Edward Herbert Beresford "Chip" Monck (born March 5, 1939) is an American Tony Award nominated lighting designer, most famously serving as the master of ceremonies at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.
[3] While Monck went to the South Kent School on scholarships for ice hockey and crew, he became more interested in welding and machinery, designing a potato harvester that he sold to McCormick.
He began volunteering with a summer theater group at Wellesley College, learning the basics of theatrical lighting from Greg Harney.
Monck confronted a member of the Angels stealing a large custom carpet that was part of the Rolling Stones stage set[6] and lost teeth being hit in the mouth with a pool cue.
[7] In 1974, Monck was the host of Speakeasy, a short-lived rock and roll talk show that featured mostly chat and some live performances by such acts as Tom Waits, Frank Zappa and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Monck's persona was well known enough to be parodied as "Chick Monk" on SCTV by Tony Rosato as a marriage counselor employing strobe lights and a fog machine.
[8] Also in 1974, he provided production services for the Muhammad Ali/George Foreman boxing match The Rumble in the Jungle, and the associated three-day music festival Zaire 74, which featured performances by James Brown, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, B.B.
This event was intended to raise funds to help Australians in regions devastated by natural disasters like the Black Saturday bushfires, flooding and drought.