Thats awesome! Located in the Mission District, The Royal Cuckoo Organ Lounge is a kitschy bar that is both swanky and divey in just the right proportions. Today, the music continues with a packed event calendar that combines new talent and seasoned performers. At San Francisco's music venues, new-age artists share the same stages as some of music's most legendary black artists. (Personal communication, 28 February 2012; see Figure 6; emphasis in original). Fun and fascinating trivia about San Francisco's most indelible icon. 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). 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. From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary . 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. Founded by the Ambassador of the American Songbook, Michael Feinstein, Feinsteins at the Nikko presents top Broadway artists, cabaret singers, and todays best interpreters of the Great American Songbook. Its time we started showing by example that punk is still a community. Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tr | Courtesy of Focus Features Films about classical music go back to at least the 1930s. (Cometbus Citation2002). And so I understood the difference between supporting something and liking it. You dont feel that communion. 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. (Personal communication, 23 January 2011). DIY reciprocal relations were not restricted to the music sphere but pervaded all manner of everyday practices. (Josh Taylor from a band Friends Forever, personal communication, 27 September 2012; see also Chippendale Citation2016). 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. Named for legendary saxophonist Charlie Bird Parker and Irish novelist Samuel Beckett, Bird & Beckett in Glen Park is a true neighborhood hotspot that features weekly jazz concerts, allowing you to hear and read about jazz at the same time. 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. Phil Lesh, bassist with the Grateful Dead, furthered this sound. 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. Its funny how people put on house shows and they do it because theyre compelled to create that space. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. Until they do away with capitalism we wont be able to escape it, but we can put the money back into our own hands. participation]. 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. Reviews on 80'S Music Clubs in San Francisco, CA - Barracuda '80's Decade Dance Party, Cat Club, Monroe, Bootie Mashup: SF, Butter, New Wave City, Bimbo's 365 Club, Club Gossip, Raven Bar, Oasis SCRAP) that co-constitute late capitalist circulation of money and commodities (Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014). 15 See Culton and Holtzman Citation2010, Citation2011; Taylor Citation2016: 165, 166; cf. 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. Jimi Hendrix lived in San Francisco in the 1960s and became one of the iconic musical talents of the Summer of Love. 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 kind of orientation toward egalitarian collective action and reciprocity is also discernible in the musical organisation, performance, and sound of many American DIY bands. 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). 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. 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. 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. You agree to our use of cookies by continuing to use our site. 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. DIY shows in the US are underscored by a complex conjunction of two economic regimes overlapping in one space and time. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. Punk rock included [] I mean, every DIY record label is a business you dont give your records away and you cant produce them for free. 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). San Francisco's dearly departed nightclubs and music venues. [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 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. (Personal communication, 28 February 2012). When I give you $5 for a record, I am exchanging something of value (my money/effort) for something else of value (your record). Soon after, Ralph J. Gleason and Jann Wenner, based in San Francisco, established Rolling Stone magazine (first issue's date: November 1967). The DIY scenes I studied were constituted materially through alternative economies of DIY practice, collective participation, and reciprocity. 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. For instance, several scholars argue there is a tendency for alternative communities from 1960s countercultures to contemporary neo-bohemians to reject the capitalist system in symbolic terms while simultaneously depending upon it materially (Braunstein and Doyle Citation2002: 102; Lloyd Citation2005). creativity], and could be one of the band [i.e. Appadurai uses the term tournaments of value to refer to those, often calculative, movements of paths and diversions that actors instigate in order to negotiate the value of circulating commodities (Citation1986: 20, 21). 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. 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? Additionally, there are numerous Jazz Festivalsthroughout the Bay Area during warmer months. 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. Enjoy a day trip to Angel Island and learn about its history as the Ellis Island of the West at Immigration Station, as well as take in the islands stunning views on numerous nature trails. They contain freely available discarded items that DIY participants desire to redirect into reuse by other DIY participants, who visit or pass by their houses. This is how Teague from Waffle house in NE Portland explained DIY reciprocity and communal living: Its about applying that kind of attitude to your whole lifesome people dont, some people are just like yeah, we have shows here but we dont apply that attitude toward anything else in our lives [], and sometimes you will play somewhere and its like really far-out neo-hippy communitywe have lands, and we grow our own foods, and have a lot of other community projects going on in [our] housea lot of houses that we played at [with his band] were really inspiring [in that sense] [] There would be people canning and processing food, making kombucha, making their own alcohol, [and having] screen printing shops, photo labs, art studio spaces built in the houses[there] would just be a house in a neighbourhood but there would be like nine people living there, and people [living] in the backyardjust every inch of house is utilized in a productive waylike in New York, it was like just a community living to an extreme in a couple of places I went to. 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. He refers to the circulation of commodities in the dominant regime as paths, and to divergences from such paths to the alternative regimes of value as diversions. To some extent they also do this for wider society (e.g. 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. Note the bands offer to exchange their records and merchandise either for money, or for a good conversation and a hug!!!!!!. First, engagement with DIY practices and worlds often results in value and status assertions that are employed by DIY participants to establish their cultural authenticity and social distinctions within their scenes and in relation to outsiders. [18] Donahue was uniquely qualified, being savvy and enthusiastic about jazz, R&B, Soul, and ethnic music, besides the then-current rock 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. "[4] 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. E.g. 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. In this article, I examine the alternative economics of reciprocity in American DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. 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. I still, I am returning the favour. 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. 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). It is always advisable to contact the venues directly if you want to make the most of these cultural and musical avenues during your stay in San Francisco. The San Francisco bands' music was everything that AM-radio pop music wasn't. Accordingly, in order to avoid foreclosing the discursive and material space from alternative openings and possibilities, some authors emphasise a need for the ontological reframing and creative re-reading of these alternative economic practices in their relations with capitalism and neoliberalism (Gibson-Graham Citation2008). 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. The Church warehouse in Oakland, during a DIY show (14 December 2012). 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. I therefore also employ both critical and constructive approaches to the alternative DIY economies in the US. 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. Outdoor performances, often organized by the band members themselves and their friends, also played their part. 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. As regards music, these processes emerged somehow organically through social and economic relationships established between DIY musicians and organisers. 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. Taylor Citation2016: 15476). that is a positive thing. These included sharing of food and equipment among DIY houses, local and translocal exchange of venues, the system of free boxes (see Figure 1),Footnote1 donations at shows, and participatory organiser-performer-audience interactions practices that enabled the creation of alternative cultural DIY worlds, and which in turn informed DIY sounds and aesthetics. Reciprocally, these local participants (i.e. He is usually exploring the Bay Area hunting for that new and unique experience and good food too! "[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. [2] According to journalist Ed Vulliamy, "A core of Haight Ashbury bands played with each other, for each other"[3]. 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. 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. 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. When you see the Tony Bennett statue outside of theFairmont Hotel on Nob Hill, you will gain a better understanding of how San Francisco has embraced its jazz history. 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. 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). 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). Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. 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). Some of the country's biggest entertainers credit The Fillmore with launching their careers, including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana. Aaron is the Manager of Digital & Social Media Marketing at San Francisco Travel. Until a few years ago no bands sold T-shirts, people would just make their own. Both emphasise that gift-giving is not a free activity, but that it bonds an individual to reciprocate (returning the favour). 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. Thats kind of special about underground music scene, that some people really are pure that way, and that [they] are having fun, making friends. (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. 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. Some of the most important black artists of the 20th century have played on this stage, including jazz legends Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan. However, the present tense will be used when considering certain general specifics of the American DIY scenes. This is exemplified below by Portland DIY participant Aaron Scott, who discusses the relations of reciprocity between performers and organisers of shows, and between the individual and the scene. A modern take on the vintage supper club, Black Cat is located in the heart of San Franciscos Tenderloin neighborhood, the historic arts and entertainment district once home to fabled jazz venues such as The Blackhawk. The US DIY communities I encountered during my fieldwork, most of which at least partially identify as DIY communities and scenes, utilised a DIY approach partly for ideological purposes, as they strived for creative and social autonomy. Culton and Holtzman Citation2010; Hannerz Citation2015: 128). To address this question, I first outline the contours of the alternative DIY economic system of reciprocity and some of its problems. 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. 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. While this may not involve bonds of calculated economic exchange or one-for-one favours, it nonetheless creates a social bond (debt to the scene) and thus also sustains a community. 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. San Francisco has a long history with jazz music. 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. 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. Figure 3. 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. 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. 9 The idea of support aesthetics is similar to the notion of participatory aesthetics (Turino Citation2008: 335) or relational aesthetics (Bourriaud [1998] Citation2006), which find the value and quality of art not in art objects or music sounds themselves, but in the level of social participation/interaction that they generate. [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. 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. Local DIY scenes often work as collective efforts, achieved through reciprocal relations between the venues, houses and organisers that sustain them. 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. However, as I demonstrate above, these same shows and recordings are also manifestations of alternative economic relations established within and outside these events. 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]. A DIY culture of reciprocity and collective action can be found in most places around the US. Wehr Citation2012: 146). For example, the aesthetic and cultural notions of quality and individualism still remain present to some degree within American DIY scenes (i.e. However, they were also often pressed into finding DIY alternatives for structural reasons, for example, because of the lack of appropriate public and non-commercial community spaces (Sorkin Citation2005; Lyle Citation2008: 2612), or due to age restrictions, barring people under the age of 21 from attending public concert spaces where alcohol is served (Stewart Citation2006, Citation2010). 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. What is gained in this way is an experience of intimate and affective community (real interchange), creativity, active participation, and autonomy, and also a sense of active and productive opposition to a presumably non-effective and exploitative capitalist economic and social model existing in the larger society. 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. (David, in Maximum Rockandroll Citation1987; emphases added). 12 I am referring here to Raymond Williamss theories of residual, emergent, and dominant practices (Citation1977: 1217). Quality often does not matter as much as community and fucking family and the ways, like being emotional and playing [i.e.