Former location of the Deaf Club as seen in 2015
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Location | 530 Valencia Street, San Francisco, California, U.S. |
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Type | music |
Genre(s) | punk |
Opened | 9 December 1978 |
Closed | summer 1980 |
The Deaf Club was a notable music venue located on Valencia Street in San Francisco which remained open for an 18-month period. Its main attraction was punk music. The name comes from the fact the building it was in originally began as a deaf people's clubhouse in the 1930s.
Robert Hanrahan, manager of The Offs discovered the San Francisco Club for the Deaf, and was able to rent it on a nightly basis.
The first show as the Deaf Club on 9 December 1978 featured the Offs, The Mutants and On The Rag. Over 100 bands such as Northern California's The Units, The Zeros, Crime, The Dils, Flipper and Southern California's Bags, The Alley Cats, Germs, X and Dinettes would play this small underground club.
Given the unique nature of the venue and its location in the Mission District near 16th Street and the Roxie Theater, it was enthusiastically supported by the punk and arts community, visited by film greats like John Waters and occasionally challenged by the officials of the San Francisco noise abatement patrol, the police, fire department, health department and the alcohol and beverage control until it closed.
The house DJs were Enrico Chandoha who worked on the editorial staff of the early Thrasher Magazine; Jack Fan (an Offs road manager and chef at the Zuni); BBC celebrity Johnnie Walker; and Robert Hanrahan.