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. The downstairs music space features live music nightly from a wide variety of local and touring artists. Even if participants endeavour to detach DIY music making from the capitalist motives of larger society, traces of the dominant economy persist within DIY scenes. He has lived in San Francisco for over 9 years and has worked in Travel & Tourism for over 7 of those. Drawing on Arjun Appadurais theories of value and commodity (1986), alongside other authors who examine the co-existence of different economic systems, I chart how DIY practitioners tactically navigate the boundaries between these reciprocal and capitalist economic systems and worlds. 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. According to an announcer for a TV show that Ralph J. Gleason hosted: "In his syndicated newspaper column, Mr. Gleason has been the foremost interpreter of the sounds coming out of what he calls 'the Liverpool of the United States.' 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, 23 January 2011). The Church warehouse in Oakland, during a DIY show (14 December 2012). In this article, I examine the alternative economics of reciprocity in American DIY (do-it-yourself) culture. With the musicians perched high above the bar, you can hear live jazz nightly as you sip specialty cocktails along the 20-foot mahogany bar from 1907. Top 10 Best 80'S Music Clubs in San Francisco, CA - Yelp In this way, they consciously acknowledge that DIY shows can exist both outside the capitalist system (as temporarily enclaved rituals of decomoditization), and at the same time, within the larger capitalist regime of value.Footnote19 DIY shows thus simultaneously counter as well as co-constitute a capitalist economic system.Footnote20. 14 See Baumgarten Citation2012: 169; Threadgold Citation2017; Benham Citation2019; Martin-Iverson Citation2019. Verbu Citation2018). SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY - 699 Photos & 289 Reviews - Yelp 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. Really thats just a fraction of why theyve been noticed. It features a house Hammond B-3 organ, played by the areas best organists, along with a huge record collection. creativity], and could be one of the band [i.e. A DIY approach, therefore, functioned both as a means to an end, and as an end in itself. From the psychedelic sounds of the '60s to the boundary . 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. Third, the co-existence and interrelatedness of DIY/reciprocal and dominant/capitalist systems extends beyond a simplistic resistance vs power dichotomy. Performances of an international super group like the Beatles were hosted in a huge venue like the Cow Palace. 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. Gibson-Graham (Citation2008) lists some of these diverse economies/markets. 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.). 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. 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. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. San Francisco sound - Wikipedia [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]. 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). 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). 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. For instance, Johanna from the Box Candy Mountain house in Bellingham told me that when they lost a good venue [show house] in their town, it all fell back on us (personal communication, 14 April 2012). Figure 2. 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. On the one hand, American DIY participants embrace independence, collectivism, and reciprocity as constitutive parts of the DIY economy, and foster them as rituals of decomoditization that enhance the symbolic and affective value of DIY shows. Select a holiday type to discover more or call us on 0161 888 5630 Offers; About Us; Brochures; Contact 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. To know more, see our. Regarding the musical side, it is pertinent to examine the types of association between the three main actors in these DIY arrangements: venues/organisers, bands/performers, and audiences/participants. The music regularly turns the bar into a dance party. Rather, the two interact in complex, contradictory, and co-determining ways, as well as operating on multiple levels: ranging from DIY rejection of the dominant system, or the creation of temporary DIY enclaves, to various forms of partial co-dependence (pragmatic, hybrid, lateral, or tacit co-dependence). (Personal communication, 28 February 2012; see Figure 6; emphasis in original). For example, there is no expectation that all musicians will organise shows, or that all audience members will demonstrate their commitment to the scene by intensely moshing to punk bands in front of the stage or by singing along with indie-folk singers (cf. Steve Miller (who formed the Steve Miller Band) was from Wisconsin, by way of Chicago and New York City while bandmate Boz Scaggs originally called Texas home. We had this idea that it was a three-way tie [also the title of one of their albums] and not some hierarchy or aristocracy of guitar. While it is possible to see a connection in given examples between the DIY socio-economic relations of reciprocity and the DIY ideas and aesthetics of support that reject the dominant values of quality (good vs bad performers), it is also important to extend the analysis beyond the simplistic (homologic) interpretations of the cause-and-effect links between material (socio-economic) and cultural (aesthetic) levels (cf., Hesmondhalgh Citation1999: 36; Toynbee Citation2000: 1105). [2] According to journalist Ed Vulliamy, "A core of Haight Ashbury bands played with each other, for each other"[3]. 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. [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. Food not bombs), DIY participants thus also enable the neoliberal premise of outsourcing of public services and governmental responsibilities to private entities and individuals (Dean Citation2015: Kirsch Citation2017). 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. I start with a quote by a well-known American DIY zine writer Aaron Cometbus, who articulates some of the main issues and concerns regarding the alternative economic practices of American DIY communities: Bands [] when they are successful, its because of how talented they are, how much they care, how hard theyve worked. I therefore also employ both critical and constructive approaches to the alternative DIY economies in the US. 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. 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. 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 shows in the US are underscored by a complex conjunction of two economic regimes overlapping in one space and time. Black History Month at the best music venues in San Francisco. "[16] Women, in a few cases, enjoyed an equal status with men as stars in the San Francisco rock scenebut these few instances signaled a shift that has continued in the U.S. music scene. 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. 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). 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. They are just consumers. 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]. In December 1961, in the hotels famous Venetian Room, Bennett first sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco. The song quickly became one of the citys official anthems. 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. However, there are also other ways in which DIY people enter into the relationship with capitalist modes of production. All Rights Reserved. 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. For example, as explained by their bass player, Mike Watt, South Californian 1980s punk/DIY band Minutemen in this way adapted the ideas of collaborative equality to their music practice and sound: D. Boon [Minutemen guitarist] played really heavily with trebly new power chords and left all this room for the bass guitar [], and then worked with Georgie [the drummer] to make sure he had all these fills and parts to jam to and add movement to the songs. We had a friend coming around named Peter [], he would come in and just do all of our dishes and leave, or hed come with a gallon jug of olive oil, he would just come and give us stuff. 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). Working party at the Glitterdome house, in Portland, 2 April 2012. 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 . (Oakes Citation2009: 51; emphasis added)Footnote10. Yet I also highlight how these alternative economic systems of reciprocity coexist with capitalist ones. Mr. Gleason believes the San Francisco rock groups are making a serious contribution to musical history. 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. (Jennings Citation1998; see Figure 5)Footnote17, Figure 5. Moreover, while there is a tangible tendency within American DIY communities toward reciprocal interaction in multiple social and economic aspects of DIY sociability, it is also acknowledged within the DIY scenes that this kind of alternative economy has its own limits. See international artists in state-of-the-art auditoriums or local artists in historic cocktail lounges, unique dive bars, iconic restaurants, modern art galleries, and off-the-beaten path record stores and bookstores. 16 See, for example, Hesmondhalgh Citation1997, Citation1999; Gibson-Graham Citation2008; Eriksen Citation2010: 160, 161, 201, 202, 216; Giles Citation2014; Tausig Citation2014; Dean Citation2015; Otten Citation2015; Graham Citation2016; Taylor Citation2016: 15476; Kirsch Citation2017; Simoni Citation2019; Rawitsch Citation2020. 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. And I feel the same about house shows. Named for legendary saxophonist Charlie Bird Parker and Irish novelist Samuel Beckett, Bird & Beckett in Glen Park is a true neighborhood hotspot that features weekly jazz concerts, allowing you to hear and read about jazz at the same time. However, it is also possible to identify more hierarchical and individualist practices and outcomes in contemporary DIY music-making (Verbu Citation2021: 189; see below). A hideaway on Fell Street, Mr. Tipples presents live jazz nightly alongside inventive cocktails in a dark and sophisticated space. Accordingly, in order to avoid foreclosing the discursive and material space from alternative openings and possibilities, some authors emphasise a need for the ontological reframing and creative re-reading of these alternative economic practices in their relations with capitalism and neoliberalism (Gibson-Graham Citation2008). (Personal communication, 29 December, 2010; see Figure 2), House shows are better. 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. 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. The strong reciprocal relations between different houses of the DIY community was emphasised to me in an interview with Jai and Dylan from Glitterdome house, who explained that they had friends visit pretty constantly. Second, the meanings and goals of these practices are often contested and constantly negotiated by different DIY individuals and groups, as they oscillate between hierarchical and egalitarian, individualist and collectivist, and pragmatic and idealist orientations. DIY shows and records, bartering, borrowing, and DIY production of goods). Furthermore, Cometbus also identifies contradictions within American DIY scenes regarding the coexistence of both alternative (reciprocal) and dominant (capitalist) systems within the same communities and scenes, where DIY individuals and bands often not only engage in collective and reciprocal relations, but also act as capitalist producers and consumers. 12 I am referring here to Raymond Williamss theories of residual, emergent, and dominant practices (Citation1977: 1217). 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. 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. 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. As regards music, these processes emerged somehow organically through social and economic relationships established between DIY musicians and organisers. Punk rock included [] I mean, every DIY record label is a business you dont give your records away and you cant produce them for free. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. TheHotel Nikko in Union Squarehouses the eponymous Feinsteins. Both James and Chris thus emphasise the added value of such enclaved DIY shows. San Francisco offers live jazz and blues each and every night of the week in various settings. By being discarded, they often either create scarcity and consequently contribute to market demand and supply patterns, or they enter alternative economic business models (small, grassroots, sustainable, eco, ethical, and/or community-oriented niche business entities, e.g. 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. autonomy]. Other DIY participants I interviewed talked about similar approaches included in the roster of DIY reciprocal and collective activities. Nicks and Buckingham went on to bring that San Francisco sound to established British rock band Fleetwood Mac when they both joined in 1975. (David, in Maximum Rockandroll Citation1987; emphases added). On similar lines, Marshall Sahlins differentiates between balanced reciprocity, defined by a tacit obligation to reciprocate, and general reciprocity or sharing, usually practiced among closer family members, where the reciprocation is non-obligatory (1972: 1939). 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.
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