Really thats just a fraction of why theyve been noticed. 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. 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. And so I understood the difference between supporting something and liking it. 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. To address this question, I first outline the contours of the alternative DIY economic system of reciprocity and some of its problems. Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. 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). 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. 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). 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? Gibson-Graham (Citation2008) lists some of these diverse economies/markets. This preference for musical collaboration, collective decision-making, and collective musical interplay is also evident in more recent musical endeavours (Verbu Citation2021: 325, 189). He also gives advice about how to straddle both worlds, and how to pay up (reciprocally) for what bands owe to the community. By contrast, some groups only organise DIY house shows, and not much more (cf. However, the present tense will be used when considering certain general specifics of the American DIY scenes. Reciprocally, these local participants (i.e. How much would you pay to hop into a time machine and visit San Francisco's long-gone Winterland Ballroom on Jan. 14, 1978, the night . A seminal venue in this regard is Gilman 924 (known also only as Gilman) in Berkeley, California. there is a diversity of possible cultural and aesthetic effects existing within DIY scenes, which are not necessarily derived from DIY material relations) while not all bad, weird, and different sounds necessarily result from DIY practices of reciprocity (i.e. 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. Enjoy a show and a cocktail at B-Side, the lounge in the SFJAZZ Center. 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. 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. With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Franciscos live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. 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. 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. Figure 1. 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.). Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. 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. 2023 Hyderabad Media House Limited/The Hans India. (Jennings Citation1998; emphasis added). It is the oldest nightclub in the neighborhood, and the dcor is reminiscent of turn-of-the-century splendor. 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]. Its definitely a family. The San Francisco sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid-1960s to early 1970s.It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury district, during these years. The city also continues to celebrate jazz and blues as an art form that is best experienced live and in the moment. 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 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]. For example, the aesthetic and cultural notions of quality and individualism still remain present to some degree within American DIY scenes (i.e. Monterey, California is about 120 road miles south of San Francisco. The new music was loud and community-connected: bands sometimes presented free concerts in Golden Gate Park and "happenings" at the city's several psychedelic clubs and ballrooms. Furthermore, alternative DIY socio-economic systems succeed in generating considerable symbolic, affective, material, and political value for DIY participants and scenes. Get out your pens and spraypaint. "Rock & roll" was the point of departure for the new music. At San Francisco's music venues, new-age artists share the same stages as some of music's most legendary black artists. Its time we started showing by example that punk is still a community. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. 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. 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. Until they do away with capitalism we wont be able to escape it, but we can put the money back into our own hands. Outdoor performances, often organized by the band members themselves and their friends, also played their part. 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. The Warfield brings in all kinds of performers and every style of music. 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. To some extent they also do this for wider society (e.g. However, as I demonstrate above, these same shows and recordings are also manifestations of alternative economic relations established within and outside these events. [9] This questing bass quality has been wryly characterized as a "roving" (rather than the conventional "stay-at-home") style. The bohemian predecessor of the hippie culture in San Francisco was the "Beat Generation" style of coffee houses and bars, whose clientele appreciated literature, a game of chess, music (in the forms of jazz and folk style), modern dance, and traditional crafts and arts like pottery and painting. 14 See Baumgarten Citation2012: 169; Threadgold Citation2017; Benham Citation2019; Martin-Iverson Citation2019. Whether you're in a seat on the balcony or dancing on the main floor, you'll have a great concert experience. However, there are also other ways in which DIY people enter into the relationship with capitalist modes of production. A hideaway on Fell Street, Mr. Tipples presents live jazz nightly alongside inventive cocktails in a dark and sophisticated space. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Learn about San Francisco's Jazz and Blues history and check out all the best places to see it performed live today. I know a lot of people that are making music strictly just for fun, or that is something that is compulsive for them, [that] they cant not do it. Moreover, it fosters reciprocal relations between the venue, bands, and audiences. This zine is a business but its the idea of people running their own business, bands, labels, zines, etc. "[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. They not only organised house concerts, but also recorded their music projects in their own bedrooms, and organised art shows for the local DIY community on their premises. 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. 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. 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. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? 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. (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. Nicks and Buckingham went on to bring that San Francisco sound to established British rock band Fleetwood Mac when they both joined in 1975. [19] An important departure in this new era of "album oriented radio" (AOR) was that show hosts felt free to play lengthy tracks or two or more tracks at a stretch from a good record album. 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). But well known stars of rock & roll "were being called fifties primitives" by this time. do-it-together (seattle diy.com Citation2009: 1). 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). (Jennings Citation1998; see Figure 5)Footnote17, Figure 5. 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. 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. For instance, Johanna from the Box Candy Mountain house in Bellingham told me that when they lost a good venue [show house] in their town, it all fell back on us (personal communication, 14 April 2012). The Church warehouse in Oakland, during a DIY show (14 December 2012). 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. Figure 2. San Francisco offers live jazz and blues each and every night of the week in various settings. creativity], and could be one of the band [i.e. 17 See also Ryan Citation1992: 53; Holtzman, Hughes, and Van Meter Citation2007; Taylor Citation2016: 155, 173. Both James and Chris thus emphasise the added value of such enclaved DIY shows. A whole society, with its own economic system even. They wouldnt be anything without the punk rock network of independent distributors, independent promoters, independent fanzines, all operating for mutual benefit, usually with little hope (or desire) for personal gain [] [Bands, y]ou owe punk rock something, so start paying up. It features a house Hammond B-3 organ, played by the areas best organists, along with a huge record collection. American DIY venues and performers also form a translocal network of reciprocity, which is created through the reciprocal relation of playing and booking each others shows across the US (and beyond). 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. 7 For more on DIY touring in the US, and the notion of translocal reciprocity, see Verbu Citation2021 (chapter 8). Therefore, in this article, I argue that on one level American DIY participants discursively reject capitalism and materially constitute alternative DIY economic systems of reciprocity, but on another they become entangled through their everyday lives with capitalist practices and worlds. Hesmondhalgh Citation1999; Rogers and Whiting Citation2020: 8, 9. 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. Food not bombs), DIY participants thus also enable the neoliberal premise of outsourcing of public services and governmental responsibilities to private entities and individuals (Dean Citation2015: Kirsch Citation2017). 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. Local DIY scenes often work as collective efforts, achieved through reciprocal relations between the venues, houses and organisers that sustain them. 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. 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. [1] San Francisco is a westward-looking port city, a city that at the time was 'big enough' but not manic like New York City or spread out like Los Angeles. The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. Phil Lesh, bassist with the Grateful Dead, furthered this sound. Other DIY participants I interviewed talked about similar approaches included in the roster of DIY reciprocal and collective activities. Learn about our history and where to find it now, from festivals to clubs and bars. All rights reserved. [2] According to journalist Ed Vulliamy, "A core of Haight Ashbury bands played with each other, for each other"[3]. Yet I also highlight how these alternative economic systems of reciprocity coexist with capitalist ones. 15 See Culton and Holtzman Citation2010, Citation2011; Taylor Citation2016: 165, 166; cf. E.g. This DIY reciprocal cultural system endeavours to transcend the mainstream aesthetics of quality and individual competition, and instead fosters the idea of support aesthetics, based on reciprocal communal solidarity.Footnote9 Consider, in this regard, the following evaluative criteria offered by various DIY participants: OP [fanzine from Olympia] wasnt about loving a lot of weird kinds of music; it was about supporting the idea that you could put out lots of weird kinds of music. Figure 6. 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. Nevertheless, the system of general reciprocity also keeps these DIY boundaries open, as it works in a seemingly non-obligatory way, in which DIY individuals themselves decide how and when these debts should be reciprocated. The beatnik thing was black, cynical, and cold. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. 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. From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary . Its insulting to the other people in the community who volunteer to put a lot of the work in. 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. 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 downstairs music space features live music nightly from a wide variety of local and touring artists. 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. 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. Established in 1986, it has served as a template and inspiration for many other DIY venues across the US and internationally (Hannon Citation2010: 37). 2023 San Francisco Travel Association. ABSTRACT. participation]. To be able to tour, bands rely on the help of local participants (who organise shows for them, in their houses, or elsewhere). 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. Your guide to one of San Francisco's biggest LGBTQ community events outside of Pride. 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. In North Beach, Comstock is a pre-Prohibition cocktail bar experience. (David, in Maximum Rockandroll Citation1987; emphases added). DIY organisers who are often also musicians), may later seek out the return of the same favour when they, in turn, go on tour. (Personal communication, 23 January 2011). The historical building is large enough to comfortably accommodate more than 1,000 guests but small enough to ensure an intimate experience no matter where you watch the show. 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. Figure 4. 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). SFJAZZ has been at the helm of the city's jazz scene since its founding in the 1980s. Great American Music Hall opened in 1907 as a symbol of San Francisco's rebirth after the devastating 1906 earthquake. 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. 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. 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). 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. People would also in return help us out with things that we need. 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. Here, Scott describes the basic theory of reciprocity, as outlined by anthropologist Marcel Mauss in his classic study The Gift ([Citation1925] Citation1990). 12 I am referring here to Raymond Williamss theories of residual, emergent, and dominant practices (Citation1977: 1217). He has lived in San Francisco for over 9 years and has worked in Travel & Tourism for over 7 of those. (Richard the Roadie, in Biel Citation2012: 28, 29), Thus, many DIY participants accept the limits of DIY reciprocity and espouse a more independent and autonomous, small-time or ethical capitalism (Biel Citation2012: 28, 29). 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. 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. The San Francisco sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid-1960s to early 1970s. For example, as I also experienced, not all DIY house members helped organise shows or other activities in their spaces. With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Francisco's live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. 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. San Francisco has a long history with jazz music. 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). Thats as much of an end goal to them, just as it is for fans. 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). 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.
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