924 Gilman Street

But then they, you know, After hanging out with them, I learned self-defense things that I've never had to use, ever.

But the mindset behind it... helped me understand the danger involved and a lot of that came from the I don't know if you know any history about like Oakland Bay Area in the 80s there's a film that came out oh god like a year ago Pedro Pascal's in it and it's like it's like this horror movie horror comedy thing but it's based on true events like with with um different music scenes like the punk scene and the hip-hop scene in the 80s um I'll find it and anyways there's a whole scene about the 924 Gilman which is the punk palace in Berkeley and that's like that's where Green Day came out of and Rancid and Operation Ivy and and it still exists to this day my friend co-founded it and they actually portrayed him in the film um and there was a historical event where these Nazi skinheads would try to uh invade the punk house and they had to learn how to fight back and so they actually portray the famous fight that had happened um uh in the 80s.

So it was, it was kind of like a mini Stonewall, if you will, but it was hunks versus Nazis.

And so I grew up with these lesbian riot girls who were teaching me about this history and how to defend yourself, even though we were peaceful people, but had to kind of go like, Oh, well, what happens when when these people come in and, and there's, there's a whole like debate that even happens in the film about like Do we fight? Do we not do anything? Do we get our asses kicked? What happens? And it's always kind of a hard debate on what to do.

This is a movie with like four vignettes.

Is this the one that Tim sent us? he sent me i don't know if he sent you yeah oh yeah um it's set in the bay area which is like so nostalgic for me like the opening scene is at 924 gilman which is a legendary punk venue in operation operation ivy's fucking playing in the opening scene okay so and so the first vignette is like punks versus nazis and then like the nazis kind of overrun 924 and it's it's at the actual place like i recognize that i know that is right um yeah and then so they have to fight back that's the whole thing and then there's a story about like a rap battle with too short who's also like a famous

way yeah yeah

and then i can't remember the third the fourth one oh wait the third one is pablo pascal And he's like a fucking, like a, like a bounty hunter or something.

They were one of the last bands on Lookout Records as it was dying a slow death in the late 90s and early 2000s.

And they were from the Bay Area, quintessential punk rock band, hearkening back to the Gilman Street days.

But what really is fascinating about them is their first album, which came out, it's basically like a ska punk record.

And it's like...

know.

He played with Off Ivy for like one show, right? One Gilman Street show.

One show.

And now he's hawking $4,000 amps to me on my Instagram, which I really kind of want, to be honest.

That's not too far from here.

And then, you know, from there, it was like getting into like the Gilman Street thing.

It's like, oh, where these bands come from? Oh, there's this place called Gilman Street.

Oh, that's kind of far away, not too far.

It's like as soon as we were in high school, it's like, you know, we could get our parents to kind of drive us there sometimes.

Tell me about that.

That that's that's really fun to tie in because I was in a punk rock band in the mid 80s in the Bay Area in California and just happened to be in this really at the start of like the Gilman Street scene and this whole really important to me moment of time.

I moved to Utah and I'm going to the same kind of shows, these hardcore punk shows, just small shows.

And you gradually learn who's at these shows.

And I think another thing is, again, you and I coming from independent music and punk, this might feel esoteric, but for us, this was definitely part of that vernacular.

If you were doing a taxonomy of the different iterations of... punk and, you know, in like the nineties, like there, this was definitely part of the ecosystem that these were, you know, like, or if you went down and played a show at like Gilman street in Oakland or something, you know, like this, this was, these people were part of that ecosystem.

They were around.

Yeah.