Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age

by Will York

Late '70s San Francisco. The Summer of Love is a hazy memory, the AIDS crisis is looming, and nearby Silicon Valley is still an obscure place where microchips are made. The City by the Bay is reeling from a string of bizarre tragedies that have earned it a new name: the "kook capital of the world."
Yet out of the darkness comes a creative rebirth, instigated by punk and sustained by the steady influx of outsiders who view the city as a place of refuge, a last resort. What ensues is a collision of sounds and ideas that spans the golden age of analog DIY culture, from the dark cabaret of Tuxedomoon and Factrix, the apocalyptic sounds of Minimal Man and Flipper, the conceptual humor of Gregg Turkington’s Amarillo Records; through to the subversive pop music of Faith No More, the left-field experimentalism of Caroliner, Mr. Bungle, and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, and much more.
Drawing on extensive research―including interviews with over 100 musicians, artists, and other key players―WHO CARES ANYWAY is the first book to chronicle the wild post-punk San Francisco music scene, courtesy of those who lived it. It’s a tale full of existential drama, tragic anti-heroes, dark humor, spectacular failures―and even a few improbable successes.

Genres: Music, Punk, Nonfiction

572 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2023

Reviews

[John Marr · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, the whining. Like anyone else who was around San Francisco in the '80s and '90s, I have my quibbles. I feel York definitely underrates Dead Kennedys in favor of "but my band (sniff) is good too!" detractors. MRR also deserves better. While primarily focused on hardcore, the zine did in its early days cover and/or reviewed many of the bands York discusses. Hell, the first Faith No Man tape even got a thumbs up. The hardcore 24/7 policy didn't kick in until years later. And that Voice Farm is only briefly mentioned and The Units completely ignored while minor Pink Section offshoots get the full treatment is at the very least unbalanced.

But this doesn't significantly detract from what overall is a most excellent book. York expertly blends narration and oral-history style sections to tell the story of post punk in San Francisco from its '70s beginnings with The Sleepers, Negative Trend, and Tuxedo Moon through its '90s fade out in the obscurantism of Caroliner and a welter of Gregg Turkington projects with very few stones left unturned in between. There's plenty here about essential bands like Flipper, the Toiling Midgets, and Faith No More, but not at the expense of many obscure and frequently inscrutable acts moldering on forgotten cassette-only compilations. The 500+ pages may seem daunting, but the top-notch writing makes it go down like a sub for anyone with even a casual interest in noisy music. For more dedicated collectors, this could lead to some serious discogs bills. Thank god I only listen to jazz these days.

Highly recommended.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the early sections. But as we head into the 90s, the book seemed very focused on the Faith No More/Mr Bungle/Brandan Kearney axis, with an occasional swipe at Grux and Caroliner. I know we can all complain about who was included and who was not, but there were bands I liked a lot more, who played more shows and made more records than the more casual side projects covered here.

I didn't see any online resources in the book, but the author's website in his goodreads entry is helpful.

[Pontus Björlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting for any fans of creative arts in general and more specificly popular/alternative music. A great an important documentation of human culture.

[Mason Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book, but a fair amount of that enjoyment is derived from having been here in SF for the second half and knowing a lot of the people involved. It's pretty hard for me to know how much folks less-connected will enjoy it. The book starts in the punk era, but quickly moves on to what passed for "post-punk" in SF, which was the likes of Flipper, Toiling Midgets, etc. Later the book touches on Factrix, Tuxedomoon, Minimal Man, Glorious Din, and Pop-O-Pies, then into the '90s with Thinking Fellers, Caroliner, the Amarillo Records folks, and Faith No More/Mr Bungle. I never felt like the latter were as much a part of the scene as the book shows, which was interesting. I could nitpick about details being left out, of course, particularly the lack of depth about the great connection between the SF and Japanese music scenes in the early '90s. But no book can include everything. The story arc of the book kind of loses steam towards the end, unfortunately, although the result is that it sort of peters out kind of like the scene itself, I suppose. There was a ton of great stuff getting started around the time that the scene documented here was fading, which is probably always the case. If only Mike Rowell were still around to pick up the story in another book. Anyway, a fun read for me, no question, and if you were around the SF music scene anytime between '85-'99 you'll probably enjoy it as well.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We were gonna try to do something," says Gray, "but we were both doing lots of drugs, and things got in the way, as they do. It really didn't go anywhere."

I was getting a keen sense that “Who Cares Anyway” is also described by the above quote, after an ongoing sequence of bands that play a single show, break up, go on to form 2 more bands, someone ODs…

But this “X begat Y, Y begat Z” really does end up going somewhere. First of all, it reveals what’s decomposed into the top soil of a fertile music scene and what San Francisco was like in decades past.

York describes a San Francisco and a world that no longer exists through the eyes and antics of its local opener bands…

…it was the drugs. The drug made the scene possible. And they kept it from going anywhere. Until some bands came along that managed to avoid the IV drug tar pits.

Courtney Love shows up. Faith No More gathers steam. And when it all seems on the verge of taking over or at least seriously denting culture a la Burning Man, the grunge explosion sweeps it all into back burner or footnote status.

But there WAS a lasting impression and cultural transformation that grew out of this scene. It’s subtle but it’s revealed like the vast thin mycorrhizal network of a fungus.

Although I thought-bubbled the book title many times as I read long passages about opening bands that never made it, I have an answer. I do–I care, anyway

[Johnmcdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book—excellent minutiae about the weird SF underground. Learned a lot, remembered a lot. There is an abundance of Flipper and Caroliner, and many connections. Forgot about the great zine culture then , like Snipehunt and Wiring department—not to mention Slash! and Smash!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coherent.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a completist history of the San Francisco art/post/etc punk scene. Two complaints:

1). Again, with oral histories, please provide context for who the people are if you haven’t either introduced them or reintroduced them in the prior paragraph or whatever. I can’t remember who sold speed to who throughout 500 pages

2). Somewhat related, there is way too much time spent on artists who in the overall scheme of things turn out to truly be of mild importance to the overall history while others, like MX-80 or Tuxedomoon, get very little play.

I’m glad the dude wrote the book and he’s passionate about the subject which is important and shines through. But, a good 150 pages are a straight up slog and tend to break up any momentum brought otherwise.

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not a cover to cover read; some parts were interesting but it probably highly depends on one's level of interest in any given band / person. Enjoyed the demystifying passages about Caroliner - they were always a whispered band that if one lived on the opposite Coast you didn't have access to live viewings and pre-Internet could only read about. Similarly about Amarillo. Had not much use for FNM sections, but that's likely where most of the appeal comes for other readers.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being in SF in the early t0 mid-90s, it's great to see mention of bands I actually went to see - like Dieselhed & American Music Club - as well as a thorough history of the San Francisco post-punk music scene.
Now someone needs to tackle the late-80s to 00s Pop scene and Great Weird Bands in SF...

[Jojo Gelato · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely only read this for the gregg parts but i found a lot of this fascinating even though it’s a genre i don’t really care about. hence: who cares anyway…

much like the wings book i like the format of various interviews interspersed with some historical preamble