“For every successful local group that ever packed the Fillmore, Avalon, or Winterland Ballrooms, there were dozens of overlooked, and much better, groups that also hailed from the City by the Bay.” Explore the primitive, rocking rhythm and blues of the fifties, the garage and psych of the sixties, and the seventies punk and new wave scenes with this definitive history of an unsung era. Spanning rock & roll’s first three decades, these were the bands left out of the history books. This second installment in the Scene History Series is essential reading for music history nuts and record collectors, and mandatory for all Bay Area devotees.

"The definitive account of one of hardcore punk's most enigmatic figures." —Lucky Lehrer, Circle Jerks drummer In 1983, Circle Jerks bassist Roger Rogerson stole the band’s van and dropped off the face of the earth. Thirteen years later, he came back, demanded that his bandmates reunite so they could become “bigger than the Beatles,” and promptly dropped dead. Though he was a founding member of the band and played on three of their best albums, Rogerson was lost to history. Woven from interviews of people who knew him,The Prodigal Rogerson explains what happened to Rogerson, where he went, and who he was—all against the backdrop of the Los Angeles punk scene in its prime.

San Francisco’s rich and unique cultural history since its time as a gold rush frontier town has long made it a bastion of forward thinking and freedom of expression. It makes perfect sense, then, that both it and the surrounding Bay Area should prove to be a crucible for some of the most enduring and influential music of the rock and roll era. From the heady days of Haight-Ashbury in the ’60s to today, San Francisco and the Bay Area have provided a distinctive soundtrack to the American experience that has often been confrontational, controversial, enlightening, and always entertaining. Perhaps best known for the '60s psychedelic scene which included the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, the Steve Miller Band, Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin, the Bay Area's rock and roll history twists and turns like Lombard Street itself. The first wave San Francisco punks wrought the Avengers and Dead Kennedys; punk later gripped the East Bay, giving us Green Day and Rancid. From the folk and blues eras through the chart-topping sounds of Journey and Huey Lewis & the News. The rock equivalent of Manifest Destiny carried wave upon wave of young musicians in search of fame, fortune and the great lost chord to Golden Gate City. San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area have collectively produced countless key figures in rock and roll, from musicians to journalists to entrepreneurs. The modern concept of the vast outdoor rock festival took root in and around San Francisco. The Bay Area is also where music history happened to artists from almost everywhere else: San Francisco is where the Beatles played their final concert and the Sex Pistols fell apart; where the Clash recorded much of their second album; where a drug-addled Keith Moon passed out during a concert by the Who only to be replaced behind the drum kit by an eager fan. Rock and roll is baked into the Bay Area’s culture and story to this day. A guide to the places that shaped the local scene and world-famous sound, the Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area will take you to where music makers lived, rocked, performed, recorded, met, broke up, and much, much more.

San Francisco has long been a bastion of forward thinking and freedom of expression. The result has been some of the most enduring and influential music of the rock & roll era, from the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane through Sly and the Family Stone, Journey, the Dead Kennedys, and Green Day. Music is baked into the Bay Area's culture to this day. A guide to places that shaped the world-famous sound, the Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area will take you where music makers lived, rocked, recorded, met, broke up, and much, much more.

Entertaining, highly readable book pulses with the vernacular of young Americans from the end of the 19th century to the present. Alphabetical listings for each decade, plus fascinating sidebars about language and culture.

"Published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and University of California Press on the occasion of the exhibition The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock and Roll at the de Young, San Francisco, April 8 through August 20, 2017"--Colophon.