Commemorating 30 Years of Postcrypt Coffeehouse
  1. Ellis Paul - "All Things Being the Same"
  2. Sarah Greene - "Joey"
  3. Buddy Mondlock - "My Aunt Anna"
  4. Cliff Eberhardt - "Ever Since I Lost Your Love"
  5. Richard Meyer - "Century's End"
  6. Erica Wheeler - "Maryland County Road"
  7. Ansel Matthews - "Hallelujah"
  8. Peter Keane - "Tylersville Road"
  9. Dar Williams - "The Great Unknown"
  10. Hugh Blumenfeld - "Brothers"
  11. Richard Shindell - "Fishing"
  12. The Nudes - "Tango In Love"
  13. Vicky Pratt Keating - "Sylvie"
  14. Michael McNevin - "Busy Life"
  15. Hugh Pool - "I Just Called You Up Brother"
  16. Jane Byaela - "Mindy's Song"
  17. Richard Julian - "Charlie Lewis"
  18. Dave's True Story - "Flexible Man"
  19. Jim Infantino - "Rita"

Total Running Time: 73:01

Copyright 1995, 1-800-PRIME-CD, 111 East 14th Street, Suite 300, New York, NY 10003.

Produced by Andy Stevens, Scott Feldman, and David Seitz.

Engineered by David Seitz and Duane Bergman.

Mixed by David Seitz at The Operating Room, Great Neck, NY.

Digital Editing by William Kollar at London By Night Studios, Woodbridge, NJ.

Cover design by Jim Infantino.

Cover Photo by Jeff Kravitz.

Recorded Live at Postcrypt Coffeehouse on Oct. 16, Nov. 6, and Nov. 20, 1993.

Liner Notes by Beverly Greenfield:

ABOUT POSTCRYPT

The Postcrypt Coffeehouse is a tiny subterranean room at the bottom of a narrow winding staircase in the basement of St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University in New York City. The Postcrypt has 40 or so old wooden and assorted folding chairs, a dozen small iron-footed tables, inadequate ventilation, a couple of colored spotlights (a recent upgrade), an awkward floor plan, and no sound system. It also has a slightly vaulted ceiling and stone walls that provide spectacular natural acoustics, two wrought iron chandeliers garnished with lit candles, a dedicated volunteer staff, a loyal following, unparalleled intimacy, and 30 years of history in its walls. Everyone who has experienced this place knows instantly that the Postcrypt Coffeehouse has a magic all its own.

When Reverend John Cannon came to Columbia University in 1963 as Assistant University Chaplain, he needed a way to encourage the student body to venture into the Chapel. When he and Dorothy Sutherland Janke opened the Postcrypt in 1964 as one of the first campus coffeehouses, it was extremely successful; the coffeehouse ministries caught on like wildfire across the country. The name "Postcrypt" originated with Rev. Cannon, a self-professed Kierkegaard fanatic, who also had an ear for obscure puns. First, you need to know that in gothic architecture, what we generally call the "basement" of the chapel is called the "crypt" by those in the know; that's how it was known to Rev. Cannon and his Columbia contemporaries. OK. You also need to know (which I did not, despite a perfectly respectable college education) that Kierkegaard wrote a seminal volume on existentialism called the "Concluding Unscientific Postscript." Now, take the "C-U" from "Concluding Unscientific" and you get the common abbreviation for Columbia University. The "CU Postcrypt" was a pun on the Kierkegaard title; the word Postcrypt--"after death"--also suggested a rebirth of sorts, which is, after all, what the coffeehouse was supposed to bring about.

For most of its life, the Postcrypt was essentially a Columbia/Barnard student hangout, and did not attract large numbers of people from off campus. As fate would have it, David Bromberg was a student at Columbia during the early to mid-sixties (before he dropped out of college), and he soon became the "featured performer" more often than not. "David was obviously very talented in the blues tradition," Rev. Cannon recalls, "and I think he inspired a good many other students to pick up the guitar." During the 70s, when folk music gave way to disco in the culture at large, the Postcrypt was a quiet place--"nobody was interested in folk music," says one Postcrypt alum. Students would still come to play, but there wasn't much of an audience to be had, and it would often run for only part of a semester, sometimes opening irregularly, a home for anachronistic Columbia folkies. It was under Ted Kesler's direction (later with co-manager Robin Levey) during 1983-88 that the Postcrypt began reaching beyond the Columbia campus and started to experience a renewed vitality. Ted, who had already stumbled on the budding downtown folk scene, got singer-songwriters like Jack Hardy and David Massengill to come play at the Postcrypt; he also recalls meeting Hugh Pool, a 7-foot-something longhair blues player, at a local luncheonette one day and inviting him to play at the Coffeehouse, where he became an instant favorite. During the late 70s and early 80s, Suzanne Vega, who was then a student at Barnard, also frequented the Postcrypt stage; Richard Shindell was a student at Union Theological Seminary up the street; and Columbia students Tom Meltzer, Paul Foglino, and Kevin Trainor (eventually three of the Five Chinese Brothers) played there in a variety of combinations. Like many coffeehouses, the Postcrypt runs on the hard work of volunteers and the spirited enthusiasm of several generations of audiences and performers alike. In some ways, the Postcrypt seems to have come full circle since its inception 30 years ago--even though it is quite different from the Postcrypt that John Cannon founded in 1964. There seems to be a resurgent interest in "folk" music, whatever that is. The Postcrypt is once again packed with people on Friday and Saturday nights. The Chapel is still open to the public, and I've often found visitors to the coffeehouse standing quietly in the beautiful domed sanctuary upstairs before wandering out into the night. And although the Postcrypt is no longer a ministry outpost, it still serves as an unlikely haven in a city that is often exclusive, expensive and impersonal.

The Postcrypt, after 30 years, is the sum of all the people whose energies went into making it so. I feel honored to have been a part of that process and grateful to those who came before me and to those who will continue the tradition for years to come. It's like the night a guy came by the bar near the end of the evening, and I noticed him looking intently at the wire sculpture of a face that hangs over the counter. "Nice, isn't it," I said. "I made it," he answered. I didn't get his name, and then I got distracted and by the time I turned around he was gone, but I guess a part of him will always be left behind, hanging there over the bar.

--Beverly Greenfield


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