Difference between revisions of "Cafe Au Go Go"
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[[Category:The Real Frank Zappa Book (The List)]] | [[Category:The Real Frank Zappa Book (The List)]] | ||
Latest revision as of 12:53, 1 August 2026
Cafe Au Go Go was a nightclub at Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, New York, operative between February 1964 and December 1970 in the basement of Garrick Theatre, owned by Howard Solomon. It was a music venue for many bands, but also stand-up comedians like Lenny Bruce. Solomon and Bruce were arrested and charge with obscenity in 1964.
Frank Zappa about the Cafe Au Go Go
"Jimi Hendrix (...) sat in with us at the Garrick Theater. In fact, he played my hollowbody through a Fender Twin and got feedback out of that. All I know is he was working downstairs at this place. The Cafe Au Go Go, and we invited him to sit in and he came upstairs and I let him use my guitar and he got feedback and went ape. I saw him at the Cafe Au Go Go when he played with us and at a pop festival in Miami where we worked with him. That's when he burned his guitar and I got it about a year-and-a-half later from the guy who used to be one of his roadies, a guy called Howard Parker." - Frank Zappa in Frank Zappa, 82/06, Steven Rosen, Record Review, June 1982.
"We opened the Garrick run during Easter vacation 1967. There were lines around the block, in the snow. However, as soon as school reconvened, attendance plummeted. On our worst night we had three paying customers. We told them we were going to give them an evening of customized, personal entertainment. There was a passageway in back of the Garrick that led downstairs to the Cafe au-Go-Go's kitchen. Everybody in the band went down and got hot cider and bunches of little snacks. We put towels over our arms, like waiters, went back, served our audience their refreshments and talked with them for an hour and a half. On another occasion we had only ten or fifteen people. We asked them whether they would like to be the band for the night. They thought it was a good idea, so we gave them our instruments, sat in the audience for an hour and a half and listened to them play the show." - Frank Zappa in The Real Frank Zappa Book.
Other quotes
"We did a couple of nights at the Cafe Au Go Go. I remember that because Zappa and The Mothers were in the upstairs bit, the Garrick Theater... I sat in with them once and I think Jimi may well have too..."
