Garrick Theatre - Revision history

Duncan at 22:55, 14 October 2021

2021-10-14T22:55:34Z

Duncan at 19:59, 14 October 2021

2021-10-14T19:59:53Z

Duncan: /* Pigs & Repugnant */

2021-10-12T09:24:47Z

Pigs & Repugnant

Duncan: /* The Shows */

2021-10-11T22:58:48Z

The Shows

Duncan at 22:41, 11 October 2021

2021-10-11T22:41:30Z

Duncan at 22:29, 11 October 2021

2021-10-11T22:29:14Z

Duncan at 21:05, 11 October 2021

2021-10-11T21:05:55Z

Duncan at 14:47, 11 October 2021

2021-10-11T14:47:44Z

Duncan at 14:28, 11 October 2021

2021-10-11T14:28:35Z

Duncan: /* Pigs & Repugnant */

2021-10-11T14:14:01Z

Pigs & Repugnant

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:55, 14 October 2021
Line 31:		Line 31:
	During June Eric Andersen, Luke and The Apostles		During June Eric Andersen, Luke and The Apostles

−	During July Meredith Monk	+	During July [[Meredith Monk]] performed with [[Don Preston]] backing her.

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 ==Pigs & Repugnant==
-With the reduction in the number of venues available to play in Los Angeles and having had a run of successful shows in New York's Balloon Farm throughout [[66/11/23-26 New York NY US Balloon Farm|November]] and December 1966 the band returned to play at the Garrick Theatre, a small, narrow, 199 seat, performance space/cinema located on the floors above the [[Cafe Au Go Go]], at 152 Bleecker Street, New York. This covered the Easter vacation period  Thursday 23 March to Monday 3 April 1967.
+With the reduction in the number of venues available to play in Los Angeles and having had a run of successful shows in New York's Balloon Farm throughout [[66/11/23-26 New York NY US Balloon Farm|November]] and December 1966 the band returned to play at the Garrick Theatre, a narrow, 199 seat, performance space/cinema located on the floors above the [[Cafe Au Go Go]], at 152 Bleecker Street, New York.<ref>Previously it functioned as a cinema and was known as the Garrick Theatre but it fell into disuse and was known as Upstairs at the Café Au Go Go during the initial performances. The full name and marquee restored by June 1967</ref> This covered the Easter vacation period  Thursday 23 March to Monday 3 April 1967.
 <blockquote>
@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 </blockquote>
-With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.
+With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre throughout summer to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.
 <blockquote>"Of course, after Easter vacation, the crowds dwindled to zilch. Some nights there were three, maybe five people in there and we'd still play. But we would do it just for them."<ref>Cruising Down Memory Lane With Frank Zappa, Trouser Press, April, 1979</ref></blockquote>
-Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>; Zappa later claimed that the album and show having the same name was a mere coincidence<ref>"Zappa insists that the Verve Records' release of a Mothers' album entitled "Absolutely Free" is sheer coincidence." - [[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press were invited to review the show:
+Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>, although Zappa later claimed that the album and show having the same name was a mere coincidence<ref>"Zappa insists that the Verve Records' release of a Mothers' album entitled "Absolutely Free" is sheer coincidence." - [[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press were invited to review the show:
 <blockquote>Their music is also, more often than not, frankly hostile – both in its headachey volume and in those lyrics that you can make out amid the roar... As pure sound, though, this approaches genius. From an electrified kitchen of percussion, saxes, guitars, flutes, etc., they produce a thick, black sound shot through with odd treble sunbursts and pinwheels – the exact aural equivalent of the nervous ever-changing abstract projections flashing on the screen behind them.<ref>The New York Times, Thursday, May 25, 1967 - [[Mothers of Invention at the Garrick]]</ref></blockquote>
@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 ==The Shows==
 [[image:Garrickstage.jpeg|right|thumb|200px|Mothers on stage at The Garrick]]

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 </blockquote>
-With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.  Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>, despite Zappa's claim that the album and show having the same name was a mere coincidence,<ref>"Zappa insists that the Verve Records' release of a Mothers' album entitled "Absolutely Free" is sheer coincidence." - [[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press invited to review the show:
+With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.
 <blockquote>Their music is also, more often than not, frankly hostile – both in its headachey volume and in those lyrics that you can make out amid the roar... As pure sound, though, this approaches genius. From an electrified kitchen of percussion, saxes, guitars, flutes, etc., they produce a thick, black sound shot through with odd treble sunbursts and pinwheels – the exact aural equivalent of the nervous ever-changing abstract projections flashing on the screen behind them.<ref>The New York Times, Thursday, May 25, 1967 - [[Mothers of Invention at the Garrick]]</ref></blockquote>
@@ Line 20: / Line 23: @@
 [[Gail Zappa]] likened the extended run at the Garrick to [[wikipedia:The Beatles in Hamburg|The Beatles in Hamburg]]<ref>[[Zappa (movie)|Zappa]] - 2020 documentary</ref>  in that they were afforded the time to work out what they wanted to do and experiment with the audience to establish how much they could get away with on stage.
 ==The Shows==

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 ==The Shows==
 A regular attendee was [[Ruth Underwood]]:
 <blockquote>
 "One never knew what to expect, there were some nights that you just heard pure music, and other nights, [[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood|Motorhead]]'d be talking about fixing his car, with [[Jimmy Carl Black|Jim Black]]'s drum beat in the background. Sometimes [[Biography|Frank]] would just sit in a chair and glower at the audience. Sometimes there were more people on stage than there were in the audience, and because of that, Frank even got to know some of us by name! There were so few hard-core [[The Mothers|Mothers]] freaks then, that we were all very noticeable to him. I remember [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] being played, I remember droning music going on for ages, and then in the middle of all of that, the song that then became [[Oh No|'Oh No, I Don't Believe It']], sort of breaking through the clouds, and I mean it just shocked me, how anything could be so beautiful, and how such beautiful music could come out of such bizarre looking people." </blockquote>
 ==The Venue==

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 </blockquote>
-With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.  Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>, despite Zappa's claim that it was all mere "coincidence",<ref>"Zappa insists that the Verve Records' release of a Mothers' album entitled "Absolutely Free" is sheer coincidence." - [[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press invited to review the show:
+With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.  Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>, despite Zappa's claim that the album and show having the same name was a mere coincidence,<ref>"Zappa insists that the Verve Records' release of a Mothers' album entitled "Absolutely Free" is sheer coincidence." - [[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press invited to review the show:
 <blockquote>Their music is also, more often than not, frankly hostile – both in its headachey volume and in those lyrics that you can make out amid the roar... As pure sound, though, this approaches genius. From an electrified kitchen of percussion, saxes, guitars, flutes, etc., they produce a thick, black sound shot through with odd treble sunbursts and pinwheels – the exact aural equivalent of the nervous ever-changing abstract projections flashing on the screen behind them.<ref>The New York Times, Thursday, May 25, 1967 - [[Mothers of Invention at the Garrick]]</ref></blockquote>

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[image:GarrickT.jpg|center|thumb|600px|Absolutely Free at the Garrick]]
+__NOTOC__
 ==Pigs & Repugnant==
-[[image:Fztwhs.jpeg|right|thumb|150px|Tom Wilson, Frank Zappa and Howard Solomon (proprietor of the Garrick and Café Au Go Go)]]
-[[image:Garrickpost.jpeg|right|thumb|150px|Poster (date was extended to 3 April)]]With the reduction in the number of venues available to play in Los Angeles and having had a run of successful shows in New York's Balloon Farm throughout [[66/11/23-26 New York NY US Balloon Farm|November]] and December 1966 the band returned to play at the Garrick Theatre, a small, narrow, 199 seat, performance space/cinema located on the floors above the [[Cafe Au Go Go]], at 152 Bleecker Street, New York. This covered the Easter vacation period  Thursday 23 March to Monday 3 April 1967.
+With the reduction in the number of venues available to play in Los Angeles and having had a run of successful shows in New York's Balloon Farm throughout [[66/11/23-26 New York NY US Balloon Farm|November]] and December 1966 the band returned to play at the Garrick Theatre, a small, narrow, 199 seat, performance space/cinema located on the floors above the [[Cafe Au Go Go]], at 152 Bleecker Street, New York. This covered the Easter vacation period  Thursday 23 March to Monday 3 April 1967.
 <blockquote>
@@ Line 9: / Line 13: @@
 </blockquote>
-With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.  Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>, despite Zappa's claim that it was all mere "coincidence",<ref>[[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press invited to review the show:
+With so many visitors around during the holiday period the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.  Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>, despite Zappa's claim that it was all mere "coincidence",<ref>"Zappa insists that the Verve Records' release of a Mothers' album entitled "Absolutely Free" is sheer coincidence." - [[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press invited to review the show:
-[[image:CashBox-1967-06-10-Page20-lrg.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Cashbox 10 June 1967]]
 <blockquote>Their music is also, more often than not, frankly hostile – both in its headachey volume and in those lyrics that you can make out amid the roar... As pure sound, though, this approaches genius. From an electrified kitchen of percussion, saxes, guitars, flutes, etc., they produce a thick, black sound shot through with odd treble sunbursts and pinwheels – the exact aural equivalent of the nervous ever-changing abstract projections flashing on the screen behind them.<ref>The New York Times, Thursday, May 25, 1967 - [[Mothers of Invention at the Garrick]]</ref></blockquote>
-<blockquote>"Hells Angels without their bikes...These guys are too weird for us"<ref>Wall Street Journal</ref></blockquote>
+<blockquote>"For the Mothers, which we might loosely call a rock and roll group of seven males, are wildly hirsute, sartorially shaggy and arrogant of posture. (If that brings to mind the Beatles, try to think more in terms of the Hell's Angels without their bikes.) Visual chaos is compounded by the projection of throbbing patterns on a huge screen behind the ensemble and by such distracting (and annoying) on-stage antics as smearing a banana on a dismembered doll torso....The Mothers of Invention aren't going to change your mind. But they are part of a social phenomenon, they are good at what they do, and an evening at the Garrick is emphatically instinctive. Maybe more."<ref>'Mothers,' Hip Style, Stephen MacDonald, Wall Street Journal, May 26, 1967</ref></blockquote>
@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 <blockquote>
 "One never knew what to expect, there were some nights that you just heard pure music, and other nights, [[Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood|Motorhead]]'d be talking about fixing his car, with [[Jimmy Carl Black|Jim Black]]'s drum beat in the background. Sometimes [[Biography|Frank]] would just sit in a chair and glower at the audience. Sometimes there were more people on stage than there were in the audience, and because of that, Frank even got to know some of us by name! There were so few hard-core [[The Mothers|Mothers]] freaks then, that we were all very noticeable to him. I remember [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] being played, I remember droning music going on for ages, and then in the middle of all of that, the song that then became [[Oh No|'Oh No, I Don't Believe It']], sort of breaking through the clouds, and I mean it just shocked me, how anything could be so beautiful, and how such beautiful music could come out of such bizarre looking people." </blockquote>
 ==The Venue==
@@ Line 53: / Line 54: @@
+<blockquote>"Oh, I was probably one of those rather stiff people from the suburbs - I think some of us did understand, and we kept coming back for more, and more, and more. I remember being very upset when they finally finished their stint at the Garrick Theatre and went back to LA. I felt as if the real heart had gone out of New York City, and I had to get back on with my Conservatory music training life, which seemed very dull after this." Ruth Underwood - ? BBC doc ?</blockquote>

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 ==Pigs & Repugnant==
-[[image:Garrickpost.jpeg|right|thumb|150px|Poster (date was extended to 3 April)]]With the reduction in venues to play in Los Angeles and having had a run of successful shows in New York's Balloon Farm throughout [[66/11/23-26 New York NY US Balloon Farm|November]] and December 1966 the band returned to play at the Garrick Theatre, a small, narrow, 199 seat, performance space/cinema located on the floors above the [[Cafe Au Go Go]], at 152 Bleecker Street, New York. This covered the Easter vacation period  Thursday 23 March to Monday 3 April 1967.
+[[image:Fztwhs.jpeg|right|thumb|150px|Tom Wilson, Frank Zappa and Howard Solomon (proprietor of the Garrick and Café Au Go Go)]]
 <blockquote>
@@ Line 8: / Line 9: @@
 </blockquote>
-With so many people around during the holiday the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.  Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support, despite Zappa's claim that it was all mere "coincidence",<ref>[[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press invited to review the show:
+With so many people around during the holiday the shows had been very successful with weekends having three performances to accommodate the demand.  Given this success Cohen and Zappa decided to rent the theatre for the summer from March 23rd to September 5th.  The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces interspersed with [[wikipedia:Dada|Dada]], [[wikipedia:Vaudeville| vaudevillian]] theatrics. But attendance declined with, on occasions, more people on stage than in the audience.  Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue<ref>[http://www.iobdb.com/Production/3486 Off Broadway Database]</ref> entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the [[Absolutely Free|release of the album]].  For the launch MGM and Verve executives were called in as support<ref>[[Cashbox]] 10 June 1967</ref>, despite Zappa's claim that it was all mere "coincidence",<ref>[[Mother Of Two Runs Off With Uncle Meat]], Song Hits, September 1967</ref> and the press invited to review the show:
 <blockquote>Their music is also, more often than not, frankly hostile – both in its headachey volume and in those lyrics that you can make out amid the roar... As pure sound, though, this approaches genius. From an electrified kitchen of percussion, saxes, guitars, flutes, etc., they produce a thick, black sound shot through with odd treble sunbursts and pinwheels – the exact aural equivalent of the nervous ever-changing abstract projections flashing on the screen behind them.<ref>The New York Times, Thursday, May 25, 1967 - [[Mothers of Invention at the Garrick]]</ref></blockquote>
@@ Line 16: / Line 17: @@
 [[Gail Zappa]] likened the extended run at the Garrick to [[wikipedia:The Beatles in Hamburg|The Beatles in Hamburg]]<ref>[[Zappa (movie)|Zappa]] - 2020 documentary</ref>  in that they were afforded the time to work out what they wanted to do, experiment with the audience, to be intimate with an audience to establish how much they could get away with on stage.
-[[image:Fztwhs.jpeg|right|thumb|150px|Tom Wilson, Frank Zappa and Howard Solomon (proprietor of the Garrick and Café Au Go Go)]]
-[[image:CashBox-1967-06-10-Page20-lrg.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Cashbox 10 June 1967]]
+[[image:CashBox-1967-06-10-Page20-lrg.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Cashbox 10 June 1967]]
 ==The Shows==
@@ Line 32: / Line 33: @@
 ==The People==
+[[Mike Mainieri]]