Other DIY participants I interviewed talked about similar approaches included in the roster of DIY reciprocal and collective activities. that is a positive thing. 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. You can request songs from a library card catalog system. In December 1961, in the hotels famous Venetian Room, Bennett first sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco. The song quickly became one of the citys official anthems. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. 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. 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. The many bands that formed signalled a shift from one subculture to the next. The house also incorporated four additional makeshift living spaces in the form of liveable rooms, three in the basement, and one in the garage. Booking shows for this tour was greatly facilitated by the established DIY friendships of one band member who had previously made eight tours of the US. 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. 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. 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. This zine is a business but its the idea of people running their own business, bands, labels, zines, etc. 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. 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. To some extent they also do this for wider society (e.g. Get out your pens and spraypaint. The strong reciprocal relations between different houses of the DIY community was emphasised to me in an interview with Jai and Dylan from Glitterdome house, who explained that they had friends visit pretty constantly. 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. 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 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. For example, participants funding of DIY shows and recordings is laterally supported by the larger capitalist framework, exemplified by their utilisation of consumer goods (computers, phones, music instruments, cars, gas), public infrastructure, and part-time jobs that help them cover the costs. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. And, if you go to a baseball game atOracle Park, there is nothing like hearing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco played after a Giants victory. In this way, they create alternative DIY systems that co-constitute capitalist ones, while simultaneously being co-constituted by them. DIY organisers who are often also musicians), may later seek out the return of the same favour when they, in turn, go on tour. I felt I was sort of a tourist in everybody elses scenes, when I was touring. However, as I demonstrate above, these same shows and recordings are also manifestations of alternative economic relations established within and outside these events. 20 In addition to capitalism, state and city governments sometimes act as additional significant actors in shaping and interacting with DIY scenes, not only by imposing restrictions on the scene (e.g., in the form of laws and regulations), but also by supporting and/or co-funding various DIY endeavours (Chrysagis Citation2017; Threadgold Citation2017; Bennett Citation2018; Garland Citation2019; Holt Citation2020: chapters 4 and 5). Note the bands offer to exchange their records and merchandise either for money, or for a good conversation and a hug!!!!!!. Outdoor performances, often organized by the band members themselves and their friends, also played their part. 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. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. Note the makeshift live-in spaces: one suspended from the ceiling on the left, and the small, pink mini-house on the right. It features a house Hammond B-3 organ, played by the areas best organists, along with a huge record collection. "[8] The Beats tended to be cagey, keeping their lives discreet (save for the few who published, in literary bursts, about their perceptions, enthusiasms, and activities); in a word, they generally kept cool. The young hippies were far more numerous, less wary, and had scarcely any inclination to keep their lifestyles concealed. 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. I start with a quote by a well-known American DIY zine writer Aaron Cometbus, who articulates some of the main issues and concerns regarding the alternative economic practices of American DIY communities: Bands [] when they are successful, its because of how talented they are, how much they care, how hard theyve worked. 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. Its insulting to the other people in the community who volunteer to put a lot of the work in. 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. Your guide to one of San Francisco's biggest LGBTQ community events outside of Pride. 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. Its really, its hard for a lot of people to understand it, but these bands are really satisfied just by people hearing their music. DIY ethics entail making things oneself, and thus obviating the need for commercial and institutional channels of production. To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. 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. In other words, Levy rejects approaches to collective organising that employ balanced reciprocity, with its obligation to reciprocate, as individualistic and selfish. 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 . By contrast, some groups only organise DIY house shows, and not much more (cf. 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. (David, in Maximum Rockandroll Citation1987; emphases added). 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. Catch a show at one of San Francisco's legendary music venues, gems with a rich history and a lineup boasting fresh local artists and music's biggest names. "[4] 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. Performances of an international super group like the Beatles were hosted in a huge venue like the Cow Palace. I still, I am returning the favour. All these different kinds and degrees of reciprocity, as the examples above evidence, are interwoven areas of social, cultural, and economic activity that mutually engender each other, and thus also provide a material basis for the local and translocal DIY scenes across the US and internationally. An ever-changing art gallery, Madrone presents local funk, jazz, and brass bands that play everything from James Brown to Brazilian samba. 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 . 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. 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. Furthermore, I draw on Arjun Appadurais perspectives on the complex interrelationships between different economic systems and regimes of value, often connected through the movement of the same kinds of commodities between them (Citation1986). Select a holiday type to discover more or call us on 0161 888 5630 Offers; About Us; Brochures; Contact 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. Merchandise sign at the Portlands Punx house show, 18 April 2012. This is not only when they refer to the practices of DIY local participants helping touring bands with venues, accommodation, company, and food, or to the system of donations for music performances at DIY shows, but also in relation to everyday musical and non-musical collaborations among the DIY participants. This can include anything from the production, distribution, and promotion of music and arts, and self-organisation of spaces and concerts, to other social and daily activities such as making food and clothing, repairing or remodelling vehicles, and social and political self-organising (Holtzman, Hughes, and Van Metre Citation2007; Wehr Citation2012; Debies-Carl Citation2014). Great American Music Hall (859 O'Farrell St.). SCRAP) that co-constitute late capitalist circulation of money and commodities (Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014). Hesmondhalgh Citation1999; Rogers and Whiting Citation2020: 8, 9. 7 For more on DIY touring in the US, and the notion of translocal reciprocity, see Verbu Citation2021 (chapter 8). If you have an inclination towards music, you will be startled to visit these music venues which were formed on the foundation of African-American culture. A combination of commercial, second-hand, and scrap materials and tools were used in this DIY process. DIY reciprocal relations were not restricted to the music sphere but pervaded all manner of everyday practices. McKay Citation1998. However, it is also possible to identify more hierarchical and individualist practices and outcomes in contemporary DIY music-making (Verbu Citation2021: 189; see below). 6 For further discussion of the practices and ideologies of audience participation within American DIY scenes, see Verbu Citation2018. Even if participants endeavour to detach DIY music making from the capitalist motives of larger society, traces of the dominant economy persist within DIY scenes. Thats awesome! Both emphasise that gift-giving is not a free activity, but that it bonds an individual to reciprocate (returning the favour). San Francisco offers live jazz and blues each and every night of the week in various settings. 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. The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. 2 See for example Gibson-Graham Citation2008; Eriksen Citation2010: 160, 161, 201, 202, 216; Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014; Tausig Citation2014; Dean Citation2015; Otten Citation2015; Graham Citation2016; Kirsch Citation2017. I therefore also employ both critical and constructive approaches to the alternative DIY economies in the US. 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). Powered by hocalwire.com, We use cookies for analytics, advertising and to improve our site. They are just consumers. 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. E.g. 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.). 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. 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. Figure 1. Some of the most important black artists of the 20th century have played on this stage, including jazz legends Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan. The new sound, which melded many musical influences, was perhaps heralded in the live performances of the Jefferson Airplane (from 1965 on), who put out an LP record earlier than nearly all the other new bands (August 1966). The San Francisco bands' music was everything that AM-radio pop music wasn't. 18 It is important to note that DIY economy in itself is not a homogeneous system, but consists of various alternative and non-market economies. 2023 San Francisco Travel Association. underground market, co-op exchange, barter, informal economy (for alternative economies), and gift giving, state appropriations, gleaning, and poaching (for non-market economies). 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. (Personal communication, 23 January 2011). 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. 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). Established in 1986, it has served as a template and inspiration for many other DIY venues across the US and internationally (Hannon Citation2010: 37). Lesh had developed his style on the foundation of having studied classical, brass-band, jazz, and modernist music on the violin and later the trumpet.[10]. Here, Scott describes the basic theory of reciprocity, as outlined by anthropologist Marcel Mauss in his classic study The Gift ([Citation1925] Citation1990). 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). 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). (Jennings Citation1998; see Figure 5)Footnote17, Figure 5. According to biography author Robert Greenfield, "Jon McIntire [manager of the Grateful Dead from the late sixties to the mid-eighties] points out that the great contribution of the hippie culture was this projection of joy. 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). 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. A louder, more prominent role for the electric basstypically with a melodic or semi-melodic approach, and using a plush, pervasive tonewas another feature. Learn the dynamic history of San Francisco's Angel Island, the gateway for approximately 175,000 Chinese immigrants in the 1900s. DIY shows and records, bartering, borrowing, and DIY production of goods). 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. In the summer of 2012, I toured with a band from Portland called 3 Moons, playing shows around the West Coast and the Midwest. And on the other hand, practical efforts toward, but also failures and difficulties in, embracing the reciprocal social and economic relations, which include collective networks of mutual aid, active participation, and DIY methods. So, before you pack your bags to visit the Bay Area and once you return home, tune into KCSM/91.1 online to hear what is happening when you are in town and what you're missing after you have left your heart in San Francisco. 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). For example, as I also experienced, not all DIY house members helped organise shows or other activities in their spaces. The beatnik thing was black, cynical, and cold. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. (Personal communication, 29 December, 2010; see Figure 2), House shows are better. 5 Safe space policy, common within American DIY communities, usually refers to a spatial policy through which DIY participants endeavour to create spaces free of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism, ageism, and any forms of violence or oppression. Secondly, I discuss the cultural and aesthetic levels of this phenomenon, before finally focusing on the complexities and contradictions surrounding the coexistence of both alternative and dominant economic systems within American DIY scenes (highlighting some of the co-dependencies involved with italics, for greater conceptual clarity). 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. By giving me your money, you are giving your money directly to the producer of the thing, and since the relationship is closer you get to give feedback right to the source. With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Franciscos live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. 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. 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. According to cultural anthropologist Micaela di Leonardo, the San Francisco music scene was "a workshop for progressive soul", with the radio station KDIA in particular playing a role in showcasing the music of acts like Sly and the Family Stone.[20].
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