Great Coffee Houses

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:29 PM

Pete,

THE FIFTH PEG was a bar on Armitage---a block down and across the street from the Old Town School Of Folk Music (909 W. Armitage). Aside from being the place I got tossed out of for decking a drunk who was coming on to my wife when she was 8 months pregnant (all I did was push him and he went down--really) this folk club was the place where JOHN PRINE did his first good gigs that led to him & Steve Goodman being found by Paul Anka. Kris Kristofferson brought Anka in to hear them I think.

But the Fifth Peg was a hangout/wateringhole for the students from the school. That was a unique and a strange era. (1970 ??)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:39 PM

Of course, Stevie Goodman's base was Earl Pionke's Chicago folk mecca the Earl Of Old Town. Steve said that when Mr. Kristofferson brought Paul Anka in to hear him at the Earl, he (Steve) took 'em all to the Fifth Peg to hear John Prine. Anka gave both air tickets to New York that night. Somehow, Samantha Eggar was a part of the entourage---and they all went to breakfast after the club closed at 4:00 AM. (5:00 AM was closing time on Saturday nights).

Art

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,Guest, NYC
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 06:24 PM

Gray Rooster: are you Rene Lawrence??? My God, if you are, I sure am glad I decided to look at the Mudcat. Do you still do Transcontinental Breakdown? I can't get that tune out of my mind after all these years. I've tried to play it, but even my nimble fingers can't. What year was it? 1959? Please respond. You were the best guitarist I'd ever heard. And what, you were 9 or 10?

Subject: RE: FEENJON
From: GUEST,JOANN FROM BOSTON
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 10:36 AM

HI. I CAME ACROSS YOUR SITE SEARCHING FOR INFO ON FEENJON CAFE IN THE 60'S. MY SISTER WORKED AT FEENJON IN THE EARLY 60'S. HER NAME IS ANN MARIE AND SHE LOOKED JUST LIKE JOAN BAEZ. SHE CAME FROM THE BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE AREA. MY SISTER HAD LONG DARK BROWN HAIR AND VERY PRETTY AND SORT OF TALL. DO YOU REMEMBER HER??   MY E-MAIL IS [e-mail].

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 12:36 PM

A vote of thanks to the Guest above for refreshing one of the wonderful threads of all Mudcat time. Wish I had an answer for Jio12, but I do not. Perhaps someone from the Boston region in the 60's can answer.



A

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 05 Sep 04 - 01:20 PM

What a delightful thread! It brings back so many good memories of places I heard wonderful musicians, and sometime had a chance to perform, myself. In the Village, my favorite coffee house was the Gaslight Cafe, where Dave Van Ronk ran a Monday night hootenanny. Easy Rider.. I was there two or three nights when Mississippi John Hurt sang at the Gaslight. Was that you sitting over at a corner table?

And annamill.. we must surely have crossed paths in villatge coffee houses. I spent much of my free time there from 1960-064. If you waited on me, I hope I tipped you liberally.

My favorite New Haven coffee house, vixen, was the Pickin' Parlor, where I heard Elizabeth Cotton one glorious evening.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 10 Sep 04 - 10:31 PM

It's hard to believe but enough time has passed since this thread started for a kid to start and graduate from college. I only hope that they were able to find coffeehouses in which to hang out, study, sleep, find love and comaraderie and then give those commodities back. Like Desert Pete said, "You've got to prime the pump!"

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,EMPTY MIND BUDDHIST, SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 01:32 AM

"THE EXIT" COFFEEHOUSE IN THE FORMER GASLIGHT SQUARE IN SAINT LOUIS RAN ITS RUN FROM THE MID TO LATE 1960S.
BY 1968, IT HAD CLOSED, ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE "SQUARE"; LOCATED AT THE INTERSECTION OF BOYLE AND OLIVE.
IT WAS CHARACTERISTICALLY SAINT LOUIS; THAT IS , IT DID NOT LAST LONG AS IT IS TYPICALLY THE SAINT LOUIS THING TO DO.

BUT FOR THOSE OF US WHO WERE FORTUNATE TO HAVE BEEN THERE, IT WAS THE WONDERFUL YEARS OF OUR LIVES. NOSTALGIA IS A PAINFUL EMOTION. A KIND OF THE "WAY WE WERE" AND WE CAN NEVER GO BACK TO THE HOT SUMMER NIGHTS WHEN GASLIGHT SQUARE WAS THE FOCUS OF OUR EXPERIENCE.
TODAY, THE ENTIRE COLLECTION OF BUILDINGS IS GONE AND REPLACED BY A HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CALLING ITSELF GASLIGHT SQUARE, BUT IT IS NOT.
IT IS AS IF IT NEVER WAS THERE AND IT NEVER HAPPENED;
WHEN YOU LOOK AT IT TODAY.
-PATRICK GENNA, 18 DECEMBER 2004, SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 02:04 AM

When I first visited it in the 80's, the Sourdough off the Spit in Homer, Alaska. You could nurse a cup and do the crossword in one of the most scenic spots on earth.

In downtown Anchorage, Sidestreet Espresso on F, a block down from Darwin's Theory.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: 14fret
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 04:14 PM

Hi everyone,
Hope you don't mind an englishman contributing?
I only managed to play in places on the eastern seaboard.
Venues such as Dallas Kline's places in Connecticutt and New Caanan (I know, also Conn.), Caffe Lena
(3 times), The Chelsea House, Vermont, The Cherry Trees, Philly and on to the Gene Shay show, courtesy of my friend Saul Broudy, Bob ?'s music shop in Norfolk, VA, another near Lake Peekskill plus some bars etc; and festivals. Also a freebie in the Citicorp building in NYC! Through the courtesy of Paula Ballon. It was nearly 100% great. Generous hospitality, warm welcomes and great audiences.
I'd love to do it again? Who do I have to bribe?

I know things change but I hope that 'scene' hasn't, much. (?)
I'll never forget the people and places.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 09:37 PM

Does anyone remember the Last Exit in Seattle (mid-60's). They served coffee, hot chocolate and apple pie. Great music and poetry.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Peace
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 10:20 PM

The Yellow Door in Montreal.

The Golem in Montreal.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Peace
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 12:33 AM

(The Golem is no longer in operation--I think.) It was the brain child of Mike Regenstrief who hosts and provides Folk Roots/Folk Branches, CKUT Radio, Montreal. Great guy and dedicated folk supporter--and deep well of knowledge about folk.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: jaze
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 11:37 AM

The Main Point outside Phila. was a great place. I only got there twice to see Tim Buckley and Murray McLaughlin.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 01:11 PM

Yeah, dianavan, I remember the Last Exit. Down on Brooklyn Avenue, just south of East 40th Street.

Were you around Pamir House, the Queequeg, or the Eigerwand over on the Ave? I sang a lot at both Pamir House and the Queequeg a lot between '61 and '65. Maybe we've actually run into each other.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 01:26 PM

We probably have run into each other. Remember me? I'm the skinny one with the long, dark hair, long legs and a big smile. ;>) Oh yes, times have changed!   

Yes, I remember the Pamir House but I don't remember the Quequeg. Oddly enough, our boat was named Quequeg. Do you remember the hootenanys at the fountain?

I left Seattle in 1969 and went to Europe. When I returned, I moved to Vashon Island and then on to B.C. Do you still live in Seattle?

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: kendall
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 02:22 PM

The Side Door in Brunswick Maine.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 03:13 PM

Do you mean the Seattle Center Hootenannies at the Seattle Center in 1963? Not far from the big fountain. Some held in front of the Horiuchi mural, some in Center House. Before that, during the Seattle World's Fair in '62, Sunday afternoon multi-performer concerts at the United Nations Pavilion. Small fountain in the pavilion. I bellowed me li'l lungs out at both places.

". . . long, dark hair, long legs and a big smile." Hmm!!   

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 03:17 PM

By the way, I have a low voice (bass), played a classic (nylon-string) guitar, and walked with a pair of aluminum forearm crutches. Probably not easy to miss in a crowd.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 08:59 PM

Probably didn't miss you but do not remember you. BTW I my hair is no longer brown. Its sort of brownish with silver streaks and red highlights. I'm also not as smiley as I was as a young woman. Those sure were fun times. I remember the International Fountain and the Horiuchi mural. Yes, the United Nations Pavillion was a treat... but mostly I remember the hot chocolate at the Last Exit.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Dec 04 - 02:24 PM

Anybody remember The Shades Coffe House in Reading - round about 1965. The residents were Mike Cooper and Derek Hall. mike played a National Steel and Derek, a Martin. Mike tours de force were leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell's Blues at Sunrise and Dinks Song. Derek could play all the stuff off the Bert jansch Blue album - or so it seemed to me.

I know Mike is a photographer for Folk Roots, but I've never seen Derek since. I moved away from Reading not long after. It was my first experience of a folk club. And it was bloody exciting!

thanks guys wherever you are.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,janet yacht
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 01:17 PM

The Figaro in 1957, Rienzi's, NYC, you could sit there till 4AM playing chess and drinking a lousy cup of tastless coffee, but no one would ask you to leave.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Nov 05 - 10:42 AM

...and Chicago's No Exit is still going now (even if not exactly going strong) in November of 2005 and they have wonderful small venue productions of larger shows like "Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris". Current owner David James of THE HEARTLAND CAFE (right down the street) ought to be heartily commended for keeping the venerable old place alive.

Our son, Chris, lives very close to the No Exit now---and he hangs out there and at the Heartland Cafe. What goes around, comes around !! ------ As a baby, we used to carry him into the place on Thursday nights for my regular gigs there in the 1970s.

Art

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Padre
Date: 25 Nov 05 - 10:55 PM

In the 60's, when I was a grad student at WVU, there was a coffehouse called 'The Last Resort' run by one of the campus church groups. If you sang (Fri and Sat only) you got a hamburger and a coke for each set. No big names, but a lot of fun (and it was a cheap date!)

Padre

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Joybell
Date: 25 Nov 05 - 11:45 PM

Long shot and I notice that the original request is a year old but Hildebrand knew a girl who was often taken for Joan Baez back in the 60s. It was in Boston. She made a point of letting people believe she was Joan. He thinks that the name's the same. There's a bit more but it won't help.
In answer to the original question - Yes, he thinks he did. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Deckman
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 12:27 AM

Dianavan ... of course I remember you ... at the LAST EXIT ... it's walls were always painted flat black ... cheap paint. You always sat close to the kitchen and just around the side from the chess table!

What timess ... EH???
CHEERS Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: JJ
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 08:59 AM

Padre

I, too, remember the Last Resort in Morgantown. I spent a lot of time in that basement, 65-68, some listening to the folk music, but more working on the theatre they occasionally produced, IRMA LA DOUCE, USA and several revues directed by Jim Conaway.

Jim Vellenoweth ran the place, under the auspices of the Methodist Church. Performers I remember include Jim Bob Kessinger and Charlie Quarto, the mad poet, who later cut two LPs and wrote a number of country songs.

Alas, it is no more, and a restaurant called Joyce's now occupies the site on Spruce Street where so many were made so happy for so little so long ago...

JJ

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Padre
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 10:02 PM

JJ,

Charlie Quarto - I had forgotten him - truly a mad man!!

My mother still lives in Morgantown, so next time I am up there I will drive slowly up Spruce street and tip my hat.

Do you remember a really tall guy named John Swalm, who used to sing at the LR?

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: JJ
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 09:21 AM

Good heavens, Padre, John Swalm!

He taught me a few banjo chords so that I could play "Down in the Valley" and "Just a Picture From Life's Other Side" in the WVU production of DARK OF THE MOON in the fall of 1965. I haven't touched a banjo since.

John and David Hardin played the guitars in that show, if I recall correctly. David also played at the Resort.

I have both of Charlie Quarto's recordings, bought on eBay. Also a story about him in Rolling Stone. A longtime friend of mine almost got involved with him back then; I bought them as a teasing memory for her.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,sheridan805
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 02:51 PM

I am trying to remember the Beatnik type coffee house that was quite well known in the early 60's in what is now West Hollywood, CA.

It was on the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Willoughby St.

Does anyone out there know the name of this?

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 12:13 PM

I don't know how I missed this wonderful thread before!   I love hearing stories about these legendary venues!

I "came of age" a bit later than most of the posters here, and for me the real "coffeehouses" had all but vanished. The clubs that I remember in NYC were the Bottom Line and most notably - Speak Easy.   The Speak Easy was THE place for music in the mid-80's.

By the 1980's, at least here in NJ, folk music was settling into church basements and organized "clubs" that presented the music. The Hurdy-Gurdy(which is now int he 27th season and I am the new president of) was one of the first that I attended. The grandaddy of them all in NJ is the Minstrel Coffeehouse run by the Folk Project.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 12:38 PM

The Purple Onion, where my group and I once performed, and The Hungry I (Bruno Banducci's salute to the hungry intellectual), which were originally "Beat" oriented venues of the fifties, became major launching pads for such as the Kingston Trio, The Limeliters, The Smothers Brothers, Mort Sahl and many others. They were never, strictly speaking, coffee houses, but they served the same purpose.

Others I remember were the Pamir House, in Seattle, The End, in Tacoma (a regular stop for me in my army days in '61 and '62), The Renaissance, in Fresno, where I cut my musical teeth with a cadre of other young folk, the Orange Ogre, "Gussie" Gostanian's alternative coffee house in Fresno, catering more to the avant garde crowd, and several in southern California whose names have vanished along with the venues - with the exception of the Prison of Socrates and the Ash Grove.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: frogprince
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 08:45 PM

I spent some good liberty (from Navy duty) weekend hours at the Coffee and Confusion in San Francisco in late 1967. That was my first exposure to the coffee house concept. I later lived for several years within a couple of blocks of the No Exit in Chicago, and totalled up a lot of hours there.
Believe it or not, the metropolis of Lapeer, MI., now has a small decent spot, "Cup o' Joe's", with fairly regular Friday night music.
The music can range from good folk and blues to gawd-awful zero talent rockers, but at least somebody's trying to keep it alive.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 11:57 AM

Flat black walls; pillows on the floor; dim light; smoky haze and pungent tobacco smells from the pipes of the chess players in the rear; small tables; smaller stage along one wall, with one spot on it; one or two performers, who usually worked for free drinks or tips and a chance to be seen; players, and wanna be's, comparing guitars and banjos; young girls looking for young guys, who are looking for young girls; smells of spice, cider, tea and coffee emanating from behind the dark curtain that screened the kitchen. All this imagery creeps along in the recesses of my distant memory banks. It was more than a venue and coffee had little enough to do with it. It was a social phenomenon of its time, an opportunity, for those of us who wanted to perform, to try and fail - and try again. I'd go there again, if I could.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 01:13 PM

I don't know whether to be angry or sad over Starbucks' feeble attempts to see themselves as inheritors of the coffeeshop-beat tradition by hawking folkie and pop cds in their synthetic cookie-cutter bistros. They follow the lead of most corporate entities when examining a revolutionary, historic, and unique phenomenon : They copy the trappings and forget the soul of the thing. Suppose they actually featured live acoustic music...nahhhh.

Anyway, glad to see this old thread re-surface. Living history in this.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Amos
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 01:28 PM

I played a few of the North Beach places in the early 60's, before the advent of Flower Power. Up from the Hot Dog Palace, but the names have faded on me.

There was a really nice beat coffee shop in Westport, Connecticut, back then, too, where I liked to hang at night...and sometimes play. It was across from the NYNH and H RR station. Damned if I remember the name -- it was owned by an entrepreneurial young fella named Jeff... but it too closed its doors with the advent of the 70's and early yuppiedom.


A

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Mark Ross
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 04:49 PM

The Forum in Hartford Connecticutt

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 04:56 PM

One of the major differences between then (the old coffee houses)and now (Starbucks, et al, ad nauseum)was in the ownership and its approach. People like Bruno Banducci, at the old Hungry i, were local, small-time, often socio-politically active and had a love of personal performance - often to the point of being willing to subsidize it for its own sake. They created "hangouts" for like-minded and "other-minded" folks who found the places personal little comfort zones. Hopefully, they made enough money to keep the torch burning and food on the table. They encouraged performers.

Starbucks is, simply, a completely system-dominated and formulaic money machine for its stockholders. What bothers me isn't THEM, it's the empty-headed flock of sheep that have almost made the name Starbucks the generic term for coffee. Obviously, most of them don't really drink coffee, per se; they drink frothy, flavored concoctions that use coffee for a base. And, you are quite correct. There is no soul in this business. Else, why would they strive so diligently to put all local competition out of business?

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: RiGGy
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 06:25 PM

Varied & various venues from my vile and vicked youth:
Leon's Coffee House, in an icecream shop basement in N Plainfield NJ.
[ I have met people all over the country who actually went there, ca1964 ! ]
The Id & Ego in Milwaukee. Cafe Pergolese on Chicago's Northside.
Ethical Culture Soc basement in Rittenhouse Sq Phila.

I'm now a "user" at Coffee Catz in Sebastopol CA - great open mic !

Riggy

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Sep 07 - 10:31 PM

Glad to hear that you get out from under the grape leaves Riggy. HeHeHe.

Barry

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,Frank Macias
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 02:36 AM

I didn't see any mention of the "The Blue Unicorn" located in San Francisco in the mid sixties. We were driving around the city. We got very hungry and saw the "Blue Unicorn" sign. We figured it was a good place to stop and eat. It was a narrow room with a small stage at the further end of it. There was a folk singer playing that night on small stage. We went to the food bar and all they had to eat was half slices of french bread and a half-stick of butter for fifty cents. Of course they had coffee to drink as well. While there I saw a girl come in dressed in feathers of all colors like Janis Joplin would dress at times. The customers were more like beatniks than hippies. They had very long hair, plaid wool shirts and looked more like lumberjacks than anything else. It was a very unusual place.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:31 AM

http://www.monmouthcoffee.co.uk/ourshops.htm

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:56 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 10:09 AM

In the way of somewhat sad remnants of the past: Anyone know if the seedy stripper dive on Broadway in San Francisco is the actual location of the legendary old "Hungry I"? In October, we stayed 5 nights at the Green Tortoise Hostel a few doors away. I'm not sure now if the sign on the place says "Hungry I" or "Hungry Eye".

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:48 AM

The last "Hungry i" reunion, just before Bruno Banducci passed away, drew people like Bob Shane and John Stewart, Mort Sahl and Travis Edmonson and many others who had performed there. It was not, I believe, held at the actual venue, because at last report, the old "i" was still a Deja Vu-owned venue for naked ladies and lay gynecologists.

I can remember North Beach as it was in the later 1950's, when the "Beat" poets and writers, et al, who had been the primary habitue's of "The Hungry i" and various cafe's and coffee houses, were being pushed out by the collegiate hipsters and the young banker and stockbroker types from Montgomery Street. That was the audience you heard in the background on the old Kingston Trio recording, "From the Hungry i." You could still get a great home-style Italian meal in the area, but change was on the way.

It wasn't until Carol Doda, the original silicone-enhanced topless dancer, appeared at the Condor Club that North Beach forever morphed into the tawdry tenderloin we all know and love. I had dinner at "The Stinking Rose" last January. Walking the few blocks nearby, a lot of the old landmarks were gone and a few still evident, but I felt I was looking at a sad, tired old dowager with garish makeup and pale, wrinkled skin - hanging on by a thread.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,Goodnight Gracie
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:33 AM

The Ark on Hill Street in Ann Arbor. Never got a chance to visit the later incarnations. I have great memories of hearing some great artists there for the first time, including Joe Heeney, Jim Ringer and Mary McCaslin. The Ark also had a great open mike where many great performers got their start.

Although, not a coffee house, years ago Lisa Null had great house concerts at her home in New Canaan, CT.

Goodnight Gracie

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:56 AM

North Beach Bolero circa 1962, gives the flavor, man....

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:03 AM

Amen to Amos. I had forgotten that one.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:26 AM

Another piece of the puizzle of "losing" North beach:

"I would go up to North Beach to the bars that had been famous hang-outs for the Beats: often Vesuvio, a perfect bar for tourists, and the Coffee Gallery, which at that time catered to the young folk-music crowd and to young wannabe Beatniks who might play chess at the table in the front window, and who mostly worked in the aerospace industry like myself during the week.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the two blocks of Grant Avenue from Vallejo Street to Union Street would be completely filled with people. The crowd would yield only slowly and reluctantly for the occasional car that tried to come through, persistently honking its horn. Lots of Gray Line tour busses came and didn't mind the fact that progress up these two blocks took forever. We ``beatniks'' were what the tourists had come to see, and the slower the bus went, the better look they got. Meanwhile, we made faces at the spectators and beat on the sides of the bus with our hands, confirming the belief of the tourists that we were very dangerous beatniks. It was a great show. I hope that Gray Line charged a whole lot for it.

Around the corner from the Coffee Gallery, on Green Street, was a much more raucous bar: the Anxious Asp (the city wouldn't allow the owner to use the name she really wanted). The Asp attracted three different groups: the owner was fairly clearly a lesbian, and most of the waitresses also seemed to be, and there were a fair number of lesbian customers. And then there were the kids who would come in to listen to the rock and roll on the jukebox at the Asp when they got tired of the folk music at the Coffee Gallery. And finally there were the Blacks, who were mostly a pretty tough bunch.

There was one homely looking girl in the crowds on Grant Avenue and in the Anxious Asp that I especially noticed. She used to sing blues sometimes at the Coffee Gallery, especially on Sunday evenings when they had the ``hootenany'' (i.e. open mike), and she had a very loud voice that I liked a whole lot. But despite her singing ability, she didn't seem to be able to find acceptance at all. I would look at her and think, ``There's someone who's even more lost in this scene than I am.''

I never knew her name at that time, but a few years later, when I would frequently see her face in newspapers and magazines, I found out that it was Janis Joplin.

(For some different observations on the North Beach bar and café scene, check out this article by P. Segal.)

A block down from Vallejo towards Chinatown, Grant Avenue crosses Broadway, where the topless craze was born during this time. At first, there were not only topless bars but topless restaurants. For a while, there was even a topless shoeshine girl on Kearny Street. The whole thing fascinated me. I don't think I'd ever seen any naked breasts at first hand except for my wife's. (Well, no, on second thought there had been a few occasions. But very few.) But I never went in any of the topless clubs because I assumed that they'd be much too expensive for me.

Also on Broadway was Mike's Pool Hall, which was probably the most interesting place to hang out at in North Beach. Somehow tourists never seemed to discover it, and mostly the people there were pretty authentic. ``Authentic what?'' is another question, which I never completely knew the answer to, but they were certainly authentic somethings. Authentic bartenders, authentic bums, authentic wannabe writers. And since Mike's was more a restaurant than a bar, it was able to stay open all night, although they stopped serving liquor at 2 AM, and so in the early hours of the morning authentic strippers and authentic whores would stop in to rest after work and get a bowl of the wonderful soup served at Mike's. I was seldom there that late, though.

After a while, I started to understand that if I wanted to become part of the North Beach scene, I needed to be there during the week. In some sense, almost everyone in the North Beach bars on the weekends was a tourist, even if they didn't safeguard themselves from the crowd by huddling inside a Gray Line bus. They may have lived in the Bay Area, or lived in San Francisco, but the weekend people weren't a real part of North Beach. And in any case, I was quite aware that for the most part the Beats had left North Beach several years ago."    (From here).

Here's a Timeline of the Decade someone has been putting together, so those who were there can stop trying to remember... ;>)


A

"

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 11:51 AM

TJ in San Diego said:

...and several in southern California whose names have vanished along with the venues - with the exception of the Prison of Socrates and the Ash Grove.

One that I remember was The Garret in Hollywood.

BTW, did anyone go to UCLA two weeks ago for the Ash Grove event? 'Twas a treat.