SAN FRANCISCO SYNTH PUNK

 Here's an interesting proposition: that synth punk began with "Hello, I Love You", a "transmutation of The Seeds’ greasy garage-rock stomp into factory-manufactured sex beat for teenage cyborgs replete with buzz-saw effects."  The article goes on to praise Chrome and the German Shepherds, two SF duos. Some might point back a little further than the Doors, to SF's own Fifty Foot Hose, for the genesis of synth punk. ("Red The Sign Post" is brilliant, shining and nasty.)

Eno, Krautrock, Suicide, Devo, and the Screamers influenced SF synth punk, as did avant garde composers, Giorgio Moroder, and Patrick Cowley. Another major factor was access to synthesizers for those who couldn't afford them.

In an interview with Simon Reynolds, Steven Brown of Tuxedomoon recalls that he and bandmate Blaine Reininger "took a class with Jerry Mueller in electronic music primarily to get our hands on the giant Buchla-built synthesizer and the tape recorders they had there."  This and other classes at City College were free to San Francisco residents. Patrick Cowley studied electronic music there.

Brown also noted that Tuxedomoon member Tommy Tadlock was "a protégé of Nam June Paik" with a talent for invention.  "Tommy designed ‘Treatment Mountain’ -- a plywood pyramid displaying junction boxes or compressors or effects he had designed and built, as well as an Echoplex." 

In James Stark's book Punk 77, V. Vale points to the influence of the Tape Center at Mills College, where John Cage and Pauline Oliveros once taught, and where William Novak produced records by SF bands Crime, Bob, the Readymades, and his own group, Novak.

Here are SF synth punks Tuxedomoon, The Units, Red Asphalt, Chrome, Voice Farm, Los Microwaves, Nervous Gender and others, from the period 1978 through 1981.  (Top photo: Patrick Miller and Hitoshi Sasaki of Minimal Man. Collage by Damon Edge of Chrome.)