So grab your rose and ringside seat - We're back home at Conry's Bar
The blond girl with her tattoo - Reds and wine, cokes of course
Oh my Susie, my Susie - Why did we ever start
It's morning now, you'd never know - The gin, the gin
Glows in the dark - Glows in the dark
All Blue Oyster Cult fans know about Conry's Bar, of course... apparently, it was a Long Island biker bar, and back when BOC were starting out, they were the house band there for a while...
One night, an overtly covert exchange of barbiturates was observed involving a kiss, and the inspiration for a song was born...
But what do we know about this bar... was it really a biker bar...? And where exactly was it...?
This page will attempt to examine all that is currently known on this subject and I'll save you some time... it's not a lot, and what there is asks more questions than it answers...
As usual, if you can help fill in any of the blanks, please let me know...
First of all, before we get into it, here are a few Conry-related quotes to refresh your memory:
The BOCFAQ:
Conry's bar (mentioned in "Before The Kiss, A Redcap") is a real place, and BOC has played there.
According to Al Bouchard, there were two, Conry's East and Conry's West, both on Hempstead Turnpike.
BOC was the house band at Conry's West for several months in 1969-1970. They played Conry's East on New Year's Eve 1970/1971 (playing an Auld Lang Syne / In A Gadda Davida medley at midnight).
Alas, the two bars have both been gone for over 20 years now. "Redcap" (mentioned in "Before The Kiss, A Redcap") refers to a barbiturate.
According to Buck Dharma, Sandy Pearlman witnessed a woman and a man exchange the pill through a kiss when the band was playing at Conry's bar. The line "their tongues extend, and then retract" refers to the act of exchanging the pill through their kiss.
Here's Joe Bouchard in a 2018 "Classic Rock Revisited" Interview:
The first year I was in the band we played this biker bar called Conry's every week. It was a raunchy hard rock kind of place where you could play anything. We would play Rolling Stones covers and our own originals.
Sandy came up with the lyric which mentioned Conry's Bar. The music came after. It had that riff (hums verse riff) that was a bit of a Jeff Beck style blooze riff. We had recorded the song, but had left the bars where that jazzy bit comes in empty. We didn't have anything for it.
I went upstate for a little while I when I came back that jazzy part was added and I was like, "Wow!" Then, Donald added that heavy riff at the end. That was a fun one because it required a lot of trying different things out and it just came together in the studio.
Lester Bangs (from "Primevil Career of the BOC", Creem Sept 1974):
Alan: (sic) "This kid we knew from Stony Brook said I know this booking agency can get you some jobs. We were desperate for the money, so in walks this guy by the name of Phil King, a/k/a Phil Friedman, big big dude in a cheap vinyl leather jacket, two-tone blue '64 Lincoln Continental, wore a Fu Manchu moustache, combing his hair at all times, he had a perfect Shaft hairdo, chrome shades he never took off, wore 'em to bed... saying: 'I know everybody in the rock'n'roll industry' - he got us the gig at Conry's Bar on Long Island which is really a greaser/snappers/reds bar, place no bigger than this hotel room..."
Eric: "We were playing Underground Top 40 - Hendrix, Cream, Stones. It was therapeutic in a way. Because we got into this under limpid circumstances to say the least, which was the whole acid trip at that time. It was great to get back and play some bullshit rock'n'roll. Also this band is a great copy band."
"Yeah!" says Sandy. "Like 'Under My Thumb!' They played it and in the middle of this jam hit some chords which I proclaimed were the fundamental Stones chords, and suddenly under my eyes opened up a vast revelation of what 'Under My Thumb' and the whole 20th Century were about: dominance and submission."
"There was a fight going on as usual, and this guy had a gin and tonic, and he threw the glass down on my table, and the gin was glowing in the dark. That was where 'Before the Kiss, a Redcap' was born. "
"That night this greaser came up to me, and he had a red on his tongue, opens his mouth and wants me to kiss him! I said 'Yeah, sure.'"
Martin Popoff (from his "Secrets Revealed" book):
"Before The Kiss is another of your pre-classic conspiracy theory takes on the way things work," pontificates Pearlman. "I posited that there was a secret organization called The Motif Of The Rose, sort of like one of those French or Belgian fascist organizations, something right wing.
So they sort of ran this place, this bar on Long Island called Conry's Bar, where Blue Oyster Cult actually used to play all the time.
And they would induct people into their cult by transferring a drug from the tip of their tongues to the tip of the tongue of the inductee. Hence the line about the tongues extending and retracting and the redcap before the kiss. So the drug was the redcap. And they delivered this pill, and then you're a made humanoid."
Sandy Roeser:
The gigs, throughout that period, included Conry's Bar. Yes, a fight did break out on the black-lit dance floor one night and the gin flew and did glow in the dark. I was there. I saw it.
The bar was usually filled with a lot of guys who didn't have a clue as to what was going on onstage, didn't like the music since it was mostly unfamiliar to them, and would leave one by one until the only people left would be the young folks. Donald used to call that "drilling the bar."
By the time the band would finish playing, and we were loading up the equipment into the van, the only people left would be a couple of hard-core drinkers and the bartender.
Over the years, Conry's has become this revered, mystical place within BOC folklore, but where exactly was it...? And what's that about there being two of them...?
Also - Joe described it above as a "biker bar", and Allen - sorry, "Alan" - categorised it as "really a greaser/snappers/reds bar, place no bigger than this hotel room", but what does the evidence (such as it is) tell us...?
This page will attempt to lay out the facts as we know them...
OK, well it seems like we have two Conry's locations to uncover. Often, the quotes you see from band members simply refer to "Conry's" and no distinction is made as to which one they're talking about, so much so that the two seem to have become merged into a single mythical entity down the years...
Somewhere down the line I once heard that the two bars were run by two brothers, but for the life of me, I can no longer find where that bit of info came from, so it may, or may not, be true.
On Albert's radio show, he once referred to a "Ken Conry", so at least one of the clubs - or maybe both, who knows - came under his purview.
I then looked at a few quotes that mentioned an actual location. For example, here's Eric in the 16 July 1978 edition of "The New York Times":
In 1969 Mr. Bloom replaced the original vocalist.
Recalling the early performances, he said that "we had showmanship but no show." He noted that many of the group's stage pyrotechnics, such as the triple drum solo, originated while it played now-defunct bars, such as Conry's in Bethpage.
The $450 a week the band received for three nights of work at Conry's was poured back into a $300-a-month communal house in Thomaston.
So, one of the Conry's was in Bethpage then... and also suggests that they did three-night stints there.
In an email, Albert said this:
We played Conry's East in Farmingdale NY on Jan 1, New Years Eve. We played at Conry's West in Levittown NY from Jan 5 to Jan 10. I have the tapes. We recorded all 6 shows.
Well, Farmingdale is near Bethpage, so that's probably OK, which leaves Levittown as the location for the other Conry's. If they did six nights there, then maybe the three night stands mentioned above were at the other place?
The only thoughts I have about those locations - Bethpage/Farmingdale and Levittown is that they're very close together, just over 2 miles or so - yes the Hempstead Turnpike (Route 24) would appear to be a common factor, but two bars in such close proximity doesn't feel economically viable to me.
I did ask Albert once for more specific location information - he said:
Conry's East was in a semi-residential area as I recall.
Conry's West was just west of a big highway going North/South and a lot of gas stations.
Looking on a map, that seemed like it might refer to the Wantagh State Parkway - the NY24 is called the Hempstead Bethpage Turnpike where it crosses that Parkway...
Here's a line from a piece in Newsday that reinforced the Turnpike reference in the song:
Elektra dropped the band, which decamped to Conry's, a biker bar off Hempstead Turnpike and, as rocker Lenny Kaye writes in the box set's liner notes, "further gritted their sound."
Then I had a thought... clubs often advertised in the local press, so maybe I could hunt their locations down that way because there are a number of archived newspaper resources online these days.
It proved to be a fortuitous thought because, after trawling through more small ads than I care to think about, I now have both locations for both Conry's clubs.
In fact, I actually seem to have found three... sort of... #yikes
Eh? What's this about a "Lounge"...? I thought we were going to be looking at Conry's Bar...? Well, whilst searching through old issues of "Newsday" I came across a couple of instances of "Conry" in an earlier context which I thought needed looking into.
The first concerned a "Pat Conry" who apparently was a co-host in a couple of Lounge Bars in Farmingdale in the mid-to-late 1960s - I did wonder if she may be some relation to our Conry but in the absence of any further information, I decided to abandon that line of enquiry.
However, the second instances seemed to be much more to the point. On 27 Aug 1966, a certain Conry's Lounge had its grand gala opening, although it's location was north of our main area of interest: 353 Larkfield Rd., East Northport Long Island.
Its patrons could "Dance to the Fabulous Sophisticated Sound of Frankie & Johnny", and there was "Free Smorsgasboard", so that might give a clue as to the sort of crowd they wanted to attract...
Adverts from April 1967 showed that the patrons of the Lounge were still dancing to "the Fabulous Sounds of Frankie & Johnny" (apparently they were no longer considered to be "sophisticated").
However, after that, there seemed to be a gap - I could find no further adverts until May 1970, when they advertised that Conry's Lounge was "ALIVE and KICKING - Every Fri & Sat Nite with The Love Garden (Long Island's Finest 4-Piece Combo) plus Live Entertainment"... does that mean that Love Garden were neither live nor entertaining...?
By June 1970, they'd booked The New Renaissance of Rhythm featuring "Annette", who, they claimed, was "The Best Band in the Area by Popular Demand!"... I'm still wondering how that designation was arrived at - "popular demand" is a rather subjective metric to employ...
Anyways, this was the final advert I could find for Conry's Lounge. Does it mean they were so successful that they no longer needed to advertise? Or does it mean that their "alive and kicking" comeback the previous month had not been as successful as they'd hoped...?
Oh well... That's the situation as far as I can currently piece it together using a few adverts - but can I be sure that this Conry's had anything to do with the other Conry's...?
Well, I'll be the first to admit, the evidence is circumstantial, but keep the above in mind as we progress in our quest, and I'll refer back to this when it becomes relevant...
Conry's West
3971 Hempstead Turnpike, Bethpage, LI.
Evidence regarding Conry's West is few and far between, but the first of two adverts I could find for it was dated 17 Nov 1967. Helpfully, the address was included in the ad: 3971 Hempstead Turnpike, Bethpage, LI. The fact that it's actually on the Hempstead Turnpike is useful, so that ticks that particular box nicely. The only slight problem is that it states that it's in Bethpage, but if you look on a map, Bethpage seems to be slightly north of its location.
But anyway, here's the thing: in this Nov '67 ad, Conry's West was advertising itself as a "Cocktail Lounge" with the music being provided by our old friends "Frankie & Johnny" (of Conry's Lounge fame), and right down in the bottom corner of the advert it said: "Your hosts: Charles & Ken Conry".
Remember what I mentioned earlier about hearing they were run by two brothers, and maybe one of them was called "Ken"? Well, I think we can now pencil in the names of "Charles Conry" and "Ken Conry" as our two brothers.
The date is interesting, also, because it comes a few months after Conry's Lounge "goes dark" so far as local advertising was concerned.
We've always assumed Conry's West was thusly named in response to there also being a Conry's East, but if you look at the timeline, Conry's West actually existed long before that. As you'll see in the next section - Ken Conry's Lounge/bar (the so-called Conry's East) doesn't seem to have existed prior to July 1970 - at least, that's the date when they apparently first started to advertise.
Therefore Conry's West may actually have been called by that title in order to differentiate it from Conry's Lounge over in East Northport, although they seem to have taken on the same type of cocktail business and music style etc. Maybe the location was better for that area of the market?
This ad is from 8 May 1970 (Newsday). You'll see they had the "Dynamite sound of The Blue Hare" every Friday and Saturday", plus, every Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays, they hosted "Soul Oddessy".
Obviously, it's hard to say for sure, but that's the sort of wording you see in cocktail lounges or jazz club adverts and places like that, so on the face of it, their target demographic doesn't seem to have changed during the last two and half years.
I think the best we can say is that, in May 1970, at least, the venue doesn't seem to feel like it was some sort of "biker bar".
After 8 May 1970, I can't find any further trace of Conry's West...
Interestingly enough, 8 May 1970 was the same day that Conry's Lounge "reappeared" (adverts-wise) and described itself as "Alive & Kicking"... if only for another month, though, and then it too was gone...
If anyone else has any other adverts or can help fill in any blanks, I'd be grateful for the information.
Does the venue still exist...?
Sadly, no. The space that 3971 Hempstead Turnpike once occupied is now a large petrol station on the corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Rte 135. Here's how it looks today:
Perhaps on certain lonely nights, like Moorcock's Vanishing Tower, at certain conjunctions of time and space, a shimmering outline of Conry's might dimly shudder into view amongst the petrol pumps, and for a few brief seconds, if you listened very hard, you might be able to catch a strange, eerie melody seeming to emanate from within... "... Donovan's Monkey... Donovan's Monkey..." before the astral planes suddenly realise their mistake and realign themselves, and the ghostly vision fades into darkness, now transported beyond the ken of mortal souls...
Did it really happen or was that last Rum and Coke a big mistake...? An important question we've all asked ourselves at some point, I'm sure you'll agree...
Ken Conry's - a.k.a. Conry's East
124 E Main St, Babylon, NY 11702
This proved easier to research, thankfully. For a start, there was no such place as Conry's East - this just seems to be a flag of convenience, merely an expression of geography. "Ken Conry's" first started to advertise in July 1970 - there seems to have been nothing before that date.
People keeping track of our Conry's timeline will note that this was a month after the last adverts for Conry's Lounge appeared and two months after the last one for Conry's West...
We know that Ken Conry had been a co-host at Conry's West and now it appears he'd branched out to do his own thing. Whether or not Charles Conry carried on with Conry's West after this juncture is currently unknown.
In early 1971, Ken Conry ran a series of ads in the local paper, The Babylon Beacon, and this obviously included the address: 124 E Main St, Babylon, NY. Not being familiar with the location of Babylon (outside of Mesopotamia, that is), I looked it up.
Well, it doesn't appear to be "on the turnpike", for one thing - it's further south, but it's still reasonably close to Bethpage - about 10 minutes by car, apparently. This make more sense as an alternative location than Levittown, to be honest.
What sort of bar was Ken Conry's...?
The trouble is - all the evidence points to Ken Conry's mainly being a lounge/restaurant that offered live entertainment on certain nights. Again, I'm not seeing any evidence of it being a biker bar...
The first clipping I came across (from 24 July 1970) was advertising that "every Wednesday night was Country & Western night" and on Fri & Sat there was Music by "Blackout". That seems a bit different from the usual cocktail lounge-type fare - I don't know what time of band "Blackout" were but they sound a bit rockier than "Frankie & Johnny" or "Soul Oddessy"...
This particular ad, advertising an upcoming run of 4 gigs by "Krumble Seed" starting on Wednesday the 20th Jan 1971, appeared in the 7th and 14th Jan 1971 editions of the Babylon Beacon.
It shows that the club was hosting bands on Wednesdays (what happened to "Country & Western night"), Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Albert tells us that the SFG tapes that he has played on his online radio show down the years come from Stalk Forrest's stint at Conry's at the start of January - but, again, what I don't know is - which Conry's did SFG actually play at... this one or the other...?
And, just in case you're wondering, I did search through months and months of previous - and the months following - editions of the newspaper but found no mention of Stalk Forrest... just the bloody "Krumble Seeds"...
So, we know Ken Conry's was hosting live bands of an evening on certain days, but it was also promoting itself as a Lounge/restaurant for social functions and meetings.
For example, this clipping from the 10 Dec 1970 edition says that the local chapter is having a meeting there, alright, but it was the Queen Anne Chapter of the National Secretaries Association!! They were holding a "Punch Bowl" between 5pm and 7pm on New Years Eve 1970. So... not quite Sons of Anarchy, then...
NB: This date is interesting because we know that Stalk Forest played at Conry's in the evening on that New Years Eve, but we don't know which Conry's Bar they actually played...
This ad was for a St Paddy's Day Party (9 pm to 2am) on Wed 17 March 1971. There was live music and free corned beef and cabbage - it doesn't get any better than that... I can tell you this - if I'd been hesitant about whether or not to come out that night, free corned beef and cabbage would have pushed me over the edge... still not getting a "greasers" vibe from this place...
OK, here's an example of a recurring meeting they would host. On the first Wednesday of every month, the Young Republican Club of Babylon Town held their regular meetings there from Sep 1970 through to July 1972. In this Babylon Beacon clipping, it's described as "Ken Conry's Restaurant", but in all the Newsday listings it's referred to as "Ken Conry's Lounge".
Maybe there was a place for dining on the ground floor (the "Restaurant/Lounge"), and upstairs they could have had the bands on...? If anyone knows what the setup was, please let me know.
This advert from 13 May 1971 again concentrates on the food side of things - sorry, the "fine food" side of things... this time, an ad for "Luncheon Specials" from noon to 3pm. The ad also says that there was "Entertainment on Friday & Saturday Nights", whereas ads earlier in the year also featured bands on Wednesdays and Thursdays too.
In the five months that mark the course of the above clippings, there seems to be a shift in emphasis towards dining and away from "entertainment", but, frankly, it's hard to tell for sure. Maybe the bands didn't need ads in the local press, maybe they always got good crowds at the weekend - maybe, it was the restaurant side of the business that needed the extra push...?
Anyway, as I've mentioned previously, I'm struggling to see this venue as a biker/"greaser/snappers/reds bar" but that was the same with Conry's West also, which was adverting itself as a "cocktail bar"...
I'm a bit stumped on this one...
Does the venue still exist...?
Well, there is still a building standing at Ken Conry's address, but it seems to have had somewhat of a refurbishment.
It now comprises a number of suites, containing a variety of businesses: a Physical Therapy Clinic, a Massage therapist, a Hearing Aid Shop, a Costume shop, a Pharmacy and a Hairdressers.
Here is 124 E Main Street as it looks today:
Was it the same type of deal back in 1970/1971...? Did Ken Conry's bar | lounge | restaurant occupy this whole building, or was it subdivided into various businesses, as it is now...?
Sadly, I dunno - I'd love to see a photo of the exterior from back then... I'm just hoping one day a newspaper clipping featuring an article on the place might be unearthed, but until then, we'll just have to wonder...
OK, putting aside Conry's Lounge for now, we now have our two locations: Conry's West in Bethpage, and Ken Conry's (Conry's East) in Babylon.
Click on the map pic on the right to see a larger version so that non-Long Islanders like myself can try and get an idea of how the two locations link up.
On the face of it, the 24 and then the 109 seem like the shorter and most direct route, but the route outlined in blue, which on the face of it seems to go all over the place, actually comes back with a quicker timing (17 min). Dunno what time of day that's for, maybe the others are jammed during the day...?
THIS SECTIONS NEEDS TO BE DEVELOPED
Phil King came us via Richard Dostel, via a party where we first met David Lucas..."
"He booked us at a club in Long Island - the 1815 Club or someplace - we didn't do well, but he liked us and booked Conry's, and Serge's and the Box Tops gig etc"
The Swan Lake party where the band met David Lucas was around mid to late Sept 1970, so if that's when they hooked up with Phil King - it was he who got them into Conry's - then any Stalk Forrest shows there had to be from mid-to late October onwards
1815 Club...? Damn - never heard of this before. It's off-topic, but if you know anything about this venue, please let me know...
Max Bell: (Email)
The New Years Eve show at Ken Conry's Bar in 1970 marks the occasion the Cult backed Fatima from Istanbul, a Turkish bellydancer who lived in NYC. I believe they played while Fatima danced. She wasn't singing...
They would have played many of the songs from the next January batch in the other Conry's (West) bar. They definitely did In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida at this gig...
As mentioned above, we can't be certain of the dates Stalk Forrest played Conry's - whichever Conry's that was...
Albert originally gave dates of a 6 night run between Jan 5 to Jan 10 1971. However, when he later examined the tape boxes, he revised these dates.
On air, he mentioned that the first show he taped was "30 Dec 1970"... I just wish Albert would track-list each tape he has, together with any dating info contained therein, because this is a pain to try and make sense of, otherwise...
Clearly, more research needs to be done here...
Stalk Forrest Setlists at Conry's
We can get a hint of what a SFG setlist from Conry's might have looked like because back in 2014 Albert recreated a couple on his "Origins" radio show - one from 30 Dec 1970 and the other from 3 Jan 1971.
Click here to see the setlist from 30 Dec 1970.
Click here to see the setlist from 3 Jan 1971.
The next episode following his Conry's setlist special, Albert attempted an interesting experiment - "The Conry's Jukebox Special".
Albert loosely based his playlist for the show on those songs that he remembered as being played on the Conry's jukebox during SFG's stint there...
He said the song he recalls most from Conry's was "I Never Promised you a Rose Garden"...
Here's a list of the songs he played:
- "Communication Breakdown" - (Led Zeppelin)
- "Misirlou" - (Dick Dale & His Del-Tones)
- "If You Could Read My Mind" - (Gordon Lightfoot)
- "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)" - (Grand Funk Railroad)
- "Johnny B. Goode" - (Chuck Berry)
- "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden" - (Martina McBride)
- "Everyday I have the Blues" - (BB King)
- "Cry Like a Baby" - (The Box Tops)
- "Flowers On The Wall" - (Statler Brothers)
- "Time Won't Let Me" - (The Outsiders)
- "Everyday People" - (Sly & The Family Stone)
- "Crystal Blue Persuasion" - (Tommy James & The Shondells)
- "Instant Karma (We All Shine On)" - (John Lennon)
- "Green Eyed Lady" - (Sugarloaf)
- "Woodstock" - (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
- "Lola" - (The Kinks)
- "Mississippi Queen" - (Mountain)
- "Gimme Some Lovin'" - (Spencer Davis Group)
- "Turn Back The Hands Of Time" - (Tyrone Davis)
- "War (What Is It Good For?)" - (Edwin Starr)
- "Patches" - (Clarence Carter)
- "Close To You" - (The Carpenters)
- "Vehicle" - (The Ides of March)
Can you really tell the nature of a bar by its jukebox selections? Possibly you can get an idea of its clientele, if the above list represents the ones that were played the most, and thus, managed to imprint themselves into Albert's memory.
Albert said he had gotten sick of hearing that Grand Funk song by the final time they'd played Conry's!
An exciting development arising out of the Conry's tracks that Albert played on his show was the news that he said online that he was planning to release a "Best of Conry's" at some future date.
He has 6 Conry's shows recorded by SFG's then road manager, Alan Shapiro, who later gave all the tapes to Joe, who in turn catalogued them and then stored them for years before turning them all over to Albert.Albert says that fortunately the tapes were all BASF, which are notable because they do not shed their oxide duri9ng storage
It wouldn't be an easy - or cheap - undertaking as a lot of work had to be done regarding bias, wow and flutter etc, and some tapes were better than others but he said it was on his to-do list.
Naturally, this got back-burnered somewhat when more pressing projects pushed themselves to the fore - eg his solo records, plus Blue Coupe stuff, and more recently, the Re-Imaginos Trilogy etc etc but it is fervently hoped that one day, he'd get round to finishing it off.
Bugger! I need to have a conclusion...?