Movie-theater concert embodies a thriving music scene in the Richmond

Originally posted in the SF Examiner on July 1.

For generations, San Francisco’s music scene has been defined by its neighborhoods.

Back in the 1950s—before racist urban renewal policies upended the neighborhood—the Fillmore District was home to a vibrant jazz scene, featuring dozens of African American-owned establishments.

Most famously, the 60s counter-culture movement started in the Haight-Ashbury, pioneered by psychedelic outfits like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Decades later, in the 2000s, the city’s famed and frenetic garage rock scene took root in the Mission District, as bands led by Thee Oh Sees, Sic Alps and Ty Segall created a sense of community around small dive clubs and rent-controlled apartments.

Even the Tenderloin—with its warren of basements, art galleries, bars and recording studios—has a reputation for fostering the careers of young and burgeoning indie rock bands.

The Richmond District—the sprawling residential neighborhood in San Francisco’s northern reaches—has never enjoyed such a reputation. Mostly famed for its proximity to Golden Gate Park and as a last redoubt for (somewhat) affordable living in the city, the Richmond can boast of no distinct musical legacy.

In recent years, however, that has started to change. A new cohort of musicians have proudly set up home in the neighborhood, and the advent of venues with unique and exciting programming have suddenly made the quiet community a bustling and vibrant artistic hub. 

On Friday, the neighborhood will be the center of the city’s tight-knit musical world, when the 4 Star Theater on Clement Street hosts the Fresh & Onlys, a beloved San Francisco institution who will be performing publicly for the first time in six years.

Shayde Sartin, a founding member of the Fresh & Onlys—who rose to ascendancy alongside so many of their peers in the Mission District—drew parallels between that scene in the 2000s and the one currently happening in the Richmond District.

“The one thing that most scenes need to be healthy is this sort of condensed community, and that’s what we had in the Mission District,” said Sartin, who now lives in the Richmond. “I see that happening in the Richmond because there’s a lot of bands out here. A lot of people really appreciate this neighborhood, myself included. I think the Richmond has turned out to be this nice little harbor for these bands and for this scene”

Much of the Richmond’s newfound artistic vigor can be attributed to Adam Bergeron, the proprietor of the 4 Star Theater (2200 Clement Street) and Balboa Theater (3630 Balboa Street)—two movie cinemas in the neighborhood that have greatly expanded their offerings in recent years. 

Bergeron has owned the Balboa Theater and its sister theater, the Vogue on Sacramento Street, for more than a decade under his CinemaSF umbrella organization, but prior to entering the movie business, he ran music venues like 12 Galaxies in the Mission District and the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz. As a result, he forged longstanding relationships with musicians, often employing them in his movie theaters (it was a common sight to see members of local bands like the She’s or hardcore legend Tony Molina behind the counter at the Balboa and the Vogue.)

Sensing an opportunity, Bergeron, who runs CinemaSF with his wife, Jaimi Holker, began incorporating live music into the programming at the Balboa Theater, starting around 2017. Local bands regularly performed in the vintage cinema—which first opened in 1926—with Bergeron sometimes incorporating live music with screenings of classic movies.

In late 2022, he began taking over operations at the 4 Star Theater, which had been shuttered for two years due to COVID. After a slow start, Bergeron applied his formula of interlaying live music, interactive Q&A events and movie screenings to the venue, eventually building a new following to match the Balboa. In the decade-plus of managing venues in the Richmond, he’s said he’s definitely noticed a change in the neighborhood.

“When I first started here, it was a different world,” said Bergeron. “It was really hard to get people to come out here to watch a movie. But then, things like Uber and Lyft changed that. And I think people realized that the Richmond District is this really cool neighborhood. Like, you can get to the park from here, and there is like a cool surf culture here. And I do think introducing some entertainment options into the neighborhood has helped bring a new crowd here as well.”

In addition to regularly featuring a host of local acts like Chime School, Half Stack, Andrew St. James, and the Neutrals, Bergeron was able to land nationally-recognized artists such as Animal Collective, Robyn Hitchcock and the Flamin’ Groovies (a legendary San Francisco band.) Those artists added heft and credibility to Bergeron’s project, but managing the venues did not come without difficulty.

Initially, 4 Star struggled to attract customers—particularly to its movie screenings. At one point, the venue even hosted a GoFundMe Me campaign to support its mission. However, things changed when Bergeron invited Ben Wintroub, owner of Tunnel Records, to set up a second location within the 4 Star building. Wintroub, a Marin County native, who opened up Tunnel Records in the outer stretches of the Sunset District in 2017, leapt at the opportunity.

“Adam was a longtime customer at our shop, and I always really admired the kind of businesses he created,” said Wintroub. “As soon as he mentioned that he had this second theater that was kind of being underutilized, it didn’t take long for us to come up with a plan for Tunnel Records to be a tenant. And I know this sounds a little dated, but the Richmond District just had that vibe of San Francisco that I fell in love with growing up, going to music shows in the 90s. It just has this loose, unpretentious feeling to it, and I wanted to be part of that culture.” 

Bergeron credits Tunnel Records for reviving 4 Star, and now, the lion’s share of the live CinemaSF events takes place at that venue. The combination of retail space, movies and live performances has a special appeal for many, including Tim Cohen, the lead singer and founding member of the Fresh & Onlys.

“For people like me, this venue has it completely figured out,” said Cohen. “I could spend literally my entire day here. I would browse the record store for hours, go watch a movie and then catch a live show.”

While business owners like Bergeron and Wintroub have contributed to the new cultural vibes of the Richmond District, the masses of musicians who have moved to the neighborhood in search of low rent and more living space have undoubtedly made an impact. Members from bands like April Magazine and the Umbrellas call the neighborhood home.

No artist has done more to extol the everyday wonders of living in the Richmond than Glenn Donaldson of the Reds, Pinks and Purples. Every one of the band’s album covers is adorned with pastel-soaked images from the neighborhood, and Donaldson’s lyrics and song titles are teeming with local references. Donaldson has been living in San Francisco since 1995 and has always been an integral part of the music scene, but it wasn’t until his dreampop project with the Reds, Pinks and Purples, that he received national acclaim (international, actually—he just wrapped a tour in the UK.)

In 2022, Donaldson told the Examiner that the Richmond often helped inspire his songwriting ideas.

“I decided to do this idea inspired by the Kink’s ‘Are The Village Green Preservation Society’,” said Donaldson. “Just write about what’s right here, right in my neighborhood. So, a lot of the songs were composed in my head when I was just walking around the Richmond.”

Donaldson is a longtime friend of Sartin of the Fresh & Onlys, whose return to live music is a true boon to San Francisco. Although the group is closely associated with the late 2000s garage rock scene (the Fresh & Onlys debut album was the third release ever on John Dwyer’s Castle Face Records, the defining local institution of that moment), they never fit neatly into that box of scrawling, lo-fi mayhem.

Formed in 2008 by Sartin and Cohen, who were eventually joined by drummer Kyle Gibson and guitarist Wymond Miles, the band’s early offerings were frenetic and uproarious—irreverent garage rock send-offs. But their second album—“Play It Strange,” which landed on Pitchfork’s coveted year-end music list for 2010—eschewed much of that dissonance, yielding beautiful, haunting songs like “Waterfall,” a once-in-a-generation track that captured the band at their high point.

The releases following “Play it Strange,” pushed the envelope even further, as the band embraced more polished production sounds and dutifully crafted songwriting approaches. Albums such as “Long Slow Dance” and “House of Spirits” were undeniably gorgeous creations, more dreampop than punk rock and showcasing just how vast the Fresh & Onlys oeuvre could stretch.

“At some point, we kind of exhausted our means for trying to be lo-fi and grungy, so to speak,” said Cohen. “We were like, let’s see how these songs can sound like in this shimmering, romantic milieu, to see if we can sound actually pretty. It wasn’t a conscious thing or a reaction to how people perceived us—we always steered our own ship. That’s just what we wanted to do at the time.”

Despite the group’s increasingly engaging sound, the Fresh & Onlys’ lineup shifted and splintered in later years, with typical band dynamics—health troubles, personal life changes—reducing the lineup to just Miles and Cohen at one point. Eventually, Miles moved to Colorado, and the band stopped performing live, with the group playing just one private show—at a friend’s birthday party—since 2018.

Although divided among different locales, the band never considered themselves broken-up, and they often discussed plans of reconnecting for live shows. The Friday show has been years in the making, and was made possible with Miles back in town for the Fourth of July holiday. 

“Adam asked us to do this show and we’re all big fans of the 4 Star and Balboa and what’s he doing in the Richmond,” said Sartin. “We were all interested in seeing how this feels, to visit this part of our history.”

Both Cohen and Sartin expressed their enduring love for the city—and to have their return to live music take place at the Richmond District feels particularly prescient.

“Whenever we went out on tour, we were so proud to be this San Francisco band,” said Cohen, who added that the group is considering adding additional live dates beyond this 4 Star show. “This show is going to be a little fly-by-the seat-of-our-pants kind of thing. But we’ve always been that way. And I think people appreciate that.”

In a city famous for embracing the strange and unpredictable, the Fresh & Onlys playing in the Richmond District on the Fourth of July holiday cannot feel more quintessentially San Francisco.