Our Crowdfunding Campaign is Now in Progress! Check it out on Indiegogo.
All Topcs • Project Updates • Neat Stuff • In the News • Crowdfunding
Mark Reed demonstrates his reproducing grand piano. This piano was originally installed at the Portland Publix Theatre (later the Paramount theatre, now the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall) in Portland, Oregon. The piano was manufactured by Wm. Knabe & Co. and used an Ampico “Re-Enacting” (reproducing) mechanism, which not only recorded the notes of a performance,…
Launching the “At the Organ Grinder 3 1/2 Volume Collection” After months of research & preparation, we are enthusiastically delighted to announce the release of “3 1/2 Volumes” of Organ Grinder performances on CD as an early means of crowdfunding for the documentary. You can order these CDs today! Please read on for details. Big…
A whimsical, musical re-creation of a 30-year-old poster from the Organ Grinder restaurant. (Details about the poster at the end of the video.) Presented in 5.1 Channel Surround on Supported Devices. Audio Warning: Turn your volume down at the end of the video! As of 2024 when this was uploaded, YouTube plays 5.1 content at…
As part of the documentary project, Don Feely demonstrated some of the rhythm unit percussions and sound effects (“traps”) that he purchased after the Organ Grinder’s Portland location closed and the organ was being parted out. The Organ Grinder was innovative in many ways, one such way being that co-founder Dennis Hedberg upgraded the traditional…
Early in the planning stages for the first Organ Grinder, the founders used an architecture firm which specialized in restaurants and hotels. The design was very conventional – a rectangular building, with the entrance and kitchen at the front, and the organ at the back. No towering windows showing off the pipes to the street,…
Yesterday, we returned to the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland, Oregon. The AHC had just unearthed a set of slides from the architecture firm Martin, Soderstrom and Matteson (now Soderstrom Architects), originally co-founded by Will Martin, the architect who designed the Organ Grinder building. The slides feature the Organ Grinder building in 1973 around the…
As part of the documentary project, Jonas Nordwall sat for an extended interview. Jonas is the Organist and Artistic Director of Music at First United Methodist Church, Portland, Oregon. He was also very well known as a performer at the Organ Grinder restaurants. At the end, he gave us a demonstration of the Mary L….
This week, we visited the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland, Oregon to view the Will Martin archives. Will Martin was the architect who designed the unique Organ Grinder building. Will is most famous for designing Pioneer Courthouse Square in Downtown Portland. Among other items, we found this concept drawing of the Organ Grinder exterior, rendered…
The Organ Grinder restaurants in Portland and Denver were special places to spend your birthday back in the 70’s, 80’s, and into the 90’s. Now, you can send an Organ Grinder birthday greeting to anyone by sharing this video’s YouTube link. The clip used here was recorded at the Portland location in 1996, shortly before…
Located in Coos Bay, Oregon, the Egyptian Theatre is home to the last remaining Wurlitzer pipe organ in Oregon which is still playing in its original location. This short film features a demonstration of the historic instrument, with interviews of Paul Quarino, an original and long-time Organ Grinder performer who is now a caretaker of…
Jonas Nordwall performs the “Superman March” by composer John Williams on the Mary L. Collins Organ, First United Methodist Church, Portland. (4 manuals, 111 ranks.) As part of the Organ Grinder Documentary Project, Jonas sat for an extended interview this week. At the end, he gave us a demonstration of the Mary L. Collins organ,…
There is a connection between the Organ Grinder restaurants and the legendary Earthquake Ethel’s Roadhouse nightclub in Beaverton. Several of the same people were involved, and Ethel’s will have a chapter in the documentary. And here, we are happy to present to you, an original painting of the mythical Ethel herself, loaned to the production…
Photo of Vicki Bock (colloquially known as the Organ Grinder’s “Monkey Lady”) with two good friends.
It’s important for a documentary to reveal the the truth about its subject. Sometimes, that truth involves subterfuge – such as when the Organ Grinder was featured on a nationwide TV game show! Will the real “World’s Only” female Organ Grinder please stand up? Frame from a 1970’s episode of “To Tell the Truth” featuring…
This childhood drawing was provided by an Organ Grinder fan who spent hours creating elaborate scenes of their dream pipe organ. This instrument has everything – note the inclusion of not one, but two pianos!
An sad and insurmountable problem for documentary producers is that, before a certain time, there was no home video – Only still photos, or if you’re very lucky, 8mm home movies. Wait, what? There’s FILM? Somebody shot professional 16mm film of the Organ Grinder in the 1970s? Why didn’t you say so!
Today, I met with a charming person who a lot of people might remember from the Organ Grinder’s heyday. This person was in possession of a trove of documents and memorabilia, including multiple scrapbooks kept by Paul Forchuk, one of the Organ Grinder’s co-founders. These scrapbooks were previously thought to be lost. (Obviously, the person…