E.g. DIY ethics entail making things oneself, and thus obviating the need for commercial and institutional channels of production. 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. Brinkley, Douglas 1999 "Introduction" in Hunter S. 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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. For example, there is no expectation that all musicians will organise shows, or that all audience members will demonstrate their commitment to the scene by intensely moshing to punk bands in front of the stage or by singing along with indie-folk singers (cf. Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. 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. Figure 6. SFJAZZ has been at the helm of the city's jazz scene since its founding in the 1980s. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. Figure 2. This logic of capitalist subsumption also relates to other types of DIY tactics of diversion, from dumpsterdiving, to renting of houses in cheap and lower-income neighbourhoods, through which DIYers participate in gradual maximisation of market values of these commodities (Horton Citation1997; Giles Citation2014; Graham Citation2016: 559; Farrow Citation2020: 13); or by volunteering in a variety of cultural and charitable projects (for example, helping with the organisation of cultural and musical events, or participating in food distribution projects, e.g. Its really, its hard for a lot of people to understand it, but these bands are really satisfied just by people hearing their 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. there is a diversity of possible causal factors that extend beyond the influence of the DIY system), as it is also implicated in the examples above. 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. In other words, Levy rejects approaches to collective organising that employ balanced reciprocity, with its obligation to reciprocate, as individualistic and selfish. 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. 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. With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Franciscos live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. I therefore also employ both critical and constructive approaches to the alternative DIY economies in the US. [18] Donahue was uniquely qualified, being savvy and enthusiastic about jazz, R&B, Soul, and ethnic music, besides the then-current rock music. Furthermore, alternative DIY socio-economic systems succeed in generating considerable symbolic, affective, material, and political value for DIY participants and scenes. 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). 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. I am also thankful to both anonymous reviewers for their astute comments, as well as to Henry Stobart for his generous help with the editing process. DIY reciprocal relations were not restricted to the music sphere but pervaded all manner of everyday practices. Thats as much of an end goal to them, just as it is for fans. Aaron is the Manager of Digital & Social Media Marketing at San Francisco Travel. 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. DIY shows in the US are underscored by a complex conjunction of two economic regimes overlapping in one space and time. 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. Due to the gradual musical and social diversification of punk and post-punk scenes in the last 40 years, and the redirection of attention from genre and sound to particular (DIY) ethos within these scenes, the DIY label started to be more commonly used as a synonym or a substitute for the term punk in reference to these scenes (ibid.). (Personal communication, 29 December, 2010; see Figure 2), House shows are better. In North Beach, Comstock is a pre-Prohibition cocktail bar experience. 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. San Francisco is a westward-looking port city, a city that at the time was 'big enough' but not manic like New York City or . The journalist Ed Vulliamy wrote: "The Summer of Love had an empress, and her name was Janis Joplin. Through long term ethnographic study of local and translocal DIY scenes, including shows, spaces, and touring practices, I reveal a plethora of reciprocal musical and extra-musical activities that enable the creation of alternative DIY worlds. "[4] On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. And I feel the same about house shows. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 7 For more on DIY touring in the US, and the notion of translocal reciprocity, see Verbu Citation2021 (chapter 8). It is true that many of the San Francisco bands did record "three-minute" tracks when they desired pop-music station airplay for a song. SCRAP) that co-constitute late capitalist circulation of money and commodities (Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014). Jai Milx performing at her house, Glitterdome, in Portland, 4 February 2012. This tendency is highlighted in the liner notes to a 1987 compilation of Gilman bands entitled Turn it Around!, published in collaboration with Maximum Rockandroll, an internationally renowned DIY zine from San Francisco: These bands were chosen [to be on the compilation] because of their support of the [Gilman] Project [] The people in these bands can be found at Gilman at any given night [] They come to the meetings, work the shows, play the benefits and put just as much, if not more, into the club than they get out of it. 11 See, for example, Forns, Lindberg, and Sernhede Citation1995; Berger Citation1999: 67; Toynbee Citation2000: 111, 112; Moore Citation2014a. Through long term ethnographic study of local and translocal DIY scenes, including shows, spaces, and touring practices, I reveal a plethora of reciprocal musical and extra-musical activities that enable the creation of alternative DIY worlds. American DIY shows similarly function as enclaved zones and rituals of decomoditization. Thats awesome! Thus, the music promoted or listened to in DIY spaces is often less about whether anybody likes it, as Scott put it earlier in this article, than about community-building, and mutual support. The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. This kind of diversion from the capitalist market economy and experience is vividly expressed by DIY participant James from Davis, California: [at DIY house shows] we are experiencing music outside of the [dominant] modes of exchange that we are used to, even if we still pay donation money [] For me, something that exists outside the normal form of exchange you go to a venue, bar making money, going buying drinks; this [DIY show] is much more visceral, conducive to real interchange between people. All rights reserved. All Rights Reserved. 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. They're smaller, more intimate, your gear is at stake because of this, but its worth it because were fucking punk [] Its louder, youre in the crowd, its in your face. The San Francisco sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid-1960s to early 1970s.It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury district, during these years. Steve Miller (who formed the Steve Miller Band) was from Wisconsin, by way of Chicago and New York City while bandmate Boz Scaggs originally called Texas home. A DIY approach, therefore, functioned both as a means to an end, and as an end in itself. [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. In turn, these decomoditized objects come to symbolise values of DIY creativity, independence, and community, whilst constructing boundaries of cultural (DIY) distinction and authenticity. Each San Francisco band had its characteristic sound, but enough commonalities existed that there was a regional identity. He has lived in San Francisco for over 9 years and has worked in Travel & Tourism for over 7 of those. I still, I am returning the favour. 2023 Hyderabad Media House Limited/The Hans India. "[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. (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. Real Estate Software Dubai > blog > san francisco music venues 1980's. san francisco music venues 1980's. Jun 12, 2022 . Marx Citation1887). It doesnt feel as a community so much when you have a show, when a bands a bunch of millionaires, and you have a bunch of people that just idolize them. Some stayed and became part of the scene. 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. Its time we started showing by example that punk is still a community. Taylor Citation2016: 15476). 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. The DIY scenes I studied were constituted materially through alternative economies of DIY practice, collective participation, and reciprocity. [1] San Francisco is a westward-looking port city, a city that at the time was 'big enough' but not manic like New York City or spread out like Los Angeles. Thats kind of special about underground music scene, that some people really are pure that way, and that [they] are having fun, making friends. 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. A hideaway on Fell Street, Mr. Tipples presents live jazz nightly alongside inventive cocktails in a dark and sophisticated space. 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. (Jennings Citation1998; see Figure 5)Footnote17, Figure 5. At San Francisco's music venues, new-age artists share the same stages as some of music's most legendary black artists. Reciprocally, these local participants (i.e. I show in this article how American DIY participants establish a whole alternative and parallel society with its own economic model, but which also reveals itself as very heterogeneous and in different ways interconnected with the dominant capitalist one. 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. It is important to note here that any act of gift-giving (for instance, organising shows) is always also an act that ties individuals to community. 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). Pier 23 Cafe is a time-honored restaurant and bar located right on the Embarcadero and San Francisco Bay. Further, DIY venues also foster reciprocal relation with their performers and audiences. 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). When I give you $5 for a record, I am exchanging something of value (my money/effort) for something else of value (your record). [5] According to writer Douglas Brinkley, celebrated author Hunter S. Thompson, one of the Bay Area cultural-scene boosters, was a big early fan of the group: "Thompson extolled the sonic energy of the Jefferson Airplane as it pulsed around the California locales that nursed the psychedelic era"[6]. Collective reciprocity is also manifested in the structure of shows, where DIY organisers and performers often reject the hierarchical notion of openers and headliners (Verbu Citation2021: 219). Dylan from Glitterdome house, making a CD cover for their band Potsie (26 April 2012). Hesmondhalgh Citation1999; Rogers and Whiting Citation2020: 8, 9. 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. 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. The Boom Boom Room hosts local and international blues, funk, jam bands, and everything in between. This is how DIY participants themselves, in this case, DIY zine writer and publisher Tom Jennings, describe this process: Bands selling records at shows arent amassing capital to be used later to control more money but probably to buy beer, a T-shirt from the other band, gas to drive to the next show with, and if theyre lucky, rent. The city also continues to celebrate jazz and blues as an art form that is best experienced live and in the moment. "Rock & roll" was the point of departure for the new music. 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. 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. This recycling approach is highlighted by Jai from Glitterdome house, in Portland: We make all merch[andise] by ourselves, we can cut costs by collecting shirts from [free] boxes, [or by] using SCRAP, which stands for School and Community Resource Action Project [local community store selling scrap materials], we can use that to get different materials for making our merch, that helps us so whenever we do make money from that, we can make money to put in our gas tank, to keep going, or to put out more records. 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. Thereby, various goods and articles can, for example, be temporarily or permanently diverted from the capitalist market into enclaved non-capitalist zones, where they are often voided of market value while they simultaneously gain in symbolic value. This preference for musical collaboration, collective decision-making, and collective musical interplay is also evident in more recent musical endeavours (Verbu Citation2021: 325, 189). Dedicated in 2016, the statue signifies the citys ongoing love affair with the song, the music, and the musicians who make 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. On the one hand, the ideological objective to reject the capitalist mode of organising cultural and social practices (individualism, consumerism, and profit- and success-oriented approaches). Fun and fascinating trivia about San Francisco's most indelible icon. Your guide to one of San Francisco's biggest LGBTQ community events outside of Pride. Exploration of chordal progressions previously uncommon in rock & roll, and a freer and more powerful use of all instruments (drums and other percussion, electric guitars, keyboards, as well as the bass) went along with this "psychedelic-era" music. 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. 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. The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. 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. Thornton Citation1996). And it might be to somebody else, but just to sort of keep the energy moving. 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. Select a holiday type to discover more or call us on 0161 888 5630 Offers; About Us; Brochures; Contact "[7] The entire tone of the new subculture was different. Its [also] like that for fans, you know. As audiences grew, and audience dancing became customary, performances moved into venues with more floor space, such as the Longshoreman's Hall, the Fillmore Auditorium, the Avalon Ballroom, Winterland, and the Carousel Ballroom (which was later renamed Fillmore West). 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. (Aaron Scott, personal communication, 11 April 2012). However, since the simple fact of attending shows, or because still and quiet listening to music can also count as valid forms of audience participation at DIY shows (see Figure 2), I argue for an understanding of American DIY communities that is open to a variety of different approaches and interpretations of active audience participation. Examples include the Sir Douglas Quintet, whose music took on more of the character of the San Francisco sound, while yet retaining some of its original Texas flavor, Mother Earth, fronted by female lead singer Tracy Nelson, who relocated to the Bay Area from Nashville, and the Electric Flag, bringing Chicago blues to the Bay Area care of former Paul Butterfield Blues Band guitarist Mike Bloomfield. 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. Its insulting to the other people in the community who volunteer to put a lot of the work in. In this way, they create alternative DIY systems that co-constitute capitalist ones, while simultaneously being co-constituted by them. DIY reciprocal economic relations described above not only materially support DIY communities and scenes, but also inform alternative types of culture, music, and aesthetics (Rice Citation1994). Specialties: About the San Francisco Symphony: The San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas present more than 220 concerts each year from September through July in a variety of genres, with SFS musicians performing classical concerts, holiday favorites, summer pops events, free outdoor concerts, special series for families and children, plus presentations of visiting guest artists and . The people who opened their homes to me, honestly, I guarantee, some people [] didnt like the music we played, [] I mean it helps [], if they like the music you play, but [thats not the main reason]. To be able to tour, bands rely on the help of local participants (who organise shows for them, in their houses, or elsewhere). 12 I am referring here to Raymond Williamss theories of residual, emergent, and dominant practices (Citation1977: 1217). 6 For further discussion of the practices and ideologies of audience participation within American DIY scenes, see Verbu Citation2018. 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. Drawing on Arjun Appadurais theories of value and commodity (1986), alongside other authors who examine the co-existence of different economic systems, I chart how DIY practitioners tactically navigate the boundaries between these reciprocal and capitalist economic systems and worlds. We use cookies to improve your website experience. There are evidently numerous innovative practices existing within American DIY scenes that work persistently and continuously, on a daily basis, and in multiple interconnected locales, toward demystification and destabilisation of capitalist processes, both on discursive and material levels, but which they also simultaneously sustain the capitalist system in different ways. (Personal communication, 28 February 2012). 17 See also Ryan Citation1992: 53; Holtzman, Hughes, and Van Meter Citation2007; Taylor Citation2016: 155, 173. 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. The many bands that formed signalled a shift from one subculture to the next. Phil Lesh, bassist with the Grateful Dead, furthered this sound. While it is still a great spot to enjoy cheap beer in a low-key setting, the Saloon is now best known as an intimate venue to enjoy some of the best jazz and blues in the city. By being discarded, they often either create scarcity and consequently contribute to market demand and supply patterns, or they enter alternative economic business models (small, grassroots, sustainable, eco, ethical, and/or community-oriented niche business entities, e.g.
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