Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Fillmore East, John Entwistle and The Rock and Rye


On this day in 1971, the Fillmore East would close it's doors after only three years in business. Operated by rock promoter Bill Graham and the sister concert hall to Graham's Fillmore in San Francisco the Fillmore East in New York City would be known as the "Church of Rock and Roll".

Originally built as a Yiddish theater, the Fillmore East had a deceptively small footprint but held almost 3,000 seats. It's location in the East Village made it a favorite concert venue in a neighborhood that contained so many musicians and fans. Bill Graham, the most successful promoter of his time, brought the biggest names touring at that time to the Fillmore that would have two shows a night.

 

The excellent acoustics at the Fillmore East also made it the place to record a live album.
The Allman Brothers Band, Joe Cocker, Miles Davis, Derek and the Dominos, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, King Crimson, Taj Mahal, Frank Zappa And The Mothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young all recorded live albums there.

Bill Graham, citing changes in the concert business would close the Fillmore in San Francisco the Fillmore East in New York City but after a short hiatus would continue to promote music and concerts until his death in a helicopter crash while returning home from a concert in 1991.






The Historical Inebriant:  Rock and Rye
(the basic drink is quite simple, dissolve rock candy into Rye and drink,
but for something more adventurous, and an interesting read, see below)




Ingredients:

1 bottle rye whiskey
3-5 tbsp rock candy
2 slices orange
2 slices lemon
2 pieces dried apricot
1 slice pineapple
1 tea bag full of dried horehound

Combine whiskey and sugar in a jar or decanter. All other ingredients optional. Allow all - except for horehound tea bag - to steep for a day or two or more. Leave horehound in for no more than two hours. When sugar is finally dissolved, strain and bottle. Then serve the Rock and Rye on the rocks.



Nearly a century ago, essayist Irvin Cobb decried the visual vagaries of modern art, a complaint that still has some resonance today: “I am one who is very easily satisfied,” he wrote in 1913. “All I ask of a picture is that it shall look like something.” Cobb griped about walking through miles of galleries in vain search of representational painting—and that was well before the age of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. “Once in a while we behold a picture of something that we can recognize without a chart,” Cobb wrote, “and it looms before our gladdened vision like a rock-and-rye in a weary land.”  Eric Felton - from the above WSJ article


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On this day in 2002: John Entwistle, bassist for the band The Who, was found dead of a heart attack in his hotel room at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. The Who were to kick off their 2002 tour the next day.  Entwistle was 57 years old.



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