Cork Marcheschi - Fifty Foot Hose
Cork Marcheschi is an American musician and sculptor who helped to establish one of San Fran’s most legendary psychedelic groups in the 60’s, Fifty Foot Hose. Born and raised in San Mateo, CA, Marcheschi enrolled in the college of San Mateo in order to dodge the draft in the early 60’s. It’s here he would declare his major in telecommunications before switching his major and pursuing an amazingly ground breaking career as an artist! It was a pleasure speaking to Cork about his life and all the sonic journeys he has been on. A true pioneer and guru of light and sound. Enjoy!
I am currently 76 years old, a sculptor, musician and for 20 years a college prof. I have done a lot of stuff and have a successful career as an artist, BUT The greatest success of my life has been the Fifty Foot Hose! I make this judgement based on the fact that I never lifted a finger to promote the band. David and I had youthful belief in an idea that at that moment in time, really had no chance. Like mad love, the Hose was art – Dada -music – performance and innocence. We were Judy Garland and Micky Rooney putting a show in our parents’ garage. But unlike Micky and Judy’s sold out garage shows - it took us 20 years for the Music to find an audience. A fifty-year backward glance at the power of naïveté. In order to get a feel for how the Hose came to be, there is a back story that adds up to David and I making music.
I was younger than 10 when I fell in love with RnB, blues and most forms of Black music. On a Sunday morning, while walking with my grandmother we passed a small church. It was a Baptist church and the choir was at full sail. I stopped to listen. The back of neck tingled, this was an electrifying moment. It was all about a feeling, something that touched my precognitive self and said yes! I knew I was alive but this music made me FEEL alive. 2. During my junior year in high school I dated Jeannie Gordon a gifted pianist and extremely smart young woman. One night at her home she played Edgar Varese’s Poeme Electronique. He was commissioned to write a piece of music for the Phillip’s (electronics) pavilion at the 1958 Brussel world fair. Le Corbusier had designed a very radical building.
200 speakers were placed inside the walls of this sculptured space. Poeme Electronique lasts 8 minutes and that was the time it took to stroll through the building. Was This piece of auditory sculpture was amazing to me. This 1962 and I had heard Electronic effects used in SiFi films but nothing like this. I wish I could find Jeannie and thank her for introducing me to this piece of music and putting up with a dumb 17-year-old boy. I formed a band with some other blues obsessed kids and within 3 months we are playing Friday night at the Shoreview YMCA. All covers – Chuck Berry – Muddy Waters – Fat Domino – The Coasters. We were mediocre but made up for our lack of finesse with monster enthusiasm. The band came along as younger black audiences were moving on to the new Motown sounds and away from the Blues.
The band decided it needed to play clubs because that is what bands did back then. 9PM to 2Am, 5 sets. None of us were 21 so we found a guy who made phony ID’s. We started getting booked into Black clubs, because we played the music of the previous 2 generations. So, the 2 white guys and 3 Mexicans played the blues for appreciative audiences. I added a trumpet and sax so we could get into James Brown, Bobby Blue Bland, Ray Charles and Louis Jordan. We had no desire to be creative. We wanted to honor this music and play the way that we experienced it. While taking an art history class at the college of San Mateo my teacher Mr. Steed introduced the class to Dadaism and Kurt Schwiters W poem. In 1924 at Cabaret Hannover, Germany Schwiters stood on a table top, Held a large letter W above his head. He then repeated W 250 times. Each W had a difference volume – tone – timbre. When he completed the poem, he tossed the letter on the ground and proclaimed this “The greatest poem ever written” I GOT THIS – YES absolutely I understood and my life changed direction that day. I study early 20th century is with a monastic zeal. This with Black music was my church.
My RnB band was spotted playing Tipsy’s in SF North Beach. A booker from Las Vegas offered us 2 weeks at the El Rancho on the Strip. This was great, good money, playing on the same street as Louie Prima and the Rat Pack. Howard Hugh’s was holed up a couple blocks down – This was all so cool. WE then got booked at the best dance club in Vegas the Pussy Cat a go. Great club, we went on at midnight and played until 6 am. All of the entertainers, waitresses, show girls would come to the pussycat. We had a blast until the club owner asked for our police cards? We did not know we needed them and we didn’t have them. We couldn’t get the cards because three of us were age. That was it – The band broke up and I drove all night and went home. For the next 6 months I did nothing. I had breakfast – watched TV – Lunch – TV - dinner TV and then bed. I was so depressed and dejected. I get a call from the musician’s union that a bass player was needed. that evening. If the band was still together I wouldn’t have given this gig a second thought.
But I hadn’t Touched my bass in 6 months and I needed to get out the house. A young woman Named Stephanie had booked us as here backup. This was for a large private party in SF at Bimbo’s 365 Club. This is where I met David Blossom and Nancy Blossom (wife.) We played 2 hours of RnR standards and then talked about music and art for another 2 hr. Nancy was pregnant and getting tired so we planned to meet the next day and continue the conversation. We met the next day at my Grandmother’s house. I was living there with her and my 5-month-old son and first wife. The conversation picked up and I expressed my desire to incorporate electronic music and Dada Concepts in the music of the day. I told David he had to hear Poeme Electronique. David was excited and had been thinking about similar things. David was well schooled in Folk, Rock, jazz standards and atonal composers Schoenberg, Berg, Webern. That Sunday afternoon in my Nonna’s garage – the yet un-named Fifty Foot hose was formed. The band was Dave – Cork and Nancy. Nancy sang – David played guitar and wrote – I played bass and electronic things.
On the demo version of “if not this time” I was playing the Theremin And bass simultaneously. We needed a band and we needed to make money. So, Larry Devers was a Seasoned bar band guitarist. He had a friend who could play bass and that let me go full time electronics. We tried 4 drummers. The first three were fine as long as the song had a traditional structure. When the time came to musically “ let go” the drummers became frustrated and unsure. Then we met Kimsey on a casual gig. The next day he was rehearsing with us and the fit was perfect. Kimsey got it. Now that we had a band we needed to make some money to stay alive. David was about to be a dad – I had a son and Kimsey had a couple of kids. I decided that the plan would be to cash in on my old bands good reputation. I knew that once they heard the new band all good will would be gone and we would never work there again. I gave (the yet un-named band) 2 month of intense practices and then we would have to start working? S David and I were serious about the concepts we trying to establish. Neither of us was into drugs Larry on the other hand did enough drugs for the entire band.
One night while playing at Pierre’s on Broadway in SF’s North Beach area. We were playing our last song, it was 1:45 Am a Monday night and the club was empty except for a sleeping drink on the bar. In a very sarcastic tone I said “Thanks – you ‘ve been a great audience we are FIFTY FOOT HOSE and we can’t wait to see you again. The drunk abruptly woke from his liquor induce Bar top coma and said FIFTY FOOT HOSE – he started to laugh and walked outa the bar. That is the origin of the band’s name. We played some odd casual gigs where we would play 20 minutes between a dance band 40-minute sets. We played mostly covers but in our final set the crowd had thinned out and I pulled the Theremin out Dave had some abused foot pedals and we Hosed it up. A trumpet player from the dance band got what we were doing and gave us Brian Rohan’s name as a good contact to get a record deal? The band had just recorded a demo some place in the height in a friend of the drummer’s place. We had a SONY TC 200 (I think) a 1/4 track machine and some mikes that came with the machine. The room was covered with people and they provide amazing acoustical material.
It was a perfect moment. We recorded “if not this time” I played Bass and Theremin at the same time. “Red the Sign Post” and “Fly Free” These three were played once and they captured the band. These became the winners for our demo tape. I didn’t know of Brian so I called and got an appointment. Brains office had been a straight ahead legal office. Heavy furniture with button and tuck upholstery and a reception desk the size of queen size bed. BUT – the place was full of freaks – patchouli oil –guitars and people sitting on the floor and it was a real wow moment. Brian was a straight forward guy. He took my reel to reel demo tape and said “I will call you if anybody is interested.” This had the same ring as “The check is in the mail.” About 6 weeks later I get a call from Brian? He tells me that Mercury is re-tooling their old jazz label “Lime light” and turning it into an Electronic label. I spoke with Robin McBride the Mercury guy and he was excited.
He loved the music and wanted to hear the band – I asked when and he said tomorrow? This was a holy shit moment. Sometime the next afternoon Robin arrived at my parents’ house and in the family room we played. There was holding back and Robin signed us on the spot. Mercury had a rehearsal studio on Mission close to 8th St. Just a big open concrete space with a reception area up front and offices upstairs. Depending on the day of the week. We rehearsed after Blue Cheer some days- Mother Earth – Lamb – Doug Sham (Sir Douglas) – Shades of Joy and Buddy Miles. We really didn’t need the rehearses but it was fun playing with and listening all of these other musicians. Mercury put the band together with Producer Dan Healey who had a long history in radio – electronics and rock n roll. His work with the Grateful Dead is legend. Before we went into the studio Mercury offered to rent us a Moog or Buchla synthesizer.
David and I decided we wanted the sounds we made to be of our making. So all of the bits and pieces I had put together became my un-named instrument and it was good call. Dan produced our record and was the studio engineer for the it as well. We did our basic tracks at Sierra Sound in Berkeley and that went very smoothly. The sweetening was all done in San Francisco’s North Beach at Trident studios, in the basement of Columbus Towers. Trident studio had the first eight track recorder in SF. The studio was originally designed for the Kingston Trio to record in. It was small, very comfortable and perfect for what we were about to do. Dan slowly got into the spirit of what we’re doing and soon was Actively participating in what could be done to shape the sound and the album. This was still the analog and mechanical age. Things could be done on a very primitive level. Dan made the studio an open instrument. David and I felt at home drilling holes in tape reels that were off center or controlling out of phase vocals by broadcasting the voice and then receiving it though an FM receiver and adjusting the loop stick as the vocal passed through.
A group of young women from the American Conservatory Theater school were being shown the Studio as we we re recording Cauldron. David and I looked at them as asked if they could cry and wail as Nancy did the vocals. You can hear their weeping and moaning clearly on the final mix. The attitude was if you stepped into the studio you were fair game as a tool for the record. WHAT AN AMAZING experience. The record came out to no particular fanfare. They put it out, made some posters, got it distributed and placed a few articles in teen magazines. Ralph J Gleason wrote a little blurb about the band. The most notable quote from him was “ I don’t know if they are premature or immature?” Late night under-ground DJ’s seemed to be the place where you could hear this record. David and I had pushed and hoped and pushed some more. We were young but tired and defeated. Our innocence in believing in a vision that could never have succeeded. The hippy audience did not like to be challenged. The long hair, beads – tie dye – dope smoking just added up to another type of conformity. But love is blind and we finally waked into the wall. This is when I got the call from David.
Nancy had auditioned for the San Francisco production of HAIR and won a leading role. David became the stage bands director and he got to do a guitar solo freak-out scene on stage. I was offered the opportunity to play Bass. But I couldn’t imagine playing the same music 6 nights a week plus two matinee’s. I went to graduate school so I could teach Sculpture and art history in college. May 1970 I Packed a 12 foot Uhaul, my family and took off to teach at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. In 2008 David Blossom died and it was a very sad day. David and I had never lost touch and worked together on different projects. David’s wife Nancy had remarried and was some place on the east coast. Larry Evans died, Kimsey had a bad divorce and disappeared. We never really had a steady bass player so the band was reduced to me. Because of my art history back ground I knew the importance of keeping an archive.
Tapes Articles, posters, contracts were all saved. And in 1989 Fanzines started calling and asking for interviews. Since that time the interest in the band and the depth of the interviews has become Very gratifying. The HOSE seems to have found an audience 50 years after releasing Cauldron. I do wish David was here to enjoy the belated appreciation because there would have been band without him. NOTE: Something that rock n roll interviews never seem to touch on is the circumstance of the support that allowed a creative activity to come to fruition. My mother was an opera singer. In 1943 she was offered a position in the San Francisco Opera company chorus. Unfortunately, she was a young woman in an Italian family and was about to be married. Married women were allowed to be in show biz and she gave it up. When I started playing the many bands I was in needed a place to practice – it was always our house. For 8 years from garage band to RnB band – to Vegas show band And finally, the Fifty Foot Hose. Every rehearsal was in my family home.
My mom and Grand Mother fed the band members, gave them a place to crash when they were kicked out of their homes and on one occasion my mom needed to bail Wayne the Harp outa jail. There was never a complaint the bands were all family affairs. David Blossom offered the entire family tickets to see Hair. When we got there, we were escorted to a box. Just before the show started David came out on stage, got the audience’s attention and then went on to introduce my Mom and Nonna (Grandmother.) In a heartfelt manner David made it clear that these people believe in art and opened their homes and lives to young artists. Recognition sometimes is never offered. My family got lucky.
-All photos used by permission of Cork M.
Dakota Brown
