Deaf Club

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.

Founding

Daphne Hanrahan, manager of The Offs, discovered the San Francisco Club for the Deaf, and was able to rent it on a nightly basis.

She remembers finding the place: “I bought a burrito at La Cumbre and noticed a sign on the fire escape across the street. It said ‘Hall for Rent.’ I went up the flights of stairs and saw two guys watching TV with the sound off. After a very short while, I realized we weren't going to communicate, so I wrote on a piece of paper that I wanted to rent the place. Bill—I never knew his last name—was a mustachioed, lascivious, cigar-chewing character who apparently was in charge. He wrote ‘OK & $250,’ so I wrote ‘OK.’”THE ROOTS OF SAN FRANCISCO PUNK: THE DEAF CLUB, 1978-1980

The first show as the Deaf Club on 9 December 1978 featured the Offs, started by guitarist Billy Hawk and singer Don Vinil, and later joined by former Hot Tuna drummer Bob Steeler and a rotation of horn players including Bob Roberts, Richard Edson and Roland Young. They were accompanied by The Mutants, who are known for their theatrical performances which often include elaborate props, projections, and comical antics. They are credited with being one of the first "Art-punk" bands in San Francisco, and were one of the most popular bands of the San Francisco punk scene during the late 1970s and early 1980s. On The Rag also participated in the Deaf Club's first show. Over 100 bands such as Northern California's The Dead Kennedys, Tuxedomoon, The Units, The Zeros, Crime, The Dils, Flipper, Negative Trend, Los Microwaves, The Jars, Minimal Man, Voice Farm, Humans, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, The Sleepers, Avengers, Factrix, Bpeople, S.S.I., NON, MX-80, V.I.P$, K.G.B., Monitor, Blowdryers, BoB, VKTMS, Snuky Tate, JJ180, On The Rag, Noh Mercy, No Alternative; as well as Southern California's Bags, The Alley Cats, Germs, X, Soul Rebels, Walking Dead, Wall of Voodoo, The Rotters, Seizure, Z'EV, Barry Kooda Kombo, Vs., Fillmore Struts, Punts, Inflatable Boy Clams, Jah Hovah, Plugz, Suburbs, The Vandals, The Controllers, Nervous Gender, U.X.A., Dinettes, and some touring bands from Vancouver like D.O.A., Pointed Sticks, and Subhumans, and even touring bands from England like Levi and the Rockats 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
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