Podcasts about Mabuhay Gardens

This week Chasta & Huey talk about their busy weekends, from Huey going to see Exodus play a pop up hometown show at Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, to both of them recapping how much fun they had attending BottleRock 2026 in Napa. Plus, they talk about the concept of longevity escape velocity and the pros and cons of living forever. Lastly, on "Huey Help" they read a listener's email asking for advice about wasting years hating on a former lover. Connect with Chasta & Huey: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/chastaandhuey Email: chastaandhuey@gmail.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChastaAndHuey Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chasta-huey/id1877969787 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdozplGAWNhd6zehEBzW5 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/chastaandhuey Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chastaandhuey Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chastaandhuey X: https://x.com/chastaandhuey Thank you for the support.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Painter George, aka George Harry Crampton-Glassanos, is fine if you wanna call him just "George." In this episode, meet and get to know George. Both of his parents came to San Francisco early in their lives. His mom hails from the East Coast and her family were all working-class folks. His grandpa was a business agent for a machinist's union in Massachusetts. That grandfather shaped George's later involvement in organized labor. (Today, he's a member of the ILWU). George never knew this grandparent who had an outsize impression on him. He died shortly after George was born. But in Massachusetts, in addition to his union involvement, he owned a store that sold records on one half and hats on the other. His dad moved to San Francisco from the Midwest to attend school at the Art Institute (RIP). He got into that school and often slept overnight on a ledge on campus. Both of George's parents were punk rockers in SF in the late-Seventies. Amazing. His dad even lived with the guitarist from The Avengers (Penelope Houston's punk band). Though they would meet later, both spent time at the famed Mabuhay Gardens back in the day. George's dad was a painter as well, and that turned out to have a huge influence on George. His parents met when his mom got a job with his dad's construction working crew. This was around the mid-Eighties. George came along in 1989. After that, his parents had two more boys, making George the oldest of three. His earliest memories are from around the mid-Nineties in The Mission. George spent time when he was a kid running around The Mission and pre-gentrification Dogpatch with his dad. They lived on 18th between San Carlos and Lexington (or, zooming out a bit, between Mission and Valencia). That's two blocks from where I lived from 2003 to 2017, incidentally. But George's family got evicted from that apartment on 18th. The building sold and the new owners evicted tenants one by one, including families like George's. Both of his brothers were born in that apartment. His dad had made modifications there, handyman that he was. And George was old enough to remember all the awesome neighbors they had. I ask George about his favorite restaurants when he was a kid. "I fuckin' ate burritos every night of the week," he answers. He'd hit up nearby La Cumbre or El Buen Sabor around 300 times a year. Whiz Burger also figured big in George's childhood diet. There was a diner across 16th from The Roxie called Aunt Mary's (George shows me a coin purse from the place while we're recording) that he loved as well. Art was always encouraged at home. George's dad would bring home boxes of fax paper for him to draw on with ballpoint pens. He'd draw and draw and draw, often of things he saw. He remembers staring out the window of their place on 18th and watching cars go by, and he'd draw those. But it wasn't until high school at School of the Arts that George really started cranking it out. At SOTA, teachers encouraged George to draw whatever the hell he wanted to. He remembers drawing a skeleton pushing a paleta cart. When George tells me he attended SOTA 2004–2008, I mention that a number of past guests of this show went there around that time. "[The school] churned out a lot of us," he says. Joe Talbot, who co-wrote, produced, and directed The Last Black Man in San Francisco, went to SOTA in that era. George goes on a sidebar to share a story of getting caught smoking pot by a SOTA vice principal. I ask him to rattle off the SF schools he went to, and George obliges. Waldorf in The Mission for Kindergarten, then a Waldorf school in Pac Heights through eighth grade. They wanted him to attend their high school, but he chose SOTA instead. The Waldorf schools also encouraged art, which George appreciated. The social dynamics could be strange, though. You'd have kids like him who got into that school thanks to financial aid being classmates with kids who lived in mansions. After eighth grade, he needed a change. After he graduated from School of the Arts, George took some classes at City College. He'd been working summers painting houses for his dad, and eventually, college tailed off so he could work more. It also gave George more time for his artistic painting. This was about 20 years ago, and since then, he's been painting murals, hanging out with graffiti painters, doing work on Clarion Alley, and working with Precita Eyes to paint various houses and walls in The Mission. I ask whether George's art has evolved over the years. After thinking it over, he talks about the influence of cars and his mom and dad's comic book collections. He loved his mom's underground comics collections, and talks about going down to 23rd Street with them to Scott's Comics and Cards and SF Comic Book Co. next door. George points to artists like Spain Rodriguez, R. Crumb, and the Hernandez Brothers as having shaped his art from a young age. He'd go to Avalon on Mission for iron-on old English letters to have put on hats. The cholo influence of his neighborhood was seeping in, and George ran with it. The gumball machines on Mission with their foil stickers also played a part. He'd take those stickers home, many with images of cars on them, and draw from them. And of course the cars cruising Mission Street caught his artistic eye. George also touches on some of the violence he witnessed in The Mission in the Nineties, when he was a kid. George and his friends got around on skateboards, beater bikes, and Muni. He's quick to point out how, back in the day, you could take the 26-Valencia if you wanted to avoid potential trouble on the 14-Mission. I ask whether George got into any trouble himself. He says mostly harmless stuff like shoplifting. That was before his aforementioned time at School of the Arts. George has mixed feelings about the art scene, and I get it. He's had his art in shows, but prefers bookstores or community-oriented spaces vs. white-walled galleries. He doesn't feel like the audience that goes to those spaces is his. When he talks about painting at home after a long day at work, I ask George to talk about that work. He's currently part of a crew painting the new container cranes in the Port of Oakland. The ILWU is assembling the cranes and George and others use marine enamels to make the cranes look good. We end the podcast with how you can find George and his art. "You can find me on 24th Street," he says. No website. He's on Instagram at @paintergeorge415. We recorded this podcast at George's home in South San Francisco in April 2026. Photography by Nate Oliveira

When punk rock thrashed through the Bay Area in the 70s and 80s, there were some venues that became iconic hubs, like Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco and Berkeley's Gilman street. But in rural Sonoma country, the scene was cobbled together in backyards, barns, and from fields with very long extension cords. Growing up in Santa Rosa, KQED's arts and culture editor Gabe Meline was both a part of the punk scene and an obsessive collector of its flyers, zines, cassettes and ephemera. He's now guest curated a new exhibit at the Museum of Sonoma County, Disturbing the Peace: Sonoma County's Early Punk Underground. We talk to Meline — and check in those in punk scenes of other Bay Area towns — about the music and ethos of punk and why this young DIY movement against authority is so relevant now. Guests: Gabe Meline, senior editor, KQED Arts & Culture Mike Park, owner, Asian Man Records - an independent label based in San Jose; member of the ska-punk band Skankin' Pickle in the 1980s and 90s Matthew Kadi, photographer and drummer. His band Monster Squad started in Vacaville in 1997 and is still playing shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In San Francisco, Mabuhay Gardens was the epicenter of punk. Located on Broadway at the edge of North Beach and Chinatown, it was ground zero for the city's emerging punk movement in the late 1970s. The Filipino restaurant and nightclub hosted many of the era's most iconic punk bands — including the Avengers, Dead Kennedys, and the Jim Carroll Band. Even punk rock icon Patti Smith took the stage. In this episode, we dig into the history and legacy of the so-called "Fab Mab." Additional Resources: The Return of Mabuhay Gardens: The Punk Club That Changed San Francisco Read the transcript for this episode Check out The Kitchen Sisters Present podcast Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Got a question you want answered? Ask! Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was produced by Brandi Howell. Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Gabriela Glueck and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Olivia Allen-Price, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on Team KQED.

Mabuhay Gardens was a Filipino restaurant, nightclub, and music venue that was essential to San Francisco's punk scene before its closure in 1987. Now, a group of local investors and North Beach neighbors are working to bring it back.  Links: Legendary SF Punk Club Mabuhay Gardens Is on the Verge of Reopening Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen in as I chat with Joanna Lioce all about the new Mabuhay Gardens. Joanna is booking monthly shows in the new legendary North Beach punk venue through the end of the year. Get tickets for the Oct. 3, 2025, Mabuhay Gardens show featuring Kelley Stoltz, White Lightning (PDX), and The Boars at EventBrite. We recorded this podcast at Vesuvio Café in September 2025.

Send us a textThis week, Wes and Todd sit down with Photographer and Anti-Curator, Richard Alden Peterson. Richard discusses his introduction to photography, growing up in Santee California, writing for “The Door” and being the editor of his high school paper, shooting renowned bands for the local rock station at fifteen, GO newspaper, Illusion Light Show, art activism, art in society, being attracted to all things counterculture, Mabuhay Gardens, the early San Francisco punk scene, Search & Destroy, Bruce Conner, Val Vale, City Lights bookstore, Dada & Surrealism, Victoria's Secret & Xandria, commercial work, the evolution of the scene, Beatniks, Pink & Pearl Gallery, the diversity of the punk scene, Devo, what prompted him to move to Colorado, museum work, taxes, the formation of the Denver Tea Party, Heads of Hydra, protesting, and being an Anti-Curator.Join us for a compelling conversation with Richard Alden Peterson!Check out Richard's website at www.richardaldenpeterson.comFollow Richard on social media:Instagram - www.instagram.com/rpphoto/ - @rpphotoFacebook - www.facebook.com/rpphotoFollow us on Instagram: @tenetpodcast - www.instagram.com/tenetpodcast/ @wesbrn - www.instagram.com/wesbrn/ @toddpiersonphotography - www.instagram.com/toddpiersonphotography/ Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/TenetPodcast/ Email us at todd@toddpierson.com If you enjoyed this episode or any of our previous episodes, please consider taking a moment and leaving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening!

On his mom's side, Woody LaBounty's San Francisco roots go back to 1850. In Part 1, get to know Woody, who, today, is the president and CEO of SF Heritage. But he's so, so much more than that. He begins by tracing his lineage back to the early days of the Gold Rush. His maternal great-great-great-grandfather arrived here mid-Nineteenth Century. Woody even knows what ship he was on and the exact day that it arrived in the recently christened city of San Francisco. On Woody's dad's side, the roots are about 100 years younger than that. His father grew up in Fort Worth, Texas (like I did). His dad's mom was single and fell on hard times in Texas. She came to San Francisco, where she had a step-brother. Woody's parents met at the Donut Bowl at 10th Avenue and Geary Boulevard (where Boudin Bakery is today). Donut Bowl was a combination donut shop/hot dog joint. At the time the two met, his dad worked as a cook there and his mom was in high school. His mom and her friends went to nearby Washington High and would hang out at the donut shop after school. The next year or so, his parents had their first kid—Woody. They came from different sides of the track, as it were. Woody's mom's family wasn't crazy about her dating his working-class dad, who didn't finish high school. But once his mom became pregnant with Woody, everything changed. The couple had two more sons after Woody. One of his brothers played for the 49ers in the Nineties and lives in Oregon today. His other brother works with underserved high school kids in New Jersey, helping them get into college. Woody shares some impressions of his first 10 years or so of life by describing The City in the mid-Seventies. Yes, kids played in the streets and rode Muni to Candlestick Park and The Tenderloin to go bowling. It was also the era of Patty Hearst and the SLA, Jonestown, and the Moscone/Milk murders. But for 10-year-old Woody, it was home. It felt safe, like a village. Because I'm a dork, I ask Woody to share his memories of when Star Wars came out. Obliging me, he goes on a sidebar about how the cinematic phenomenon came into his world in San Francisco. He did, in fact, see Star Wars in its first run at the Coronet. He attended Sacred Heart on Cathedral Hill when it was an all-boys high school. He grew up Catholic, although you didn't have to be to go to one of SF's three Catholic boys' high schools. Woody describes, in broad terms, the types of families that sent their boys to the three schools. Sacred Heart was generally for kids of working-class folks. After school, if they didn't take Muni back home to the Richmond District, Woody and his friends might head over to Fisherman's Wharf to play early era video games. Or, most likely, they'd head over to any number of high schools to talk to girls. Because parental supervision was lacking, let's say, Woody and his buddies also frequently went to several 18+ and 21+ spots. The I-Beam in the Haight, The Triangle in the Marina, The Pierce Street Annex, Enrico's in North Beach, Mabuhay Gardens. There, he saw bands like The Tubes and The Dead Kennedy's, although punk wasn't really his thing. Woody was more into jazz, RnB, and late-disco. We chat a little about café culture in San Francisco, something that didn't really exist until the Eighties. To this day, Woody still spends his Friday mornings at Simple Pleasures Cafe. And we end Part 1 with Woody's brief time at UC Berkeley (one year) and the real reason he even bothered to try college. Check back next week for Part 2 with Woody LaBounty. And this Thursday, look for a bonus episode all about We Players and their upcoming production of Macbeth at Fort Point. We recorded this episode in Mountain Lake Park in March 2025. Photography by Jeff Hunt

Interview with Kevin Shields Of Detention. Detention was one of the first and best bands of the ‘80s New Jersey hardcore punk explosion. Their wonderfully tasteless “Dead Rock 'n Rollers” single became the college radio cult classic of 1983. The song's 97 seconds of primal Ramones-style speed-punk mocked the demise of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Keith Moon, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious, John Belushi, and John Bonham — who “played the drug game and couldn't maintain.” They even foretold the drug-related heart attack of Jim Carroll, famous for “All The People Who Died,” screaming, “What are you waiting for? Do it!” Saving the best for last, “Dead Rock 'n Rollers” raised the obvious question: “Why couldn't it be Barry Manilow?” The Detention story goes back to Central Jersey, to the Shields family home in Hillsborough Township, about 20 minutes from the “culture capital” of New Brunswick. Kevin Shields, the fourth of five sons, grew up listening to his older brothers' sophisticated record collection of hippie music that ranged from Blue Cheer to King Crimson. Kevin recalls: “Early on, I knew that rock ‘n roll was something special. I was fascinated.”  “I enlisted in the Coast Guard when I was 17. I was out on my own. I was always a music guy and realized music was getting stale with Genesis and whatnot. I read all the magazines, and the ads in the back, so I sent money to these labels, and came home with albums like Never Mind the Bollocks and Rocket to Russia, and singles by the Slickee Boys and MX-80 Sound. But the coup d'grace was when we stationed in Alameda and I went wild in San Francisco. I went to the Mabuhay Gardens like three nights a week, seeing all the legendary West Coast bands: DKs, DOA, Black Flag. I got thrashed on the education of seeing live bands.”   When Kevin returned home in 1981, he was inspired to make music. “Detention came about because I decided to be a player not a spectator,” he explains. “The easiest way was to recruit my family, so I turned to my brothers. I bought a bass, but I didn't know how to play it. My brother Paul suggested I get in touch with this guitarist Rodney Matejek. He showed me how to play simply, and within months we started coming up with riffs, and what would become songs came very quickly.”  The band — Kevin, Rodney, frontman Paul Shields, and drummer Daniel Shields — played their first show at Raritan Manor on the Somerville Circle, hosted by a young Matt Pinfield in his first radio DJ gig at WRSU (Rutgers). It was a noisy and chaotic affair, with people rolling on the floor — until police arrived and stopped the mayhem. “We were given 100 bucks, and we promised never to play there again,” Kevin says with a grin.  Kevin offers some backstory: “Rob Roth, god bless his pointed head, he had a vision. He got us into the studio in Roselle Park, and he paid for it. All we had to do was get good recordings of the two songs, including the B-side “El Salvador.” It came out great. My brother Paul certainly had the lungs for the job! Those 500 copies got us gigs and got us a lot of notice.” In 1985, Detention released a self-produced self-titled album before disbanding. Kevin's Info https://www.leftfordeadrecords.com dead-rock-n-rollers    

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 46! Punk Rock was most popular in the mid- to late-1970s through the middle of the 1980s. Although it hit its peak for only about a decade, it captured the public's imagination in that time with it's anti-establishment, in-your-face, DIY style. The bands didn't achieve success on their own though. Asian American clubs on the West Coast were a huge reason for the growth of the Punk Rock scene.  In this episode, we talk about three of the most influential clubs in California to give punk rock bands a chance: Madame Wong's and Cathay de Grande in Los Angeles as well as Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco. These clubs and their owners… Esther Wong, Ruby Chou, and Ness Aquino… all transformed their restaurants into clubs that served up culture-rich food and hardcore punk. We open the episode by talking about the LA Dodgers win and our memories of punk rock music. In our recurring segment we bring back the API Guide to the NHL where we talk about the National Hockey League players of Asian Pacific descent so listeners who to root for. If you like what we do, please share, follow, and like us in your podcast directory of choice or on Instagram @AAHistory101. For previous episodes and resources, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or social media links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com. Segments 00:25 Dodgers Win the World Series and Talking Punk Rock 05:51 The History of Asian American Clubs and the Punk Rock and New Wave Scenes 25:54 The API Guide to the NHL 24-25 Edition

Aaron Peskin is incredibly easy to talk with. And his life story is one you have to hear to believe. In this podcast, Episode 1 of Season 7 of Storied: San Francisco, the multi-term D3 supervisor-slash-president of the Board of Supervisors-slash-current candidate for mayor of San Francisco shares his story, beginning with the tales of his parents and their families' migration to the United States. On Aaron's mom's side, the story goes back to Russia. His maternal grandfather was one of five boys born to a Jewish family in Saint Petersburg. Two of the boys stayed in Russia, one came to San Francisco, and the other two migrated across Russia amid revolutionary upheaval there to the Mediterranean and later, to Haifa in Palestine. Aaron's grandfather ended up in Tel Aviv. His mom was born there in 1940, when it was still Palestine. She migrated to the US in 1963 to visit her sister, who taught at a temple in Oakland. Aaron's mom ended up meeting his dad on that fateful trip, and the two were married five weeks later. On his dad's side, his grandparents came to the US from Poland before the Nazi invasion in 1939, arriving in New York City where they ran a candy store. Aaron's dad went to City College of New York, where he graduated and got into UC Berkeley grad school for psychology. On his bus ride west, though, the elder Peskin got drafted to serve the US Army in its war in Korea. After service, he finished his doctorate at Berkeley and got a job teaching at SF State, where he stayed for 40 years until he retired. Aaron goes on a sidebar about running into many of his dad's students from over the years, something that happens to him up to this day. His parents settled in Berkeley shortly after they got married, in 1963. They had Aaron in 1964. As a kid, in the 1970s, he remembers some of the goings on at SF State, when student-led protests and sit-ins were happening and the Ethnic Studies was founded. Back in the East Bay, Aaron attended the first fully integrated public school class in Berkeley. One of his classmates, from kindergarten through third, was none other than Kamala Harris. (See photos in the episode post on our website!) Aaron's younger brother is a professor at Arizona State University. Both his parents ended up in higher education. He calls himself the "black sheep" of his family in this regard, as he "only" ended up with a bachelor's degree. Both parents were also therapists, something they carried on amid their academic careers. Growing up in the 1970s, the family spent significant time in The City, coming over as often as possible from their home in Berkeley. Aaron rattles off a litany of activities his parents engaged him and his brother in when they were young. He says that his time in high school in the East Bay was idyllic. He went to Berkeley High, still the only high school in that city. He fell in with a group of four other boys who took weekend hiking and backpacking trips as much as possible. Also around this time, in his later teen/high school years, Aaron popped over to San Francisco to do things like see kung-fu movies in Chinatown or go to The Keystone to see The Cure and punk bands. He saw The Greg Kihn Band, Talking Heads, and other legendary groups at places like the Greek Theater and Mabuhay Gardens. He graduated Berkeley High in 1982, though he and a handful of friends got out a semester earlier than everyone else. They packed up a van, the five of them, and drove around the Western United States and Canada for 100 days. They ended their trip spending the night in the van in the Berkeley High parking lot. The friend group then scattered, predictably, with Aaron and a couple others heading down to UC Santa Cruz. In his freshman year, he and a friend took the spring semester off and rode their bikes from California to North Carolina and up to Washington, DC, as you do. Santa Cruz was different enough from home, but not too far away. The school provided a challenging academic environment for him, also. He ended up studying animal behavior, specifically the northern elephant seal. Through that program, he lived with a team in experimental housing on Año Nuevo Island off the San Mateo coast doing research. But physical chemistry precluded Aaron from going for a marine biology degree. He instead got into a liberal arts program called "Modern Society and Social Thought." While he was going to school in Santa Cruz, he experienced his first political awakening. Aaron was involved in the effort to make the banana slug become the school's official mascot. The student government wanted the slug, but the chancellor wanted the elephant seal. Aaron had the idea of putting the decision to a vote of the student body. They put ballot boxes all over campus, and the slug won overwhelmingly. But the chancellor rejected the results. News articles helped the students' cause, and they won in the end. During his college years, he travelled to Asia on money he'd saved from a job at a photo store. Neighbors in Berkeley had climbed the Himalayas several times, and it had an effect on Aaron. He and some friends went and travelled over parts of South Asia to do some climbing themselves. He was gone for a year and four months. Upon his return to the US, still working toward getting his bachelor's, Aaron ran into trouble getting student housing. And so he set up a tent in the woods above campus, slept there, went to class during the day, and then did it all again the next day. Check back next week for Part 2 and Aaron's life after college. Photography by Jeff Hunt We recorded this podcast at Aaron Peskin for Mayor HQ on Market Street in July 2024.

From the Bay Area to the Central Valley to the Redwood Forest, this punk rock was made for you and me. Since the late '70s, Northern California has been a hotbed of punk rock activity. San Francisco sat at the epicentre of the first wave, with bands like Crime, Dead Kennedys, Avengers, Chrome, The Mutants, and The Nuns bringing the house down at the legendary Mabuhay Gardens. East Bay bands like Green Day, Operation Ivy, Rancid, and The Mr. T Experience ruled the punk revival of the late '80s and beyond. But, all over the northern part of California, great bands sprouted up in cities like Stockton, Santa Cruz, Davis, and Fulton. This week, we'll cover some of the great punk singles from the area, from familiar favorites to obscure treasures. What better Third Lad for this assignment than Northern California alternative music legend Jeffrey Clark?!? Jeffrey got his start as the singer/songwriter in early '80s Stockton garage/psych/synth combo The Torn Boys, whose recordings were recently released by Independent Project Records as 1983. Following the demise of the band, Jeffrey departed for LA with Torn Boys bandmade Grant-Lee Phillips (later of Grant Lee Buffalo fame) and formed the moody, mystical, marvelous Shiva Burlesque, who released two LPs - their eponymous debut in 1987 and Mercury Blues in 1990. Jeffrey subsequently released two cinematic, gorgeous solo records - Sheer Golden Hooks in 1996 and If Is in 2009. But wait, there's more: This renaissance man also founded one of the most acclaimed film festivals in North America, the Nevada City Film Festival; he revitalized the legendary Independent Project Records with label founder/Savage Republic guitarist Bruce Licher; and, he co-produced the documentary Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young & Pavement. Oh, and did we mention that he's practically a member of the Wu-Tang Clan?? Speaking of Louder Than You Think, you may recall our recent episode where we chatted with director Jed I. Rosenberg and co-producer Brian Thalken. We made sure to chat with Jeffrey about the film as well, so stay tuned for a separate mini-episode on Thursday for more of our discussion! Special thanks to Paul Richison for the amazing guest suggestion, and to Josh Mills from It's Alive! Media for the incredible coordination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1980 I started hitting the San Francisco Bay Area rock clubs nightly. The Stone , Old Waldorf , Mabuhay Gardens, Uncle Charlie's, The Phoenix Theater , Keystone Berkeley, Cotati Cabaret. I had a huge thirst for Rock n Roll.    Of course the big bands like Van Halen ,AC/DC , Judas Priest and Ted Nugent would come through town but that was like once a year so you had to find something more out there and that something was a blossoming local rock scene and the early kings of that scene was a band called Roadrunner.  This band absolutely crushed it live and it seemed like over night they were selling out every club in the Bay. By 1985 the band was done.  I will Never forget those days and especially my guest today lead singer of Roadrunner James Hume.  I learned all of my early rock n roll lessons from this band.  I don't think I've talked to James since 1985 so it was an honor to catch up with him and really hear his story.  You may not of heard of Roadrunner but I guarantee you will love the stories. From Metallica opening up for them, Dio trying to get them a record deal and the infamous band house "The Cave" Dig in my friends and hear some San Francisco Rock History.    Check out some art by James Hume in this link https://rebelunicorn.shop/collections/jh-canvas  Roadrunner's music can be heard here https://music.apple.com/us/album/teenage-warcry-ep/270227528    Join my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DeanDelray Enjoy tons of Bonus episodes.   My tour dates can be found here https://www.deandelray.com/tourdates    TO get tickets to see me shoot my special click here https://www.tixr.com/groups/thecaverns/events/bill-burr-with-dean-delray-112459    Thank you DDR

From the Bay Area to the Central Valley to the Redwood Forest, this punk rock was made for you and me. Since the late '70s, Northern California has been a hotbed of punk rock activity. San Francisco sat at the epicentre of the first wave, with bands like Crime, Dead Kennedys, Avengers, Chrome, The Mutants, and The Nuns bringing the house down at the legendary Mabuhay Gardens. East Bay bands like Green Day, Operation Ivy, Rancid, and The Mr. T Experience ruled the punk revival of the late '80s and beyond. But, all over the northern part of California, great bands sprouted up in cities like Stockton, Santa Cruz, Davis, and Fulton. This week, we'll cover some of the great punk singles from the area, from familiar favorites to obscure treasures. What better Third Lad for this assignment than Northern California alternative music legend Jeffrey Clark?!? Jeffrey got his start as the singer/songwriter in early '80s Stockton garage/psych/synth combo The Torn Boys, whose recordings were recently released by Independent Project Records as 1983. Following the demise of the band, Jeffrey departed for LA with Torn Boys bandmade Grant-Lee Phillips (later of Grant Lee Buffalo fame) and formed the moody, mystical, marvelous Shiva Burlesque, who released two LPs - their eponymous debut in 1987 and Mercury Blues in 1990. Jeffrey subsequently released two cinematic, gorgeous solo records - Sheer Golden Hooks in 1996 and If Is in 2009. But wait, there's more: This renaissance man also founded one of the most acclaimed film festivals in North America, the Nevada City Film Festival; he revitalized the legendary Independent Project Records with label founder/Savage Republic guitarist Bruce Licher; and, he co-produced the documentary Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young & Pavement. Oh, and did we mention that he's practically a member of the Wu-Tang Clan?? Speaking of Louder Than You Think, you may recall our recent episode where we chatted with director Jed I. Rosenberg and co-producer Brian Thalken. We made sure to chat with Jeffrey about the film as well, so stay tuned for a separate mini-episode on Thursday for more of our discussion! Special thanks to Paul Richison for the amazing guest suggestion, and to Josh Mills from It's Alive! Media for the incredible coordination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Romeo Void were a sneaky important band. First, they were the most successful band to come out of the San Francisco scene of the early 80s and showed that interesting things were happening in that city. They also had a couple of the most provocative hits of the era, "Never Say Never" and "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)" that remain potent today. And frontwoman Debora Iyall represented proudly large women everywhere with her style, intellect, talent and grace. Debora joins us to talk about the band's history, how she coped with being unique, and the new album Romeo Void has coming out on Record Store Day which is a concert from 1980 at the Mabuhay Gardens. She's a icon and we're lucky to hear from her.  www.romeovoid.com www.patreon.com/thehustlepod

Thanks for checking out the Neanderthal Society Podcast. After an extended hiatus, we're finally back and today we're talking to a true Bay Area Hardcore OG… Joey Vela is probably best known as the former frontman of Bay Area Hardcore legends Second Coming as well as Rabid Lassie and Breakaway (in addition to being an extremely talented artist and skater). Over the course of the conversation, we discuss growing up and getting into skateboarding in the 1970's, finding Punk and eventually Hardcore, seeing shows in SF at the Mabuhay Gardens in the 1980's, the early days of Gilman Street, forming Rabid Lassie, playing shows with Operation Ivy, the San Ramon Mosh Crew, Rabid Lassie evolving into Breakaway, Bay Area Hardcore in the early 90's, the origins of Second Coming, meeting the Powerhouse guys, the evolution and eventual breakup of Second Coming, making art, writing graffiti, fatherhood, skating with his son, some exciting upcoming news about Second Coming and much more… Thanks for listening, enjoy the episode and please remember to follow us on Instagram. Hardcore lives.-Nathan neanderthal-society.cominstagram.com/neanderthalsocietyinstagram.com/neanderthalsocietypresents depop.com/neanderthalsociety 

Originally a Filipino restaurant and music club, The Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco's North Beach transformed into a mecca for Bay Area punk and New Wave bands in the 1970s and 80s. The Avengers, the Nuns, The Dead Kennedys, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, The Tubes, and so many others performed regularly at the club on Broadway. As the original Mabuhay Gardens, which featured Filipino celebrities and musical acts, fell on hard times, promoter Dirk Dirksen convinced club owner Ness Aquino to let him book bands on Monday and Tuesday nights. Soon the nights expanded and the club was packing in a growing young punk rock audience. Dirkson, the “Pope of Punk“ was the abrasive MC, whose insults baited the audience to heighten the energy of the club. He lured in big names like Nico, The Dead Boys, Patti Smith, the Runaways and connected the Mabuhay Gardens with the English punk scene helping to spread punk rock globally. “To play, you need a place – be it where you live, the street, a venue.  For unrestricted play, you need an unrestricted playground.  Dirk Dirksen envisioned The Fab Mab just as such a playground.  Without him and The Mab, there might not have been the great punk scene in the late 1970s in San Francisco.  The San Francisco punk scene was fun.  I miss it.  But as Iggy Pop said, ‘Let's Sing.'”                                                                                                     — Mindy Bagdon Special thanks to Denise Demise Dunne, Liz Keim, Penelope Houston, Ron Greco, John Seabury, V Vale, Janet Clyde, and Kathy Peck. The archival interview with Dirk Dirksen is from Vale's RE/Search Conversations 13. We would like to dedicate this story to Mindy Bagdon (1934-2022), who brought warmth and kindness to every community he touched throughout his many years in San Francisco.   Produced by Brandi Howell with production support from Mary Franklin Harvin.

In the mid-90s, comedian Margaret Cho had a sitcom deal with ABC. She wanted to call it "The Margaret Cho Show" and to have Skankin' Pickle to write its theme song. But, the network wanted it to be called "All-American Girl," and they weren't keen on having a ska-punk band write its theme song. Skankin' Pickle singer/saxophonist Mike Park had already written the delightfully catchy song, "It's Margaret Cho." Since it wouldn't be playing on TV, he included it on Skankin' Pickle's third studio album, Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle. Margaret was friends with Mike and other members of the band. She showed up at Pickle shows and danced on the side of the stage whenever she could. But her love for ska and punk goes back to the 80s. These shows were a big part of her development as a person. She saw several amazing bands like Operation Ivy and Fishbone, who she says are her all time favorite band. She even wore a Fishbone shirt for the interview!On this episode, Margaret tells us about her friendship with the Skankin' Pickle. She also discusses the iconic bay area venues that meant a lot to her growing up, like Gilman, The Farm, and Mabuhay Gardens. She even tells us about the wildest show she ever attended.  But it turns out, it was a comedy show where a comedian casually drink his own piss and told corny jokes.  Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/indefenseofska)

The story of a small Filipino nightclub that transformed into one of San Francisco's most influential punk venues.   "To play, you need a place – be it where you live, the street, a venue.  For unrestricted play, you need an unrestricted playground.  Dirk Dirksen envisioned The Fab Mab just as such a playground.  Without him and The Mab, there might not have been the great punk scene in the late 1970s in San Francisco.  The San Francisco punk scene was fun.  I miss it.  But as Iggy Pop said, 'Let's Sing.'"                                                                                                     -- Mindy Bagdon Special thanks to Denise Demise Dunne, Liz Keim, Penelope Houston, Ron Greco, John Seabury, V Vale, Janet Clyde, and Kathy Peck.   The archival interview with Dirk Dirksen is from Vale's RE/Search Conversations 13.   Production support from Mary Franklin Harvin.  From Pinoy to Punk: The Rise of The Mabuhay Gardens An Oral History of San Francisco's Early Punk Scene Penelope Houston (PH):  The Mabuhay was not your average rock club. Denise Demise Dunne (DDD):  Here was this little club all of a sudden attracting the energy. Ron Greco (RG):  The Dills, Negative Trend, The Avengers... DDD:  So of course you are going to say, Oh, what is going on over there. PH:  More and more people started coming to town.  The Ramones played there.  Blondie played there.  It just became the punk mecca. RG: When I was real young, I would go by and see this place.  It was there for years. The music itself was nothing really developed yet in the very beginning.  It was just a supper club.  People would do the Mabuhay dance and stuff like that.    DDD:  Dirk was helping Ness with the Amapola show.  Amapola was this Filipino night club singer and she was popular within the Filipino community and had a TV show on Channel 26 and a number of characters from The Mab had performed there.  My name is Denise Demise Dunne.  I was Dirk’s assistant at the very beginning of The Mab. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFxkCuncwU0  V Vale (VV):  Hi, welcome to The Counter Culture Hour.  I’m your host V Vale and I published starting in ‘77 Search and Destroy, the punk publication chronicling the rise of the punk rock cultural revolution.   My guest tonight is Dirk Dirksen, the impresario of The Mabuhay Gardens. LINK:  RE/Search Publications Dirk Dirksen:  We were open for ten years, did 3,600 plus concerts.   VV:  The thing was at the time things were so conservative that no club wanted anything to do with punk rock until Dirk Dirksen showed up and made The Mabuhay Gardens available. DD:  Ness downstairs at The Mabuhay was having a tough go of it, so I came in and said, Look – how about if you give us Monday nights because that is your dark night.  Let me try that and I will guarantee you $175 a night at the bar.  I didn't have $175 at the time, but I figured there are enough people I know that if I say hey, c'mon down and if they each drink two beers, we'll meet the guarantee.  And within a very short time we were grossing more on the Monday than he was grossing on the weekend with name Filipino acts.   Mindy Bagdon (MB):  My name is Mindy Bagdon.  My film's name is "Louder Faster Shorter".  At one point on Mondays, which was a dead period on the Broadway strip, Dirk convinced Ness Aquino who owned the club to let him put on different acts.  Little by little, it went from sort of vaudevillian variety acts to where The Nuns, who were one of the first groups to play there, apparently they went up to Dirk and they found out this venue was available and they said, Well can we put on a show?  And I remember I was walking up Grant Avenue and Vale's then girlfriend was coming down and proceeding me was the drummer for The Nuns and he was handing out flyers.   VV:  My girlfriend who looked like a rocker – I guess I looked like one too, you know with platform shoes and spiked hair and all that junk,

San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock, and a Third-Place Baseball Team with Lincoln Mitchell Special Roundtable Guests: Jennifer Blowdryer and Kenneth Sherrill A wide-ranging conversation touching on San Francisco in the 1970s, George Moscone, Harvey Milk, Dan White, urban America, political campaigns, city government, the San Francisco Giants leaving the city, segregation, diversity, bubbles, Dianne Feinstein, Jello Biafra, the Dead Kennedys, the punk rock scene, Joe Dirt, East Bay Ray, David Peel, the 1978 Giants, being a gay elected official in the 1970s, and Reggie Jackson’s role in reforming the judiciary.   Lincoln Mitchell is an adjunct associate professor of Political Science at Columbia University, where he also serves as an associate scholar in the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.  He has authored many books on the former Soviet states, democracy, and baseball, including Baseball Goes West: How the Giants and Dodgers Shaped the Major Leagues and Will Big League Baseball Survive.  He has also written extensively about San Francisco’s history in Instant City, Roads and Kingdoms, Parts Unknown and the New York Observer. Jennifer Blowdryer got her name from singing in The Blowdryer in 1978.  They played in San Francisco at the Mabuhay Gardens and The Deaf Club.  She published her first book, Modern English, a photo-illustrated trendy slang dictionary with Last Gasp in 1984, and moved to New York City the same year on a fellowship to the Columbia Writing Division.  She just finished a new album called She’s Got The Weirdness, and her next book is slated for Spring 2020, with Pedestrian Press, working title of The 86ed Project. Kenneth Sherrill is Professor Emeritus at Hunter College and the City University of New York graduate school.  In 1977, he became the first openly gay elected official in New York.  He is the author of Power, Policy and Participation, as well as Gays and the Military.  His current book in progress, Identity and Consciousness in LGBT Political Behavior, is expected to be completed next year.  Ken is also the author of articles, papers and reviews in various scholarly journals.   Thanks to our delectable sponsors: Sauce Pizzeria and St. Marks Wine & Liquor   San Francisco Year Zero.  Listen in...  

Todd Barry, The Devil & Daniel Johnston, Crime, Beatlemania, New College, Mabuhay Gardens, original SF punk scene, Wild Strawberries, J.T. LeRoy, and much more...

Oliva and Fred Competente share stories of the Mabuhay Gardens, the legendary San Francisco nightclub that helped usher in the Punk scene in the west coast. The Mabuhay Gardens hosted legendary punk bands including the Ramones, Blondie, the Dead Kennedys at the height of that scene. We also discuss the life and times of Ness Aquino, who co promoted those punk shows at the famed Mabuhay Gardens. 

This is the second part of our discussion with Prof. Dan Gonzales. We discuss the various music genres that influence the Filipino American community including the Fillmore jazz scene, the rise of punk music in the Mabuhay Gardens and the resurgence of hip hop.

"No risk, no reward". that's what, stunt man, Evel Kneivel, was fond of repeating while consuming his meals through a straw. In April of 2017 the Lousy Podcast followed in the footsteps of Evel by embarking on a five week stint at the Fame venue on Broadway in SF...Drink up! In lieu of excitement, there was a scent of never-properly-mopped up beer in the air as SK and Pete made preparations for this, the 1st of 5, live recordings at the former Mabuhay Gardens - a popular punk venue in the 70's, 80's and one weekend in 2012 when hipsters' favorite cupcake bar, Shipwright & Cheese, underwent renovations to convert into a dub step falafel disco. Not unlike any number of Geraldo's news specials, the show was poised to be a great success. After an inadvisable attempt at an opening monologue, SK introduced Pete and the rest of his guests: Architect and Telegraph Hill expert, Joe Butler and returning friend of the show, and SF comic, Andrew Holmgren...all seems fine so far. But during the updates portion of the show, somehow things went South (or perhaps more accurately, North). Pete discovered a Throng member from the great state of Alaska and things began to unravel. Were it not for the crowd's (The term crowd here is being used with an expired poetic license) collective disdain for Ruby Sky we might have ended things right then and there. Enter Joe Butler. A virtual dusty encyclopedia of San Francisco knowledge. If SK and Pete hadn't interrupted the man at every third sentence he might have been able to save things but such are the dreams of Parrots and Men. To Joe's credit he did manage to get in some interesting stories about the early adopted Telegraph Hill semaphore, Layman's Castle for the people, how the ground was pulled out from under the Gray Brothers, Bill Bailey's cottage and how he didn't come home, Pasquale's blue ball,  the beat generation and the, not-to-be-outdone, CIA trip. Babette in Squidges role as producer and sound engineer as well as a very funny set by Andrew Holmgren made it look, for a second, that we'd clear the last bus but here we are...back in traction.

Mabuhay impresario Dirk Dirksen goes deeper into the types of performance art, including comedic acts, that were "allowed" to play at the Mabuhay. Part 2 of 2. (Interview from 2004, two years before Dirk died, Nov 20, 2006.)

Dirk Dirksen was the entrepreneur and impresario of Mabuhay Gardens Punk Club in San Francisco. Here he talks about booking the club, the range of performances, and counterculture movements, punk and otherwise. Part 1 of 2.

We speak to author Patrick O’Neil – Gun Needle Spoon. This memoir follows a punk rock pioneer on his slide into drug abuse and life as an armed robber, all the way through life in recovery and what it’s like to look back on those times, knowing all the while that he is still under the threat of three strikes, a twenty-five-to-life prison sentence waiting. He has no choice but to deal with it all drug free. During punk rock’s heyday, Patrick O’Neil worked at the San Francisco’s legendary Mabuhay Gardens. He went on to become the road manager for Dead Kennedys and Flipper, as well as T.S.O.L. and the Subhumans. He holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. http://patrick-oneil.com/gun-needle-spoon/

Steve Ricablana is well known as the bass player for the seminal San Francisco punk band VKTMS. The band formed in 1978, and no other band played the fabulous Mabuhay Gardens more than the VKTMS, but after a stalled attempt to get on a record label in the early 80’s, the VKTMS split up and […]

MLR talks with John Binkov, best known as the guitarist for the seminal punk rock band, VKTMS. John reminisces about the early days of the San Francisco punk rock scene, recalls life at the legendary rock club Mabuhay Gardens, discusses his band’s resurgence in the mid 90’s, and talks about his current bands the D’Jelly […]