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. The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. KAOS [from Olympia] was a community radio station; it wasnt saying, Heres a lot of really good music; it was saying Heres a lot of different kinds of music, independent music. 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. Thats awesome! Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tr | Courtesy of Focus Features Films about classical music go back to at least the 1930s. 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. I do it [organising shows] because I have a deep karmic debt to the scene []. Whether you're in a seat on the balcony or dancing on the main floor, you'll have a great concert experience. 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. And so I understood the difference between supporting something and liking it. Examples from the US, from the years of my fieldwork research (20104), include: Yellingham festival in Bellingham, House by House West festival in Denton, Texas, Word of Mouth festival in Portland, West side arts walk in Olympia, Bitchpork festival in Chicago, and The Gathering of Goof Punx in Portland. Other DIY participants I interviewed talked about similar approaches included in the roster of DIY reciprocal and collective activities. In addition, factors that shape more egalitarian music practices and sounds can be diverse. See international artists in state-of-the-art auditoriums or local artists in historic cocktail lounges, unique dive bars, iconic restaurants, modern art galleries, and off-the-beaten path record stores and bookstores. 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. "[7] The entire tone of the new subculture was different. 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. "[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. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. And I feel the same about house shows. 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. You agree to our use of cookies by continuing to use our site. Finally, this study highlights the value of a dialectical scholarship that approaches social phenomena, such as music scenes, as constituted in contradictory and non-deterministic ways, which operate on multiple levels, and which are riven with socio-cultural difference. 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. 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. Among the oldest venues in San Francisco, The Warfield has hosted a number of great black artists, including Louis Armstrong and Prince. However, it is also possible to identify more hierarchical and individualist practices and outcomes in contemporary DIY music-making (Verbu Citation2021: 189; see below). 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. 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. Moreover, they are also seen to engage in rituals of decomoditization by diverting capitalist products into enclaved zones of DIY spaces and shows. It involved recording interviews, attending concerts, living in DIY houses, touring with bands (through West Coast and Midwest), and analysing DIY literature (e.g. DIY shows in the US are underscored by a complex conjunction of two economic regimes overlapping in one space and time. Figure 2. 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. A seminal venue in this regard is Gilman 924 (known also only as Gilman) in Berkeley, California. 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. (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. They are just consumers. He also gives advice about how to straddle both worlds, and how to pay up (reciprocally) for what bands owe to the community. The early band venues, while the new SF scene was emerging from folk and folk-rock beginnings, were often places like the Matrix nightclub. Great American Music Hall (859 O'Farrell St.). It would be make-shift [spaces]like, divide room in half, [] cubbies that people are living in, and so this house it supposed to be for a couple, like a small studio apartment, [but] divided into like eight or nine [liveable] spacesand just insane things like that. (Cometbus Citation2002). 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. However, in a seemingly contradictory way, this system possessively binds an individual to the scene, in turn creating social boundaries for DIY membership and belonging through the reciprocal expectation of active DIY participation (cf. While it is possible to see a connection in given examples between the DIY socio-economic relations of reciprocity and the DIY ideas and aesthetics of support that reject the dominant values of quality (good vs bad performers), it is also important to extend the analysis beyond the simplistic (homologic) interpretations of the cause-and-effect links between material (socio-economic) and cultural (aesthetic) levels (cf., Hesmondhalgh Citation1999: 36; Toynbee Citation2000: 1105). 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. 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). Enjoy a show and a cocktail at B-Side, the lounge in the SFJAZZ Center. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. To address this question, I first outline the contours of the alternative DIY economic system of reciprocity and some of its problems. However, as I demonstrate above, these same shows and recordings are also manifestations of alternative economic relations established within and outside these events. Culton and Holtzman Citation2010; Hannerz Citation2015: 128). (Personal communication, 28 February 2012; see Figure 6; emphasis in original). 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). 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 . An ever-changing art gallery, Madrone presents local funk, jazz, and brass bands that play everything from James Brown to Brazilian samba. (David, in Maximum Rockandroll Citation1987; emphases added). 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. Figure 3. In the above account he notes how he was inspired by the alternative economic systems of various communal DIY houses, which he visited on his early music tours around the US. Its insulting to the other people in the community who volunteer to put a lot of the work in. On the one hand, American DIY participants embrace independence, collectivism, and reciprocity as constitutive parts of the DIY economy, and foster them as rituals of decomoditization that enhance the symbolic and affective value of DIY shows. 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). Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. American DIY participants therefore usually downplay or reject the notion of making it and strive toward community, collectivity, and intimate social cohesion.Footnote14 This is obvious, for instance, also in their willingness to play for small donations at shows, and in their rejection of major labels. 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. 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. 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. Get out your pens and spraypaint. Outdoor performances, often organized by the band members themselves and their friends, also played their part. The light and charming One Hundred Men and a Girl, from 1937, starred Deanna Durbin as the daughter of an unemployed trombonist and the conductor Leopold Stokowski, whose character almost accidentally finds himself conducting an orchestra of the unemployed. 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). 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. 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. Note the makeshift live-in spaces: one suspended from the ceiling on the left, and the small, pink mini-house on the right. Merchandise sign at the Portlands Punx house show, 18 April 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. Fun and fascinating trivia about San Francisco's most indelible icon. For more information please visit our Permissions help page. Today, the music continues with a packed event calendar that combines new talent and seasoned performers. Celebrate San Francisco's deep-rooted black history at these music venues that have hosted some of music's most legendary black artists. participation]. 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. 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. DIY organisers who are often also musicians), may later seek out the return of the same favour when they, in turn, go on tour. 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. Moreover, while there is a tangible tendency within American DIY communities toward reciprocal interaction in multiple social and economic aspects of DIY sociability, it is also acknowledged within the DIY scenes that this kind of alternative economy has its own limits. [9] This questing bass quality has been wryly characterized as a "roving" (rather than the conventional "stay-at-home") style. Therefore, these scenes have to consequently be understood as both challenging and co-constituting the dominant capitalist regime, and at the same time, being challenged and co-constituted by it. 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. 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. The music regularly turns the bar into a dance party. 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). 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. In the summer of 2012, I toured with a band from Portland called 3 Moons, playing shows around the West Coast and the Midwest. 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]. 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). 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. 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. In addition, I made multiple additional one-day trips to Oakland during my stay in Davis. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. 3099067 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). Its definitely a family. To some extent they also do this for wider society (e.g. 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. Both James and Chris thus emphasise the added value of such enclaved DIY shows. 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). DIY participant Ben Wiesel, for example, observes that the DIY approach to the show/touring economy, where anything above gas money [as a payment to performers] is immoral, constitutes a twisted DIY ethics (Wiesel, in Makagon Citation2015: 56). Mr. Gleason believes the San Francisco rock groups are making a serious contribution to musical history. (Josh Taylor from a band Friends Forever, personal communication, 27 September 2012; see also Chippendale Citation2016). Until a few years ago no bands sold T-shirts, people would just make their own. Furthermore, Cometbus also identifies contradictions within American DIY scenes regarding the coexistence of both alternative (reciprocal) and dominant (capitalist) systems within the same communities and scenes, where DIY individuals and bands often not only engage in collective and reciprocal relations, but also act as capitalist producers and consumers. Further, DIY venues also foster reciprocal relation with their performers and audiences. 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. Much has been written about the historic jazz clubs from the 1950s and 60s Jazz Workshop, The Blackhawk, Basin Street West, Todd Barkans Keystone Kornerand the classic jazz albums recorded in the city, including Thelonious Monks 1959 albumAlone in San Francisco,the 1961 Miles Davis albumIn Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk,Complete, and Duke EllingtonsConcert of Sacred Musicat Grace Cathedral from 1965. The beatnik thing was black, cynical, and cold. Some of the most important black artists of the 20th century have played on this stage, including jazz legends Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan. 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. For several years now, Teague and his wife Melissa have run a small grassroots local urban farm business from their house, named Winslow Food Forest. 1 Free boxes are often found in DIY and punk houses, or on the sidewalks next to them. 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). 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 Until they do away with capitalism we wont be able to escape it, but we can put the money back into our own hands. Jai Milx performing at her house, Glitterdome, in Portland, 4 February 2012. These socio-economic relations, I argue, also shape DIY sounds and aesthetics, as well as contribute to distinct musical values, discourses and practices. He is usually exploring the Bay Area hunting for that new and unique experience and good food too! 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. Great American Music Hall opened in 1907 as a symbol of San Francisco's rebirth after the devastating 1906 earthquake. ABSTRACT. 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. On similar lines, Marshall Sahlins differentiates between balanced reciprocity, defined by a tacit obligation to reciprocate, and general reciprocity or sharing, usually practiced among closer family members, where the reciprocation is non-obligatory (1972: 1939). [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. People would also in return help us out with things that we need. 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. All rights reserved. Local DIY scenes often work as collective efforts, achieved through reciprocal relations between the venues, houses and organisers that sustain them. Similar venue-performer, venue-audience, and performer-audience relations and forms of boundary-making have been present at most DIY shows I have attended. 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. DIY ethics entail making things oneself, and thus obviating the need for commercial and institutional channels of production. 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. With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Franciscos live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. 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.
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