{"id":160,"date":"2018-07-13T08:28:53","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T08:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thevillagetrip.com\/blog\/?p=160"},"modified":"2019-08-21T07:36:41","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T07:36:41","slug":"it-was-a-time-playing-the-night-owl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevillagetrip.com\/it-was-a-time-playing-the-night-owl\/","title":{"rendered":"It was a time! Playing the Night Owl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IanIan Seeberg and his band the Gingermen played Joe Marra’s legendary Night Owl in the 1960s, one of many clubs around the crossroads of MacDougal and Bleecker<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every night the streets of Greenwich Village in the 1960s were filled with a riotous blaze of neon lights and patchouli oil; a teeming, bell-bottomed sea of peace and love with no shortage of feathers, headbands and beads. Wherever you looked indelible images appeared: a darkened doorway becoming an impromptu stage for someone to muse mystically on a native flute, fervent chanters intoning through clouds of incense, strange figures emerging out of the night fog of Washington Square<\/a> looking like lost Indian scouts for General Custer \u2013 and all of it set to the endless soundtrack of ringing guitar music pouring from clubs up and down the streets.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Instead of studying in our dorm room at Bard College, a few hours north of New York City via the Taconic Parkway, my roommates and I could be found on stage at the Night Owl Caf\u00e9<\/a>, one of the great iconic clubs of the day, on West 3rd Street. Nightly, we, the <\/span>Gingermen, rocked through original tunes and bluesy classics like \u2018Can\u2019t Judge a Book by Lookin\u2019 at the Cover\u2019. Behind the cash register sat<\/span> Cass Elliot<\/a>, still some years from becoming a Mama in the <\/span>Mamas and Papas<\/a>, and waitress <\/span>Shelly Plimpton<\/a>, about a year away from starring in the original cast of <\/span>Hair<\/span><\/i><\/a> on Broadway.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IanWe shared the bill with Biff Rose and the Thorns<\/a>, Richie Havens<\/a> (who taught me how to do those cool polyrhythmic rolling strums) and, the headline act, the Lovin\u2019 Spoonful<\/a> (their drummer, Joe Butler<\/a>, mercifully treating this starving guitar player to an occasional cheeseburger). Between sets I\u2019d be off in a corner, finger-picking and harmonizing with a preppy college kid named Steve Stills<\/a>. He asked me to join his band \u2013 couldn\u2019t do it, wish I had. We hung out with \u201cBob<\/a>\u201d, who gave us tickets to his concert at Lincoln Center. We partied with Joan<\/a>, jammed at Tom Paxton<\/a>\u2019s apartment with Phil Ochs<\/a>, Malvina Reynolds<\/a> and Pete Seeger<\/a>; caught the Young Rascals<\/a> playing up the street, tried to catch the attention of Carole King<\/a> and Gerry Goffin<\/a> as they checked out the talent in the clubs and, after the clubs closed, ate breakfast in the dead of night with all the other musicians at Caf\u00e9 Figaro<\/a>.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Arguably, there have never been more seminal performers and composers packed together into such a small microcosm than the musicians down in the Village in the ’60s. It was a hotbed of enthusiasm, optimism and creativity from which the American culture of the day defined itself, where it found its voice, where it learned to sing.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Yeah, it was a time.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>\"IanIan Seeberg is now an LA-based writer, composer, creative director and teacher<\/strong>
\n<\/span>www.ianseeberg.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ian Seeberg and his band the Gingermen played Joe Marra’s legendary Night Owl in the 1960s, one of many clubs around the crossroads of MacDougal and Bleecker Every night the … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,4,8],"tags":[24,21,36,25,37,34,32,39,33,31,35,22],"yoast_head":"\nIt was a time! 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