Hannah Lew has been a fixture on the San Francisco music scene since starting the beloved, now-defunct band Grass Widow in 2007. Lew and her family moved to San Francisco when she was 11, just after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and she’s called it home ever since.
But, over the past few years, Lew says she has watched the hippies, poets, and punks that fueled San Francisco culture fleeing as a result of the current tech boom. She says her artist friends—many of whom have already left the city—feel as unwelcome and alienated.
Amid heading up a new solo project, Cold Beat, and launching a new record label, Crime on the Moon, Lew solicited music from local or formerly local bands for the recently released compilation San Francisco Is Doomed. Listen to it in full below, following a Q&A with Lew, and catch a few of the participating bands at a free record release show on Tuesday, July 1 at Brick and Mortar Music Hall:
What inspired the compilation?
It almost feels redundant to complain about the changes that have been going on. It’s just been this increasing cultural change where it’s all about having a lot of money.
Lately, people are moving here to make money and it just feels different. There’s a big rise in foodie culture and things catered to people with a lot of money. It’s been a kind of dull panic, this really depressing conversation that artists and musicians are always having, where it’s like, "I don’t know how much longer we can afford to live here."
I wanted to give a voice to a bunch of bands that are always talking about it. A lot of people were really happy to have an outlet. There’s no big didactic message. It’s not saying "tech people are evil." It’s a snapshot of this time without making any big claims.
I see at least one of the bands on the compilation—Thee Oh Sees—has moved to Los Angeles. Do you want to talk a little bit about the migration you’ve watched happen among local bands?
Half the bands on the comp have either broken up, because people had to move away, or just moved away entirely. That felt really part and parcel with the whole comp. Even bandmates of mine are moving away this year and it’s really sad.
Like if we got evicted from our apartment, we’d definitely have to move because we have rent control. I’d love to live by my mom as she’s getting older, but I just don’t know if that will be an option.
Have there been any specific moments where you felt like, uh-oh, San Francisco is changing and not for the better?
Honestly, the whole foodie culture is really offense to me. I think one of the biggest problems with there being so many millionaires here right now, people making so much money, is that it’s a culture of specialty, custom food and $8 cups of coffee and having this whole world that is catered to them when there’s so much imbalance in the world’s economic system and people that are dying.
If you look at all the politics of that "clean up mid-Market Street" thing, it’s a straight up class war. Basically, there’s a lot of weird classist stuff going on in San Francisco right now and it really bums me out.
The division of wealth is pretty obvious as you walk around.
There’s almost a fascist aesthetic to it all. I think it’s really dangerous when there’s a lot of things made for certain people, a certain class. But I mean, all this being said, I can’t live my life on the day-to-day depressed and angry. A big impetus for putting the comp together was to say, yeah, we know it sucks, but let’s just keep doing what we’re doing and making music and put out something positive.
Are you seeing more people out? Are they supporting local music?
Absolutely not. There are less and less bands to play shows with and there are less and less people that even go to shows here. It’s becoming a town that’s really uninteresting for music, which is sad. It’s not a thriving music scene right now.
What do you miss the most about the old San Francisco that you grew up with?
I miss the time when there was more diversity here. Like, I miss Bombay Ice Cream being on Valencia Street. I miss the smaller record stores.
Do you think this period is comparable to the first dot-com bubble?
I was here, but I was really young when that happened
My family actually moved here right after the ’89 earthquake, so things were very cheap because people were afraid to live here. It’s sad to say, but a lot of San Francisco natives that refuse to move away, they always just think, let’s just wait until the next earthquake and it’ll scare away all the dot-com people. I mean, it’s a horrible thing to say, but the natives who have been though the ’89 earthquake and the first tech boom, those people are waiting for the earth to open up and swallow all the google buses.
What: San Francisco is Doomed release show
When: July 1, 9 PM
Where: Brick and Mortar Music Hall, 1710 Mission Street
Cost: Free