In nearly three years, this blog has gone in a lot of directions, but I think this is the first time I've mentioned anything about my punkish past.
In the late '70s and early '80s, I saw a lot of live shows in a wide variety of San Francisco clubs. Some were pretty amazing, and often amusing -- though often the amusing part was unintended. It was a fairly chaotic scene, the Wild West of live performance. The punk clubs almost universally had lousy acoustics, and perhaps none was worse than the Temple Beautiful, at 1839 Geary, later rechristened "New Wave Au Go Go," perhaps in an attempt to cash in on the trendy New Wave moniker. But no one called it that.
The Temple Beautiful was a re-purposed synagogue -- perhaps more notorious for being located next to the world headquarters of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple than for its own rather rowdy weekend music scene. It was not far from Fillmore West, either. I saw quite a few shows at 1839 Geary that spanned the range from hardcore to pop to artcore. Most nights were some awkward mixture of the genres. I loved that scene, though, and I would have seen many more groups there, had I not been broke so much of the time. Ah, college days.
There were giant plaques with the names of past synagogue donors lining the carpeted hall, which half-circled the inner, main hall, which had a wooden floor and would have been used for services in its previous life. Close to the entrance doors was a bar. Then there was a band of glowing red light, lining the perimeter of the interior hall. Very striking. This was in the days before rope lighting, so I guess they had installed strands of red Christmas lights. All those tiny red lights gave the place a distinct and surreal atmosphere.
The main hall was cavernous, and I believe it was domed at the top, which I am sure made it an acoustical atrocity. The dome may have even had inlaid stained glass.
Before I got earplugs, I attended quite a few shows at "the Temple," that left my ears ringing something fierce, while I waited for the all-night bus in the fog on damp, drizzly Geary Blvd. And then I would crash, exhausted, on my cot in the tiny converted pantry that I paid $80 a month for in the outer Richmond. (I could stand in the middle, reach out my arms, and touch either wall. Plus, I had papered my walls with flyers and posters from various club shows, which I'm sure made the tiny space even more claustrophobic.)
And then I would wake up the next morning, and I could still hear the ringing.
Despite the sonic nightmare, the Temple was my favorite music club in those days, even more than the Mabuhay Gardens, which was usually packed close to suffocating on weekends. That also meant it could be tough to get away from any Mab guests who were really wasted and out of control. The Temple, by contrast, had a lot of space, including a balcony level -- two facing balconies, in fact. There was one balcony behind the stage, which would have held the choir, back in the day (where I believe only the performers and their entourages were allowed to hang out). From the opposite side of the room, the second balcony overlooked the main hall, which with its dome and red lights looked like an eerie ballroom. That was where most of the audience did its drugs. Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, right? Actually, I recall seeing few if any guests making out or going even further than that, but who knows. There were always the bathroom stalls, I suppose.
So anyway. The night I saw Jim Carroll and his band in 1980, they weren't even the headline act -- that was S.V.T., a popular local act named after an acronym for a fast heart condition. Carroll was a very engaging performer -- quite intense and focused. I remember his closed eyes. The one piece I recall fairly vividly is "City Drops Into the Night." If you want to hear it, go to the [Catholic Boy site]. Click on the "Catholic Boy Confessions" button from the show dated 12/1/80 and have a listen. Very Doors-like. Long. Slow. Not at all trendy, back then.
Or you can hear the piece simply by clicking [HERE]. (But do check out [the rest of the site] -- it's really beautiful.)
Of course, there were some jerks in the audience, probably drunk, who started hollering somewhere in the middle of this incantatory song. I guess Carroll was too intense for them to handle, heh. I think the drumming style that night was more "jungle" than the recording here indicates, too. Or maybe it was just those ridiculous acoustics.
One of my obsessions in those days was to collect posters and memorabilia for any Punk or New Wave act that sounded interesting or at least had catchy graphics. So here I have scanned and stitched together two long format posters from two of the Jim Carroll Band's stops in San Francisco during its tour in late 1980. The originals are black-and-white too, so you are not missing anything! Enjoy. And feel free to post a Comment, below, to share your own recollections -- about the SF scene, its groups, or Jim Carroll and his band in particular.
Wishing you a beautiful day,
Bill Brent
[this page last updated: 2009.09.14, 12:05 a.m. Hawaii time]
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