Address 162 Turk Street Opened 1980 | Location San Francisco | |
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The Sound of Music club was a punk music concert venue, located at 162 Turk Street in the Tenderloin area of San Francisco, California, in the early 1980s.
History
Sound of Music was at first a club where (mostly) gay female impersonators performed. By 1980, the proprietor, known only as "Celso," became amenable to trying other genres. Linda Barnhizer and Alan Naldrett, two local promoters who occasionally ran shows at Fort Mason (another venue in the area), successfully convinced Celso that punk music would be a good match for the club. The new genre of punk music was already thriving at a few venues in the city, such as Mabuhay Gardens, which was a Filipino restaurant during the day and had punk bands in the evening. (The Police, Devo, and Blondie were some of the notable bands that made their first Bay Area appearances at Mabuhay Gardens.)
The first punk performance at Sound of Music was in February 1980, with bands The Employees and Freon. Soon punk music took over the venue, with many new up-and-coming bands playing most days of the week. Refreshments consisted of cans of beer sold out of coolers for a dollar.
A few notable bands, such as Flipper, Juvenile Justice and Vicious Circle, played their first gigs ever at Sound of Music. Faith No More and Frightwig were among the other bands who performed frequently here in their early days. Game Theory broke in its San Francisco-based lineup with a pseudonymous debut appearance in May 1985.
The punk scene lasted at Sound of Music for a few years, finally petering out around late 1985.