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The New Penelope Reaches Its Community

In an era long before social media or the Internet, Gary Eisenkraft found many ways to connect with the community of students and music lovers who attended his various coffeehouses. He took out advertisements regularly, in both mainstream and student newspapers.

Underground magazines such as Logos, Take One and Pop-See-Cul were sold at The New Penelope. Take One publisher Peter Lebensold recounts selling his magazine there:

Listen to the audio clip with transcript: “Sharing the same crowd”.

Front cover of issue no. 7 of the Take One film magazine featuring the magazine title and a black and white graphic of a film reel with a romantic couple in profile embedded within it, with bright pink and yellow backgrounds

Cover of a Take One magazine issue, 1967

 

…the reason I knew what The New Penelope was, was because I inveigled them into selling copies of the magazine, of Take One. (…) Any place that young people were likely to gather, um, was a place where we thought, uh, the magazine might sell.

― Peter Lebensold (interview with ARCMTL, 2021)

Even French-language newspapers profiled Gary and ran articles about the many legendary artists he brought to Montreal.

Front page of Logos Magazine featuring a satire of The Gazette newspaper with a headline exclaiming in bold letters: Mayor Shot by Dope-Crazed Hippie

Parody of The Gazette newspaper by Logos magazine, 1968

Logos magazine was very popular for its coverage of local counterculture, music, art and radical politics. In May of 1968, they published a satirical article about the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, being shot by a “drug-crazed hippie” which resulted in Logos being sued. The New Penelope hosted a benefit to raise money for their legal fees, and Logos magazine went on to win.

In the winter and spring of 1968, Gary mailed out a series of newsletters promoting upcoming concerts. It only costs him a three-cent stamp to send these by mail, to those who had signed up for it.

An image that shows both sides of a two-sided sheet with black and white advertisements for concerts by The Fugs and The Linn County Blues Band at The New Penelope on one side, and a blank sheet with a mailing label, return address and a postage marking in red ink on the other side

The New Penelope newsletter, issued to Erik Slutsky, 1968

A black and white legal-sized sheet with handwritten text promoting concerts at The New Penelope, along with images of Tim Rose and the James Cotton Blues Band

The New Penelope newsletter, 1968

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memberships to The New Penelope were also sold for only $30, providing free entry to every concert, for one year. Pierre Huet, songwriter of the 1970s Montreal band Beau Dommage, recounts why he became a member:

Listen to the audio clip with transcript: “Pierre Huet and his membership”.

A colourful poster advertising concerts at The New Penelope in a very psychedelic style, with a stylized image of a young woman with flowers in her very long blond hair and wearing sunglasses on wavy black and red background

Poster advertising The New Penelope’s fall 1967 line-up

Concerts were also advertised via posters and handbills that one could find in record stores, shops and on the streets surrounding The New Penelope. The psychedelic era arrived in 1967, bringing a new visual language and colourful fashions to youth culture. Gary begins producing full-colour, hand-silk screened posters, by local artists such as Peter V. Adams. He even had some of them designed and printed in the United States by renowned printing shops.

 

The New Penelope posters were real eye-catchers! Intertwined illustrations, kaleidoscopic motifs, bright colours, ornate typography and sensual female representations. This graphic trend was popularized in the San Francisco music scene in the mid-1960s before spreading its influence all over the world.

Some of these hand-printed posters were beautiful enough to be kept by concertgoers and can even be considered important works of printed art, all these years later.

An image of a bright orange coloured poster advertising concerts at The New Penelope with the text rendered in a psychedelic style, curving across the poster above a small cameo illustration of the Greek goddess Penelope

Poster advertising The New Penelope’s winter 1967 line-up

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