They also reuse derelict and discarded capitalist products and in this way participate in transferring them from market to non-market value, consequently enabling their diversion from capitalist circulation. The various shows of the tour were put together by friends of the band, friends of their friends, and by people for whom the band had previously organised shows in Portland. KCSM is one of the few 24-hour non-commercial jazz radio stations in the country. The early band venues, while the new SF scene was emerging from folk and folk-rock beginnings, were often places like the Matrix nightclub. You dont feel that communion. The city also continues to celebrate jazz and blues as an art form that is best experienced live and in the moment. Hence, DIY participants often repair, reuse, and repurpose discarded music equipment (Flood Citation2016), or they utilise scrap materials for DIY production. As regards music, these processes emerged somehow organically through social and economic relationships established between DIY musicians and organisers. 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. 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. Sly & the Family Stone, a San Francisco-based group that got its start in the late 1960s, was an exception, being a racially integrated hippie band with a hefty influence from soul music, hence making use of brass instrumentation. Every discussion of the San Francisco music scene eventually turns to The Fillmore, which has hosted such legends as James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner, and Otis Redding. Performances of an international super group like the Beatles were hosted in a huge venue like the Cow Palace. Monterey, California is about 120 road miles south of San Francisco. DIY zines, comic books, and blogs from the whole US).Footnote3 This particular DIY culture is an outgrowth of late 1970s British and US punk culture, which later expanded into more transnational and heterogeneous scenes that today also encompass aspects of indie rock, experimental music and certain singer-songwriters.Footnote4 It also has ties to other similar formations, most particularly 1960s counterculture, and various historical and contemporary anarchist, feminist, and sustainability movements (cf. [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. Therefore, to end this section I wish to highlight one more contradiction regarding the coexistence of DIY and capitalist economic systems, as it relates to practices that seemingly reject capitalism, while simultaneously and tacitly reinforcing it. 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. According to Jai we have people over to eat all the time, we make a lot of food for people, we get a lot of free food too, people will come and donate (personal communication, 28 February 2012). Coming of age in the San Francisco Bay Area, famed singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks gained her first performing experience there in the 1960s with Lindsey Buckingham and his band. Some DIY participants, for instance, argue that low-fee and non-profit oriented economic approaches to touring and shows also negatively affect the sustainability of American DIY scenes, because musicians and venues often struggle to survive or even have to abandon their activities due to a lack of adequate material support. (David, in Maximum Rockandroll Citation1987; emphases added). 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. Working party at the Glitterdome house, in Portland, 2 April 2012. 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). All Rights Reserved. Both Grace Slick (singing with Jefferson Airplane) and Joplin (singing initially with Big Brother & the Holding Company) gained a substantial following locally and, before long, across the country.[17]. McKay Citation1998. I was able to study this phenomenon ethnographically through focusing on a variety of local American DIY scenes and touring practices, permitting me to encounter a plethora of reciprocal activities. The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. Dylan, who lived in Northeast (NE) Portlands Glitterdome house during my research there in 2012 (see Figure 2), similarly talked about reciprocal collaboration between the various NE Portland DIY houses (I estimate there were around 13 there at that time). Experience the mark he left on the city. All rights reserved. 19 See also Jennings Citation1998; Chrysagis Citation2017; Threadgold Citation2017; Bennett Citation2018; Garland Citation2019; Seman Citation2019; Holt Citation2020: chapters 4 and 5; Pearson Citation2020: 183, 185. 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. 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). With the musicians perched high above the bar, you can hear live jazz nightly as you sip specialty cocktails along the 20-foot mahogany bar from 1907. And I feel the same about house shows. Therefore, it is important to realise that the sum of all the aspects and dimensions of American DIY scenes comprise a complex and contradictory socio-cultural assemblage with its own potential for agency and affect. For example, as I also experienced, not all DIY house members helped organise shows or other activities in their spaces. autonomy]. 1511 Haight St. One of the city's live music gems, Club Deluxe, located at the famed corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets, presents a wide array of local jazz and blues bands, as well as monthly burlesque and comedy shows. The San Francisco bands' music was everything that AM-radio pop music wasn't. Register a free Taylor & Francis Online account today to boost your research and gain these benefits: A whole society, with its own economic system: the reciprocal and capitalist configurations of American DIY music scenes, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic, Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value, Noise Records as Noise Culture: DIY Practices, Aesthetics, and Trades, Conceptualizing the Relationship Between Youth, Music, and DIY Careers: A Critical Overview, A Sense of Togetherness: Music Promotion and Ethics in Glasgow, The Growth and Disruption of a Free Space: Examining a Suburban Do It Yourself (DIY) Punk Scene, Volunteering, the Market, and Neoliberalism, Feeling Pain/Making Kin in the Brooklyn Noise Music Scene, Feeling the Vibe: Sound, Vibration, and Affective Attunement in Electronic Dance Music Scenes, Amiguismo: Capitalism, Sociality, and the Sustainability of Indie Music in Santiago, Chile, Diverse Economies: Performative Practices for Other Worlds, The Anatomy of a Dumpster: Abject Capital and the Looking Glass of Value, Post-Punks Attempt to Democratize the Music Industry: The Success and Failure of Rough Trade, Indie: The Institutional Politics and Aesthetics of a Popular Music Genre, Do It Yourselfand the Movement Beyond Capitalism, Value, Waste, and the Built Environment: A Marxian Analysis, Performing the Common Good: Volunteering and Ethics in Non-State Crime Prevention in South Africa, Local Identity and Independent Music Scenes, Online and Off, Punk Positif: The DIY Ethic and the Politics of Value in the Indonesian Hardcore Punk Scene, The Logics at Work in the New Cultural Industries, Postmodernism and Punk Subculture: Cultures of Authenticity and Construction, Break on Through: The Counterculture and the Climax of American Modernism, Accession and Association: The Effect of European Integration and Neoliberalism on Rising Inequality and Kin-neighbor Reciprocity in the Republic of Macedonia, Seeing Sapa: Reading a Transnational Marketplace in the Post-Socialist Cityscape, If There Isnt Skyscrapers, Dont Play There! Rock Music Scenes, Regional Touring, and Music Policy in Australia, Punk Rock Entrepreneurship: All-Ages DIY Music Venues and the Urban Economic Landscape, Neoliberalisms Moral Overtones: Music, Money, and Morality at Thailands Red Shirt Protests, Creativity, Precarity, and Illusio: DIY Cultures and Choosing Poverty, Theory and Ethnography of Affective Participation at DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Shows in the US. Top 10 Best 80'S Music Clubs in San Francisco, CA - Yelp 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). that is a positive thing. According to an announcer for a TV show that Ralph J. Gleason hosted: "In his syndicated newspaper column, Mr. Gleason has been the foremost interpreter of the sounds coming out of what he calls 'the Liverpool of the United States.' How much would you pay to hop into a time machine and visit San Francisco's long-gone Winterland Ballroom on Jan. 14, 1978, the night . Live music performances and music records/cassettes as standardised commodities are in this way diverted from their regular paths in the market economy to an alternative economic regime of value, often through the incorporation of alternative exchange systems (cf. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. They contain freely available discarded items that DIY participants desire to redirect into reuse by other DIY participants, who visit or pass by their houses. Black History Month at the best music venues in San Francisco. Additionally, there are numerous Jazz Festivalsthroughout the Bay Area during warmer months. "Rock & roll" was the point of departure for the new music. Here, Scott describes the basic theory of reciprocity, as outlined by anthropologist Marcel Mauss in his classic study The Gift ([Citation1925] Citation1990). On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. This article is about the alternative economic system that underscores American DIY (do-it-yourself) music scenes, and about how it relates to the American dominant capitalist economy. san francisco music venues 1980's - befalcon.com We had this idea that it was a three-way tie [also the title of one of their albums] and not some hierarchy or aristocracy of guitar. In this article, I examine the alternative economics of reciprocity in American DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. Its sad but true, a lot of people who come to shows these days are all too willing to shell out big bucks for a show or a shirt. SFJAZZ has been at the helm of the city's jazz scene since its founding in the 1980s. Hesmondhalgh Citation1999; Rogers and Whiting Citation2020: 8, 9. For more information please visit our Permissions help page. Appadurai terms these kinds of processes rituals of decomoditization (Citation1986: 26). [19] An important departure in this new era of "album oriented radio" (AOR) was that show hosts felt free to play lengthy tracks or two or more tracks at a stretch from a good record album. Thats what they think. Your guide to one of San Francisco's biggest LGBTQ community events outside of Pride. Thats what really contributes to that communal feeling you get at shows. Yet I also highlight how these alternative economic systems of reciprocity coexist with capitalist ones. Both James and Chris thus emphasise the added value of such enclaved DIY shows. In jazz it had been exuberantly pioneered by numerous musicians. San Francisco's dearly departed nightclubs and music venues - SFGATE 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). However, while capitalist commodities are seemingly transformed into non-market or DIY commodities, in a more tacit way they may be seen to co-constitute the capitalist economy. However, it is also possible to identify more hierarchical and individualist practices and outcomes in contemporary DIY music-making (Verbu Citation2021: 189; see below). With their aggressive, politically charged style of music, the Dead Kennedys were a giant middle finger to the status quo that many young punks learned to despise. DIY participants in this regard often endeavour to reduce their contribution to the capitalist system by engaging in alternative economic models, some of them by dropping out of society, or at least partially diverting their consumption and exchange of commodities into alternative regimes of value (e.g. 8 Dumpsterdiving is a practice of salvaging edible food from the garbage dumpsters of large stores and supermarkets. 1 Free boxes are often found in DIY and punk houses, or on the sidewalks next to them. Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. Thats awesome! (Personal communication, 23 January 2011). The bohemian predecessor of the hippie culture in San Francisco was the "Beat Generation" style of coffee houses and bars, whose clientele appreciated literature, a game of chess, music (in the forms of jazz and folk style), modern dance, and traditional crafts and arts like pottery and painting. 10 Iconic San Francisco Eats & Drinks That Every Visitor Must Try, Trip Idea: Take a Jimi Hendrix-Inspired San Francisco Trip, Little Known Facts About The Golden Gate Bridge, Everything You Need to Know About the Castro Street Fair, San Francisco Music Venues Rich in Black History, Where to See Jazz and Blues in San Francisco, History of Angel Island: The Ellis Island of the West. In Jennings account and Figure 5 we see how commodities such as records are diverted from the path of capitalist exchange and voided of market value during DIY shows to be transformed into objects of personal and collective use value (cf. Marx Citation1887). Powered by hocalwire.com, We use cookies for analytics, advertising and to improve our site. However, as I demonstrate above, these same shows and recordings are also manifestations of alternative economic relations established within and outside these events. 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). Fun and fascinating trivia about San Francisco's most indelible icon. Furthermore, DIY participants often reject the implied individualism of the DIY label (do-it-yourself), and instead emphasise the collective nature of the DIY method, by relabelling it as DIT, i.e. San Francisco offers live jazz and blues each and every night of the week in various settings. 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). Reviews on 80'S Music Clubs in San Francisco, CA - Barracuda '80's Decade Dance Party, Cat Club, Monroe, Bootie Mashup: SF, Butter, New Wave City, Bimbo's 365 Club, Club Gossip, Raven Bar, Oasis American DIY shows similarly function as enclaved zones and rituals of decomoditization. Learn about our history and where to find it now, from festivals to clubs and bars. Jimi Hendrix lived in San Francisco in the 1960s and became one of the iconic musical talents of the Summer of Love. A whole society, with its own economic . DIY economics of reciprocity, collective participation, and DIY practice, DIY tensions and transitions between reciprocal and capitalist economic systems, https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2023.2180050, https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/the-paradox-of-life-affirming-death-traps/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gBcxR8NPUw, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health. In turn, this approach challenges the widespread assumption that DIY participants often contradict themselves in terms of what they do and what they say or, in other words, that their material realities contradict their ideological demands. San Francisco has a long history with jazz music. 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. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. This preference for musical collaboration, collective decision-making, and collective musical interplay is also evident in more recent musical endeavours (Verbu Citation2021: 325, 189). Jennings Citation1998), At a certain level if you are accepted into a community, you shouldnt make more than a liveable wage [through DIY-related small businesses]. The many bands that formed signalled a shift from one subculture to the next. An ever-changing art gallery, Madrone presents local funk, jazz, and brass bands that play everything from James Brown to Brazilian samba. The Church warehouse in Oakland, during a DIY show (14 December 2012). 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. Since my research mostly covers years 20104, and therefore does not address any recent changes in the scene (e.g., due to COVID-19 or other factors), the ethnographic findings in this article will be discussed using the past tense. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. A modern take on the vintage supper club, Black Cat is located in the heart of San Franciscos Tenderloin neighborhood, the historic arts and entertainment district once home to fabled jazz venues such as The Blackhawk. This led him to feel compelled to create a similar kind of community and alternative economic system when he moved to the Waffle house in Portland. A number of key San Francisco rock musicians of the era cited John Coltrane and his circle of leading-edge jazz musicians as important influences. SCRAP) that co-constitute late capitalist circulation of money and commodities (Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014). 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. Its definitely a family. 2023 Hyderabad Media House Limited/The Hans India. "[7] The entire tone of the new subculture was different. This is how Teague from Waffle house in NE Portland explained DIY reciprocity and communal living: Its about applying that kind of attitude to your whole lifesome people dont, some people are just like yeah, we have shows here but we dont apply that attitude toward anything else in our lives [], and sometimes you will play somewhere and its like really far-out neo-hippy communitywe have lands, and we grow our own foods, and have a lot of other community projects going on in [our] housea lot of houses that we played at [with his band] were really inspiring [in that sense] [] There would be people canning and processing food, making kombucha, making their own alcohol, [and having] screen printing shops, photo labs, art studio spaces built in the houses[there] would just be a house in a neighbourhood but there would be like nine people living there, and people [living] in the backyardjust every inch of house is utilized in a productive waylike in New York, it was like just a community living to an extreme in a couple of places I went to. A whole society, with its own economic system even. However, Scott also clarifies that DIY reciprocity is not about direct one-for-one reciprocation but can apply to anybody (somebody else), as long as participants are dedicated to sustaining the scene (keep the energy moving). This summer, the city, and region will host jazz and blues concerts, festivals, and numerous free outdoor events including: The award-winning SFJAZZ Center opened in Hayes Valley in 2013 and boasts the 700-seat Robert N. Miner Auditorium and the 100-seat Joe Henderson Lab, showcasing the biggest names in international music and the best of the Bay Areas local jazz scene. Today, the music continues with a packed event calendar that combines new talent and seasoned performers. DIY shows and records, bartering, borrowing, and DIY production of goods). Third, the co-existence and interrelatedness of DIY/reciprocal and dominant/capitalist systems extends beyond a simplistic resistance vs power dichotomy. (Oakes Citation2009: 51; emphasis added)Footnote10. 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). 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. This kind of rejection of the capitalist system, on the one hand, and the embracing of the DIY production and autonomy, on the other, is also apparent in a further quote by Jennings: by selling you things I make, I can avoid getting a real job, or at least minimize the work I do for the system, and therefore how much money they make from my effort. DIY ethics entail making things oneself, and thus obviating the need for commercial and institutional channels of production. In North Beach, Comstock is a pre-Prohibition cocktail bar experience. 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. [18] Donahue was uniquely qualified, being savvy and enthusiastic about jazz, R&B, Soul, and ethnic music, besides the then-current rock music. This research also reveals how American DIY participants engage in flexible and part time jobs, live in low-rent areas, and reuse derelict capitalist products and spaces, through which they materially co-constitute both DIY and capitalist worlds. I know a lot of people that are making music strictly just for fun, or that is something that is compulsive for them, [that] they cant not do it. (Richard the Roadie, in Biel Citation2012: 28, 29), Thus, many DIY participants accept the limits of DIY reciprocity and espouse a more independent and autonomous, small-time or ethical capitalism (Biel Citation2012: 28, 29). Regarding the musical side, it is pertinent to examine the types of association between the three main actors in these DIY arrangements: venues/organisers, bands/performers, and audiences/participants. This kind of orientation toward egalitarian collective action and reciprocity is also discernible in the musical organisation, performance, and sound of many American DIY bands. The historical building is large enough to comfortably accommodate more than 1,000 guests but small enough to ensure an intimate experience no matter where you watch the show. 7 For more on DIY touring in the US, and the notion of translocal reciprocity, see Verbu Citation2021 (chapter 8). The Dead Kennedys are often seen as one of the most influential hardcore punk bands of the 1980s, instrumental in the rebellion against the hippie movement of the preceding decades. A musician who was a leading example of this, Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane (and the offshoot Hot Tuna) pioneered the approach, perhaps best represented on the album Bless Its Pointed Little Head. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. These kinds of ideological tensions therefore often also serve as a form of micro-power to establish internal boundaries along the lines of ideological purity within the DIY communities and scenes (cf. Jazz in San Francisco: History and Where to Hear it Furthermore, the ethnographic examples I have presented suggest that alternative DIY systems do not only exist at the level of utopian ideas, but also as innovative and extensive socio-cultural practices that materially integrate American DIY worlds, from micro to macro levels. People would also in return help us out with things that we need. Figure 2. 6 For further discussion of the practices and ideologies of audience participation within American DIY scenes, see Verbu Citation2018. Similar venue-performer, venue-audience, and performer-audience relations and forms of boundary-making have been present at most DIY shows I have attended. 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. To address this question, I first outline the contours of the alternative DIY economic system of reciprocity and some of its problems. 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.
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