Geekfest

Geekfest is the name of a series of free, all-ages concerts organized by California indie label S.P.A.M. Records during the 1990s. The first Geekfest was held in June 1996 on the shoreline at Point Molate in Richmond, California. This site, a former Navy fuel depot at the foot of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, became the default location for dozens of Geekfests, though other locations were eventually used.

In the mid-1990s, local ordinances and economic considerations led to difficult times for San Francisco Bay Area bands whose members were under 21. Several bars and nightclubs were driven out by the bustling dot-com economy. Others, fearful of losing their liquor licenses, stopped allowing minors to attend or perform on their stages. By 1996, there was only one all-ages music venue in the East Bay - 924 Gilman Street.

With the rise of Green Day, Rancid, and other former underground bands making punk rock a commodity, Gilman had become an insular community, rejecting those who did not fit an increasingly narrow definition of punk. Though Gilman was not by design exclusively punk rock (they were and are explicitly devoted to independent music and arts), a combination of internal politics and aesthetic tastes of the Gilman staff kept other types of music off the stage. S.P.A.M. Records grew out of the efforts of underage musicians and artists from Pinole, California frustrated with this situation. The fringe Gilman band The Hope Bombs encouraged the S.P.A.M. crew, most notably by letting them jump on stage at Hope Bombs shows to play as "The Bob Weirdos" (whose shows consisted of crazed songs like "Help I'm On Fire" which actually involved setting singer John Geek on fire). But this support was the exception and the bands were generally deprived of any meaningful access to the Gilman audience.

S.P.A.M. Co-founder John Geek (now vocalist for punk band Fleshies) alluded to this in an interview:

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