924 Gilman Street is a legendary address. For almost forty years it has been a place where local and touring punk bands test their mettle, and it serves as a cred indicator for bands across the country. To play "Gilman" is a badge on your battle vest. "My band played Gilman" is a statement with weight everywhere on the globe where punk has made its presence felt.
In 1997 I took my pilgrimage to Gilman. I went as a fan and not as a musician. Zach, Bobby, and I rendezvoused with the Positive Kids Crew and spent a few days exploring the Bay Area, from the Marin Headlands to Groove Merchant on Haight. The event that brought us there, and piled us on that crusty couch, was our friend Bill Quinby's band Harkonen, playing the lower half of a stacked hardcore bill. In 2026 my son Isaac made his pilgrimage as the bass player of Haunted Samurai. At nineteen he's already checked that off the punk rock bucket list.
That is the point. 924 Gilman is more than a pilgrimage. It's a generator. It's what happens when a culture builds around making sure the kids have a place to play, organize, and learn the game: to run sound, book tours, keep the books, and run a room without an owner.
None of it survived by luck. Gilman sits in a not-as-rough-as-it-was pocket of West Berkeley, and when developers came for the block, the community called to defend Gilman fought the rezoning and bought its own building, so no landlord could price them out. The Ché Café has proven durable, fostering a culture of rebellion against UCSD's desire to find "better" uses for the space.
Riverside had this once. Spanky's Café bridged the late '80s and early '90s, a downtown restaurant that gave a generation its stage. Then redevelopment swept it under. It could have, and maybe should have, reached that level. It didn't work out that way.
Sixty Miles East is an advocacy organization as much as a publication. We tell artists' stories, and we exist to build spaces in Riverside and the Inland Empire. With your support, the next kid won't have to drive north to stand somewhere that takes them seriously. We can build that here, and build it durable this time.
