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. 18 It is important to note that DIY economy in itself is not a homogeneous system, but consists of various alternative and non-market economies. 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. 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. Gibson-Graham (Citation2008) lists some of these diverse economies/markets. Black History Month at the best music venues in San Francisco. A DIY approach, therefore, functioned both as a means to an end, and as an end in itself. 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. And I feel the same about house shows. Experience the mark he left on the city. From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary . 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. Free box at the show at Grandmaz house, Olympia, 7 August 2012. Thornton Citation1996). 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]. Nicks and Buckingham went on to bring that San Francisco sound to established British rock band Fleetwood Mac when they both joined in 1975. creativity], and could be one of the band [i.e. 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. 20 In addition to capitalism, state and city governments sometimes act as additional significant actors in shaping and interacting with DIY scenes, not only by imposing restrictions on the scene (e.g., in the form of laws and regulations), but also by supporting and/or co-funding various DIY endeavours (Chrysagis Citation2017; Threadgold Citation2017; Bennett Citation2018; Garland Citation2019; Holt Citation2020: chapters 4 and 5). 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. 3099067 Select a holiday type to discover more or call us on 0161 888 5630 Offers; About Us; Brochures; Contact Third, the co-existence and interrelatedness of DIY/reciprocal and dominant/capitalist systems extends beyond a simplistic resistance vs power dichotomy. For example, Gilman incorporates all-ages, non-alcohol, and safer space policiesFootnote5 alongside volunteer, collective, and consensus-based approaches to organisation. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. 11 See, for example, Forns, Lindberg, and Sernhede Citation1995; Berger Citation1999: 67; Toynbee Citation2000: 111, 112; Moore Citation2014a. "[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. (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). This community defines itself through active participation (at shows, and otherwise), therefore distinguishing itself from passive, apathetic, consumerist society (personal communication with a DIY participant from Oakland, 14 September 2012), or from lazy hipsters within the scene (see above). In jazz it had been exuberantly pioneered by numerous musicians. A seminal venue in this regard is Gilman 924 (known also only as Gilman) in Berkeley, California. DIY shows and records, bartering, borrowing, and DIY production of goods). Sly & the Family Stone, a San Francisco-based group that got its start in the late 1960s, was an exception, being a racially integrated hippie band with a hefty influence from soul music, hence making use of brass instrumentation. I therefore also employ both critical and constructive approaches to the alternative DIY economies in the US. Hence, DIY participants often repair, reuse, and repurpose discarded music equipment (Flood Citation2016), or they utilise scrap materials for DIY production. 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. [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. DIY organisers who are often also musicians), may later seek out the return of the same favour when they, in turn, go on tour. By giving me your money, you are giving your money directly to the producer of the thing, and since the relationship is closer you get to give feedback right to the source. All rights reserved. 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. 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). 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. 6 For further discussion of the practices and ideologies of audience participation within American DIY scenes, see Verbu Citation2018. 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. (Cometbus Citation2002). 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. 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. To some extent they also do this for wider society (e.g. Specialties: About the San Francisco Symphony: The San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas present more than 220 concerts each year from September through July in a variety of genres, with SFS musicians performing classical concerts, holiday favorites, summer pops events, free outdoor concerts, special series for families and children, plus presentations of visiting guest artists and . 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. There are evidently numerous innovative practices existing within American DIY scenes that work persistently and continuously, on a daily basis, and in multiple interconnected locales, toward demystification and destabilisation of capitalist processes, both on discursive and material levels, but which they also simultaneously sustain the capitalist system in different ways. 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. 8 Dumpsterdiving is a practice of salvaging edible food from the garbage dumpsters of large stores and supermarkets. The above examples demonstrate how certain economic models and regimes of value can be refashioned into hybrid assemblages that combine approaches from two different economic spheres, and thus optimise the dominant system for the needs of local DIY participants (Sahlins, in Eriksen Citation2010: 185). (Personal communication, 22 November 2011). 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. Brasses and reeds, such as trumpets and saxophones were rarely used, unlike in contemporary R&B and soul bands and some of the white bands from the U.S. East Coast (e.g., Blood, Sweat & Tears or Chicago). Among the oldest venues in San Francisco, The Warfield has hosted a number of great black artists, including Louis Armstrong and Prince. Taylor Citation2016: 15476). A whole society, with its own economic system even. 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). It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury district, during these years. Wehr Citation2012: 146). Until they do away with capitalism we wont be able to escape it, but we can put the money back into our own hands. When I give you $5 for a record, I am exchanging something of value (my money/effort) for something else of value (your record). The DIY scenes I studied were constituted materially through alternative economies of DIY practice, collective participation, and reciprocity. 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. For example, as I also experienced, not all DIY house members helped organise shows or other activities in their spaces. 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. The San Francisco bands' music was everything that AM-radio pop music wasn't. 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). This is not only when they refer to the practices of DIY local participants helping touring bands with venues, accommodation, company, and food, or to the system of donations for music performances at DIY shows, but also in relation to everyday musical and non-musical collaborations among the DIY participants. SCRAP) that co-constitute late capitalist circulation of money and commodities (Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014). Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. Some of the most important black artists of the 20th century have played on this stage, including jazz legends Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan. 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. Moreover, some houses were more oriented towards drinking and partying than the needs of hosted performers, and sometimes the provision of meals, event promotion, or collection of donations were neglected (see also Makagon Citation2015: 13741). 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. 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. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. It is the oldest nightclub in the neighborhood, and the dcor is reminiscent of turn-of-the-century splendor. 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. Its [also] like that for fans, you know. 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. San Francisco's dearly departed nightclubs and music venues. TheHotel Nikko in Union Squarehouses the eponymous Feinsteins. (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. He also gives advice about how to straddle both worlds, and how to pay up (reciprocally) for what bands owe to the community. Furthermore, alternative DIY socio-economic systems succeed in generating considerable symbolic, affective, material, and political value for DIY participants and scenes. 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. But maybe they are that way, and they will remain that way, because we havent set examples for them to see, examples that we saw in others before us and followed. Its time we started showing by example that punk is still a community. 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). Acoustic music had had an avid following far and wide, but it was "a fading world of traditional folk and Brechtian art songs. Local DIY scenes often work as collective efforts, achieved through reciprocal relations between the venues, houses and organisers that sustain them. Reciprocally, these local participants (i.e. It is true that many of the San Francisco bands did record "three-minute" tracks when they desired pop-music station airplay for a song. Mr. Gleason believes the San Francisco rock groups are making a serious contribution to musical history. Marx Citation1887). 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. For instance, group solidarity, as a socio-musical pattern, is also manifested in blues, 1960s psychedelic rock, heavy metal, and other popular music genres that are not necessarily rooted in the ideas and practices of American DIY communities.Footnote11 Thus, DIY notions and approaches to musical group solidarity might partially be understood in terms of residualFootnote12 practices from 1960s counterculture (folk, folk-rock, psychedelic rock, jam rock), to which punk and DIY culture, while discursively often rejecting it, owe many of their stylistic and socio-cultural traits.Footnote13. And its time to show that creativity is still valued over money. ABSTRACT. 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). [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]. Until a few years ago no bands sold T-shirts, people would just make their own. [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. Band members often switch musical instruments and roles, and thus defy internal ensemble hierarchy (practiced already in the early 1980s by the Raincoats and Beat Happening see Baumgarten Citation2012: 78; Worley Citation2017: 188), and many foster collective group singing (following the example of Fugazi and similar bands). 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.