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. The many bands that formed signalled a shift from one subculture to the next. Similar venue-performer, venue-audience, and performer-audience relations and forms of boundary-making have been present at most DIY shows I have attended. Get out your pens and spraypaint. 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 See, for example, Hesmondhalgh Citation1997, Citation1999; Gibson-Graham Citation2008; Eriksen Citation2010: 160, 161, 201, 202, 216; Giles Citation2014; Tausig Citation2014; Dean Citation2015; Otten Citation2015; Graham Citation2016; Taylor Citation2016: 15476; Kirsch Citation2017; Simoni Citation2019; Rawitsch Citation2020. 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. 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. However, not all DIY bands ascribe to the same idea of DIY while many see it as an ideological principle to live by, others regard it as a pragmatic strategy that enables them to acquire skill, shows, and social connections in the beginning stages of their musical careers.Footnote15 Nevertheless, not all independent cultural activities should be seen as proto-markets (Toynbee Citation2000: 2532), but instead, as heterogeneous assemblages of diverse, non-market and proto-market, possibilities. 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. "[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. Off the beaten path in the Outer Richmond and only a few blocks from Lands End, saxophonist Danny Brown and his family operate one of the citys best record stores and art galleries that features live jazz and jam sessions every Sunday afternoon. I 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. DIY ethics entail making things oneself, and thus obviating the need for commercial and institutional channels of production. 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. 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. Nicks and Buckingham went on to bring that San Francisco sound to established British rock band Fleetwood Mac when they both joined in 1975. The DIY scenes I studied were constituted materially through alternative economies of DIY practice, collective participation, and reciprocity. 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. 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. Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tr | Courtesy of Focus Features Films about classical music go back to at least the 1930s. As regards music, these processes emerged somehow organically through social and economic relationships established between DIY musicians and organisers. At San Francisco's music venues, new-age artists share the same stages as some of music's most legendary black artists. San Francisco's dearly departed nightclubs and music venues. Additionally, there are numerous Jazz Festivalsthroughout the Bay Area during warmer months. Figure 2. The Church warehouse in Oakland, during a DIY show (14 December 2012). To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. 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. The city also continues to celebrate jazz and blues as an art form that is best experienced live and in the moment. 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. 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. 4 See Oakes Citation2009: 45; Threadgold Citation2017: 7, 8; Farrow Citation2020: 11; Haddon Citation2020; Pearson Citation2020: 7; Rogers and Whiting Citation2020: 6; Verbu Citation2021; cf. 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. San Francisco always honors its jazz and blues history while listening for what will push the music forward. Outdoor performances, often organized by the band members themselves and their friends, also played their part. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. (Aaron Scott, personal communication, 11 April 2012). 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. 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. 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. Mr. Gleason believes the San Francisco rock groups are making a serious contribution to musical history. 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). From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary . 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. However, there are also other ways in which DIY people enter into the relationship with capitalist modes of production. 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. [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. McKay Citation1998. For example, multiple north (N) and northeast (NE) Portland DIY houses joined together as a local DIY community to co-organise the second Gathering of Goof Punx festival in April 2012. 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. 8 Dumpsterdiving is a practice of salvaging edible food from the garbage dumpsters of large stores and supermarkets. Figure 1. With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Francisco's live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. Known for fresh seafood, unique cocktails, and bay views, Pier 23 presents nightly live music from local jazz and blues artists, Latin jazz bands and New Orleans-inspired groups. 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. 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. 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. "[4] 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. 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). Oakes Citation2009: 88; emphasis added), I would book a lot ofwouldnt say bad shows, but bad bands, cause I just wanted to have a rule of, like, any kind of music is allowed to be played here, because, when I was a teen in high school [] it was so hard to get a show. 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). 2023 San Francisco Travel Association. Its time we started showing by example that punk is still a community. Merchandise sign at the Portlands Punx house show, 18 April 2012. My argument draws on Arjun Appadurais theories of value and commodity (Citation1986), and other scholarship focused on the social implications of the co-existence of, and of contradictions between, different economic systems.Footnote2 Moreover, I ground my interpretations in the materialist, political-economy approach to the study of culture, which also seeks to understand the complexities within and between particular economic systems, and in their relation to the sphere of cultural production and aesthetics (Mige Citation1987; Ryan Citation1992; Hesmondhalgh Citation1997, Citation1999, Citation2018). The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? 13 See, for example, Moore Citation2004b: 313; Oakes Citation2009; Wehr Citation2012: 14, 15; Worley Citation2017: 5261, 141, 174; Verbu Citation2021: 5, 8, 879, 136, 1401, 194. 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. 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. The Boom Boom Room hosts local and international blues, funk, jam bands, and everything in between. Real Estate Software Dubai > blog > san francisco music venues 1980's. san francisco music venues 1980's. Jun 12, 2022 . 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. 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.). 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. San Francisco offers live jazz and blues each and every night of the week in various settings. 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. I felt I was sort of a tourist in everybody elses scenes, when I was touring. For example, Gilman incorporates all-ages, non-alcohol, and safer space policiesFootnote5 alongside volunteer, collective, and consensus-based approaches to organisation. Registered in England & Wales No. The San Francisco bands' music was everything that AM-radio pop music wasn't. People would also in return help us out with things that we need. 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. 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. All rights reserved. Thats as much of an end goal to them, just as it is for fans. Moreover, they are also seen to engage in rituals of decomoditization by diverting capitalist products into enclaved zones of DIY spaces and shows. 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. To some extent they also do this for wider society (e.g. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Figure 4. Donations of money for live performances at DIY shows (a form of balanced gift economy) might be seen to function in a similar way, where a marketable exchange commodity (the live performance) is transformed into a DIY commodity with symbolic and material use value through a process of diversion and enclaving. Accordingly, my central question in this article is: how do American DIY participants manage the tensions and transitions between reciprocal and capitalist systems and worlds? I am immensely grateful to all of the participants of this research, for accepting me in their spaces and scenes, and for their invaluable insights on the matters discussed herein. that is a positive thing. 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. DIY reciprocal relations were not restricted to the music sphere but pervaded all manner of everyday practices. Register to receive personalised research and resources by email. [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].
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