The "Cone of Light" was a second story room in the building on the corner of Haight and Fillmore. My friend Daniel and his now ex-wife lived there for some years. It was a sunny room with three windows facing Haight St. in the general direction of the Mission district... I went for a few extended visits at various times during the early 90's.
The Cone of Light WAS the room itself plus a portable cassette player with built-in condenser mic.
Instruments involved were: A little Casio SK-1 keyboard with a mic for sampling any number of different weird sounds, a few acoustic guitars with strings sometimes open-tuned or tuned down for bass effect, harmonica, vocals, a rattling old birdcage for percussion, a metal tabla drum, a concertina and other things that I don't recall right now.
And then there was tape editing & splicing, swinging the cassette recorder around in circles on a rope while it was recording for that whirling Leslie effect.
There were environmental sounds that were peculiar to "The Cone": Jackhammers tearing up Haight Street, trucks beeping as they backed up, busses with all of their strange noises, cable cars, street people yelling, dogs, etc...
