When Van Ronk takes a vocal, the hogs are restless for miles around

epub or mobi, with thanks to the original sharer

The Café Bizarre, which was what Allmen called his room, was the first Village coffeehouse to feature folk music — or any formal entertainment at all for that matter — and it became a howling success that shortly begat clones all over the country. In concept and design, it was a tourist trap, selling the clydes (customers) a Greenwich Village that had never existed except in the film Bell, Book and Candle. The ambiance was cut-rate Charles Addams haunted house: dark and candlelit, with fake cobwebs hanging all over everything. The waitresses were got up to look like Morticia, with fishnet stockings, long straight hair, and so much mascara that they looked like raccoons. I swear I even saw some poor clown in a Frankenstein outfit wandering around the set.