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. E.g. 10 For another example of DIY egalitarian approach to music-making, by the 1980s and 1990s US group Fugazi, see Azerrad Citation2001: 392, 386, 401, 402. Moreover, some venues and houses often collectively organised festivals and larger multi-venue events. (Personal communication, 28 February 2012). This preference for musical collaboration, collective decision-making, and collective musical interplay is also evident in more recent musical endeavours (Verbu Citation2021: 325, 189). The house also incorporated four additional makeshift living spaces in the form of liveable rooms, three in the basement, and one in the garage. [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. [13] San Francisco historian Charles Perry recalled that in Haight-Ashbury, "You could party hop all night and hear nothing but Rubber Soul",[14] and that "More than ever the Beatles were the soundtrack of the Haight-Ashbury, Berkeley and the whole circuit. 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. (Personal communication, 28 February 2012; see Figure 6; emphasis in original). For more information please visit our Permissions help page. A seminal venue in this regard is Gilman 924 (known also only as Gilman) in Berkeley, California. 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. Some of the most important black artists of the 20th century have played on this stage, including jazz legends Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan. These included sharing of food and equipment among DIY houses, local and translocal exchange of venues, the system of free boxes (see Figure 1),Footnote1 donations at shows, and participatory organiser-performer-audience interactions practices that enabled the creation of alternative cultural DIY worlds, and which in turn informed DIY sounds and aesthetics. With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Franciscos live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. (Cometbus Citation2002). 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. Furthermore, alternative DIY socio-economic systems succeed in generating considerable symbolic, affective, material, and political value for DIY participants and scenes. Because there is no place for local bands to play, or what else [sic]. According to biography author Robert Greenfield, "Jon McIntire [manager of the Grateful Dead from the late sixties to the mid-eighties] points out that the great contribution of the hippie culture was this projection of joy. there is a diversity of possible causal factors that extend beyond the influence of the DIY system), as it is also implicated in the examples above. Both emphasise that gift-giving is not a free activity, but that it bonds an individual to reciprocate (returning the favour). February is Black History Month that celebrates the contributions and present-day existence of a community that remain unapparelled in the collective victory of humankind. 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. 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). 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. Verbu Citation2018). Moreover, it fosters reciprocal relations between the venue, bands, and audiences. (Calvin Johnson, in Baumgarten Citation2012: 133; cf. Jimi Hendrix lived in San Francisco in the 1960s and became one of the iconic musical talents of the Summer of Love. Until they do away with capitalism we wont be able to escape it, but we can put the money back into our own hands. 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). 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. "[15] In San Francisco, musical influences came in from not only London, Liverpool and Manchester, but also included the bi-coastal American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, the Chicago electric blues scene, the soul music scenes in Detroit, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals, jazz styles of various eras and regions. Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tr | Courtesy of Focus Features Films about classical music go back to at least the 1930s. However, several problems, complexities, and contradictions also emerge. 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. Jai Milx performing at her house, Glitterdome, in Portland, 4 February 2012. 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. DIY shows in the US are underscored by a complex conjunction of two economic regimes overlapping in one space and time. 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. 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. Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. Local DIY scenes often work as collective efforts, achieved through reciprocal relations between the venues, houses and organisers that sustain them. TheHotel Nikko in Union Squarehouses the eponymous Feinsteins. A musician who was a leading example of this, Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane (and the offshoot Hot Tuna) pioneered the approach, perhaps best represented on the album Bless Its Pointed Little Head. Great American Music Hall (859 O'Farrell St.). However, since the simple fact of attending shows, or because still and quiet listening to music can also count as valid forms of audience participation at DIY shows (see Figure 2), I argue for an understanding of American DIY communities that is open to a variety of different approaches and interpretations of active audience participation. In this excerpt, Cometbus outlines the central discursive tension existing within American DIY scenes. 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. Participation between different houses was further emphasised by doing things collectively, such as traveling together to shows, festivals, swimming trips, and karaoke nights, or through collective listening to music, work activities, or music and social event organising (see Figure 2). 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. Some scholars have identified how the obligation to reciprocate (balanced reciprocity), can be perceived to constrain artistic freedom and creativity (Joseph Citation2002: 10311), however, it is notable that participants in the DIY scenes I studied favoured a general approach to reciprocity. Thats what they think. He is usually exploring the Bay Area hunting for that new and unique experience and good food too! With a bar built in 1949, Club Deluxe harkens back to San Francisco's live music scene of the 1950s and 60s. Select a holiday type to discover more or call us on 0161 888 5630 Offers; About Us; Brochures; Contact American DIY venues and performers also form a translocal network of reciprocity, which is created through the reciprocal relation of playing and booking each others shows across the US (and beyond). 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). Mr. Gleason believes the San Francisco rock groups are making a serious contribution to musical history. 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. However, there are also other ways in which DIY people enter into the relationship with capitalist modes of production. To address this question, I first outline the contours of the alternative DIY economic system of reciprocity and some of its problems. 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). 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. DIY performers therefore usually approach and sustain the DIY scenes through the practice of communal reciprocity, by playing for their own fun, and for the interests of the DIY community (horizontal approach), and not for their own individual interests in financial gain and mainstream success (vertical approach). However, while the link between DIY practice and lo-fi sound exists, it is also important to recognise that lo-fi aesthetics can reflect other causal factors, such as advanced studio manipulation, market calculation, and/or nostalgia for pre-modern simplicity (Hesmondhalgh Citation1999: 56; Oakes Citation2009; Sanden Citation2013: chapter 4). 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.