8) You passed through the iconic San Francisco portal of Bill Graham, a few years before Graham died. How do you remember Bill? And what did you take away from that time with Bill Graham Productions?
That was a really fun time in my life, with very few responsibilities while catching lots of shows. I always felt like I missed my era musically, by 15 years or so. But working for Bill, you had the feeling you were part of that scene. He was always there -- picking up trash when no one was looking and working hard to put on a good show for the audience. It didn't matter if you were pouring drinks, or unpacking a truck. When he walked by, he'd make eye contact with you, and it just made you feel like you were part of something big.
He might have rubbed some people the wrong way over the years, but everyone respected him. He led by example, and didn't expect anyone to work harder than he did, because he was a worker. My friend, Slug, who was working for him at the same time, used to say that at BGP you're either a worker bee or a wanna bee, and wanna bees get thrown out of the hive. It wasn't exactly short hours and big money, but it was fun and a lot of camaraderie. Plus, there's nothing like sleeping four to a motel room with a bunch of guys who've been slinging steel for 16 hours to teach you about work ethic.
I remember, at The Stones’ Steel Wheels show in '89 at the Oakland Coliseum, we'd just had the big quake -- and the aftershocks were going crazy. There were 5.0s happening every hour or so. The stage was immense. It had these giant elevator shafts -- 80 feet or something -- on either side. The steel guys were rigging them way up at the top and we'd get an aftershock. The guys in the harnesses would hoot and holler like drunken cowboys on wild Mustangs while the shafts would sway back and forth. And we'd cheer them on.
Nobody complained, no one climbed down; they just did their job and had fun. That's rock and roll. No doubt they were insane, and those are the kinds of people who made BGP what it was. And it was fun. I used to marvel at Bill's pilot, Steve. He'd bring Bill down to the Shoreline [Amphitheatre], drop him off at the helipad up on the hill, then fly into the venue and go back and forth, with the skids a few feet off the ground, blowing the water out of the grass so the audience wouldn't get their asses wet.
That's what I take away. That kind of rabid employee loyalty to the boss is a testament to the kind of guy he was. He, Steve and Melissa are all greatly missed.
9) You've spent a lot of time between the Bay Area and Southern California. Having lived in L.A. myself, I have strong sentiments about each place. How do you characterize the difference between the two Californias? And what are the things that draw you to both places?
They really are two different states -- and states of mind -- to me. I spend time in Fairfax when I go north these days. It hasn't changed much since I was a kid, but everyplace else up there sure has. West Marin will always be wild and beautiful, but the overall feeling of Marin is not what it once was. It feels much more moneyed and conservative to me now. It's great that so much of the land is still protected, but the demographic is pretty frightening.
As a kid, I always felt like Marin was a refuge for the artists and musicians from San Francisco to come and settle down. But you’ve got to be a pretty darn famous artist or musician to settle there now. The monetary issue seems to weed out a lot of the cultural aspects that I grew up with. I mean, Novato was a cow town, and now it's got low-income housing from the mid-700s. There was always a lot of cash in southern Marin, but now it really seems permeate the whole place. You have to look at a lot of Hummers and Mercedes before you spot a VW bus, that's for sure.
I made KLUNKERZ to give the audience a glimpse of what Marin was like back then, because it was really magical. I moved from Marin to San Francisco in 1986 and I left for Los Angeles in 1991. In the early 1990s AIDS was still ravaging the city, and I was losing some friends. This was just before the dot-com boom.
I had two roommates in a 10,000 square foot warehouse down off 10th Street in SOMA. It was an amazing time. We lived South of Market because it was cheap, and nobody cared what we did late at night . . . and we could afford tons of space. We had a silkscreen operation, a surfboard shaping room, a video arts studio, and a garden on the roof. It was in the old Art Rock space, which made it even cooler.
The place was crawling with talent, and the nightlife was amazing. Five nights a week you could find a nightclub with 1500 people dancing their brains out. Back then the artist lofts down there actually had artists living in them. There was always a gallery opening, or a band to catch, or something going on, and usually it was free.
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