverage of the Grateful Dead. At some point local promoters started giving Greg handbills for the concerts which were bound into the issues. Greg printed most of the issues himself on a hand cranked mimeograph machine and hand stapled them.
The early issues had print runs of around 100 copies each, the later issues went up to maybe a few hundred copies. The first 12 issues feel handmade, issues 13 and 14 feel slightly more professional, just slightly... There was lots of experimentation with multi color mimeo printing, page folds, hand drawn design elements and inserts.Each issue feels like a unique work of art. As far as I can tell all of these issues are complete. Each issues is in remarkable near perfect condition, #9 has some minor cover flaws but the issue is otherwise close to perfect.
Issues 1 and 2 are cleaner actual size reproductions, issues 3-14 are completely original. Finding single issues is difficult enough, putting together a complete set could take a lifetime as very few copies exist.
In some cases I suspect there are no more than a few dozen copies in existence. This collection is one of the most important records of the 1960's Bay Area music and counterculture movement. This collection belongs in a museum or institutional archive and perhaps it will find it's way there one day.
The item "Mojo Navigator Grateful Dead Velvet Underground Handbill bg fd aor fd26 1966" is in sale since Saturday, October 13, 2018. This item is in the category "Entertainment Memorabilia\Music Memorabilia\Rock & Pop\Artists G\Grateful Dead\Posters". The seller is "somesensation" and is located in Kingston, New York.This item can be shipped worldwide.