Great Coffee Houses

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 08:16 PM

Vixen, isn't a coffee shop with shanty singing an oxymoron? --seed

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 07:26 PM

to the ever- mysterious Gargoyle, thanks. I've heard that the debut of Howl was one of the great moments in the history of Beat, and indeed 20th century American,Poetry. Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy were in the audience along with other luminaries of the 50's counterculture, yelling for Ginsberg "Go! Go!" like he was a sax player on a wild and beautiful improvisation.

LEJ

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: gargoyle
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 07:07 PM

LEJ and annap

The Portable Beat Reader
Edited by Ann Charters
1992, Viking-Penguin Press

pp.xxvii-xxviii

"Shortly after its compostion (Howl) he (Ginsberg) decided to organize a poetry reading on October 13, 1955, at the Six Gallery, a cooperative art gallery in San Francisco"

No guesses....just the facts mame....

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Llanfair
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 06:51 PM

What were we Brits doing whilst the Americans were sitting in wonderful coffee houses. Lyons Corner House was not quite the same!!! I suppose we were in the pubs instead. I can remember going into one in Liverpool, where the poets hung out, saw the Scaffold, and Adrian Henri. No coffee. Hwyl, Bron.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: John Hindsill
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 05:59 PM

Actually the Coffee Gallery is in Altadena just above Pasadena...sorry.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: John Hindsill
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 04:57 PM

Venice West - Southern California of the "Beatniks"; had ny first espresso theere.
Positano's - High overlooking Malibu; only way up was a woody which shuttled you up in reverse. First time was scary, dark, winding road...no athiests in that woody!
Pandora's Box
Cosmo Alley
The Unicorn
The Ice House, when a folk club
The Troubadour, ditto
The Ash Grove
The Garrett, my personal favorite back then...All long gone.

Today, in Pasadena, the Coffee Gallery and its Backstage, operated by Bob Stane (orignal operator of the Ice House).

John

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Leslie
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 04:56 PM

The Golem in Montreal in the Hillel house on Stanley Street in the seventies and eighties...maybe 75 or 80 seats but such great music...the McGarrigles, Jesse Winchester, Stan Rogers, Kate Wolf, Fraser & DeBolt, Tom Paxton, Murray McLauchlan, Nanci Griffith, Mimi Farina, Odetta, Valdy, John Hartford, Humphrey and his Dumptrucks, Penny Lang, Bill Staines, Margaret Christl, Utah Phillips, Rosalie Sorrels, Dave Van Ronk, Eric Anderson, Paul Geremia, Priscilla Herdman...so many more...so many memories.

Leslie

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 04:36 PM

Ah, memories!

My first coffeehouse was the Foghorn in Baltimore, late sixties. In the basement of a music store of the same name. Only go there twice (student on a limited budget) but I saw the unforgettable Jesse "Lone Cat" Fuller and the fair Judy Roderick (how can someone that small have such a powerful voice?).

Leap forward to the 80's and it is the Otterbein in Baltimore. In the Sunday school hall of an old church. Nothing special, but a very regular crowd ("where everyone knows your name" kind of place) and good music. Many of the names on the folk circuit passed through and a number of local acts. 'Twas my favorite open mic place for many a year.

It moved and grew and eventually became the Concerts at Mays Chapel. I can't fault it for growing and it brings in "the big names" and some adventuresome picks as well.

I still like the Folkal Point in Columbia, Maryland. Open once a week from September through May. A place for the up and coming artist plus a few old friends. Nice place for 30 people and can hold about 60 at the max.

A number of places where I used to play have closed or don't have music anymore. I am not sure the correlation proves cause and effect in this case.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: annamill
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 03:53 PM

Now you're in my time -Greenwich Village circa 1960.

The Night Owl, The Fat Black Pussy Cat, The Cafe Wha?, The Feenjon, The Rienzi, The Bitter End, and a whole bunch more all within a radius of 5 blocks. Folk music heaven. The reason I'm so attracted to Mudcat lies in those days. I worked in most of those coffeehouses listening to the finest music and some pretty bad. The owners didn't pay anything so anyone could play and pass a basket. I heard great people who never were heard from again.

What a time! Then I moved to Woodstock, N.Y.. But that's another story ;-)

annap

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Banjoman_CO
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 03:47 PM

In Oklahoma City the "Buddhi" and the "Sword and Stone" were great coffee houses with top notch entertainers. In Tulsa it was the "Dust Bowl" and in Houston it was "Sand Mountain". Ron Shipman's club in Dallas was a great club but I can't remember the name of it. All of these featured great entertainers.

Fred

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: annamill
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 03:38 PM

LEJ, I think it was The Purple Onion, or The Hungry Eye.

annap

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Alice
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 03:21 PM

LEJ, I will be in Denver for about 5 days the middle of this month (July). I'll be staying with my boss and his family in Idaho Springs. I think I used to have your email address, but can't find it, and the Mudcat personal message page here doesn't work for me. Any chance there is a music get together somewhere during that time where we can meet? -alice

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: LEJ
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 03:00 PM

What was the name of the San Francisco coffee house where Allen Ginsberg performed the first public reading of Howl ? Was it The Matrix?

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: harpgirl
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 02:58 PM

...a second vote for the Ann Arbor Ark: particularly when it was in the Presbyterian House on Hill street. That's where I first saw Art Thieme perform...harpy

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Wally Macnow
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 09:41 AM

In the early '70s, "The Focus" in Manhattan was run by Debby McClatchy who booked it and baked for it. 'Twas a grand place to hear great music.

Before that, it was Gerde's which was a bar and not a coffee house. They had the best open mike in the world. All the New York crowd and a lot of visiting singers showed up there on Monday nights. It was hosted by Brother John Sellers.

Another bar that had a great open mike was "The Red Fox" in Silver Spring, Maryland outside of Washington, DC. This one was hosted first by Mike Holmes and then by Bruce Hutton of the Double Decker String Band.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Vixen
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 09:12 AM

I wonder if any of you chanty singin' cats recall "The Jolly Beggar's" in Mystic CT? Long gone, unfortunately. I've heard John's on Cottrell Street is good.

The Vanilla Bean in Pomfret, CT has good stuff, and The Paradise Eatery in Willimantic CT has a nice, small, friendly Friday night jam session.

V

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Cap't Bob
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 08:53 AM

The "Ark" in Ann Arbor, Michigan is a really great one. It has been moved a few times it has survived and is still doing well. Too bad we live about 200 miles north.

Cap't Bob

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From:
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 05:01 AM

the "E-bar" - black, twisted, back alley of Pasadena. Now closed. Seating for 50 and standing for 50 in the alley. A feeling that you could be mugged at any moment but a gathering of students, punks, itellectuals and celebrities

Back room of McCabe's guitar shop. Los Angeles

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 03:55 AM

In Berkeley it's The Freight and Salvage: Long and narrow, stage raised about two feet or so above the floor, good seating up front, not so good behind the halfway mark. A good selection of artists: in the last few years I saw Robin and Linda Williams, Mike Seeger, The Austin Lounge Lizards, Laurie Lewis and Tom Rosum, The Dry Branch Fire Squad, and others, and missed Tony Trishka and bunches of other greats. Coffee, tea, muffins and cookies from the bar in back, but few tables, mostly a motley collection of chairs aimed at the stage. It seats a couple hundred or so.

--seed

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: gargoyle
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 01:05 AM

Golden Bear - Huntington Beach CA

Light House - Hermosa Beach CA

Ice House - Pasadena CA

1960's Southern Cal.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Night Owl
Date: 02 Jul 99 - 12:56 AM

"Passim's" in Boston and "Joshua's Loft" in New Bedford.

Subject: RE: Great Coffee Houses
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Jul 99 - 08:29 PM

In my old stomping grounds, the place was, and is, Cafe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY. Old brick walls, never enough room, the best iced mocha on the planet. Lena was there to greet everyone as they walked up the narrow stairs to the Cafe on the second floor, and to say goodbye at the end of the evening. I went to hear the music, but there were poetry readings and plays put on there, too. There was an old Wurlitzer jukebox (I don't know if it worked) and interesting women's room grafitti. The place probably hasn't changed much, and I regret living too far away to get there.

Subject: Great Coffee Houses
From: LEJ
Date: 01 Jul 99 - 05:54 PM

Art's touching words about the No Exit Cafe inspired me to start this thread. What are/were some other great venues that featured java, poetry and music?

When I moved to Denver in 1976, Muddy Waters was the place. It was a little ram-shackle place on Wazee Street where you could have Espresso, buy a used book, hear live music or poetry, or enjoy a casual meal. It also housed a small theatre (seated about 30 people) where original work by local playwrights was presented. The walls were burlap covered, the floor ancient oak planks, and there was always a chess game in progress. I'm not sure if it still exists.