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. 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). Registered in England & Wales No. San Francisco always honors its jazz and blues history while listening for what will push the music forward. Furthermore, I draw on Arjun Appadurais perspectives on the complex interrelationships between different economic systems and regimes of value, often connected through the movement of the same kinds of commodities between them (Citation1986). 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. One of the citys 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. Numerous scholars have discussed the coexistence of different economic systems within particular cultures and societies, mainly juxtaposing capitalism against alternative economic systems, such as a sustenance economy or gift-economy.Footnote16 While these latter systems may emerge as alternatives or in opposition to the dominant capitalist mode, many analysts also highlight the co-dependent and co-constitutive dimensions of this relationship. A combination of commercial, second-hand, and scrap materials and tools were used in this DIY process. The US DIY communities I encountered during my fieldwork, most of which at least partially identify as DIY communities and scenes, utilised a DIY approach partly for ideological purposes, as they strived for creative and social autonomy. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. (David, in Maximum Rockandroll Citation1987; emphases added). Aaron is the Manager of Digital & Social Media Marketing at San Francisco Travel. Thats awesome! 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. Much has been written about the historic jazz clubs from the 1950s and 60s Jazz Workshop, The Blackhawk, Basin Street West, Todd Barkans Keystone Kornerand the classic jazz albums recorded in the city, including Thelonious Monks 1959 albumAlone in San Francisco,the 1961 Miles Davis albumIn Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk,Complete, and Duke EllingtonsConcert of Sacred Musicat Grace Cathedral from 1965. 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. that is a positive thing. 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. 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. [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. Experience the mark he left on the city. For example, Gilman incorporates all-ages, non-alcohol, and safer space policiesFootnote5 alongside volunteer, collective, and consensus-based approaches to organisation. 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. 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. 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). Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tr | Courtesy of Focus Features Films about classical music go back to at least the 1930s. 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. San Francisco is and always has been a city of music. In this article, I examine the alternative economics of reciprocity in American DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. Soon after, Ralph J. Gleason and Jann Wenner, based in San Francisco, established Rolling Stone magazine (first issue's date: November 1967). 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. 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. 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. 1 Free boxes are often found in DIY and punk houses, or on the sidewalks next to them. Further, DIY venues also foster reciprocal relation with their performers and audiences. 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. He also gives advice about how to straddle both worlds, and how to pay up (reciprocally) for what bands owe to the community. Some stayed and became part of the scene. 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. Note the bands offer to exchange their records and merchandise either for money, or for a good conversation and a hug!!!!!!. Live music performances and music records/cassettes as standardised commodities are in this way diverted from their regular paths in the market economy to an alternative economic regime of value, often through the incorporation of alternative exchange systems (cf. 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. Figure 6. Enjoy a show and a cocktail at B-Side, the lounge in the SFJAZZ Center. (Jennings Citation1998; see Figure 5)Footnote17, Figure 5. Local DIY scenes often work as collective efforts, achieved through reciprocal relations between the venues, houses and organisers that sustain them. While it is still a great spot to enjoy cheap beer in a low-key setting, the Saloon is now best known as an intimate venue to enjoy some of the best jazz and blues in the city. 3 The research included several years of fieldwork in Davis, CA; nine months in Portland, OR; five days in Washington, DC; and 14 days each in Olympia, WA, Los Angeles, and Oakland, CA. Additionally, there are numerous Jazz Festivalsthroughout the Bay Area during warmer months. Hence, it could support a 'scene'. Therefore, to end this section I wish to highlight one more contradiction regarding the coexistence of DIY and capitalist economic systems, as it relates to practices that seemingly reject capitalism, while simultaneously and tacitly reinforcing it. In the summer of 2012, I toured with a band from Portland called 3 Moons, playing shows around the West Coast and the Midwest. 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. [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]. Thats as much of an end goal to them, just as it is for fans. The journalist Ed Vulliamy wrote: "The Summer of Love had an empress, and her name was Janis Joplin. People would also in return help us out with things that we need. 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). [9] This questing bass quality has been wryly characterized as a "roving" (rather than the conventional "stay-at-home") style. (Oakes Citation2009: 51; emphasis added)Footnote10. The music regularly turns the bar into a dance party. 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. Its insulting to the other people in the community who volunteer to put a lot of the work in. 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. The house also incorporated four additional makeshift living spaces in the form of liveable rooms, three in the basement, and one in the garage. To know more, see our. Located in the Fillmore District, Sheba Piano Lounge is an intimate bar and lounge where you can enjoy live music nightly to go with some of the areas best Ethiopian cuisine. 12 I am referring here to Raymond Williamss theories of residual, emergent, and dominant practices (Citation1977: 1217). Learn about our history and where to find it now, from festivals to clubs and bars. 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 whole society, with its own economic system even. For more information please visit our Permissions help page. Brinkley, Douglas 1999 "Introduction" in Hunter S. Thompson's, Learn how and when to remove this template message, book on the most influential albums in American popular music, List of bands from the San Francisco Bay Area, Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 19651970, "April 8, 1967: Ralph Gleason TV Interview", "Show 41 The Acid Test: Psychedelics and a sub-culture emerge in San Francisco", Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh 1967 Interview, Youtube, Discographies of San Francisco bands (1965-1973) at the Grateful Dead Family Discography, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=San_Francisco_sound&oldid=1109796155, Articles with dead external links from May 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles needing additional references from August 2016, All articles needing additional references, Articles needing additional references from September 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 11 September 2022, at 22:37. DIY shows and records, bartering, borrowing, and DIY production of goods). (Josh Taylor from a band Friends Forever, personal communication, 27 September 2012; see also Chippendale Citation2016). Gibson-Graham (Citation2008) lists some of these diverse economies/markets. Its [also] like that for fans, you know. On the one hand, the ideological objective to reject the capitalist mode of organising cultural and social practices (individualism, consumerism, and profit- and success-oriented approaches). To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. We use cookies to improve your website experience. 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. 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. This is how Teague from Waffle house in NE Portland explained DIY reciprocity and communal living: Its about applying that kind of attitude to your whole lifesome people dont, some people are just like yeah, we have shows here but we dont apply that attitude toward anything else in our lives [], and sometimes you will play somewhere and its like really far-out neo-hippy communitywe have lands, and we grow our own foods, and have a lot of other community projects going on in [our] housea lot of houses that we played at [with his band] were really inspiring [in that sense] [] There would be people canning and processing food, making kombucha, making their own alcohol, [and having] screen printing shops, photo labs, art studio spaces built in the houses[there] would just be a house in a neighbourhood but there would be like nine people living there, and people [living] in the backyardjust every inch of house is utilized in a productive waylike in New York, it was like just a community living to an extreme in a couple of places I went to.