Mayor Daniel Lurie, crypto investor Chris Larsen, and disgraced former district 8 supervisor candidate/cafe owner Manny Yekutiel took to a small Tenderloin stage to perform a boisterous punk set about how much they love the police and the surveillance state. They are known as The Civic Joy Fucks.
In reality, this group of pseudonymous punk pranksters performs entirely in-character, wearing pantyhose masks that make them look like deranged bank robbers. You can follow them on Instagram and listen to their demo album on Bandcamp.
The show featured three wildly energetic punk bands, opening with Fun Control, followed by The Civic Joy Fucks, and rounding out the night with Drugs.
It’s been ages since I’ve seen any live show in the Tenderloin. I think the last time was either at the now-defunct Edinburgh Castle Pub or when I was dating someone who lived in the area. Regardless, that was long ago.
Punk and its assorted offshoots are never really about the music; it’s more of a performance, often associated with some type of statement delivered sarcastically. It’s sort of like a board game night — are you there to play Dungeons & Dragons, or are you really there to hang out with your weird nerdy friends? Sticking with that analogy, the weird nerds here are those hyper-attuned to San Francisco’s political sphere, with the target ostensibly being the Civic Joy Fund, a sort of quasi-slush fund financed by the mayor’s wealthy friends to promote a sanitized vision of San Francisco.
It’s a cycle we’ve seen before.
To say this was a throwback would be accurate, but would fail to capture the frantic feeling of the evening — warm bodies crammed into a small sweaty space on a cold night as the weird, rebellious spirit that represents the real San Francisco pounded against our eardrums.
