I noted in my posts on Subterranean Records that SF didn't have an early equivalent of a label like Dangerhouse or Slash. (415 Records did release the first Nuns EP and the second Offs single in 1978, before the label turned its focus to local new wave groups.) Jay Hinman pointed out to me the significance of radio: "KROQ played Black Flag, Agent Orange and so on during prime time. We had nothing like that in the SF Bay Area... For whatever reason, punk and weird music really infiltrated the suburbs and high schools down there."
Here's a first wave SF punk primer to counter the prevailing LA>SF opinion. Further volumes to follow (SF 79-80, SF synth punk, and more).
(Photos of Penelope Houston, Don Vinil and Jennifer Miro at the Fab Mab.)
SF PUNK 1976-78: tinyurl.com/y22mr6uo
ReplyDeleteCredit for the rips: disorderareyouexperienced.blogspot.com, wdthtc.blogspot.com, kbdrecords.com, frog2000.blogspot.com, deathburger.doodlekit.com/blog
Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. My compliments on your graphic art! My earliest ambition from the age of 12 was to become a cartoonist. I lacked the talent, but you have an abundance of it!
DeleteFurther listening: Terry Hammer was a soundman for SF venues including Mabuhay Gardens. His video channel is youtube.com/user/vampirrecs
ReplyDeleteReading list: sfplamr.blogspot.com/2009/09/punk-passage-and-punk-penelope.html
Also recommended are Ruby Ray's books Kalifornia Kool: Photographs 1976-1982 and From The Edge Of The World: California Punk 1977-81.
Hi Jonder,
DeleteDon't worry about it, SF was an "all starts and ends place", maybe the most significaive UK bands Sex Pistols & Throbbing gristle ended up there. When I was a teenage frog punk I was obsessed with SF early scene with Crime, Avengers, Mutants, Nuns, Mary Monday (Was in love with Jennifer Miro but you know i'm A Wanker)...Later by the Underground stuff from Subterranean Records (still today)..."Too much brains to stay on a narrow way" the device of the Area Bay...
Great point about the final Sex Pistols concert in SF (with the Avengers and Nuns opening), as well as TG announcing that their mission was terminated after playing SF in 1981. Not to mention the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone and the mass suicides at Jonestown in November of 78. It must have felt at the time that San Francisco was doomed indeed.
DeleteBut as you say, it was also a place of new starts. The Beats, the Diggers, the Summer of Love, and SF's reputation as a gay Mecca brought successive generations of young people (and the young at heart) to SF. My heart was stolen by Penelope Houston, Pearl Harbour, and other fierce and creative SF women. Jennifer Miro was brave, talented and beautiful.
A number of punk bands moved to SF: the Dils, the Dicks, MDC, DRI, The Lewd, Toxic Reasons, the Red Rockers. Some of them were fleeing the intolerance of the American South and the Midwest. THANK YOU for your thoughts, and for your musical shares.
Nice collection, and didn't have the Offs and Seizure yet, cheers!
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoy! I chose the most punk sounding songs by the Offs, but they were inspiring performers of ska and reggae as well.
DeleteA rare 12" by Earl Zero and the Offs was recently posted here: http://toneandwave.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the comp; like @Ramone666, I didn't have the Offs or Seizure tracks yet.
ReplyDeleteHappy to share! That single by Seizure is crazy good. I wonder what the rest of their songs sounded like.
DeleteOther things to remember: the importance of Rather Ripped Records in Berkeley, which hosted a reading by Patti Smith in '74 and stocked independent records (stuff like Pere Ubu and Devo singles, plus imports from the U.K., and also Aquarius Records in S.F. There was also an East Bay sub-scene, with bands like the Mondellos, and the Jars. Also pop bands (but still considered "punk") like the Times 5, Readymades, Punts...and the more experimental scene with Tuxedo Moon, Los Microwaves, the Units....:)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you weighed in on this, partly because I am kinda confused by the geography (are the East Bay and Berkeley considered parts of SF?) but mainly because you make a great point about the significance of record stores. The Residents gave one of their earliest performances (1976) at Rather Ripped Records, and I believe the label 415 Records was cofounded by the Aquarius store's owner. Both stores supported local bands who released their own records (like the Psycotic Pineapple). I used to order records by mail from Rather Ripped, Rough Trade SF, Subterranean, Enigma, and another distributor in San Luis Obispo (can't remember the name). Stay tuned for Tuxedomoon, Los Microwaves, the Units and more! (Do you have that Punts single???)
DeleteHere's the Punts 45: https://mega.nz/#!yAoDUSKZ!WRtMf5x2uhxzi29is5a3fJo5RRAzkcr6ete_CGIdMbI As for geography...the "San Francisco Bay Area" are the nine counties surrounding the San Francisco and San Pablo bays. San Francisco and Oakland are ten miles apart, with a toll bridge in between ($6.00 these days...). From a national perspective, music from any of the counties are "Bay Area" bands and since S.F. is the big city, they're lumped in as being from San Francisco...but there are definite local differences. When I've lived in the East Bay, I only RARELY went to shows in Marin County, but often went to shows in S.F. There were transportation issues in going to punk rock shows that went until 2:00 PM; the Trans-Bay Terminal was a mile from the Mabuhay Gardens, so you had to hoof it through the downtown..and if you missed the bus, you had to wait until 4:00 AM when the next one left. The East Bay punk scene in '77 -'79 didn't have a consistent venue like the Mabuhay...but bands played at Barrington Hall a lot (I lived one block down the street) https://www.dailycal.org/2014/09/02/secret-history-behind-berkeleys-notorious-co-op/ I remember seeing the Dils and Vs. at the Paulty Ballroom on the UC campus...and DOA at what had been an International House Of Pancakes at one time. BTW...Greg Kihn worked at Rather Ripped at one time...the cover of his first album was taken in front of the wall of Rather Ripped during his lunch break. In '74 to '76 I was still living at my parents' house in Walnut Creek, and we would regularly go to Berkeley to buy records we couldn't find at our local Record Factory (the chain store that was big at the time). I have a 415 Music compilation LP that I digitized, I can upload that and get it to you tomorrow.
DeleteThanks for the Punts! Bonnie Hayes was in that band. I used to have her "Good Clean Fun" album.
DeleteI do have the 415 Music comp, but here is a list of SF discs I haven't found, just in case you or other readers have any of these:
https://www.discogs.com/lists/SF-wantlist/497035
Thanks too for the geography and history, and the Barrington Hall article. Was the Trans-Bay Terminal the "Fun Terminal" near the Mutants' loft?
No...but the Fun Terminal was across 1st Street, so it was right next to the Trans Bay Terminal. I did a rip of the Various - Rock City LP a few years back. You can find it at https://voodoowagon.blogspot.com/search?q=dickheads I don't have the Edge album, but I did a rip of a cassette tape of a live broadcast: https://voodoowagon.blogspot.com/2015/07/lorin-rowan-edge-new-georges-san-rafael.html I have some other things you may find of interest: some things I recorded off of college radio station KUSF (including a Bonnie Hayes Station I.D.). I took bass lessons from the Punts bass player. They also did an EP "Brave New Girl" and I did a rip of that as well...can get it to you later today.
ReplyDeleteAnything that you have time to share would be cool! Let me know if there's anything you're looking for (manyjars@gmail.com). Interesting the number of compilation LP's of bands that played specific clubs: Rock City, Deaf Club, Club Foot, "Savoy Sound Wave Goodbye", "Live At Le Disque", "Live At Target", "SF Sound Of Music Club Live"... even the Eastern Front album. There's some good KUSF stuff on Terry Hammer's Youtube channel (vampirrecs), and he's got live recordings of the Readymades, Times 5, Units, VS, and others.
DeleteWhooops...just noticed a spelling error: PAULEY Ballroom...not Paulty...
ReplyDeleteI'll send some SF "underground" along to you by email, and you can decide if it's worth sharing. Some of it (like yours) is sourced from blogs, but some of it are things I taped off of the college radio station for San Francisco, which was KUSF. KUSF was HUGELY influential in the early 80's, but UNLIKE a commercial station like KROQ in Los Angeles, had a VERY LIMITED RANGE...and odd hours. I recall that during the day, they played tons of local bands' demo tapes, but at 5:00 (or 6:00) PM they switched to community programming in an Asian language (I think it was Vietnamese, but this was 37 years ago, and the details get lost!). Anyway...during the hugely important EVENING hours, KUSF was NOT broadcasting anything "punk" whatsoever. I'd listen to all these great bands on the radio, and my girlfriend would come home from her day job, and I had no way to play them for her...so occasionally I recorded an hour or so of the afternoon programming, and edited out a few songs for her to hear. I wish I'd recorded lots more, as a large amount of the programming was music that was only on "demo tape," and never actually released on a record. My "comps" are also interspersed with records that are from out of the area, and now aren't so hard to find (like the first R.E.M. single), so I'll cut that stuff out to make it more focused for you. As a topic for discussion...I'd also like to offer that the "San Francisco Scene" didn't get a volume in Rhino Records "D.I.Y." series of compilations in the early 90s. There were volumes for L.A., New York, and Boston...but no "D.I.Y - The San Francisco Scene." I think this plays into how the S.F. punk scene is less visible historically. To Rhino's credit, Earth Quake, the Rubinoos, and Pearl Harbour & the Explosions do turn up on the two "American Power Pop" volumes, but the S.F. scene got less play than the Boston scene...which, at the time...hey, as a Bay Area guy, I'd argue that the Mabuhay was more important. Plus, compared to the L.A. scene...San Francisco was putting on punk shows seven nights a week from '77 on...it took awhile for L.A. to match that!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely about the Rhino series. Soul Jazz did an LA comp (Punk 45: Chaos In The City Of Angels And Devils) but didn't do one for SF. Jon Savage's comp "Black Hole (Californian Punk 1977-80)" does include The Avengers, Crime, DK's, Offs, Pushups, and Sleepers.
DeleteBased on my reading, it seems like the Mab was at least as important as the Masque. The Keystone, Old Waldorf, Savoy Tivoli, Target Video, and Temple Beautiful also hosted important early punk shows.
I am very much looking forward to your shares, and (again) greatly appreciate your insights here.