Naysayers will always yearn for the good ol’ days of SF, but in truth the DIY scene is thriving. The city is still chock-full of misfit artists and outfits pushing the boundaries of their genres and creative mediums—and making space, however against the odds, to do it. Nestled in Visitacion Valley is Bric-A-Brac, the self-described “noise shack / art gallery / radical zine library” that embodies this very spirit. A pastiche of peculiar creations and punk attitudes, the space hits its one-year anniversary on September 8—and we hung out with venue organizer Paige Gaim to get the story behind it all.
“The place was originally meant to be a plant shop where I could live for a bit and maybe host some shows occasionally,” said Gaim. “My friends and I got the place without a plan outside of being a place where people can be themselves and show off all the weird stuff they’ve been working on.”
Bric-A-Brac started as dilapidated as any commercial lease comes at handover, with cracked walls, stained floors and peeling paint all over the place. Over multiple months, Gaim, joined by Kate Ortega, James Tonra, and a community of others contributed materials and labor to repair the place and mold it in their unique artistic vision. Tales of fingers bloodied in welding accidents, sleeping in the loft between carpentry shifts, and untimely floods color in the cracks between the curios and paraphernalia that form the fabric of this space.
Everything from the salvaged MUNI maps on the ceiling to the main outdoor sign fashioned from cut-up cymbals is held together by tape, epoxy, and love. Every wall is adorned with murals in vastly differing styles flowing into each other as a beautiful testament to the communal effort it took to get the space up and running. Kenneth Anger films on VHS greet you at the door, esoteric stop-motion shorts films play in the bathroom and hastily scrawled anarchist slogans jump out at you from fridges found at garage sales.
“The name ended up being much more relevant than I ever anticipated,” said Gaim. “It’s a collage, a tapestry of our tastes, like bric-a-brac. It’s a bunch of bullshit thrown together. “
Gaim had some experience with throwing shows from hosting in the basement of Thrillhouse Records and being a resident organizer for Oakland Secret across the bridge. It was at the latter that she found the headliner for Bric-a-Brac’s first, and in Gaim’s words, their most memorable show.
“While I was moving out of Oakland Secrets and into this place, a friend from San Diego reached out about hosting a show there. I thought it would be simpler to hold it in this new space since I was packing up my stuff in Oakland and that is how we got our first headliner,” explained Gaim. “I also knew a guy named Rocky Angel who’s a theremin player and nudist, and we put him on the bill because it would seem like a festive thing to do for the first show.”
Band requests for billings had started coming in before the venue was even close to finished, including touring bands from all over the country and in some cases the world. While this seems like an unusually meteoric rise at first, Gaim elaborated that this was symptomatic of the DIY scene being extremely interconnected across cities, relying on word of mouth in tight circles.
“Local bands would go on tour, and get to know all these people in these different cities when they go and they play a show out there. The favor is usually returned when that touring band comes out here because we’re all helping each other out,” said Gaim. “Being a touring musician is hard. You’re just trying to get shows anywhere you can like coffee shops or someone’s house. I’m just glad to help by providing a space.”
It is these very spaces that are crucial to maintaining the existence of a scene. Astronomical rents displacing creative people in San Francisco has been talked about ad nauseam, but independent institutions fostering eclectic fringe cultures like this one continue to feed the underbelly of young artists in the city.
“It’s really important to have these places where you can meet other creatives who just want to make stuff and not worry about formal processes, instead relying on community and found family for both their audience and collaborators,” said Gaim. “Hanging out at mainstays in the Mission like Adobe Books, Knockout and Thrillhouse Records is how I’ve met most of the artists in my life, including James and Kate, so I just want to carry that vibe forward.”
Bric-A-Brac has grown from only being an indie music venue into a broader artistic community space: The venue often plays host to rotating exhibitions from local artists, film screenings, and even workshops for niche mediums.
“It’s taking the DIY attitude and not just applying it towards music, but to any form,” explains Gaim with an ever-widening smile. “I hope these workshops encourage people to learn through fucking up and experimenting.” Past workshops have included a 16mm scratch film tutorial and a synth making class hosted by Mission Synths, with many more in the pipeline including screenprinting and mending.
Bric-A-Brac has made it to a year now but the possibilities are as open as ever in terms of the vision for its future. “A dream that hasn’t been fully realized yet is just having open hours as a library or bookstore or just a place where people can hang out—not just our close friends but anyone walking by,” says Gaim. “People will come to us with really great ideas for things that they want to make, and I just want to give everything that we can to see that happen. The things that I don’t have planned or I have not yet imagined are what I’m most excited for.”
Operating a space like this completely out-of-pocket, and doing all the repair work on their own, was challenging for all the organizers, and throwing the first few shows was not without growing pains. Surprise breakages and maintenance issues were the norm rather than the exception, and the show runners were forced to think on the fly.
“I remember three days before that first show, my friend was saying I should cancel it because there wasn’t even a working toilet, and we can’t have people pissing in the street. They were right, but the show’s got to happen,” recounted Gaim. “We lucked out because I knew a friend with basic plumbing knowledge, and we had just found a free toilet that my lease mate had in their old house.”
Through a year of communal construction and renovation, a community-first operation, mind-altering shows in uncomfortably packed spaces and unbridled creative exploration, Bric-A-Brac has solidified itself as one of the city’s brightest spots for offbeat crowds. “There was a period in the beginning where we were still kind of a plant store, where things were always being reorganized. Now that we have regular shows every couple of weeks and the layout is more or less stable, things feel a bit more established,” said Gaim.
The space is not slowing down anytime soon with an exciting slate of upcoming shows in September, including New Mexico-based experimental progressive banjoist Johnny Bell on his Basin & Range Tour on September 26 joined by Bay Area artists, more workshops, and a potential anniversary show featuring wrestlers on-stage. The freaks and weirdos of this city will always be hungry to create and perform, and Bric-A-Brac aims to be around for a long time to keep them fed.
