The cultural cachet of kids: San Francisco needs a dedicated all-ages space

Looking just across the bay at the Gilman example, though, offers hope that you can run a club without booze — although it isn't easy. Robert Eggplant, a longtime volunteer, says the Berkeley space costs around $4,500 a month to keep open, and that members are constantly re-evaluating ideas, from buying the building to hosting more shows to pay the bills. (Gilman recently became a nonprofit to give it more access to things like grants.) Like Kane, he's supportive of Thrillhouse, but adds that it'll be difficult in San Francisco unless the surrounding community — from the neighbors who complain about noise to the foundations offering the grants — understand that it's in everyone's interest to foster a young creative community in this way.

Stewart says her work with AMP (which, after being based here for almost three years, relocated to Seattle last fall) brought to light other San Francisco–specific challenges. For one, actual building space is an expensive commodity in a big city. The Smell, located in downtown L.A., is a true anomaly because it's thriving in a huge metropolitan area. Another factor is that our young population is generally transitory, and these sorts of cultural centers require long-term commitments. "It's a different feeling than in, say, Seattle, where people are really engaged in that music scene and not moving away all the time," she says. And finally, she adds that San Francisco's long history of political and social rebelliousness often keeps our art and music gatherings direct action events, leaving people unconcerned about going legit until the authorities clamp down. "It's [an attitude] like 'Break the law, get out there and do it for as long as you can, and make a statement about it.' The more risky, the more exciting something is," she says. "I think there's an element of that in every music and art scene, but it's more dominant in San Francisco."

Frederick Noland

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More About

• Shannon Stewart
• Berkeley
• Fred Schrunk
• Jocelyn Kane
• San Francisco Entertainment Commission

That being said, Stewart makes it clear that she's enthusiastic about the idea of San Francisco adding to the more than 125 dedicated all-ages spaces nationwide. And if I haven't made it obvious yet in the course of this column, I am, too. Getting younger generations of musicians and music fans to mix with us geezers is about more than keeping kids away from television or drugs. It's about creating an energetic, unsegregated, and centralized momentum for an independent music scene by and for San Francisco.