Examines the historical, social, and business reasons for the variety of pop musical forms fueled by the San Francisco music scene. Looks at satellite factors to the music such as radio, poster art, nightclubs, and studios. Features individual essays on the more than 100 significant recording bands to have emerged from the Bay Area.

San Francisco’s rich and unique cultural history since its time as a gold rush frontier town has long made it a bastion of forward thinking and freedom of expression. It makes perfect sense, then, that both it and the surrounding Bay Area should prove to be a crucible for some of the most enduring and influential music of the rock and roll era. From the heady days of Haight-Ashbury in the ’60s to today, San Francisco and the Bay Area have provided a distinctive soundtrack to the American experience that has often been confrontational, controversial, enlightening, and always entertaining. Perhaps best known for the '60s psychedelic scene which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, the Steve Miller Band, Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin, the Bay Area's rock and roll history twists and turns like Lombard Street itself. The first wave San Francisco punks wrought the Avengers and Dead Kennedys; punk later gripped the East Bay, giving us Green Day and Rancid. From the folk and blues eras through the chart-topping sounds of Journey and Huey Lewis & the News. The rock equivalent of Manifest Destiny carried wave upon wave of young musicians in search of fame, fortune and the great lost chord to Golden Gate City. San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have collectively produced countless key figures in rock and roll, from musicians to journalists to entrepreneurs. The modern concept of the vast outdoor rock festival took root in and around San Francisco. The Bay Area is also where music history happened to artists from almost everywhere else: San Francisco is where the Beatles played their final concert and the Sex Pistols fell apart; where the Clash recorded much of their second album; where a drug-addled Keith Moon passed out during a concert by the Who only to be replaced behind the drum kit by an eager fan. Rock and roll is baked into the Bay Area’s culture and story to this day. A guide to the places that shaped the local scene and world-famous sound, the Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area will take you to where music makers lived, rocked, performed, recorded, met, broke up, and much, much more.

Rock Climbing the San Francisco Bay Area offers options for multiple ascents in more than 20 areas around the San Francisco Bay. In addition to the nuts and bolts of routes and ratings, information on coffee shops, and brewpubs, and other amenities in each area is included, along with notes on where rock climbers can take their four-footed climbing partners. Photographs, topos, and maps accompany the text.

In San Francisco Year Zero, San Francisco native Lincoln Mitchell deftly weaves together the personal and the political, tracing the city's current state back to three key events that all occurred in 1978: the assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk occurring fewer than two weeks after the massacre of Peoples Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana, the explosion of the city's punk rock scene, and a breakthrough season for the San Francisco Giants.

More than just a new direction in music, punk rock ignited a cultural revolution. Its intense, exciting emergence in the Bay Area is captured in Punk 77. In more than 100 searing, fully-captioned photos -- including early shots of The Damned, The Ramones, Blondie, Nico, and Devo -- the book traces the punk movement in San Francisco from its earliest days through the January 1978 Sex Pistols concert. Interviews and behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the Dils, Penelope Houston, Negative Trend, the Nuns, Dirk Dirksen, V. Vale, and others provide insights and illumination into both the music and the social, political, and economic factors punks rebelled against. While many of these colorful early adopters have died, their influence is still felt in the music of East Bay artists like Green Day and Rancid, and their incendiary thoughts live on in this inspiring, essential historical document -- a counterculture manual for subversion.

"You can't really know the place where you live until you know the shapes and origins of the land around you. To feel truly at home in the Bay Area, read Doris Sloan's intriguing stories of this region's spectacular, quirky landscapes."—Hal Gilliam, author of Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region "This is a fascinating look at some of the world's most complex and engaging geology. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in an understanding of the beautiful landscape and dynamic geology of the Bay Area."—Mel Erskine, geological consultant "This accessible summary of San Francisco Bay Area geology is particularly timely. We are living in an age where we must deal with our impact on our environment and the impact of the environment on us. Earthquake hazards, and to a lesser extent landslide hazards, are well known, but the public also needs to be aware of other important engineering and environmental impacts and geologic resources. This book will allow Bay Area residents to make more intelligent decisions about the geological issues affecting their lives."—John Wakabayashi, geological consultant

" [An] endlessly fascinating and frankly addictive masterpiece of safety-pin journalism." -- Austin Chronicle An oral history of the modern punk-revival's West Coast Birthplace Outside of New York and London, California?s Bay Area claims the oldest continuous punk-rock scene in the world. Gimme Something Better brings this outrageous and influential punk scene to life, from the notorious final performance of the Sex Pistols, to Jello Biafra?s bid for mayor, the rise of Maximum RocknRoll magazine, and the East Bay pop-punk sound that sold millions around the globe. Throngs of punks, including members of the Dead Kennedys, Avengers, Flipper, MDC, Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, and AFI, tell their own stories in this definitive account, from the innovative art-damage of San Francisco?s Fab Mab in North Beach, to the still vibrant all-ages DIY ethos of Berkeley?s Gilman Street. Compiled by longtime Bay Area journalists Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor, Gimme Something Better chronicles more than two decades of punk music, progressive politics, social consciousness, and divine decadence, told by the people who made it happen.

DVD, entitled Wow and flutter, contains recordings of concerts at the festival, held Oct. 1-2. 2004, RPI Playhouse, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.

Harlem of the West reveals a forgotten slice of San Francisco history and the African-American experience on the West Coast: the thriving jazz scene of the Fillmore in the 1940s and 1950s. With archival photographs and oral accounts from the residents and musicians who experienced it, this vividly illustrated tour will delight jazz fans and history aficionados.