John Colie, Class of 2023, English and History

This flyer displays a calendar of scheduled performances through July and August 1988 for the Gilman Street Project, an all-ages 1980s music collective located in Berkeley, California. Heavily associated with the East Bay punk scene, the Gilman Street Project spawned influential bands such as Green Day and Operation Ivy amidst a scene known at that time for aggressive, driving music and cynical, politically-charged lyrics raging against the complacency of popular society. Accessibility and audience participation were greatly encouraged, with an open mic policy and low prices so those who wanted to attend or perform could actually do so.

The common strain running through Gilman and other punk scenes was the emphasis on a DIY aesthetic, with rough, homemade posters and flyers heralding the latest punk concerts or venues emerging in great numbers. Homemade fanzines also became quite popular within the East Bay scene and elsewhere, with fabled titles such as Cometbus “trying to tap directly into the passion and struggle and adventure of punk” with provocative yet personal columns and stories, as eponymous editor Aaron Cometbus (also the bass player for Crimpshrine, scheduled to play at Gilman on July 16) later wrote. As Kevin Mattson remembers in his book We’re Not Here to Entertain, “xeroxed images ran alongside typewritten commentary or handwritten prose, replete with scratching-outs,” usually made by members of actual bands and clubs themselves.

In keeping with those traditions, the design of this flyer is quite simple, containing no elaborate graphics with the exception of Gilman’s logo and featuring the scheduled bands typed out in capital letters along with the collective’s handwritten address and a reminder of “no violence or alcohol—have a nice day.” However, the cultural significance it possesses is unparalleled, existing now as a record of the bands whose sounds filled that Berkeley music collective. Some remain well-known, while others quickly faded into obscurity; still, all of them came together in this space to contribute to a unique facet of cultural and musical history whose influences still loom large today.

Source

Gilman Street Project Performance Calendar, Gilman Street Project, 1988. Aaron Cometbus Punk and Underground Press Collection, #8107, Box 5, Folder 20, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, ID# RMM08107_1640

https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:20987638

Bibliography

Edge, Brian (ed.) 924 Gilman Street: The Story So Far… San Francisco: Maximum Rocknroll, 2004.

Cometbus, Aaron. Despite Everything: A Cometbus Omnibus. San Francisco: Last Gasp, 2002.

Mattson, Kevin. We’re Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.