Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. His compositions for this series included their signature melody "Linus and Lucy" and the holiday standard "Christmas Time Is Here". Guaraldi is also known for his performances on piano as a member of Cal Tjader's 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career. Guaraldi's 1962 composition "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" became a radio hit and won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Original Jazz Composition. He died of a heart attack on February 6, 1976, at age 47, moments after concluding a nightclub performance in Menlo Park, California.
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality, and violence. They were most popular in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, and in the United Kingdom in the 1970s.
Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label established in 1979 by Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra and guitarist East Bay Ray in San Francisco, California with the intention to release the Dead Kennedys self-produced single "California Über Alles". After realizing the potential for an independent label, they released records for other bands as well. They would go on to release albums by artists such as Dead Kennedys, NoMeansNo, D.O.A., Alice Donut, Lard, The Dicks, Butthole Surfers, 7 Seconds, Neurosis, Wesley Willis, Half Japanese, Blowfly, Subhumans (Canada), The Crucifucks, Victims Family, Pansy Division, Zolar X, Culture Shock, World/Inferno Friendship Socity, Itchy-O, ArnoCorps, The Darts, Tsunami Bomb, and many more. In the mid-1980’s Jello Biafra became the sole owner of Alternative Tentacles.
The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Who and Ravi Shankar, the first large-scale public performance of Janis Joplin and the introduction of Otis Redding to a mass American audience.
Noise rock is a noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, artists indulge in extreme levels of distortion through the use of electric guitars and, less frequently, electronic instrumentation, either to provide percussive sounds or to contribute to the overall arrangement.
Gilbert Shelton is an American cartoonist and a key member of the underground comix movement. He is the creator of the iconic underground characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog.
The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant group. In specific recent Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła, which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.
"Black Dog" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It is the first track on the band's untitled fourth album (1971), which has become one of the best-selling albums of all time. The song was released as a single and reached the charts in many countries. It is "one of the most instantly recognisable Zeppelin tracks", and was included in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list (US), and ranked No. 1 in Q magazine's (UK) "20 Greatest Guitar Tracks". The lyrics contain typical bluesman themes of lust, eroticism and betrayal.
Steve Mackay was an American tenor saxophonist best known for his membership in the Stooges. His performances are showcased on three songs on the band's second album, Fun House (1970).
The Nuns was an American rock band based in San Francisco and New York City. Best known as one of the founding acts of the early San Francisco punk scene, the band went through a number of hiatuses and periodic reunions, lineup changes, and changes in style. Overall, The Nuns performed and recorded on and off from the mid-1970s into the 2000s. While the band was centered on Jennifer Miro and Jeff Olener through its various incarnations, Alejandro Escovedo, who went on to later success as an Americana and alternative country musician, was also a key member during its years of fame in late 1970s San Francisco.
From the Mars Hotel is the seventh studio album by rock band the Grateful Dead. It was mainly recorded in April 1974, and originally released June 27, 1974. It was the second album by the band on their own Grateful Dead Records label. From the Mars Hotel came less than one year after their previous album, Wake of the Flood, and was the last before the band's then-indefinite hiatus from live touring which began in October 1974.
Mark Eitzel is an American musician, best known as a songwriter and lead singer of the San Francisco band American Music Club.
The Rain Parade is a band that was originally active in the Paisley Underground scene in Los Angeles in the 1980s, and that reunited and resumed touring in 2012.
Guy Colwell is an American painter and occasional underground cartoonist. Although not African-American himself, Colwell's comics often portray blacks in strong roles in stories of life on the streets. His "Figurative Social Surrealist" paintings reflect on the human condition, economic inequality, injustice, and alienation from the natural world.
Mat Callahan is an American musician, author, songwriter, activist, music producer and engineer.
Negativland is an American experimental music band that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills, Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker. Negativland has released a number of albums ranging from pure sound collage to more musical expositions. These have mostly been released on their own label, Seeland Records. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced several recordings for SST Records, most notably Escape from Noise, Helter Stupid and U2. Negativland were sued by the band U2's record label, Island Records, and by SST Records, which brought them widespread publicity and notoriety. The band is also part of the Church of the SubGenius parody religion. Negativland coined the term culture jamming in 1984. Don Joyce added it to the album JamCon '84 in the form of "culture jammer". The band took their name from a Neu! track, with their record label Seeland Records also being named after another Neu! track.
Seeing Eye Dog is the seventh studio album by the American alternative metal band Helmet, released on September 7, 2010, via Work Song, the label imprint shared by singer/songwriter Joe Henry and Helmet mainman Page Hamilton's manager. It was their first album in four years since the release of Monochrome in 2006.
Unspoken is an American Christian band. The band is composed of Chad Mattson, Jon Lowry, Ariel Munoz, and Matthew Callaway. The band released their debut single, "Who You Are", on the Centricity Music label. Released on June 12, 2012, the song has charted on numerous Christian song charts, and was the only song from the band's debut EP Get to Me to be featured on their first full-length album. The self-titled debut LP Unspoken was released April 1, 2014. A five-song preview EP, The World Is Waking, was released July 24, 2013. They have had four straight top-five AC singles in their career including "Who You Are", "Lift My Life Up", "Start a Fire", and "Good Fight", with "Start a Fire" reaching No. 1; the song "Lift My Life Up" was also included on the 2015 WOW Hits release. The band also toured alongside Big Daddy Weave and Sanctus Real.
"Brand New Love" is a 1986 song written by Lou Barlow. It was first released independently by Barlow under the moniker Sentridoh but has since come to be associated with Sebadoh, the band Barlow formed with Eric Gaffney.
Harry Driggs was an American artist, graphic designer, political activist, and underground cartoonist. Much of his comix work was published under the name R. Diggs. Driggs was a longtime resident of San Francisco, where he worked in advertising as a graphic designer and art director.
