john vanderslice: last days of downtown rehearsal

Downtown Rehearsal, a sprawling compound in San Francisco's Hunter's Point, was home to a sizable percentage of the local music scene . The numbers, for a city the size of SF, are staggering: 155 rooms housed over 500 bands and 21 recording studios. On June 21st, an eviction letter was slid under the door and bands were given a paltry 45 days to vacate. That was the first of many PR blunders that would later haunt the Koch family.

Why did this story receive national attention? First, the timing was right to examine the effects of an overheated local economy, where the injection of Venture Capital "funny money" was changing the local landscape week by week. New media companies were overbidding rents, throwing lavish funding parties, all the while operating in an alternate financial universe where the ironclad laws of Econ 101 were ignored with impunity. The new reality (while it lasted) was impossible not to watch with a mixture of horror and admiration. That this was happening in many other cities (Seattle, Austin) made this story resonate on a national level.

Second, the building housed many national bands and journalists. Many felt it was the death knell for local music.