autonomy]. 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. The many bands that formed signalled a shift from one subculture to the next. Jennings Citation1998), At a certain level if you are accepted into a community, you shouldnt make more than a liveable wage [through DIY-related small businesses]. Phil Lesh, bassist with the Grateful Dead, furthered this sound. 3099067 It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco, particularly the Haight-Ashbury district, during these years. 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). 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. 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). Thats what really contributes to that communal feeling you get at shows. "[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. how many calories in 1 single french fry; barbara picower house; scuba diving in florida keys without certification; how to show salary in bank statement At the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Bay Area groups performed from the same stage as established and fast-rising musical groups and well-known individual artists from the U.S., the UK, and even India. He also gives advice about how to straddle both worlds, and how to pay up (reciprocally) for what bands owe to the community. 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. Therefore, both the side of socio-economic factors, and the side of cultural practices and aesthetic expressions in this equation should be seen as diverse and multidimensional. I still, I am returning the favour. 6 For further discussion of the practices and ideologies of audience participation within American DIY scenes, see Verbu Citation2018. 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. Its really, its hard for a lot of people to understand it, but these bands are really satisfied just by people hearing their music. Figure 2. that is a positive thing. Until a few years ago no bands sold T-shirts, people would just make their own. Performances of an international super group like the Beatles were hosted in a huge venue like the Cow Palace. However, on the other, various DIY participants also often advocate for a more balanced strategy that acknowledges the impossibility of completely rejecting capitalist logic within American DIY scenes: The whole world runs on business, exchanging money for goods and services and a lot of people are going to try to sell and buy a lot of everything. The Church warehouse in Oakland, during a DIY show (14 December 2012). Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. To some extent they also do this for wider society (e.g. 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. Therefore, these scenes have to consequently be understood as both challenging and co-constituting the dominant capitalist regime, and at the same time, being challenged and co-constituted by it. 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). Each San Francisco band had its characteristic sound, but enough commonalities existed that there was a regional identity. The DIY scenes I studied were constituted materially through alternative economies of DIY practice, collective participation, and reciprocity. This preference for musical collaboration, collective decision-making, and collective musical interplay is also evident in more recent musical endeavours (Verbu Citation2021: 325, 189). 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. For example, in her manual for booking DIY shows, Beck Levy (2013) an artist and musician who used to organise DIY shows in Washington, DC notes that among the bad reasons for organising shows is so that other bands will feel obligated to book your band in their cities. DIY zines, comic books, and blogs from the whole US).Footnote3 This particular DIY culture is an outgrowth of late 1970s British and US punk culture, which later expanded into more transnational and heterogeneous scenes that today also encompass aspects of indie rock, experimental music and certain singer-songwriters.Footnote4 It also has ties to other similar formations, most particularly 1960s counterculture, and various historical and contemporary anarchist, feminist, and sustainability movements (cf. 1 Free boxes are often found in DIY and punk houses, or on the sidewalks next to them. [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]. Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tr | Courtesy of Focus Features Films about classical music go back to at least the 1930s. 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]. 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. Moreover, they are also seen to engage in rituals of decomoditization by diverting capitalist products into enclaved zones of DIY spaces and shows. participation]. Verbu Citation2018). However, there are also other ways in which DIY people enter into the relationship with capitalist modes of production. By closing this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies. However, Scott also clarifies that DIY reciprocity is not about direct one-for-one reciprocation but can apply to anybody (somebody else), as long as participants are dedicated to sustaining the scene (keep the energy moving). In Jennings account and Figure 5 we see how commodities such as records are diverted from the path of capitalist exchange and voided of market value during DIY shows to be transformed into objects of personal and collective use value (cf. And its time to show that creativity is still valued over money. Jai Milx performing at her house, Glitterdome, in Portland, 4 February 2012. Beyond preserving the history of this musical form so tied to the African-American experience, SFJAZZ now blazes a trail for the artists of the future in its permanent home on Franklin St. Few performance venues in the city have the sound quality of the SFJAZZ Center. San Francisco always honors its jazz and blues history while listening for what will push the music forward. 2 See for example Gibson-Graham Citation2008; Eriksen Citation2010: 160, 161, 201, 202, 216; Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014; Tausig Citation2014; Dean Citation2015; Otten Citation2015; Graham Citation2016; Kirsch Citation2017. But well known stars of rock & roll "were being called fifties primitives" by this time. The various shows of the tour were put together by friends of the band, friends of their friends, and by people for whom the band had previously organised shows in Portland. He has lived in San Francisco for over 9 years and has worked in Travel & Tourism for over 7 of those. The Dead Kennedys are often seen as one of the most influential hardcore punk bands of the 1980s, instrumental in the rebellion against the hippie movement of the preceding decades. 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. 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. (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). For example, Gilman incorporates all-ages, non-alcohol, and safer space policiesFootnote5 alongside volunteer, collective, and consensus-based approaches to organisation. 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. 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. Its time we started showing by example that punk is still a community. Moreover, it fosters reciprocal relations between the venue, bands, and audiences. Collective reciprocity is also manifested in the structure of shows, where DIY organisers and performers often reject the hierarchical notion of openers and headliners (Verbu Citation2021: 219). The history of San Francisco is deep-rooted in its bond with the Black community. 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). 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. Jimi Hendrix lived in San Francisco in the 1960s and became one of the iconic musical talents of the Summer of Love. It is important to note here that any act of gift-giving (for instance, organising shows) is always also an act that ties individuals to community. The Warfield brings in all kinds of performers and every style of music. Furthermore, the ethnographic examples I have presented suggest that alternative DIY systems do not only exist at the level of utopian ideas, but also as innovative and extensive socio-cultural practices that materially integrate American DIY worlds, from micro to macro levels. 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 . E.g. We use cookies to improve your website experience. 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. 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. When I asked Rick Ele, who used to be one of the most active DIY organisers in Davis and Sacramento between late 1990s, and early 2010s, about the perception of making it within the DIY scenes in the US, he replied: I mean, a lot of people that don't know about underground music, they just think that every band is trying to make it. 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. This is further emphasised when there are no financial profits generated for performers or intermediaries of these shows, and DIY spaces and modes of organisation are employed in the process including the exchange of venues, items, favours, and equipment and participants not only symbolically but also palpably experience the affective intimacy of the DIY community (Verbu Citation2018, Citation2021; Garcia Citation2020). 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. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. Consequently, these communities keep their distinctive boundaries of belonging open and fluid.Footnote6 This liberal inclination is also related to the idea of general reciprocity as discussed in the beginning of this section. 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. [Chris's friend added:] You could be naked, and no one will arrest you [i.e. 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. You dont feel that communion. 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. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. 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. In other words, Levy rejects approaches to collective organising that employ balanced reciprocity, with its obligation to reciprocate, as individualistic and selfish. SCRAP) that co-constitute late capitalist circulation of money and commodities (Whiteley Citation2011; Giles Citation2014). From the greatest jazz clubs in California to stages that hosted the debut of today's rock icons, San Francisco is home to countless live music venues filled with memorable performances and artist legacies. However, the present tense will be used when considering certain general specifics of the American DIY scenes. underground market, co-op exchange, barter, informal economy (for alternative economies), and gift giving, state appropriations, gleaning, and poaching (for non-market economies). It features a house Hammond B-3 organ, played by the areas best organists, along with a huge record collection. As regards music, these processes emerged somehow organically through social and economic relationships established between DIY musicians and organisers. For example, the aesthetic and cultural notions of quality and individualism still remain present to some degree within American DIY scenes (i.e. Furthermore, alternative DIY socio-economic systems succeed in generating considerable symbolic, affective, material, and political value for DIY participants and scenes. 2023 San Francisco Travel Association. The Boom Boom Room hosts local and international blues, funk, jam bands, and everything in between. And I feel the same about house shows. They are just consumers. 13 See, for example, Moore Citation2004b: 313; Oakes Citation2009; Wehr Citation2012: 14, 15; Worley Citation2017: 5261, 141, 174; Verbu Citation2021: 5, 8, 879, 136, 1401, 194. Aaron is the Manager of Digital & Social Media Marketing at San Francisco Travel. 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. In this article, I examine the alternative economics of reciprocity in American DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. 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. San Francisco has a long history with jazz music. 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. 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. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. Fun and fascinating trivia about San Francisco's most indelible icon. Catch a show at one of San Francisco's legendary music venues, gems with a rich history and a lineup boasting fresh local artists and music's biggest names. (Personal communication, 28 February 2012; see Figure 6; emphasis in original). 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. A combination of commercial, second-hand, and scrap materials and tools were used in this DIY process. I do it [organising shows] because I have a deep karmic debt to the scene []. But in live performance, the bands would often share their improvisatory zest by playing a given song or sequence for as long as five or six minutes, and occasionally for as long as half an hour. Finally, this study highlights the value of a dialectical scholarship that approaches social phenomena, such as music scenes, as constituted in contradictory and non-deterministic ways, which operate on multiple levels, and which are riven with socio-cultural difference. Its [also] like that for fans, you know. DIY participants in this regard often endeavour to reduce their contribution to the capitalist system by engaging in alternative economic models, some of them by dropping out of society, or at least partially diverting their consumption and exchange of commodities into alternative regimes of value (e.g. Soon after, Ralph J. Gleason and Jann Wenner, based in San Francisco, established Rolling Stone magazine (first issue's date: November 1967). (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. Dedicated in 2016, the statue signifies the citys ongoing love affair with the song, the music, and the musicians who make it. Today, the music continues with a packed event calendar that combines new talent and seasoned performers. 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.). Mr. Gleason believes the San Francisco rock groups are making a serious contribution to musical history. DIY ethics entail making things oneself, and thus obviating the need for commercial and institutional channels of production. 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. 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. I certainly played far more shows that Ive put on, and Ive put on a great number of shows over the past 10, 15 years, but I felt like I owed, not necessarily [to] anybody in person, but just [as a] sort of a mentality of hosting people who are traveling. Several scholars have discussed how DIY methods of music production result in lo-fi (low fidelity) sounds and aesthetics that reflect a DIY materiality of scarcity, independence, self-reliance, and amateurism (Fonarow Citation2006: 3950; Kruse Citation2010: 633). 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. The downstairs music space features live music nightly from a wide variety of local and touring artists. 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. From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary-breaking DJs of today, the City by the Bay has a treasured history of performances with a significant lineage to black influences. I felt I was sort of a tourist in everybody elses scenes, when I was touring. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. 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. However, not all DIY bands ascribe to the same idea of DIY while many see it as an ideological principle to live by, others regard it as a pragmatic strategy that enables them to acquire skill, shows, and social connections in the beginning stages of their musical careers.Footnote15 Nevertheless, not all independent cultural activities should be seen as proto-markets (Toynbee Citation2000: 2532), but instead, as heterogeneous assemblages of diverse, non-market and proto-market, possibilities. Music City San Francisco, home of the Music City Hotel and SF Music Hall of Fame, creates a guide of all guides of local music venues in SF. 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. 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? 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. 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. 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). Because San Francisco had an especially vibrant and attractive countercultural scene in the latter half of the 1960s, musicians from elsewhere (along with the famous hip multitude) came there. Learn about San Francisco's Jazz and Blues history and check out all the best places to see it performed live today. People would also in return help us out with things that we need. Great American Music Hall (859 O'Farrell St.). 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). 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. 7 For more on DIY touring in the US, and the notion of translocal reciprocity, see Verbu Citation2021 (chapter 8). KCSM is one of the few 24-hour non-commercial jazz radio stations in the country. 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.
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