Episodios

  • Reem Assil/Reem's California, Part 2 (S6E19)

    Reem Assil/Reem's California, Part 2 (S6E19)
    Jul 16 2024
    Part 2 picks up right where we left off in Part 1, with Reem describing finding the anti-imperialist women's soccer team. Through that, she met her partner, who's now her co-parent. Reem worked in the nonprofit sector until around 2010, when she burned out. She'd moved to Oakland upon her return to the Bay Area, though she was still connected to The City through her work with AROC. She found herself wanting to take care of her community in other ways than what nonprofits were offering. She and her father had been estranged, but after leaving work, she joined him on a trip to the Middle East. The two were joined by Reem's youngest sister on a visit she calls "transformative." Besides gaining insight into who her dad was as a person, she truly discovered and fell in love with the food of her people. She knew right away that she wanted to create that feeling for others. Her Syrian family took note of her interest, and took her to bakeries in that country to get a glimpse of the kitchens after-hours. She returned to the Bay Area wanting to do two things: To combat tropes and negative stereotypes about Arab culture and people, and to do that by creating a sense of hospitality. Those two ideas would eventually form the foundation of what Reem's California does today. But she had to begin somewhere, and so she enrolled in a baking class at Laney College. Out of that class, she got a job with Arizmendi in Emeryville, where she got experience in a co-op and a kitchen. She started forming the idea of what her place would be, and while that came together, she settled on basing it around man’oushe, the street food of her people. Over a number of years and various kitchen and bartending jobs, Reem took as many entrepreneur classes as she could. The last of these was with La Cocina. The program helped steer her toward more practical, lower-cost methods of doing business. And that's where the saj comes into play. It's what Reem uses to make her man'oushe. "It's like an inverted tandoor," she says. An uncle in Lebanon was able to have two custom-made sajes for Reem. They arrived and that's what set it all in motion. They were approved for the 22nd and Bartlett market and the farmer's market at the Ferry Building around the same time. At both locations, they served Arabic tea and played Arabic music, creating that vibe Reem had been seeking. Within 16 months, they had grown from one market to five. Then La Cocina told Reem that it was time to take the operation brick-and-mortar. The first location was in Fruitvale in Oakland in 2017 and lasted a couple of years. Then, after a brief foray into fine-dining, the women owners of Mission Pie asked Reem if she wanted to take over their spot at Mission and 25th. She said yes and started doing the work to get open. And then the pandemic hit. Once the Mission location was able to open, Reem's California did better than a lot of nearby restaurants, partly because the food lends itself to take-out so easily. But for Reem, not being able to share space and that hospitality that was at least as important as the food itself was hard. Still, they found ways to connect with the community. In 2023, they opened a second location in the Ferry Building. They started appearing at Outside Lands a few years ago (and will be there again this year). Reem decided to start transitioning the business to a worker-owned model. Visit Reem's Mission location, 2901 Mission Street, Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and again for dinner from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The Ferry Building location is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Follow them on social media at @ReemsCalifornia and follow Reem herself @reem.assil. Her cookbook, Arabiyya, is available on her website. We end the podcast with Reem's interpretation of this year's theme on Storied: San Francisco—We're all in it. Photography by Jeff Hunt
    Más Menos
    39 m
  • Tosha Stimage and Favianna Rodriguez of Superblooms and Ancestral Futurism (S6 bonus)

    Tosha Stimage and Favianna Rodriguez of Superblooms and Ancestral Futurism (S6 bonus)
    Jul 12 2024
    In 2022, the Presidio Trust asked Favianna Rodriguez to be an activator, as the trust was preparing to open its Tunnel Tops park. Favianna recommended that the folks building the park employ color and visual art to transform the space. They were supportive of her ideas. And with that, Ancestral Futurism was born. Favianna grew up in Oakland next to the 880 freeway, where she still lives today. The area around that major thoroughfare is one of the most polluted corridors in the state. Because she comes from an area subject to what she refers to as "environmental racism," she sought to make a statement in the northwest corner of The City. "Ancestral Futurism" was a phrase that perfectly summed up her goal: "We cannot repair the present until we acknowledge the harm of the past." The land where Spanish colonizers established the Presidio was already inhabited by Native people, of course. Those people lost their land to the Europeans. They were murdered, pushed out, disenfranchised. For Favianna, the space is now one where we can talk about that. Tosha Stimage was born in rural Mississippi. College got her out of The South and to Ohio, where she studied art and design. After graduation, she spent a bit of time in Colorado, where she worked with kids doing art therapy. Then grad school brought her to the Bay Area: She started at CCA in 2012. She's been an artist since she was a kid, and that didn't change after grad school. One of the ways that art manifests for Tosha is in flower arranging. She had a shop in Oakland, but was forced out by gentrification. Now, she's got her shop, Saint Flora, back open for business in The City as part of SF's Vacant to Vibrant program. After the unveiling of Ancestral Futurism, Favianna and others realized that they needed to make it an annual event and bring in other artists. They also decided that it was important to honor native plants and animals along with the native humans of the area. For this year's iteration, Favianna invited Tosha to add her own interpretation to the ongoing project. After she was selected, Tosha started visiting the park, meeting people, and doing her homework. She began to notice the intention and care that went into plant programs already going in the Presidio. Right away, she felt it was something she wanted to be part of. Tosha gave her contribution the name "Superblooms" in part to honor that natural phenomenon. It also speaks to the resilience of the plants she chose to include in her art—checker bloom, Chilean strawberry, and California poppy. All are beautiful, of course, but they all have histories in the Bay Area. This Sunday, July 14, from 12 to 3 p.m., Tunnel Tops will host a launch party for Tosha's Superblooms. Activities that day include: an art unveiling with Tosha, hands-on art activities for all ages, a living floral Installation, free plant starters, DJ sets, and a show and tell with the Presidio Nursery. Attendance is free. For more info, visit the Presidio Trust site. We recorded this podcast at Tunnel Tops park in June 2024. Photography by Felipe Romero
    Más Menos
    28 m
  • Reem Assil/Reem's California, Part 1 (S6E19)

    Reem Assil/Reem's California, Part 1 (S6E19)
    Jul 9 2024
    Reem Assil has created a restaurant in the Mission that serves some of the most beautiful, delicious, and activist food of any new spot in San Francisco in a long, long time. Reem was born and raised in her early years in a Boston suburb. Her dad is from Damascus, Syria, and her mom is from Gaza, Palestine. Both were refugees in 1967. They met in Beirut and emigrated to the East Coast of the US. The suburb where they moved was predominantly white, but Reem's household was vibrant in Arab culture. Her parents didn't want the family to forget their roots. They were in Massachusetts because that's where the jobs were. But Reem's mom's family all came to California, which ended up having quite an effect on her. Her grandparents went to Northridge just before the 1994 earthquake that devastated that area. Reem says that, every summer, relatives from all over the world, including her and her family from out east, converged on her grandparents' home in the San Fernando Valley. She talks about the strength of that Arab culture in her home and among her relatives in California, but also, of reconciling that with the fact that she was a latch-key kid, especially when her mom went back to work. Reem was immersed in US culture, but felt those strong roots of her ancestors. In the late-Eighties and early Nineties, Reem was into Ska and "alternative" music, but also hip-hop. "Growing up Palestinian, you're aware of the world in a different way," she says. She's always had an affinity for justice. She talks about a history teacher she had in high school who had a big influence on her. In that class, she learned much more about the Civil Rights movement than anyone can get from a textbook. She went on several trips with that class, including to the Deep South. Being embedded like that, talking with people who lived the movement, had an enormous effect on Reem. In 1994, she joined her family on a trip to Gaza. She was 11 and the experience "wrecked" her. The stories she heard in the South resonated and reminded her of what she knew about her mom's homeland. Reem is the oldest of three sisters and says that hers was a very feminine household. As a kid and teenager, she had an affinity for cooking and baking. But as she navigated her more formative later teen years, she rejected the idea of women in the kitchen. Food would come back much later in her journey. She had just begun college at Tufts University in 2001 when her parents got divorced and 9/11 happened. She and other Arab folks had always dealt with Islamophobia, but that ramped way, way up after Sept. 11. That and her being the first to leave her house put a strain on her parents' relationship as well as her own life. She rejected the US-centric foreign policy ideas she was hearing and being taught at Tufts. She visited Lebanon and Syria in 2002, and when she returned to the US, she developed what she thought was a parasite. She couldn't eat. That affected her studies and her social life. It all coalesced and devolved into depression, and this further negatively affected her relationship with food. Reem quit college and made her way to California. At first, she considered her grandparents' place in Southern California. But she figured that LA would depress her further. An aunt, a white hippie from Humboldt, and an uncle who was an activist lived in Daly City, though, and felt more her speed. She didn't know much about the Bay Area other than an impression she got earlier in life when she came out for their wedding. They were the main attraction. She arrived in 2002, just as organizing around the then-proposed invasion of Iraq was taking place. Her aunt and uncle worked during the days and went to anti-war meetings at night. Reem went with them, and she cites these experiences as helping raise her out of that funk she'd been in—it lit a fire in the activist part of her life. While all this was going on, she'd also visit farmer's markets with her aunt and uncle. Fresh produce was somewhat foreign to Reem when she was growing up out East. Her relatives cooked a lot, and Reem would join them. It slowly brought the joy of cooking and eating back into her life. She spent a lot of time in the Mission in those days, and even helped found the AROC (Arab Resource and Organizing Center) on Valencia. When she wasn't organizing, Reem was heading north to Mendocino and Humboldt, discovering the natural beauty that surrounds the Bay Area. She went back to Tufts to finish getting her degree, then headed back to Northern California as soon as she could. In 2005, Reem got a job here with an activist group. After doing community organizing, she got into union organizing, eventually working with SFO workers. From there, she got into policy work. She also started playing soccer—with an anti-imperialist team, no less. It was more than just exercise for Reem—the people she played with were her "church." Check back next week for...
    Más Menos
    34 m
  • Rachel Ryan, Honey Mahogany, and Marke B./The Stud Collective, Part 2 (S6E18)

    Rachel Ryan, Honey Mahogany, and Marke B./The Stud Collective, Part 2 (S6E18)
    Jun 25 2024
    In Part 2, we dive into the story of how The Stud Collective pulled out the seemingly impossible—they found a new home in South of Market. After a quick history of the space at 1123 Folsom (a leather bar in the Seventies called The Stables, Julie's Supper Club, a sports bar, a restaurant called Radius, and a vegetarian restaurant called Wellspring Commune that was a front for a cult called The Tribal Thumb, who were affiliated with the Symbionese Liberation Army ... and that space is rumored to have been one of the places that the SLA kept Patty Hearst—oh, San Francisco), Rachel guides us on a tour of the original location of The Stud, which was opened by Alexis Muir (a trans woman) in 1966. Muir ran the OG Stud, also on Folsom west of the current location, for several years. Originally, it was a kinky/leather/cowboy/Western bar. It was the same year, just months before, that the Compton's Cafeteria Riots took place. Just a few years after it opened, The Stud shifted themes to more of a queer hippie bar. But one thing that helped it stand out from the get-go was its inclusivity. The Stud remained in that original spot on Folsom until 1987. After Muir, a group of Milwaukee hippies who were also affiliated with Hamburger Mary's took over ownership. After this group, toward the end of the Seventies, another group took over. In 1987, following a dispute with the landlord, The Stud had to move. They found a spot on Harrison at Ninth that had previously been a nightclub. We fast-forward a bit to revisit Marke, Rachel, and Honey's introductions to The Stud, which all took place at the Harrison location. Keeping with that spirit of inclusivity that had been a hallmark of the place since its opening, they all feel that it was the one place at the time where any segment of the queer population could feel at home. In 2016, over Fourth of July weekend, The Stud's then-owner, Michael McElheney (who'd owned the place since the late-Nineties), announced that he was selling the business. The building it was in had been sold, the new landlords tripled the rent, and McElheney was ready to retire. But, as mentioned in Part 1, Nate Albee already had a plan in place. Within the first week of McElheney's announcement, the fledgling collective presented the plan and it was accepted immediately. The group was already around 20 members strong. Honey and Rachel talk about other SF collectives and worker-owned businesses that they turned to for guidance and inspiration—Rainbow Grocery, Arizmendi, and the now-closed Lusty Lady. Marke says that, from its origin, the collective also wanted to serve as a beacon for how to do this elsewhere in the queer nightlife space. On New Year's Eve 2016, The Stud Collective threw its Grand Opening party. The place never shut down between the previous owner and the collective taking over, but it felt right to celebrate the takeover. Then, a little more than three years later, COVID hit. The rent was already exorbitant and they had decided to try to find another place. Once it became obvious that the shutdown was going to last longer than we all thought, they got out of the lease at the spot on Harrison, and even threw a funeral online. It wasn't an easy decision, but it turned out to be a unanimous one for the collective. The Grand Opening Night at the new location took place this year on April 20 (haha?) and was themed "Stud Timeline." The first hour, which began at 6 p.m., was Sixties, the second hour was the Seventies, and so on. The Cockettes were there. Queer elders showed up. There were also first-timers. It was a big deal, and the night was emotional for them all. I asked them to plug events at The Stud during Pride, and Rachel obliged on behalf of the group: Friday, June 28, "Forever" with (co-op member) Vivian ForevermoreSaturday, June 29, "Les Femmes," a celebration of dolls, twinks, and bimbosSunday, June 30, a "marathon party" with a drag show hosted by Princess Poppy We end Part 2 with Marke, Honey, and Rachel responding to this season's theme on the podcast: We're all in it. We recorded this episode at The Stud in South of Market in June 2024. Photography by Jeff Hunt
    Más Menos
    39 m
  • Marke B., Rachel Ryan, and Honey Mahogany/The Stud Collective, Part 1 (S6E18)

    Marke B., Rachel Ryan, and Honey Mahogany/The Stud Collective, Part 1 (S6E18)
    Jun 18 2024
    I'm super-stoked to do a podcast all about The Stud and folks from the collective who run the place! In Part 1, we start with Marke B. Many longtime listeners will remember Marke from his Season 3 Storied episode. In this go-round, we get a condensed version of his life story and how he made his way to San Francisco. In his hometown of Detroit, Marke threw raves and made enough money on that to put himself through college. Sometime in those four years of school, he realized that his dream of writing for a local newspaper or weekly was damn near impossible. Also, it was the height of AIDS and Detroit didn't have much of an infrastructure around that. His best friend bought two train tickets and told Marke, "Pack your bags, we're leaving for San Francisco tomorrow." That didn't sit well with Marke at the time. He wasn't crazy about SF back then—he hated hippies, hated the Beats. He had visited with his family at 14, when he tried to run away from his parents and take a cable car to the Castro. That, of course, didn't work out so well (try the F-Market trains, kid). Despite his dislike of The City, his desire to get out of Detroit got him on that train. Two-and-a-half days and a couple bags of potato chips later, Marke arrived. It was the day after Pride 1994, and he's been here ever since. He saw a gay scene that was too white and mainstreamy. But he found his people—other people of color, into alternative music—at The End Up. His first time at The Stud was on a Monday hip-hop night. Immediately, he felt he had truly arrived. Years later, in 2016, Rachel Ryan and another co-op member asked Marke and his husband, David, to join their collective. They've both been members since then. Then we turn to Rachel Ryan. Rachel grew up in The City, Noe Valley specifically. Her parents put her in Live Oak School, back when it was located in the Castro. That experience helped to shape Rachel—her kindergarten teacher was young and gay and had bleach-blonde hair. He was an early role model for her. Her liberal family moved to Marin for that oh-so familiar reason: San Francisco became too expensive for them. But her dad's work was headquartered near The Eagle in South of Market, and Rachel spent some time with him in that area when she was young. She thinks back on her time in Marin fondly, from the access to nature to the freedoms her parents were able to grant her. But at the same time, her parents were protective of their daughter—she was free as long as she was with her older brother. Rachel got into swing dancing at a young age. She'd come to The City to go to swing clubs in the Nineties. But once her older brother and his friend graduated high school and went to college, that ended. College for her meant UC Santa Cruz. And after graduating there, she moved back to San Francisco right away. Today, she lives really close to where she grew up. Growing up, Rachel carried bisexual shame. She felt at times that she wasn't gay enough, but also found herself immersed in queer culture through friends. Then, in 2009, a trip to The Stud changed everything. "These are my people," she thought. Years later, Rachel and her people started noticing the closure of more and more queer bars and spaces around The City. Their friends were getting priced out of San Francisco more and more frequently, and they were fed up. The previous owner of The Stud, Michael McElheney, announced that he wanted to retire and sell the bar, and Rachel, Nate Albee, and some other of those friends seized the opportunity. The newly formed Stud Collective took over in 2016. Next up is Honey Mahogany. Honey's parents fled Ethiopia for San Francisco as refugees. She grew up in the Outer Sunset just off Taraval in the Eighties and Nineties. Her parents put her through Catholic school for K–12. It was a rather sheltered, quiet childhood, one where she could walk to aunts' and uncles' houses in the same neighborhood. For college, Honey moved to Los Angeles to attend USC. She came out down there around this time, and became, in her words, "super queer." She started doing drag in LA, in fact. She found her true self in those experiences and being away from home, where she was able to establish her identity apart from her family. But her family still didn't know about her queerness. One of her cousins outed her to her fairly conservative, Catholic parents, who reacted negatively. After she graduated college, they sent her to Ethiopia to "get away from negative influences." While in Africa, she interned for the UN. "I've always been involved in social justice," she says, and the UN was a natural fit ... or so she imagined. And so Honey came back to The Bay to study social work at UC Berkeley. Her dad became ill around this time, and so the move back doubled as a chance to help take care of him. She found social justice work in Contra Costa County, got a spot on Ru Paul's Drag Race, and joined ...
    Más Menos
    29 m
  • Frameline's Allegra Madsen (S6 bonus)

    Frameline's Allegra Madsen (S6 bonus)
    Jun 14 2024
    In this bonus episode, meet and get to know Frameline Film Festival's Executive Director Allegra Madsen. Allegra was born and grew up in southern Virginia. As she says, "It was hot, it was humid, it was Southern." From a young age, she fell in love with movies because it was so hot outside. She'd escape to theaters, where she could bask in the AC and watch movies all day long. She left that area as soon as she could. That meant Chicago for college. She wanted to be a writer. Columbia College in Chicago was known as more of a film school, which meant she was on the periphery of movies in her time there. After college, it was on to Los Angeles, "as everybody does." Allegra worked in some art galleries and museums, with the goal of trying to get to San Francisco always in the back of her mind. As a kid growing up, she read a lot of Beat Generation writers (where were the women of the Beat era?). CCA was the draw that got Allegra up to The Bay. She studied contemporary art curation, focusing on how you can use art to build community. That was 20 years ago, and she's been here ever since. Then our conversation shifts to Frameline and its nearly half-century of history. It is the largest and longest-running queer film festival in the world. It's also the largest film event in California (hear that, LA?). It all began in 1977 on a bedsheet in the Castro. It was a time when there were no prominent images of queer people in media. Frameline 48 will take place all over the Bay Area. Check their website for a complete lineup. Allegra goes through a few of the events that she's excited about. The one I'm perhaps most hyped up for is next week's Juneteenth Frameline kick-off block party. In addition to many other aspects of the evening, the Castro Theatre's blade will be re-lit for the first time since that building underwent renovations. See you all at Frameline 48!

    We recorded this podcast over Zoom in May 2024.

    Image courtesy Frameline
    Más Menos
    26 m
  • Brett Cline/The Lost Church San Francisco, Part 2 (S6E17)

    Brett Cline/The Lost Church San Francisco, Part 2 (S6E17)
    Jun 11 2024
    Part 2 begins with a chat about how, when we were both younger and just arriving in San Francisco, neither Brett nor I had any idea that we'd be here so long. After living on Market, Brett moved back to the Mission, where he's lived ever since. His great aunt passed away and left him some money. It proved to be enough for a down payment on a space on Capp Street just off 16th. 65 Capp Street is the address of the original location of The Lost Church, and happens to be where Brett and his family live today. Then Brett shares the story of meeting his wife, Lost Church co-owner Lizzy. In 1997, he went to Burning Man for his first time, an experience he relates in detail. He went back in 1999 and that's when he met his future wife. Despite her being eight years younger than him, Brett noticed that Lizzy was much more mature than he was. Days after Burning Man, she visited Brett in San Francisco from her home in Sacramento. They eloped in Tahoe two months later and have been together ever since. Lizzy went through quite an adjustment in her new home on Capp Street. Brett then goes on a sidebar about his many musical adventures. He started a band with people he had met in his time at SF State in the Music program. They played out, most regularly at The Rite Spot. But they broke up and Brett got sick. He joined the stagehands' union to get health insurance. It was around this time that he and Lizzy decided to start their own band, this time with the explicit intention to tour. They cut up the Capp Street spot into multiple studio spaces to rent out to others. Lizzy and Brett lived and played music in one of the small spaces they had created. Juanita and the Rabbit was born. And they toured ... for most of the next two years. When they got back, Lizzy and Brett decided to try to have a kid. Around that same time, Brett had been having a not-so-good time with the stagehands' union. Lizzy was working as a stylist for photo shoots, making good money. This all allowed Brett to build out his own theater at the Capp Street space. The plan was to do "ridiculous" rock 'n' roll musicals. Then we get into how they came up with the name "Lost Church," which Brett says isn't as good a story as many people want to hear. Brett had his own record label, was doing sound design for video games, and wanted to get into sound for movies. His website was split into the two halves: half record label, half his sound design work. For that site and to encompass all that he was doing at the time, he had a few names he was kicking around—The Last School, The Lost School, The Last Church, and The Lost Church. He liked them all because of their community vibes. He's never been a religious person, but for him, the idea of church meant more. He settled on "The Lost Church." At first, though, it was just for his own creative endeavors. Visiting his website, you were directed to either "The Lost Church of Light and Sound" or "The Lost Church of Rock 'n' Roll." When he and Lizzy decided to turn their space into a theater, the name was already there. Brett talks about their intentionality of creating a theater-like environment for musicians, one with seats for the audience and the bar in a separate room. Then he shares stories of some of the first performances of the newly minted Lost Church. He says he's not sure how people found him, but shortly after those early shows, musicians started emailing him wanting to play there. (Brian Belknap came in early and Brett hired him to host shows). Then Brett dives into the story of why The Lost Church had to uproot from its original location. They survived for years without permits, mostly because they never envisioned it lasting long. Once the Entertainment Commission visited and pointed out all the shortcomings, they started to realize how much it would take to get the space up to code. By the time COVID hit, Brett and Lizzy had already started thinking about a new spot. They had opened their second location up in Santa Rosa when they were forced to shut both down. Relief money started piling in and they hired their Santa Rosa point person. They also used that money to get the new SF location secured, running, and up to code. It took Brett around nine months to find the new spot. So many criteria went into it that the task became difficult. It took a last-chance, random look at Craigslist to find what became The Lost Church San Francisco on Columbus on the northern edge of North Beach. The doors opened in September 2022 and they've never looked back. We end the podcast with Brett responding to this season's theme—We're all in it. Visit The Lost Church online at their website, thelostchurch.org. Follow them on Instagram @thelostchurchsf Photography by Jeff Hunt
    Más Menos
    38 m
  • Brett Cline/The Lost Church San Francisco, Part 1 (S6E17)

    Brett Cline/The Lost Church San Francisco, Part 1 (S6E17)
    Jun 4 2024
    Brett Cline is, as he puts it, from the "Deep South." But he's such a California kid that by that he means Southern California. In Part 1, get to know Brett, who for the past decade or so has run The Lost Church performing arts theater. His life began in Orange County, where his parents ended up after meeting at UCLA and traveling around the world when his dad was a pilot in the Navy. Brett was heavily into the punk rock scene in SoCal in the Eighties (think bands like Social Distortion and Suicidal Tendencies, among others). But his love of music started in fourth grade when he snuck into the bedroom of an older neighbor kid and found the first record from Oingo Boingo, a band that changed his life. They were his first brush with alternative art, and soon became a defining point of his early personality. He dabbled in the four pillars of life in SoCal: He skateboarded, surfed, listened to punk rock, and ate at Taco Bell. Brett started playing drums in sixth grade and his first band was called High Voltage. He would write lyrics and draw album covers, while his friend Mark made beats on snare drums only. His mom was always a community person. She is a christian, but not a book-burner, as he says. She started a community organization centered around school issues: Citizens Action to Save Education (CASE). She was later school board president and continued to be involved in local politics around school issues. When his Navy service ended, Brett's dad got into the corporate world. He started several aviation companies. Today, Brett sees aspects of both of his parents in the foundation of The Lost Church. As a kid, he often went with his parents to community theaters. Brett's dad plays organ, his mom plays piano, one of his two brothers played clarinet, and his sister went to NYU and became an actor and singer. In high school, Brett started playing more music and always wanted to tour, though that never really worked out. He started playing bass and singing more. In 1989, he graduated high school and went to UC Santa Barbara. His college band, St. Rusticus, had the local record for getting shut down by cops the fastest. "Three songs in, and the cops were there." Going to UCSB introduced Brett to Northern California, partly because the school paired kids from SoCal with kids from NorCal in the dorms. He'd visited SF with his family when he was a kid. It was different from where he's from, but he didn't immediately like it. In college, though, he took trips up here and fell in love. He'd come up, do mushrooms and acid, and listen to older, more-mainstream rock. He got heavily into the Grateful Dead, even touring with them, as many fans do. After college, the plan was to move to SF with his friend Davey Lyle. (Lyle did many of the paintings seen today all around The Lost Church). But in his senior year, Brett got a D in art and learned that the Spanish he took at junior college didn't transfer to the UC. And so he dropped out, got a loan from his parents, bought a computer, scanner, and Photoshop, and started making album covers for local bands. Then his dad got him an internship in London with a graphic arts company and he took it. He saw many shows there but came back after only nine months. And when he came back, he moved immediately to San Francisco. With no job and no prospects, Brett moved in with his friend Davey, who'd already made the move up. They lived in a warehouse in the Mission on 20th near Harrison, then moved to Sixth and Market. It was December 1993. Check back next week for Part 2 and the origin story of The Lost Church. We recorded this podcast at The Lost Church San Francisco in May 2024.
    Más Menos
    41 m