Valencia Tool & Die - Venue Performers

Venue Performers

Some of the punk bands and new music musicians that performed at Valencia Tool & Die included: Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Faith No Man (the first incarnation of Faith No More), Flipper, Dead Kennedys, Toxic Reasons, Social Distortion, Minor Threat, DRI, Verbal Abuse, The Units, The Nubs featuring Lisa R. Fredenthall-Lee, The Job featuring the beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg, the girl groups The Contractions and The Varve, Vancouver's Pointed Sticks, Translator, Code of Honor, The Tanks, The Lewd, Timmy Spence, Clocks of Paradise, Barry Beam, Los Microwaves, The Symptoms, The Neutrinoz, The Dickheads, The Invertebrates, Mr. E and the Necromantics, Ribzy, Executioner, Los Olvidados, Crucifix, PLH, UXB, Red Kross, Social Unrest, Bad Posture, Fang, Rebel Truth, Intensified Chaos, The German Shepards, Arkansas Man, Ultra-Sheen, Nervous Gender, The Zeros, The Appliances, Henry Kuntz, Loren Means, John Gruntfest, Steve Ruppenthal, Bonnie Hayes and The Punts, Voice Farm, and Indoor Life. Tommy Tutone spent several days at Tool & Die in 1982 rehearsing and refining their hit song 867-5309/Jenny shortly before they recorded it.

Shortly after Allen Ginsberg's appearance at Valencia Tool & Die, this short piece appeared in Herb Caen's column in the San Francisco Chronicle. "I have a punk pen pal who signs herself Pheno Barbidol and tries to keep me clued in to what's happening on the new wave scene around here. I assume Pheno is a she since the letters, generally chiding in tone, include a red lipstick imprint under the signature. Of course, in San Francisco, one never knows, but in my mind, Pheno is all girl and also literate. Her latest screed begins: "Well you did it again, you culturally disoriented old reprobate. You really missed the boat with your weekend activities. What did you do … go to some incredibly boring cocktail part? Or maybe you hobnobbed at another one of your mindless middle class galas? Ugh. What you could have been doing instead — if you'd pay attention to the fliers you see splashed like pimples on S.F.'s fragile face — is see history in the making on Friday night at the Tool & Die on Valencia. That's right, bucko. History! … Allen Ginsberg was there singing his own new wave song, 'Capitol Air,' with new wave band extraordinaire, The Job."

In its April 1983 issue San Francisco Magazine's Michael Goldberg wrote in his article "Punk Premises": "If you want to see hard-core punk, the place to go is the Valencia Tool & Die, sometimes simply referred to as the Die." Later in the article Goldberg continued: "With its low ceiling, wooden posts (running down the middle of the room to provide support) and brick walls, this place reminds one of the hideaways devised during the Nazis' reign of terror. The smell is beer and smoke and dust. (Beer is sold out of a closet.) There is no stage. The bands set up on the floor at one end of the room, with no barrier between audience and the performers, so band members can move easily into the crowd and join the slamming if they want to."