san francisco music venues 1980's
I certainly played far more shows that Ive put on, and Ive put on a great number of shows over the past 10, 15 years, but I felt like I owed, not necessarily [to] anybody in person, but just [as a] sort of a mentality of hosting people who are traveling. Each San Francisco band had its characteristic sound, but enough commonalities existed that there was a regional identity. San Francisco's dearly departed nightclubs and music venues. Participation between different houses was further emphasised by doing things collectively, such as traveling together to shows, festivals, swimming trips, and karaoke nights, or through collective listening to music, work activities, or music and social event organising (see Figure 2). Dedicated in 2016, the statue signifies the citys ongoing love affair with the song, the music, and the musicians who make it. A DIY approach, therefore, functioned both as a means to an end, and as an end in itself. We had a friend coming around named Peter [], he would come in and just do all of our dishes and leave, or hed come with a gallon jug of olive oil, he would just come and give us stuff. A few blocks from Union Square, Le Colonial serves French-inspired Vietnamese cuisine against the backdrop of live jazz, Monday to Friday, featuring music from the Django Reinhardt-influenced group, Le Jazz Hot, and the sultry soul sounds of Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. This preference for musical collaboration, collective decision-making, and collective musical interplay is also evident in more recent musical endeavours (Verbu Citation2021: 325, 189). Here, Scott describes the basic theory of reciprocity, as outlined by anthropologist Marcel Mauss in his classic study The Gift ([Citation1925] Citation1990). Verbu Citation2018). Moreover, this inserted our tour to a wider reciprocal network of DIY houses and spaces across the US and beyond, run by a large and intimate assemblage of DIY participants who mutually exchanged places and favours.Footnote7 Nonetheless, there was a disparity between DIY ideology and practice in the scene. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. Thats kind of special about underground music scene, that some people really are pure that way, and that [they] are having fun, making friends. The above examples demonstrate how certain economic models and regimes of value can be refashioned into hybrid assemblages that combine approaches from two different economic spheres, and thus optimise the dominant system for the needs of local DIY participants (Sahlins, in Eriksen Citation2010: 185). Appadurai uses the term tournaments of value to refer to those, often calculative, movements of paths and diversions that actors instigate in order to negotiate the value of circulating commodities (Citation1986: 20, 21). People from various N and NE Portland houses are folding cassette cases for the Goof Punx festival compilation, while a music jam session is happening at the same time. Nicks and Buckingham went on to bring that San Francisco sound to established British rock band Fleetwood Mac when they both joined in 1975. (Personal communication, 22 November 2011). Named in honor of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke and located off an alley near Jackson Square, BIX has been described as a civilized speakeasy, a supper club, and an elegant saloon, offering modern American cuisine served in a soaring two-story dining room to the strains of live jazz nightly. Several scholars have discussed how DIY methods of music production result in lo-fi (low fidelity) sounds and aesthetics that reflect a DIY materiality of scarcity, independence, self-reliance, and amateurism (Fonarow Citation2006: 3950; Kruse Citation2010: 633). "[16] Women, in a few cases, enjoyed an equal status with men as stars in the San Francisco rock scenebut these few instances signaled a shift that has continued in the U.S. music scene. When I asked what else they do communally, they mentioned collective chore charts, monthly cleaning days, and their communal craft supplies (sowing stations, craft materials, collage materials), which other DIY participants could borrow from them or use in Glitterdomes collective spaces (living room, kitchen, front porch, or backyard). Second, the meanings and goals of these practices are often contested and constantly negotiated by different DIY individuals and groups, as they oscillate between hierarchical and egalitarian, individualist and collectivist, and pragmatic and idealist orientations. This DIY reciprocal cultural system endeavours to transcend the mainstream aesthetics of quality and individual competition, and instead fosters the idea of support aesthetics, based on reciprocal communal solidarity.Footnote9 Consider, in this regard, the following evaluative criteria offered by various DIY participants: OP [fanzine from Olympia] wasnt about loving a lot of weird kinds of music; it was about supporting the idea that you could put out lots of weird kinds of music. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. For Teague and many other DIY participants in the US, music and other forms of reciprocity go hand in hand, each one engendering the other. For example, in the Glitterdome house in NE Portland, these included sharing, borrowing, and exchanging items, goods and even spaces between houses and participants, be it food, free box items (clothes, shoes, books), tapes, or music equipment. Similar venue-performer, venue-audience, and performer-audience relations and forms of boundary-making have been present at most DIY shows I have attended. McKay Citation1998. (Jennings Citation1998; emphasis added). Located in the Fillmore District, Sheba Piano Lounge is an intimate bar and lounge where you can enjoy live music nightly to go with some of the areas best Ethiopian cuisine. The Most Legendary Music Venues In San Francisco - Culture Trip However, the poles of reciprocal vs capitalist economy (and use vs exchange value), as reflected also in the organisation of shows (egalitarian vs hierarchical), and in the DIY aesthetics (support vs quality), are not so much in opposition as they are in dialogue with each other within the American DIY scenes and communities (as a dialogue between the forms of emergent and residual practices, respectively). They are just consumers. Hence, it could support a 'scene'. The Warfield brings in all kinds of performers and every style of music. [12] Among these British acts, according to music journalist Chris Smith, writing in his book on the most influential albums in American popular music, the Beatles inspired the emergence of the San Francisco psychedelic scene following their incorporation of folk rock on the 1965 album Rubber Soul, which reflected the reciprocal influences shared between the group and Bob Dylan. This is further emphasised when there are no financial profits generated for performers or intermediaries of these shows, and DIY spaces and modes of organisation are employed in the process including the exchange of venues, items, favours, and equipment and participants not only symbolically but also palpably experience the affective intimacy of the DIY community (Verbu Citation2018, Citation2021; Garcia Citation2020). American DIY venues and performers also form a translocal network of reciprocity, which is created through the reciprocal relation of playing and booking each others shows across the US (and beyond). Jazz in San Francisco: History and Where to Hear it Culton and Holtzman Citation2010; Hannerz Citation2015: 128). 3099067 This is exemplified below by Portland DIY participant Aaron Scott, who discusses the relations of reciprocity between performers and organisers of shows, and between the individual and the scene. Other DIY participants I interviewed talked about similar approaches included in the roster of DIY reciprocal and collective activities. Moreover, it fosters reciprocal relations between the venue, bands, and audiences. Rather, the two interact in complex, contradictory, and co-determining ways, as well as operating on multiple levels: ranging from DIY rejection of the dominant system, or the creation of temporary DIY enclaves, to various forms of partial co-dependence (pragmatic, hybrid, lateral, or tacit co-dependence). that is a positive thing. Established in 1986, it has served as a template and inspiration for many other DIY venues across the US and internationally (Hannon Citation2010: 37). These included sharing of food and equipment among DIY houses, local and translocal exchange of venues, the system of free boxes (see Figure 1),Footnote1 donations at shows, and participatory organiser-performer-audience interactions practices that enabled the creation of alternative cultural DIY worlds, and which in turn informed DIY sounds and aesthetics. First, engagement with DIY practices and worlds often results in value and status assertions that are employed by DIY participants to establish their cultural authenticity and social distinctions within their scenes and in relation to outsiders. 9 The idea of support aesthetics is similar to the notion of participatory aesthetics (Turino Citation2008: 335) or relational aesthetics (Bourriaud [1998] Citation2006), which find the value and quality of art not in art objects or music sounds themselves, but in the level of social participation/interaction that they generate. It is the oldest nightclub in the neighborhood, and the dcor is reminiscent of turn-of-the-century splendor. Some DIY participants live in collective houses and engage in everyday sustainable and alternative economies, others open collectively run businesses, stores, coffee shops, and restaurants, and/or take part in collective grassroots political organising (Wehr Citation2012). Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tr | Courtesy of Focus Features Films about classical music go back to at least the 1930s. (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. Among the oldest venues in San Francisco, The Warfield has hosted a number of great black artists, including Louis Armstrong and Prince. Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. DIY performers therefore usually approach and sustain the DIY scenes through the practice of communal reciprocity, by playing for their own fun, and for the interests of the DIY community (horizontal approach), and not for their own individual interests in financial gain and mainstream success (vertical approach). Hence, DIY participants often repair, reuse, and repurpose discarded music equipment (Flood Citation2016), or they utilise scrap materials for DIY production. By contrast, some groups only organise DIY house shows, and not much more (cf. Some scholars have identified how the obligation to reciprocate (balanced reciprocity), can be perceived to constrain artistic freedom and creativity (Joseph Citation2002: 10311), however, it is notable that participants in the DIY scenes I studied favoured a general approach to reciprocity. Your guide to one of San Francisco's biggest LGBTQ community events outside of Pride. They explained that the area had a big enough pool [of houses] to be able to spread [the shows] out, so that no individual venue was made to feel overloaded (personal communication, 28 February 2012). People would also in return help us out with things that we need. [9] This questing bass quality has been wryly characterized as a "roving" (rather than the conventional "stay-at-home") style. For example, in her manual for booking DIY shows, Beck Levy (2013) an artist and musician who used to organise DIY shows in Washington, DC notes that among the bad reasons for organising shows is so that other bands will feel obligated to book your band in their cities. By 1967, fresh and adventurous improvisation during live performance (which many heard as being epitomized by the Grateful Dead and by the "cross-talk" guitar work of Moby Grape) was one characteristic of the San Francisco sound. Nevertheless, the system of general reciprocity also keeps these DIY boundaries open, as it works in a seemingly non-obligatory way, in which DIY individuals themselves decide how and when these debts should be reciprocated. Black History Month at the best music venues in San Francisco. Beyond preserving the history of this musical form so tied to the African-American experience, SFJAZZ now blazes a trail for the artists of the future in its permanent home on Franklin St. Few performance venues in the city have the sound quality of the SFJAZZ Center. Enjoy a day trip to Angel Island and learn about its history as the Ellis Island of the West at Immigration Station, as well as take in the islands stunning views on numerous nature trails. You agree to our use of cookies by continuing to use our site. San Francisco has a long history with jazz music. Additionally, there are numerous Jazz Festivalsthroughout the Bay Area during warmer months. participation]. Acoustic music had had an avid following far and wide, but it was "a fading world of traditional folk and Brechtian art songs. But in live performance, the bands would often share their improvisatory zest by playing a given song or sequence for as long as five or six minutes, and occasionally for as long as half an hour. Note the bands offer to exchange their records and merchandise either for money, or for a good conversation and a hug!!!!!!. Thornton Citation1996). Food not bombs), DIY participants thus also enable the neoliberal premise of outsourcing of public services and governmental responsibilities to private entities and individuals (Dean Citation2015: Kirsch Citation2017). Thats what they think. He is usually exploring the Bay Area hunting for that new and unique experience and good food too! Therefore, both the side of socio-economic factors, and the side of cultural practices and aesthetic expressions in this equation should be seen as diverse and multidimensional. However, not all DIY bands ascribe to the same idea of DIY while many see it as an ideological principle to live by, others regard it as a pragmatic strategy that enables them to acquire skill, shows, and social connections in the beginning stages of their musical careers.Footnote15 Nevertheless, not all independent cultural activities should be seen as proto-markets (Toynbee Citation2000: 2532), but instead, as heterogeneous assemblages of diverse, non-market and proto-market, possibilities. Furthermore, there exists a tension between these diverse activities within the DIY sphere, since more ideologically oriented DIY participants often foster a resentment towards more pragmatic and market-oriented DIY musicians. Jai Milx performing at her house, Glitterdome, in Portland, 4 February 2012. Until a few years ago no bands sold T-shirts, people would just make their own. From the greatest jazz clubs in California to stages that hosted the debut of today's rock icons, San Francisco is home to countless live music venues filled with memorable performances and artist legacies. "[7] The entire tone of the new subculture was different. Moreover, he demonstrates the self-critical nature of this discourse, and the tendency among some American DIY participants to verbalise and theorise the specifics of this alternative (own) economic system. From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary . they potentially contribute to social change, albeit in implicit, gradual, and/or piecemeal ways), even if often perceived by outsiders as insignificant, ineffective, or as conflicting fringe social phenomena. Brasses and reeds, such as trumpets and saxophones were rarely used, unlike in contemporary R&B and soul bands and some of the white bands from the U.S. East Coast (e.g., Blood, Sweat & Tears or Chicago). For example, Gilman incorporates all-ages, non-alcohol, and safer space policiesFootnote5 alongside volunteer, collective, and consensus-based approaches to organisation. Its insulting to the other people in the community who volunteer to put a lot of the work in. Learn about our history and where to find it now, from festivals to clubs and bars. American DIY participants often talk about their own economic system, support-system, or self-sustaining trade and barter economy (Cometbus Citation2002; Danielson Citation2004; Debies-Carl Citation2014: 81, 14461; Hannerz Citation2015: 127, 128; Farrow Citation2020: 246). Figure 3. Experience the mark he left on the city. [13] San Francisco historian Charles Perry recalled that in Haight-Ashbury, "You could party hop all night and hear nothing but Rubber Soul",[14] and that "More than ever the Beatles were the soundtrack of the Haight-Ashbury, Berkeley and the whole circuit. You dont feel that communion. He has lived in San Francisco for over 9 years and has worked in Travel & Tourism for over 7 of those. But maybe they are that way, and they will remain that way, because we havent set examples for them to see, examples that we saw in others before us and followed. Accordingly, my central question in this article is: how do American DIY participants manage the tensions and transitions between reciprocal and capitalist systems and worlds? Waffle house residents therefore engaged in collective gardening, and collective use of the various spaces of their compound (comprising a house and large separate garage) as a wood shop, art studio, welding area, bike shop, music rehearsal space, small greenhouse, and screen-printing area. Both James and Chris thus emphasise the added value of such enclaved DIY shows. When I asked Rick Ele, who used to be one of the most active DIY organisers in Davis and Sacramento between late 1990s, and early 2010s, about the perception of making it within the DIY scenes in the US, he replied: I mean, a lot of people that don't know about underground music, they just think that every band is trying to make it. 11 See, for example, Forns, Lindberg, and Sernhede Citation1995; Berger Citation1999: 67; Toynbee Citation2000: 111, 112; Moore Citation2014a. At the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Bay Area groups performed from the same stage as established and fast-rising musical groups and well-known individual artists from the U.S., the UK, and even India. how many calories in 1 single french fry; barbara picower house; scuba diving in florida keys without certification; how to show salary in bank statement Apart from the discursive dimensions embedded in Cometbus quote, I have observed how the notion of collective reciprocity has materially permeated both cultural and economic aspects of American DIY communities. In this way, they consciously acknowledge that DIY shows can exist both outside the capitalist system (as temporarily enclaved rituals of decomoditization), and at the same time, within the larger capitalist regime of value.Footnote19 DIY shows thus simultaneously counter as well as co-constitute a capitalist economic system.Footnote20. In early 1967, Tom Donahuea veteran disc jockey, rock concert producer, songwriter, and music-act managerwas inspired to revive a moribund radio station, KMPX, and inaugurate the first FM-radio rock station, in San Francisco, in order to showcase this type of music. A place known to have shows go late into the night, welcoming artists who have finished shows at other venues, the Boom Boom Room is a laid-back venue that attracts a younger crowd looking to dance the night away. (Personal communication, 23 January 2011). These socio-economic relations, I argue, also shape DIY sounds and aesthetics, as well as contribute to distinct musical values, discourses and practices. Furthermore, DIY performers also usually reject the notion of making it, which is a concept that refers to musicians efforts to succeed in the competitive capitalist music market. Quality often does not matter as much as community and fucking family and the ways, like being emotional and playing [i.e. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. This community defines itself through active participation (at shows, and otherwise), therefore distinguishing itself from passive, apathetic, consumerist society (personal communication with a DIY participant from Oakland, 14 September 2012), or from lazy hipsters within the scene (see above). However, while the link between DIY practice and lo-fi sound exists, it is also important to recognise that lo-fi aesthetics can reflect other causal factors, such as advanced studio manipulation, market calculation, and/or nostalgia for pre-modern simplicity (Hesmondhalgh Citation1999: 56; Oakes Citation2009; Sanden Citation2013: chapter 4). For instance, group solidarity, as a socio-musical pattern, is also manifested in blues, 1960s psychedelic rock, heavy metal, and other popular music genres that are not necessarily rooted in the ideas and practices of American DIY communities.Footnote11 Thus, DIY notions and approaches to musical group solidarity might partially be understood in terms of residualFootnote12 practices from 1960s counterculture (folk, folk-rock, psychedelic rock, jam rock), to which punk and DIY culture, while discursively often rejecting it, owe many of their stylistic and socio-cultural traits.Footnote13. However, on the other, various DIY participants also often advocate for a more balanced strategy that acknowledges the impossibility of completely rejecting capitalist logic within American DIY scenes: The whole world runs on business, exchanging money for goods and services and a lot of people are going to try to sell and buy a lot of everything. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. (Josh Taylor from a band Friends Forever, personal communication, 27 September 2012; see also Chippendale Citation2016). 3 The research included several years of fieldwork in Davis, CA; nine months in Portland, OR; five days in Washington, DC; and 14 days each in Olympia, WA, Los Angeles, and Oakland, CA. Because San Francisco had an especially vibrant and attractive countercultural scene in the latter half of the 1960s, musicians from elsewhere (along with the famous hip multitude) came there. Figure 6. 8 Dumpsterdiving is a practice of salvaging edible food from the garbage dumpsters of large stores and supermarkets. Phil Lesh, bassist with the Grateful Dead, furthered this sound. Working party at the Glitterdome house, in Portland, 2 April 2012. February is Black History Month that celebrates the contributions and present-day existence of a community that remain unapparelled in the collective victory of humankind. Brinkley, Douglas 1999 "Introduction" in Hunter S. Thompson's, Learn how and when to remove this template message, book on the most influential albums in American popular music, List of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area, Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 19651970, "April 8, 1967: Ralph Gleason TV Interview", "Show 41 The Acid Test: Psychedelics and a sub-culture emerge in San Francisco", Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh 1967 Interview, Youtube, Discographies of San Francisco bands (1965-1973) at the Grateful Dead Family Discography, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=San_Francisco_sound&oldid=1109796155, Articles with dead external links from May 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles needing additional references from August 2016, All articles needing additional references, Articles needing additional references from September 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 11 September 2022, at 22:37. Founded by the Ambassador of the American Songbook, Michael Feinstein, Feinsteins at the Nikko presents top Broadway artists, cabaret singers, and todays best interpreters of the Great American Songbook. To know more, see our. Thats as much of an end goal to them, just as it is for fans. The city also continues to celebrate jazz and blues as an art form that is best experienced live and in the moment. DIY reciprocal relations were not restricted to the music sphere but pervaded all manner of everyday practices. 10 For another example of DIY egalitarian approach to music-making, by the 1980s and 1990s US group Fugazi, see Azerrad Citation2001: 392, 386, 401, 402. Select a holiday type to discover more or call us on 0161 888 5630 Offers; About Us; Brochures; Contact For example, as explained by their bass player, Mike Watt, South Californian 1980s punk/DIY band Minutemen in this way adapted the ideas of collaborative equality to their music practice and sound: D. Boon [Minutemen guitarist] played really heavily with trebly new power chords and left all this room for the bass guitar [], and then worked with Georgie [the drummer] to make sure he had all these fills and parts to jam to and add movement to the songs. Off the beaten path in the Outer Richmond and only a few blocks from Lands End, saxophonist Danny Brown and his family operate one of the citys best record stores and art galleries that features live jazz and jam sessions every Sunday afternoon. I felt I was sort of a tourist in everybody elses scenes, when I was touring. In North Beach, Comstock is a pre-Prohibition cocktail bar experience. While some houses (and DIY spaces) hosted festival shows, others provided shelter for out-of-town visitors and musicians (some guests erecting tents in the backyard of the Glitterdome house), and some collected and distributed donated or dumpster-dived food.Footnote8 Members from most of the DIY houses also either helped with cleaning, cooking for guests or with other small organisational tasks (see Figure 3), as well as actively participating as audiences at festival shows. From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary-breaking DJs of today, the City by the Bay has a treasured history of performances with a significant lineage to black influences. SCRAP) that co-constitute late capitalist circulation of money and commodities (Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014). With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Francisco's live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. Gibson-Graham (Citation2008) lists some of these diverse economies/markets. Numerous scholars have discussed the coexistence of different economic systems within particular cultures and societies, mainly juxtaposing capitalism against alternative economic systems, such as a sustenance economy or gift-economy.Footnote16 While these latter systems may emerge as alternatives or in opposition to the dominant capitalist mode, many analysts also highlight the co-dependent and co-constitutive dimensions of this relationship. Dylan and Jai ended their reply with the following words: [Dylan] that was a goal, when we moved in, hoping that we will be able to provide for people to do whatever creative project they might have in mind[Jai]like pool our resources with that in mind[Dylan]and not only do we give out, but people also bring in so much. Top 10 Best 80'S Music Clubs in San Francisco, CA - Yelp Jimi Hendrix lived in San Francisco in the 1960s and became one of the iconic musical talents of the Summer of Love. However, the above examples demonstrate that at least some DIY participants in the US do not so much contradict themselves as consciously embrace their material condition, often working or negotiating with it creatively, in order to achieve and optimise their ideological and political goals. The tactics that shape this alternative economic model (reciprocity, collective action, DIY methods) permeate DIY scenes on all levels: cultural, economic, and political; from music organisation, music performance, and sound aesthetics, to everyday social practices and interaction.
san francisco music venues 1980's