20 Years Ago Today at 924 Gilman Street

Someone else on the Gilman booking staff was doing a bad job putting this show together, so I stepped in about 2-3 weeks before it was to take place.  He was unhappy about me taking over, but it only took me five minutes of brainstorming to finish a show that he had done nothing with for the past two months. Unfortunately, this was probably the most violent show I did that entire year. Multiple fights happened outside the club. Several kids jumped future investigative reporter Shane Bauer in the bathroom for no reason. Some Nazi skinhead kid even tried to steal the keys to TOXIC NARCOTIC’s van during their set! However, the combined effort of myself and the local bands got approximately 250 people to come to a show that only had a few weeks of promotion, so that was cool. How does one have a difficult time setting up a TOXIC NARCOTIC show anyway?

20 Years Ago Today at 924 Gilman Street

I only remember the Gilman Street staff being judgmental and irritated that "heavy metal" bands were playing at their precious "punk rock club," only to be completely won over and wanting more by the time HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE finished their set. 

924 Gilman: The Story So Far

Maximum Rocknroll, 2004

You practically can’t read a single article about GREEN DAY or RANCID without at least one mention of 924 Gilman Street, still located in Berkeley, California. They cut their teeth on the Gilman stage as part of the East Bay punk underground before ascending to mainstream success and blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard all of this before, haven’t you? There is a lot more to Gilman Street than those bands; this exhaustive 416-page book about the volunteer-run club’s first 18 years proves that point. You will have to figure out a way to prevent the book from falling apart due to its binding, but it is worth the effort.

924 Gilman’s story comes from the volunteer staff perspective rather than that of well-known musicians and tastemakers. Matt Freeman is the only member of the aforementioned huge bands on hand here, but barely says anything about OPERATION IVY or RANCID at all. He opts for a funny story about his early days performing post-show Gilman cleanup

924 Gilman Street as it has existed in Berkeley, CA since 1986.

duties instead. Expect anecdotes of that nature over tales of bands and records. Chapters are broken up according to whoever ran the club at the time, with each participant getting a few pages to say their piece. One or two ex-staffers try to dish some political dirt, but Brian Edge changes their names in the interest of fairness. 924 Gilman is not a book for settling old scores, something that I think got in the way of some volunteers speaking in detail about negative experiences at the club. I know from my own participation as a Gilman volunteer that it is not always fun and that punks’ dysfunctional personalities often clash.

What should make this book valuable to its readers is that this is how you do it—discovering a space with potential in no-man’s land and making it happen above board. How much effort goes into its creation and maintenance, dealing with licensing and zoning boards, and how the very community the space intends to serve often undermines its goals much more than “the Man” does. Although the stories become repetitive and less interesting after a while, 924 Gilman is often a fun read coupled with awesome visual representation. There are few pages without some kind of photo, flyer, newspaper clipping, or even staff meeting notes accompanying the text. All books about punk rock should be this visually stimulating, yet so few of them are lately. Could we get a second edition that corrects the bookbinding issue sometime?

20 Years Ago Today at 924 Gilman Street

This show is generally remembered for NO JUSTICE hopping on LIFE'S HALT's gear, in which the crowd went completely insane. RAW POWER was also very good that night, although people who saw them in their heyday were not to quick to agree. Whatever. I know I had a blast singing along to "State Oppression" like everyone else.

No Justice tearing it up at Gilman Street!

25 Years Ago at 924 Gilman Street

CANCER ALLEY didn't play and were replaced by LA grind freaks BAD ACID TRIP. I seem to recall that MAN IS THE BASTARD didn't play either and I definitely did not see ASSUCK this evening. They might have been a bit too death metal for my taste at the time anyway. However, this was my first time seeing CAPITALIST CASUALTIES live after listening to whatever records of theirs my bandmates and I could find all year long. Expectations were met, but this show belonged to Japanese hardcore thrashers ASSFORT. ASSFORT was amazing! They set the live standard for every other Japanese hardcore band to follow as I've seen them over the years. Check out Matt Average's cover photo for their 亞吸不汚吐 EP on

That's me in the Misfits shirt under Yoshio's leg.

Prank; that is me in the MISFITS shirt narrowly avoiding a collision with vocalist Yoshio as he breaks Gilman Street's no-stagediving rule. There was also a huge fight right after that photo was taken when a couple burly jock dudes materialized and started laying people out. Seemed like every punk rocker in the club suddenly pounced on them and sent them packing. I was told that they both had lost their shoes in the fracas and had to run in their socks through a mess of broken bottles to escape!

I had a difficult time leaving this show. This was one of those nights where I didn't want to go home ever again. Home was a small, boring house in the suburbs with my unemployed single mom. How could I think about living under her roof or starting my senior year of high school in a few weeks after the things I saw tonight? This was where I belonged. Getting back here and staying here was my only focus now. Nothing else mattered anymore.

20 Years Ago Today at 924 Gilman Street

This is quite a solid lineup on paper. Unfortunately, every band canceled except for DAMAD and BRAINBLOODVOLUME. GOOD CLEAN FUN was the most infuriating cancellation. They dropped off the show at the last minute, opting to play in San Francisco with CAVE IN and the NERVE AGENTS that night instead. Of course, this took place after they had made a big deal out of begging Gilman Street and Ken Sanderson to be included on the show. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? and CRISPUS ATTUCKS wound up filling in and that was fine, but how great would this show have been had everyone come through?