San Francisco
San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the fourteenth-most populous in the United States.
In the second half of the 1960s, San Francisco became the epicentre for the hippie culture, attracting bands like Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Grateful Dead.[1] Frank Zappa criticized this scene in songs such as Flower Punk and Who Needs The Peace Corps?.[2] In the 1980s, the hardcore punk band The Dead Kennedys represented a very different scene.
Frank Zappa
Throughout his career, Frank Zappa and his band performed in San Francisco a few times, namely at the Longshoremen's Hall, the Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium, the Scottish Rites Temple and Winterland.
Zappa concerts held in San Francisco
- 65/11/06 San Francisco CA US Longshoremen's Hall
- 66/ San Francisco CA US Avalon Ballroom
- 66/ San Francisco CA US Avalon Ballroom
- 66/05/27-29 San Francisco CA US Fillmore Auditorium
- 66/06/03-04 San Francisco CA US Fillmore Auditorium
- 66/06/24-25 San Francisco CA US Fillmore Auditorium
- 66/09/09 San Francisco CA US Fillmore Auditorium
- 66/09/10 San Francisco CA US Scottish Rites Temple
- 67/02/17-19 San Francisco CA US Fillmore Auditorium
- 67/03/03-05 San Francisco CA US Fillmore Auditorium
- 67/12/14 San Francisco CA US Fillmore Auditorium
- 67/12/15-16 San Francisco CA US Winterland
- 68/06/06 San Francisco CA US Fillmore West
- 68/06/07-08 San Francisco CA US Winterland
- 69/01/17-18 San Francisco CA US Winterland
- 70/11/05-07 San Francisco CA US Fillmore West
- 72/12/15 San Francisco CA US Winterland
- 73/03/30-31 San Francisco CA US Winterland
- 75/12/27 San Francisco CA US Winterland
- Fillmore Venues
References to San Francisco in Zappa's lyrics
- Who Needs The Peace Corps?: "Go to San Fran-Cis-Co-Ho-Ho-Ho" (...) I'll go to Frisco, buy a wig and sleep on Owsley's floor (...) How I love you, how I love you, Frisco!".
- Flower Punk: "I'm going up to 'Frisco to join a psychedelic band.
- Tuna Fish Promenade (Mix Outtake): "They'll either be dead or move to San Francisco where everybody thinks they're heavy business."
- Scene 17: "When Do We Get Paid?": "Oh, she writes for the imaginary rock & roll newspaper in San Francisco."
- Scene 57: The Perverted Nun: "Listen, just in case you crash out, and the imaginary rock & roll newspaper from San Francisco wants to get any pictures of you, you'll look like you washed your face."
- I Left My Heart In San Francisco
- Paladin Routine: "As we join Paladin and his good friend Hey Boy in a plush San Francisco hotel, we find Hey Boy running down the stairs to greet his good companion friend Paladin and saying ..."
- Get Down: "She must be from San Francisco (...) No, she can't be from San Francisco. She's too clean."
- "Happy Halloween To Each And Every One Of You": "And direct from San Francisco — where the police break into your recording session all the time"
People born in (or from) San Francisco
- Gracie Allen
- The Grateful Dead
- Terry Bozzio
- Clint Eastwood
- Ko-Ko the gorilla
- The Kronos Quartet
- Stinkfoot Orchestra
- The World-Wide Symphony Orchestra (pseudonym for The San Francisco Symphony)