That San Francisco sound
Days between stations, and the free-form sounds of a city.

By Josh Wilson

AUTUMN 1992: newly arrived in San Francisco, I was scouring the radio dial for music that didn't suck.

It seemed pretty grim. I came across KFOG, 104.5 FM, and it was sort of OK. They played relatively obscure oldies on Dave Morey's Ten at 10 show. They didn't play "Layla" and "Stairway to Heaven" over and over again. But it was ultimately kind of sleepy. Well fed, satisfied, no longer having to strive, KFOG was rock's expanding waistline.

The other option, Live 105, did at first seem pretty lively. Its "modern rock" was speedy, rockin', occasionally electronic, and aimed at a younger crowd. But still, it didn't exactly not suck. There was a strain of commercialism that left me cold. Wanting.

And so I searched the FM band's downtown docks and alleys, hoping for that revelatory sound that hits you like a tidal wave and sweeps you along, helpless but thrilled to the core. The thing was, I didn't just want to be swept away. I wanted to swim in it, dive into it, plumb the depths, and marvel at the exotic life-forms and barnacle-encrusted treasure chests. Where was the secret grotto?

One rainy afternoon, homebound, trolling the radio dial by the micrometer, I first caught the faint whisper of the sound that would change my life – crackling with static, awash with fuzz, barely audible under the totalitarian southern shadow of Twin Peaks and its omnipresent broadcast tower. Even so, tucked away in the inaccessible folds of Glen Park, I heard it. The sound was impossible to pin down. There were snippets of rock 'n' roll, full of vitality and sonic dishabille. There were fragments of jazz – but hardly the pre-chewed "Quiet Storm" pabulum that oozed out of the speakers at the office I was temping at during the week. There were squalling, screeching saxophones and crazy hip-hop beat infusions. And more – the electronic sounds I had reviled as a teenage Zep-head and collegiate Deadhead.

It was community radio, of course – and KUSF, 90.3 FM, in particular. A few months later, I moved from Glen Park to live in a houseful of pals in the Inner Sunset, where that little community radio station came in loud and clear.

I had found my not-so-secret grotto. And baby, I took the plunge. KUSF was loud, soulful, sweet, harsh, haphazard, and quite meticulous, depending on the moment you tuned in. Often it was all of that, all at once.

As a fan, and then as a volunteer at the station, I found KUSF to be more than just a musical outlet. It became an attitude and a philosophy for living. Commercialism in music became ever more a scarlet letter, and single-minded genre obsession became a sign of intellectual weakness and aesthetic flab. The Bay Area was awash in sounds of all sorts, flavors, and levels of sophistication and fidelity. Better still, it wasn't strictly local. It became apparent that there were regional and national circuits – little KUSFs all around the world, and local rock clubs peppering the globe like safe houses in an underground railroad for music lovers.

That was, and is, the San Francisco sound. It's not a genre or a style. It's a method and a passion. Over the decades, the music that mattered most – the sounds that truly changed me and the world – emerged from the Bay Area's garage, from the neighborhoods and communities where the commercial status quo was simply not sufficient. Terry Riley, the Residents, the Grateful Dead, Blue Cheer, the Avengers, Negativland – listen and marvel at their early freshness and vitality. Their music may have staying power, or not, depending on your own listening needs. But everything that made their work so important you can still hear in today's sounds – and will still hear in tomorrow's.

Creative fearlessness and DIY certainty mark the greatest achievements of the Bay Area's music makers, regardless of genre and regardless of whether their moment has passed. The Broun Fellinis, back when the Crack Emcee was out in front. The Mermen, Meat Beat Manifesto, Stephen Yearkey, Mr. Bungle, the Haters, Idiot Flesh, the Naked Cult of Hickey, Fuckface, Star Cleaners, Star Pimp, Rappin' 4Tay, Solesides, Monoshock, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Buckets, Tarnation and Paula Frazer, the Luv 'n' Haight label, Jonah Sharp, Dubtribe, the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Carl Stone, the Aislers Set, the Quails, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Graham Connah, American Music Club, Dieselhed, Henry Kaiser, Chotchke, Tino Corp, Fuck, the Coup, Beulah, Blectum from Blechdom, Deerhoof, Zmrzlina, From Monument to Masses, Numbers, Coachwhips ... What a ruckus! What art! What courage! What diversity! What a party!

And this is just a drop in the bucket. I've done a disservice to the legions of independent musicians not mentioned here. Each omission on my part is an injustice to a world-class musical legacy that's still in the making, an ongoing eruption of sound that simply isn't letting up. The dot-com boom and bust couldn't kill it. High rents can't kill it. Stab it, drown it, poison it – it will puke in your face and emerge somewhere else, quite close by, smelling like a rose, with no shortage of protective thorns and producing pollen in abundance.

This is because ultimately the San Francisco sound is the sound of freedom and possibility. For all its ballast of legacy, for all its boxcars of trash and trivia, it's the sound of tomorrow. Every laptop is a garage ready for band practice, a studio ready for pre- and postproduction, a broadcast booth pumping sonic salvation over the copper wires and fiber-optic cables.

This isn't just kids making noise. It's freedom of expression and true democratic participation in an era of closing minds, "values voters" hypocrisy, political demagoguery, and corporate media monopolies.

So let a thousand KUSFs flourish, fail, and sprout anew. May every musical aspiration, no matter how fleeting and seemingly trivial, blossom to its fullest potential and find even one heart it can change, one ear where it will linger forever. In this epoch of lies, suffering, delusion, and tyranny, the San Francisco sound is the promise of hope and liberation.

Top 12, in no particular order

 Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

 Jeff Ray, "Extraordinary Forest"

 Enorchestra

 Entartete Kunst, States of Abuse (Entartete Kunst)

 Kung Fu U.S.A.

 Rube Waddell, Live at Leeds

 Comets on Fire

 Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, San Francisco Opera

 Sunset party, Golden Gate Park

 KALX, KUSF, KZSU, KFJC

 Noise shows at Potero del Sol

 A distant land called Oakland, where warehouses host weird bands by the score