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Music et al, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Quill Phil Thayer

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Quill Phil Thayer

Born on January 20
Quill Phil Thayer
Promo photo of Quill’s appearance on The Dave Garroway Show, two months before Woodstock. Left to right: Jon Cole, Roger North, Dave Garroway, Norman Rogers, Phil Thayer, and Dan Cole.

Phil Thayer played both keyboard and sax for the band Quill, the band that opened day 2–August 16, 1969–of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Since day 2 was the first day of rock music that weekend, Quill lays claim to the first rock act at Woodstock.

Unfortunately, that gold coin is only a Woodstock footnote. As as unfortunately,  so is Phil Thayer.

Quill Phil Thayer

Life-changing?

Of the “million” people around Bethel that weekend, my guess is that the event did not drastically change their lives. Yes, they could forever claim the first-hand experience of an historic event, but an historic event only to those who wanted to listen.

Put in perspective, we were not in Gettysburg in July 1863; on the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. Such horribly historic events changed the lives of all Americans whether they wanted them changed or not. Woodstock was a great wet weekend of music, but did not change the lives of all Americans.

As I’ve found when doing the other short bios for Woodstock’s performers, while many did continue in music, there were those who had never intended that music would be their lifetime path or those for whom life pushed them off the musical path.

Perhaps there were some for whom it was what it was and life went on. 1979, 1994, and 2019 are just years, not anniversaries.

Quill Phil Thayer

Boston-based

Quill Phil Thayer

Quill came out of Boston.  Brothers Jon and Dan Cole were the founders of the band. Their management, Ray Paret and his partner, David Jenks, “introduced the Coles to three musicians …keyboardist Phil Thayer, guitarist Norm Rogers, and prodigious drummer Roger North. Recognition came quickly. By the summer of 1967, the band was gigging steadily.” [Boston.com article]

The band’s reputation grew with their own gigs and as they opened for bigger and bigger acts like The Jeff Beck Group, The Who, The Kinks, Janis Joplin, Velvet Underground.

Quill Phil Thayer

A December 1968 Scene magazine article stated that “It is not almost time for Quill. they deserve to succeed not only here but in every mind and acre in the country. Their success will go a long way forward dispelling the cynical distrust so many show toward the “system” inherent in the music business, because Quill is a group founded on honest musical expression instead of plastic promotional vagaries.”

The same piece applauded Norm Rogers (the band’s guitarist) and Thayer for their contribution “to the most amazing simulation of electronic music in Quill’s live performances.”

Quill Phil Thayer

Woodstock

Fate did seem to smile upon Quill when they received an invite to Woodstock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfH18WqJuY8

They got to rub their elbows (and other joints I suppose) with the bigger names that weekend as well as names like Carlos Santana whose Woodstock bump would be bigger than any other band.

“Festival organizer Michael Lang remembers Quill as a “soft-rock’’ band, chosen for the goodwill tour because they played “rather benign rock and roll.’’  [ibid]

Quill Phil Thayer

1.1 albums

Quill Phil Thayer

Quill did not make the movie. Quill did not make the album despite the fact that Cotillion Records, the company that released the famous 3-disc set, had also signed Quill and released their album in 1970.

Less than rave reviews led to Jon’s departure and although the band recorded a second album, Cotillion did not release it.

According to a WoodsTALK blog entry by Bethel Woods Museum director Wade Lawrence, Phil Thayer dropped out of sight after Quill broke up and is presumed to be living in Florida.

Having said that, it seems that Phil may have played saxophone with the Allman Brothers at a Swathmore, PA concert on May 2, 1970 suggesting he continued at least for a time.

And there is a Facebook page for a Phil Thayer who lives in Casselberry, Florida. Of his friends, there is an Amanda Cole listed who is the daughter of Jon Cole (or Dan?).

Quill Phil Thayer

Together

AND…back in late May 2018, some of the Quill band got together for the first time in 49 years at the Dancing Cat Saloon, nearby the original Woodstock festival site. Among them was Phil Thayer. I think he is the middle person with one of the Cole brothers on the left and Roger North on the right.

Quill Phil Thayer

Quill Phil Thayer
Peace Love Art and Activism

Tenor Dave Garrett

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Tenor Dave Garrett

Dave Garrett is not David Garrett (born David Bongartz, 1981 Sept 4 in Aachen, Germany),  a classical violinist and recording artist, though a Last FM link  for Sha Na Na article suggests that.

Woodstock Dave

This Dave Garrett was a vocalist with Sha Na Na and performed with them at Woodstock.

At the time, Rolling Stone magazine said that he was from Brooklyn and the “…first tenor…majoring in electrical engineering, due to a masochistic philosophy.” 

Tenor Dave Garrett

Bendix Mouldings

He also, according to his bio at the Sha Na Na dot com site, “owned Bendix Mouldings for 35 years and has recently retired splitting his time between New York and Florida.

Dave was with the band from its inception in 1969 and only through 1970.

On June 3, 2016 eleven of the dozen Woodstock performers were part of the Columbia University Alumni weekend celebration. Member Frederick “Dennis” Greene had died  in 2015.

A George Leonard site article described Dave Garrett as “…a mountainous figure with a pure tenor.”

Here he is doing “Little Darlin’.”

Tenor Dave Garrett

Earth Sound

Tenor Dave Garrett

A Revolvy site article states that Garrett, “ran Earth Sound Research, a Long Island-based musical instrument amplifier company, during the 1970s.” The Farmingdale company closed in the early ’80s.  It may have closed because of  its use of very similar design to Peavey amps.

Tenor Dave Garrett

2016 gig

Hofstra University celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2016 and Sha Na Na was there as part of that celebration.  The San Diego Tribune has a picture of members rehearsing for that gig

More?

If anyone has anything more about Dave, please comment. He deserves more than a few links that all seem to end with that he is in business in New York City.

Methinks there’s more.

Tenor Dave Garrett
Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock

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Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock

If Life gives allows us enough time, there will interesting intersections. For Bruce “Bruno” Clarke, Columbia University, a doo wop band on a lark, a surprisingly well-received Woodstock performance, and cybernetics all intersected.

Tutti Frutti > Plastic Fantastic

In 1960, a cadet uncle attending West Point gave Clarke Little Richard’s “Here’s Little Richard.” He was 10 and fell in love with rock and roll.

He built a crystal radio and hung an antenna out his McLean, Virginia bedroom. Along came Beatlemania and an acoustic guitar. He replaced it with a Gibson Melody Maker, an amp, and some high school friends to become Fuzz, his first band.

He played rhythm guitar until the bassist’s parents removed the bassist from the band. Along comes bass player Bruce Clarke.

Fuzz morphed into Fantastic Plastic and great SAT scores helped get him into Columbia University.

Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock

Columbia

He wasn’t part of Columbia’s a Capella King’s Men, but when its members wanted to do a one-night doo wop show, Clarke became its bassist. The success of the show led to more than one night.

Late June, 1969, the newly minted Sha Na Na got a two-week late-night run at Steve Paul‘s Scene.   Who should stop by one night and happened to see this Sha Na Na? Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang. A late invitation followed.

According to a video interview,

“…I just had this insane crazy good fortune to stumble into a phenomenon which turned into the group Sha Na Na which then became a successful rock act and played at Woodstock when we were three months old. 

In a Wild River Review piece, Clarke relates his story leaving Friday morning for Bethel, finally getting to the site, and experiencing the whole scene.

When they left the stage on Monday morning, Jimi Hendrix “…shook hands all around and, shaking mine, uttered the personal compliment I’ve tried to live by ever since: “You got soul, man.”

Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock

Jumps off

In that same video interview, Clarke says “...I did it for four years…I just happened to be there, caught the thing by the tail and took the ride.

“I don’t really want to dedicate myself to more years on end, ready to go back, go to grad school, see what happens. So I did. I cut it loose.”

Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock

Texas Tech

Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock

Bruce C Clarke currently teaches in the English department at Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX. According to the Department of English site at TT, “Bruce Clarke is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Literature and Science in the Department of English at Texas Tech University. His research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century literature and science, with special interests in systems theory, narrative theory, and ecology. In 2010-11 he was Senior Fellow at the International Research Institute for Cultural Technologies and Media Philosophy, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and in Summer 2015 he was Senior Fellow at the Center for Literature and the Natural Sciences, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. He edits the book series Meaning Systems, published by Fordham University Press.”

It appears that his most recent book was the 2014 Neocybernetics and Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. His credited list of Special Issues, Book Reviews, Invited Presentations and Book Chapters in Print, Articles, Article Reviews, and Introductions is a long one as well as the awards list for research.

Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock