Falling Spikes / Fugs

[walkonvu]

I just found this page with some details about Falling Spikes gigs:
https://brunoceriotti.weebly.com/the-fugs.html
Wednesday, August 11, 1965: Auditorium, Broadway Central Hotel, 673 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, New York
The Fugs, along with the Falling Spikes (soon-to-be the Velvet Underground), provided music live entertainment at a benefit held to raise money to provide bail for Dale Wilbourne, who had been arrested with Jack William Martin on a marijuana charge. The late poet and underground filmmaker Piero Heliczer was the master of cerimonies. There were about 200 people present. “The Fugs and others held a benefit at the Broadway Central Hotel for defendants Jack Martin and Dale Wilbourne,” confirms Ed Sanders in his autobiography. “Federal agents showed up outside the gig and harassed people! I’ll never forget the image of filmmaker Jack Smith, his face bloodied from a confrontation with the police outside the Broadway Central. He and others (but not The Fugs) were arrested at the benefit.”
Sunday, August 22, 1965: ‘A benefit for Jack Smith, Jack Martin, Dale Wilbourne, Irene Noland & Piero Heliczer,’ Village Gate (theatre), 158 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York
After the arrests at the above mentioned benefit, “there had to be ANOTHER benefit,” explains Ed Sanders in his autobiography, “this one at Art D’ Lu-goff’s Village Gate, on the afternoon of August 22, at which The Fugs again performed.” One show, from 3:00pm to 7:00pm. Also on the bill: The Cineola Transcendental Orchestra, John Vaccaro, Beverly Grant, Baby Jane Holzer, Mario Montez, plus underground movies by Warhol, Vehr, Linder, Heliczer, Anger, Smith, Vanderbeek, Frank, Leslie, and others. “We used to play at benefits with a group called the Falling Spikes, and together we’d be called the Transcendental Simulematic Orchestra [sic],” recalls John Anderson in an interview with Jeff Pollock for the Yale University magazine The New Journal (February 9, 1969), “we’d play the background music for underground movies and light shows on dancing people, which was all starting at that time. The Falling Spikes eventually became the musicians for Andy Warhol’s group, the Velvet Underground.” So, according to Anderson, the Cineola Transcendental Orchestra billed for this benefit was actually an ad-hoc supergroup formed by the Fugs and the Falling Spikes together. Well, it could be true even if some evidence would prove otherwise. For example the Fugs and the Falling Spikes actually shared the bill at one benefit but it was the one which was held on August 11 so maybe Anderson was referring to that, and if so both were billed with their names as two separate groups and no mention of the Cineola Trascendental Orchestra. Also the latter group was instead billed for this benefit along with the Fugs as two separate groups and no mention of the Falling Spikes. Last but not least, the Cineola Transcendental Orchestra was also billed at another benefit held on August 19 but neither the Fugs or the Falling Spikes were mentioned.

[Kill Mick]

Great research. It could have simply panned out like this:
August 11 - the Falling Spikes and the Fugs play separately
August 19 - they play together as the Transcendental Simulatic Orchestra/Cineola Transcendental Orchestra (maybe they used both names or there was just some confusion? There certainly seemed to be confusion in the press about the name of the EPI in 1966)
August 22 - they again play together as the TSO/CTO, but the Fugs also perform separately that night?
What I'd really love to know is what the line-up of the Falling Spikes was at the time?

[mangue]

Great find!

Found an ad for the Aug.19 and Aug.22 performances by the Cineola Transcendental Orchestra in the Vilage Voice of 1965.Aug.19 [bottom of page 14]
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Q ... 70,2713392

And on page 8 in this https://www.granarybooks.com/images/up ... rchive.pdf is a flyer for their Aug.22 performance.

So far I haven't found any additional info/ad/etc about the Aug.11 performance... yet...

[falconwhit]

Completely crazy Anthony & the Imperials and Fugs double bill - wonder how that went w the audience.
https://www.granarybooks.com/images/upl ... rchive.pdf

[Sheila Klein]

A larger image of the August 22 ’65 flyer can be seen here:

https://www.alinastefanescuwriter.com/b ... t-incident

Another flyer, for the same show but billing the act as simply Transcendental Orchestra, is here:

https://boo-hooray.cdn.bibliopolis.com/ ... 1701794605

One more, undated but for an appearance at the Village Gate, is on this page (look for large type reading "2nd evening"):

https://www.quora.com/What-other-band-n ... o-choosing

I can't recall where I learned this from, but my understanding is that the main Falling Spike involved in the Cineola Transcendental Orchestra was Angus Maclise.

[Sheila Klein]

Two more. Note the phrasing of the CTO mention for the first of these:

http://www.songpoemmusic.com/vuforum/CTO1.jpg

http://www.songpoemmusic.com/vuforum/CTO2.jpg

[Mark]

Fascinating posts. In some ways 1965 really is the final frontier for VU research. As time goes by it's become apparent that there was a lot going on in that pre-Warhol, pre-Summit High School period and we still only know about bits and pieces. The timeline of what names they were using, even who was in the band (Daryl, Electra...) is really blurred. And I don't know if that's ever going to be improved on, considering most of the principals are gone now. Maybe someone should try and really grill Cale on the period, although maybe he won't remember much at this point...

[walkonvu]

Two more. Note the phrasing of the CTO mention for the first of these:

http://www.songpoemmusic.com/vuforum/CTO1.jpg

http://www.songpoemmusic.com/vuforum/CTO2.jpg

A taped soundtrack by the Cineola Orchestra. So there was some tape. Maybe it is still somewhere. Maybe not.