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Oil Tasters. Oil Tasters were my favorite Milwaukee band. They were totally unique, clever, fun and you know, they made great music and had a good beat.

I didn't get to know Richard LaValliere at all really - too scared to talk to him. Same with Guy Hoffman - great drummer, he also made really cool posters so I was awed by his talents. Caleb Alexander, on the other hand, did the live sound at various venues, so I got to know him better: well enough to yell "More kick in my monitors!" So here's to a great fucking band and more kick in the monitors!

NEWLY FOUND HANDMADE POSTER SENT TO MRP FROM GUY HOFFMAN:
Flesh Oil Tasters, Starship, August 9th & 10th, 1980

"Extra large red-lettered posted city signs on the streets near Locust and Maryland warned people, especially UWM students, of newly laid tar oil near the cross walk skirts, by the curbs, and across the entire street surfaces. Caleb thought it be cool to pull one of the signs off from a tree, to steal, and repaint the word FRESH to read FLESH. So, I proceeded to do his idea in black and white on a fresh sheet of paper, then add, to steal, from The Wall Street Journal, the crawling hands." --GH

2nd New Wave Fest, Starship, April 29th, 1980 With Aldo Rays.

Flesh Oil Tasters, Starship, August 9 & 10, 1980 Sunday Punk Drunk.

Greaseball Halloween Party with Oil Tasters and Stupid Frogs November 1, 1980 Plus the movie "The Brain That Wouldn't Die!" (this is also posted below but not as a double black/white original.)

Oil Tasters, Starship, May 1 (w/Prosecutors) & May 2 (w/Baxters) The USBank building was the relatively new home of First Wisconsin Bank back then.

Kenny Fest, Starship, June/July, 1981 31 years later, four of the bands on this poster played at the Lest We Forget show.

MANY MUCHO THANKS to Guy Hoffman for submitting these!

Guy also sent in a bunch of his original Haskels posters and some rare Haskels photos.

Oil Tasters posters:

*OIL TASTERS first and only appearance at SUMMERFEST, July 5, 1980 Peaches Rock Stage, 6 pm

Original lay-out: 17" x 11"

Street print: black ink on white paper

HOWDY. This is the second of 5 or 6 original artworks.

This is new to the site. A b&w street print was posted on

the Summerfest grounds and mailed out to all our fans.

GUY

*OIL TASTERS and COCKTAILS, November 4, 1980 UW-Milwaukee

Original color lay-out: 14" x 4 1/4"

Limited UWM Campus print: black ink on white paper

Two events happened on Tuesday, November 4, 1980.

THE Last Great American President Jimmy Carter (D) lost to Ronald Reagan (R), while John Anderson (I) managed only a few percent.

AND Art Zvers' YSV Film Society sponsored an Election Night Dance

at UWM featuring OIL TASTERS and COCKTAILS!

*OIL TASTERS and LOCATE YOUR LIPS, March 27, 1981 Starship

Original RGB color lay-out: 17" x 11"

Street print: red ink on light blue paper

OIL TASTERS at the STARSHIP (March 27, 1981)

Opening band Locate Your Lips

This poster features the old 1960's Milwaukee Hamm's Beer slogan,

"A beer is a beer is a beer is a beer ... until you've tasted Hamm's!"

WHOA! This is the third of 5 or 6 original artworks for the site. You already have a rough street print of this flyer on the site and to consolidate the 'gallery' you may want to delete the rough print and exhibit this high quality original color lay-out by yours truly.

GUY

*"RESURRECT EXPRESS" at the STARSHIP, April 19, 1981 Starship

Benefit for the Express Music Newspaper with 5 bands

April 19, 1981 featuring Oil Tasters and X-Cleavers

17" x 5 1/2"

*STARSHIP CALENDAR AD FOR X-PRESS, December, 1981 Starship

STARSHIP calendar ad for X-Press (December 1981)

"Aunt Fritzi meets The Elephant Man"

cartoon by Guy Hoffman & Julie Topetzes

jpeg file

black & white

*OIL TASTERS "BREAKFAST CLUB FLYER", 1981

The scan is large because it required lots of dots per inch. You cannot

reduce it cause that makes it look like shit (but you can try if ya want).

Dots will turn into grays and it won't look good. Moire patterns from hell!

Ron, this is the last of the printed matter that is extremely obscure.

Hope you have enjoyed these and everything makes it to the site.

peace,

Guy

Oil Tasters at the Metropole (December 13, 1980) Poster by Guy Hoffman. With the Cocktails and Light Show by 4TA (Jerry Fortier). The Metropole is now the Miramar Theater.

Oil Tasters at the Starship (December 19 & 20, 1980) Poster by Guy Hoffman. With the Prosecutors and Young Lions. T-Shirts for $4? That's Crazy Eddie Insane!

Oil Tasters at the Starship (February 27 & 28, 1981) Poster by Guy Hoffman. With Prixie Goggles and Daszu.

Oil Tasters at the Starship (March 28, 1981) Poster by Guy Hoffman. It was the Oil Tasters' one-year anniversary and opening band Wally Sprawls featured Jay Tiller from Couch Potatoes.

Oil Tasters at the Starship (May 14, 1981) Poster by Guy Hoffman.

Oil Tasters at the Metropole (May 22, 1981) The Metropole is now the Miramar Theater. Poster by Guy Hoffman - see original scan below.

*Oil Tasters at the Metropole (May 22, 1981) The original artwork scan by Guy Hoffman. Guy writes, "'OIL TASTERS May 22, 1981' is scanned from the original artwork (all the lettering was completely hand drawn on a xerox'd photo. The letters were outlined with a red pen, but the white filler paint kept absorbing the ink. To this day, it still looks pink!)

*Oil Tasters at the Metropole (May 22, 1981) A smaller version of the original scan.

*Oil Tasters at the Metropole (May 22, 1981) The grey-scale version.

Oil Tasters at the Starship (July 25, 1981) Amazing poster by Guy Hoffman. Even more amazing is that this is one of the first appearances of "Gordon Gano and the Violent Femmes" in Milwaukee and right around the fateful day when James Honeyman-Scott saw them busking outside the Oriental Theater. (And then add the irony that Guy Hoffman would later join the Femmes on drums!)

**Oil Tasters at the Starship (July 25, 1981) The original artwork scan by Guy Hoffman. Guy writes, "Ron, You seemed to like this poster which has been up on your site for awhile. The "Gordon Gano & The Violent Femmes" reference is pure coincidence. I scanned the original to capture color elments inherent in the poster. I scanned the same layout in grey scale tones.

**Oil Tasters at the Starship (July 25, 1981) A smaller version of the original scan.

**Oil Tasters at the Starship (July 25, 1981) The grey-scale version.

Oil Tasters at the Starship (August 15, 1981) Poster by Guy Hoffman. With Tense Experts and Locate Your Lips.

Oil Tasters at the Starship (October 2, 1981) Poster by Guy Hoffman. Opening band Locate Your Lips featured Kenny Baldwin, above mentioned manager of the Starship.

Oil Tasters at the Starship (March 27, 1982) Poster by Guy Hoffman. Opening band Locate Your Lips featured Kenny Baldwin, drummer and famously grumpy manager of the Starship.

Oil Tasters, Stupid Frogs and a movie at the Metropole (November 1, 1981) Submitted by Brian Komar.

Oil Tasters at Teddy's (June 20, 1982) Guy Hoffman's wacky "Oi-er tay-stur" poster.

Oil Tasters at Niko's (March 25, 1983) Poster by Guy Hoffman. Dancers Wanted!

Oil Tasters Breakfast Club Flyer (year unknown) Guy Hoffman's wacky ad for their mailing list.

Oil Tasters Breakfast Club Postcard #1 (year unknown) Guy Hoffman's wacky postcard for their mailing list.

Oil Tasters Breakfast Club Postcard #2 (year unknown) Guy Hoffman's wacky postcard #2 for their mailing list.

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