Gimme Something Better (35 page)

Tammy Lundy:
January 2, 1984, was the day the Vats burned down. I have a Vats Rat tattoo to commemorate the day.

Marc Dagger:
There was one room downstairs where everybody threw their garbage, like old mattresses and old furniture and crap. Some dude wandered in there and passed out. I guess the guy had a cigarette.

Kurt Brecht:
I was sleeping in the vat right next to the one that caught on fire. I turned the light on and it was all full of smoke. I felt the door, which was a round, hobbit-hole kind of door, made out of wood, and it was real hot. We made the decision to just open up the door and make a run for it.

Bob Noxious:
The walls in the vats were coated in six-inch-thick rubber.

Mark Dagger:
That’s probably what killed the guy, just breathing in that smoke. It was nasty.

Tammy Lundy:
Robbie Cryptcrasher, who used to play with Cause for Alarm, saved my life. He used to wear a gas mask on his belt. It was just punk rock kitsch, but when everyone started choking, he put it on and it worked. Robbie was dragging out his girlfriend Michelle, who was already unconscious. He had to drop her down half a story. I slid down the ladder and landed on Michelle. Then he hooked one arm under each of us and pulled both of us out and kicked the doors open to great cheers.

Marc Dagger:
We threw shows in the parking lot every week while they were destroying the Vats. They had this huge crane up there with a big ball on it. Probably took them two months longer than they planned to tear that building down, because we kept fucking up that crane.

Kriss X:
I heard that there were bodies hidden in the walls when they tore the place down. I wouldn’t doubt it a bit.

Jason Lockwood:
I had some of my favorite experiences in the Vats. There was a lack of structure. Spaces like that don’t exist in the Bay Area anymore. The land is too expensive. We’re too packed in. There’s no no-man’s-land.

Dave Dictor:
When the Mab and On Broadway got too hot, and [Mayor] Feinstein closed down Broadway after the Democratic Convention and all those riots—we had to go into the warehouse districts. The Farm was the perfect place at the perfect time.

Andy Pollack:
The Farm started around 1974 by Jack Wickert and Bonnie Sherk as a big multi-dimensional art project. Back then, it was abandoned buildings. The park next to it was the ruins of an old dairy. It was envisioned as a working farm in the city. We had goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits, and gardens and compost piles. We did tours for kids during the day. There were cows. It was a beautiful vision, actually.

The Mime Troupe did benefits there. We had Make-A-Circus rehearsing there and all these little art groups that put on plays. We did reggae and blues shows, but the punk shows were the most consistently successful.

We weren’t really a club, we were a community center. It was all-ages, we served food. We didn’t have a liquor license, but I’d let people do insane things, like after-hours parties where they sold alcohol to minors. I wasn’t running this thing like a business. I was running it like a spaced-out hippie. So it wasn’t about money. It was about staying open so the kids could see the animals.

Carol DMR:
It was in a pretty shitty part of San Francisco.

Steve DePace:
But you didn’t have to worry about cops kicking you off the sidewalk like on Broadway. And it was a big space. They had a big stage, big room, great P.A. You could fit a lot of people in there.

Andy Pollack:
Our legal capacity was 299 but we would fit close to 1,200 in there.

Steve DePace:
Everybody played there—DOA, Flipper . . .

Andy Pollack:
. . . 7 Seconds, Circle Jerks, Agent Orange, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Verbal Abuse, MDC, RKL, DRI, Polkacide . . .

Nosmo King:
Our drummer got community service for playing those shows.

Adrienne Droogas:
I don’t think that the Farm carded. I don’t think the Farm cared about anything.

Day at the Farm flyer

Kate Knox:
They always had huge all-day shows at the Farm, with 10 to 13 bands.

Andy Pollack:
“Day at the Farm” was 18 bands in one day.

Kate Knox:
And it would get so hot, it would actually rain inside. Because, basically, it was just a big metal building. You were like, ewww, that’s everybody’s sweat raining on me.

Zeke Jak:
It was cold sweat and dirt and manure dripping down on you. When you got home, you were covered in dirt. You would blow your nose for the next three days and your boogers were black. It was so gnarly.

Aaron Cometbus:
I was looking for the bathroom downstairs once, and opened a door to a room full of goats.

Andy Pollack:
We actually dehorned the goats because they would spear people. We had a goose that would attack people, and a killer black rooster called Darth Vader. He finally drew blood from some baby and we had to eat him. There was a certain amount of peril. We also had rats. People would go rat killing. They would take shovels and kill rats and throw them up onto the freeway. A pretty punk rock situation.

The very first show I did as director of the Farm was in 1983, a birthday party for a local guy from the Mission. I was very naive. The guy said, “Don’t worry, I’ll do security at the show.” And two people were shot and killed in front of me.

B. A. Lush:
A lot of the minority groups that hung out in the park thought the punks were gang members, so they would take our presence as a challenge on their turf.

Audra Angeli-Slawson:
We left the Farm once and the car was surrounded by Mexican gang members. It was weird, they let us get in the car and then they came after us. Their pit bulls locked jaws on the tires and they punched through the back windows and were pulling me and Mari Cunningham over the broken glass, like, “We’re gonna fuckin’ rape and kill you!” They beat the shit out of the dude we were with. It was nuts. We fought for our lives and drove off with the car doors swinging open. Fucking crazy shit!

Dean Washington:
Occasionally, you’d see someone stickin’ a needle in a vein behind a bush, or you’d see people pissin’ in bottles, leaving them where any thirsty person might find it. Never pick up a half-full beer off the ground and drink it.

Andy Pollack:
I had this anything-goes attitude. Like, we’re here for the community, do what you want, whatever happens is meant to be. Looking back at it now, maybe it was a lack of ego formation or something.

Oran Canfield:
I could never figure Andy out. He wore cardigans and argyle socks and was a lawyer. It was very weird. There he was running this thing, surrounded by weird punks and hippies and all these people that didn’t fit in anywhere else.

Andy Pollack:
I started doing more shows ’cause we needed to make money. Paul Rat was the main booker and he really knew what would draw.

Dave Chavez:
Paul Rat was a kind soul. He was a guy that was into the scene, wanted to be part of it even though he couldn’t play an instrument. He was older and he had a little bit of money stashed away. He started up CD Records, which did all the
Rat Music for Rat People
comps, some of the better comps of that time. He also was the guy that booked the On Broadway and did the door. So he was a very visible character.

Andy Pollack:
We would just pack ’em in. My theory was, you pack ’em in one side and they come out the other side if it’s too crowded. There were only two toilets. For a thousand people. The guys would pee in the animal yard but, in the downstairs bathroom, people would shoot drugs. Did I know that? No. Did I pay any attention? I didn’t even know people on my staff were shooting drugs.

One time Paul Rat overbooked a show. The Circle Jerks were headlining and we could
not
fit any more people in. There were hundreds of punks on the street and in the park. The riot police lined Potrero Avenue.

Kate Knox:
The Farm used to be like L.A. It would sometimes have three pits. It was just insane.

Chicken John:
The Farm was more violent than anything I’d ever seen. No one was there to have fun. It was a terrible place to enjoy music. The sound system was awful. You had to cross that big field. The first thing I thought was, “There are so many people here, there’s so much money here. They could hire a security person or two.” I found out that there were ten.

Andrew Flurry:
We didn’t always have money to get in. I went with Silke once and she had a bunch of cheap metal bracelets around her wrist that she used to barter with the doorman. I lost her in the crowd almost immediately. It was intense. I loved it but I was a little fucking kid and it was intimidating. I think the band said, “We are the Mentors. You are going to die.” The next time I saw Silke she was sitting on the stage behind the band.

Andy Pollack:
The only time we ever had real violence was with the local kids from the Mission. We had a rap show and people sued us because they got stabbed in the park. In the punk shows, people got their heads split open, but it wasn’t from violence. It was from jumping off the stage and hitting the floor.

Silke Tudor:
Just getting there was an adventure. The approach. Who was in the park? Was it going to be okay? Or was it going to be a fucking hassle? It was like an amusement park ride, but it was real life. And we were the freaks. We were part of it. Part of the excitement, the oddity, the tension, the violence, the sex, the complete abandon. Once you were inside, it was like being swept up in a vortex. All that noise, sweat and smoke. Arms and legs flailing, music blaring, the floor shuddering. You just let yourself go and hoped for the best. Surfed the chaos. I don’t remember much about the shows themselves, just the heart-pounding adrenaline.

Andy Pollack:
By 1987 there were 20 people scattered around. I started putting people all over the place, filling up all the crannies. People were sleeping in the day care center at night, plus we had developed live-work spaces in the back which were kind of legal.

Oran Canfield was part of Make-A-Circus when he moved into the Farm. He was this incredibly talented young juggler, just very personable and beautiful. His dad is that famous author of
Chicken Soup for the Soul
—just the father from hell. I met his mom and she said, “Well, he’s in the circus and we don’t want him to travel back and forth from the East Bay.” It was ridiculous, really. He lived in building C. He had a bed back there somewhere.

Oran Canfield:
I was nine. I was sharing a room with a night nurse, just a normal person who lived there. There was the main building with the stage and the preschool and the kitchen. This guy Bruce lived in a fucking animal cage downstairs—he was always practicing drums. There were weird, dark passageways that led to building C, where I lived, which was a hangar. The other hangar was Mark Pauline’s SRL, Survival Research Laboratories.

Dale Flattum:
There’s always been a strange noise scene here, but one of the things that really influenced us was Survival Research. They were like, “Aww, you play in a band? That’s neat. We build robotic machines and set the freeway on fire.”

Oran Canfield:
These crazy people with mohawks and pink hair, wearing clothes they made, building robots that were destroying each other and shooting fire. It was nuts.

Zeke Jak:
You could sneak into the Farm by scurrying across SRL’s roof and climbing in through an open window. I didn’t make it that far. I got up on the roof and this metal dude saw me and followed me up. I was trying to be as quiet as possible, but he started stomping across Mark Pauline’s roof, being totally obnoxious. I heard Mark and Matt Heckert yelling, “Hey! Hey! Who the hell is up there?” I ducked behind a big metal vent just as they climbed up. They were yelling, “Get the fuck off our roof! Now!” The longhair returned with, “Fuck you!” I couldn’t see it but I heard them hit the guy with a fucking flamethrower. I’m not kidding. I could smell hair and fuel and the dude was fucking screaming as he jumped off the roof. They came out into the park and hosed him with a semi-auto BB gun.

Oran Canfield:
The second year I was in the circus, I decided to sleep in the preschool right underneath the performance space. I couldn’t sleep, so I went upstairs and the place was just jam-packed with every weird punk in San Francisco. I didn’t know what the hell was going on but I loved it. I loved the energy, I liked being away from my mom. There weren’t any fucking rules, no structure. I didn’t have any relationships with other kids, but I was kind of a responsible, little-adult kind of kid. It was a fantasyland.

Andy Pollack:
I wasn’t the only one who cleaned the bathrooms, but I tell my friends nothing will ever upset me after that. We’d be cleaning ’til three or four in the morning and then there’d be an elementary school coming in at nine a.m.