DISTURBING THE PEACE: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave BOOK

362 pages, paperback.

In the late ‘70s and early to mid 1980s, San Francisco was a creative incubator, bringing forth all manner of new music acts. Ground zero for the scene was the Mabuhay Gardens, home to huge barrels of popcorn, once-a-week spaghetti nights, colorful emcee Dirk Dirksen, and punk/new wave bands from all over the Bay Area. Concert booker and renegade radio deejay Howie Klein joined with Aquarius Records owner (and fellow deejay) Chris Knab to launch a record label in support of that scene.

Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave is Bill Kopp’s chronicle of the groundbreaking independent record label founded by Howie Klein and Chris Knab, featuring the stories of Romeo Void, Red Rockers, Translator, Wire Train, Roky Erickson, The Nuns, Pearl Harbor and Explosions, and nearly two dozen other bands.

The direct line leading from San Francisco’s psychedelic hippie-band era of the ’60s to the city’s punk and new wave movement of the late ’70s-’80s has never been drawn this clearly—or with this much sheer elation—before. Although they might seem to have little in common musically, philosophically or stylistically, 415 Records bands like Romeo Void, The Nuns, Translator and SVT (whose bassist, Jack Casady, had been in the earlier era’s Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna) followed the same guiding DIY principles, rebelliously eschewing a craving for mainstream success in favor of fomenting a true cultural revolution. Disturbing the Peace is more than just another profile of a local rock scene or record label—it’s the story of a seismic shift, and the passions of the people who created it. - Jeff Tamarkin (author of Got a Revolution! The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane)