{"id":20154,"date":"2020-12-28T05:30:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T10:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20154"},"modified":"2020-12-29T09:07:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T14:07:07","slug":"always-comes-back-415-records-and-the-sf-new-wave-scene-part-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/28\/always-comes-back-415-records-and-the-sf-new-wave-scene-part-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Always Comes Back: 415 Records and the SF New Wave Scene (Part 1 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

An edited version of this feature appeared previously as a cover story in SF Weekly. And LATE BREAKING NEWS: My book about 415 Records will be published in 2021<\/strong>. — bk<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the mid- and late \u201960s Howie Klein was a student at Stony Brook University on Long Island, 50 miles outside New York City. But he found himself at Ground Zero of the musical universe: he had established a friendship with a legendary music figure. Klein \u2013 who was in charge of the school\u2019s Student Activities \u2013 regularly received live tapes of emerging Bay Area bands from promoter Bill Graham. Klein established himself as a tastemaker, booking many of those bands to play at Stony Brook even before they had released their debut albums. And though his path would be winding, those activities would eventually lead a decade later to Klein launching a San Francisco-based label that championed the bubbling-under music of a new generation: punk and new wave.<\/p>\n

San Francisco was home to a thriving underground music scene in the late 1970s and early \u201880s. And at the center of that activity was a new, small and independent record label, 415 Records. Spearheaded by Howie Klein, 415 Records \u2013 named after police code for \u201cdisturbing the peace\u201d \u2013 released a number of groundbreaking singles and albums, helping to pave the way for new wave\u2019s larger exposure n the coming years. Liberation Hall Records is reissuing music from the early days of Klein\u2019s label, including titles by The Pop-O-Pies, SVT, The Uptones, The Readymades and more.<\/p>\n

From the Fugs to Punk<\/b>
\nIn the 1960s, Klein established himself as a successful New York City-based concert promoter, working with The Byrds, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Pink Floyd and many others. By 1978 he was in San Francisco, at the vanguard of punk and new wave, heading 415 Records, a label that championed music\u2019s new directions. And while that transition might seem like a major shift, Klein says that it didn\u2019t represent an about-face; far from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a smooth transition,\u201d he insists. \u201cThe Fugs were the first band I ever booked, when I was freshman class president at Stony Brook. They were kind of a bridge between the hippie music of the \u201850s and the psychedelic music of the \u201860s.\u201d Klein was already deeply immersed in the musical underground, and thanks to a friend, he was hip to the emerging sounds coming out of the Bay Area. \u201cBill Graham was sending me tapes from The Fillmore, and I was playing all this psychedelic music that no one had ever heard of \u2013 The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Moby Grape \u2013 even before they had albums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet by the end of that decade, Klein packed it all in and spent several years in Europe and the Far East. When he returned to the States, an old friend insisted he come along to see a new band. \u201cI wound up going, and it was The Ramones who were playing,\u201d Klein says. He immediately perceived a connection between what they were doing and the music counterculture of the \u201860s. \u201cIt was always very different,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cBut it was coming from a similar place.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalls hiring The Doors for a show. \u201cI booked them in the Summer, for $400,\u201d he recalls with a chuckle. \u201cThen they put their record out. And they still played my show for $400, even though they were one of the biggest bands in the country!\u201d<\/p>\n

When vagabonding across Europe, Klein had been essentially broke. \u201cI had been working in a meditation center in Amsterdam, and one of the things that I taught there was darkroom photography as a form of meditation.\u201d On his return to the U.S., he thought of photography as a way to earn a living. He soon relocated to the West Coast.<\/p>\n

Klein started booking the emerging groups at venues on the East coast. \u201cTo me, that was the revolutionary music of the day,\u201d he says. \u201cAll those people were in favor of marijuana use. They were in favor of ending the war in Vietnam, and they all believed very very strongly in equality for all races and the opening up of sexuality. So, that\u2019s what those groups meant to me at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Yet by the end of that decade, he packed it all in and spent several years in Europe and the Far East. When he returned to the States, he ran into an old friend and record company executive, Danny Fields. \u201cHe said, \u2018You\u2019ve got to come to this place; I [work with] a new band, and you\u2019ve got to come.\u2019\u201d But Klein resisted. \u201cI said, \u2018Danny, I\u2019m not into rock music anymore; I\u2019m beyond that.\u2019\u201d He had grown disillusioned with what he saw as a sterile, corporate scene in popular music.<\/p>\n

But Fields wouldn’t take no for an answer, and eventually Klein relented. \u201cI wound up going, and it was The Ramones who were playing.\u201d He immediately perceived a connection between what they were doing and the music counterculture of the \u201860s. \u201cIt was always very different,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cBut it was coming from a similar place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even earlier, Klein had gone with another friend and former classmate \u2013 Sandy Pearlman \u2013 to see what he thought would be an acoustic show. \u201cI went to the basement of a church and saw a guitarist and a piano player,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd this woman was a singing poet named Patti Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n

When vagabonding across Europe, Klein had been essentially broke. \u201cI had been working in a meditation center in Amsterdam, and one of the things that I taught there was darkroom photography as a form of meditation.\u201d On his return to the U.S., he thought of photography as a way to earn a living. He soon relocated to the West Coast.<\/p>\n

Disturbing the Peace<\/b>
\nOnce settled in San Francisco, Klein met Harvey Milk. \u201cHe was running for office, and I soon became his campaign photographer,\u201d Klein recalls. \u201cHarvey fronted me the money to buy darkroom equipment.\u201d Klein set up shop on 16th Street in the Noe Valley neighborhood. Next door was a record store called Aquarius Records, run by Chris Knab. \u201cI went back and forth between the two storefronts all of the time,\u201d Klein says.<\/p>\n

His musical omnivore qualities led Klein to host a program on KSAN-FM. \u201cIt started out as just a one-time thing,\u201d he says. But The Outcastes<\/i> \u2013 the first punk radio show in the country \u2013 quickly found an audience. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t really enough music coming out of New York and London at the time,\u201d Klein explains. \u201cWe would play songs twice in one show!\u201d To fill up the time, Klein started playing music from Bay Area bands.<<\/p>\n

But many of those bands didn\u2019t know anything about the music business; several asked if Klein and Knab could help them release records. \u201cThat\u2019s how 415 Records started,\u201d Klein says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t plan to start a record company, but it started because of the radio show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Klein points out that Chris Knab \u201chad the experience of running a successful record store, and I had the experience of having worked with bands on concerts, and I was a writer.\u201d But their strongest motivator was a shared love of music.<\/p>\n

Launching a record company from scratch takes cash, of course. And neither man had any to spare. \u201cWe did everything by credit,\u201d Klein says. \u201cWe were able to persuade [factories] to let us press our records and to use a recording studio and then pay later. We were very lucky that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as originally envisioned, 415 Records wasn\u2019t a typical capitalistic enterprise. \u201cNeither of us ever imagined that 415 would lead to anything financial,\u201d Klein says. \u201cIt was just kind of a gas, a way to help some of the bands and have some fun. That\u2019s all it ever was for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Klein and Knab both sensed that they were ahead of the curve. \u201cThere was no question about it,\u201d Klein says. \u201cThe major record companies were coming around.\u201d They were interested because 415 was succeeding on a shoestring budget. \u201cThey were making records for $50,000 and selling 5000 of them,\u201d he laughs. \u201cWe were making records for about $5000 and selling 50,000 of them! They wanted to know how we were able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

415 Records\u2019 first signing was The Nuns, featuring a young Alejandro Escovedo. The label released 45 r.p.m. singles by several other Bay Area new wave and punk acts including The Offs, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, and SVT. Liberation Hall\u2019s new reissue series spotlights several of the bands from 415 Records\u2019 early days.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An edited version of this feature appeared previously as a cover story in SF Weekly. And LATE BREAKING NEWS: My book about 415 Records will be published in 2021. — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,62],"tags":[4390,4429,4397,4395,4398,4394,4396],"class_list":["post-20154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-wave","category-rawk","tag-415-records","tag-howie-klein","tag-mutants","tag-pop-o-pies","tag-readymades","tag-svt","tag-uptones","cat-41-id","cat-50-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20154"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20394,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20154\/revisions\/20394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}