FRIDAY FIVE
Among many other niceties, we love San Francisco for its plethora of festivals, arenas, theaters, wineries, clubs, and amphitheaters — all of which are dusting off their stages and (finally ) are presenting live music this fall.
The wave of new shows rekindles your awareness of San Francisco as a fabled music town, where legends roamed and whole cultural movements took root and bloomed.
You’ve already been to the sites of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead houses, The Fillmore, Amoeba Records. All great. Wonderful.
But where else can you go that encapsulates, memorializes, or embodies the heart and soul of SF’s most famous musical eras? Below are relatively newer destinations in the city that showcase San Francisco’s immense impact on the course of popular music past and present.
Here are five such institutions.
San Francisco Music Hall of Fame Gallery
The brainchild of San Francisco native and music leader, Rudy Colombini, the San Francisco Music Hall of Fame Gallery has accomplished what has been long overdue: A permanent multi-media exhibit that escorts visitors on a tour of the city’s multi-faceted musical heart.
San Francisco Bay music stars you know — Santana, Metallica, Grateful Dead, MC Hammer, Sheila E., Chris Isaak, Tupac Shakur, 4 Non Blondes, Sly and the Family Stone, Train, Green Day, John Lee Hooker, and dozens more, up to and including Kehlani — and some you’ve forgotten or have never known about (Kingston Trio!) are featured in striking oversized images by well-known photographers.
The Gallery is part of Music City San Francisco, a five-story complex dedicated to supporting the local music scene with affordable rehearsal spaces and services. Much of the building has been undergoing major reconstruction over the past years, but the San Francisco Music Hall of Fame Gallery, residing on the top two floors alongside the Music City Hotel, opened nonetheless in May, 2021. It is free to guests of the hotel, whose thirty-six rooms are also themed around San Francisco music notables. The private rooms even come equipped with a guitar and amp.
San Francisco Music Hall of Gallery enables you to immerse yourself in a broad swath of San Francisco’s musical legacy all in one place.
// 1353 Bush Street, sanfranciscomusichalloffame.com
Haight Street Art Center
Did you know that rock music poster art was invented out of San Francisco in the mid-’60s when George Hunter promoted his band The Charlatans in a poster inspired by an Indian Circus flyer?
The Haight Street Art Center knows this fact.
The organization, located in a refurbished building on Laguna Street, between Hayes Valley and the Haight-Asbury district, was born in 2017 with the express purpose of highlighting and supporting the rock music poster as art and counterculture. Founded by tech investor Roger McNamee, (also of Moonalice fame), the Center and its ongoing exhibits, changing exhibitions, and its store ping strongly off the city’s psychedelic roots. Meander through its white rooms and halls and you will enjoy a visual recreation of the vivid colors and sumptuous shapes that backdropped so much of San Francisco’s musical heyday.
// 215 Haight Street, haightstreetart.org
The Latin Rock House Mural
You cannot miss this house on York and 25th St. Owner Richard Segovia, percussionist, music producer, instructor, and activist, has transformed its entire exterior into a visual tribute to San Francisco’s Latin Rock luminaries.
The mural portrays Carlos Santana, members of Malo, the Escovedo’s, and dozens of musicians who contributed to creating the Latin Rock Sound, which pretty much originated in the Mission District. Segovia, who officially unveiled his house-as-historical-canvas in 2017, welcomes gawkers and drive-by visitors.
The Latin Rock House is free to view, a real wowzer to behold; it’s a striking work of musical passion and pride.
San Francisco Punk Archive
Between her past life as lead singer and songwriter in one of San Francisco’s most beloved early punk bands, The Avengers, and her day job at the San Francisco Library where she worked for many years, Penelope Houston was in the perfect position to assemble the San Francisco Punk Archive at the San Francisco History Center situated in the main Public Library building.
Make your way to the collections area on the 6th floor, and you will discover fanzines, photos, buttons, flyers, and recordings of the local punk scene, circa 1977 through 1990. While much is known about the city’s beat and hippie cultures, this archive, which continues to grow, documents that punk owns a place in San Francisco’s music history — and a piece of its heart as well.
// 100 Larkin Street, sfpl.org
Bird & Beckett Books & Records
A central hub for music inspired by jazz, R&B, and the music of the African American community has become a bit of a moving target since the closing of The Fillmore Heritage Center in 2015. As the beautiful SF Jazz Center concentrates on top-level touring acts, San Francisco clubs have attempted to fill the local void. Mr. Tipples Recording Studio, The Black Cat, The Royal Cuckoo, with its fabulous Hammond B3 organ built into the bar, and the Boom Boom Room, offer a steady calendar of live acts.
But the Bird & Beckett Books & Records in Glen Park is the most unexpected venue. On the weekends, the eclectic, independent bookstore turns into an intimate space for live San Francisco jazz groups. This is a consistent concert series that this little bookstore has sponsored for years. Reservations and tickets are required.
Other places hosting jazz acts are Word: A Cafe in Bayview and, in the not far future, The Recovery Room near the Excelsior.
// 653 Chenery Street, birdbeckett.com
