Plowshares Coffee House: people, music and community

The Plowshares Coffee House Concert series ran for twenty years—presenting 686 concerts and dances between 1977 and 1998. Many of the performers, audience members, volunteers and other supporters of this effort continue to be involved with music and with each other—effectively forming complex interwoven networks of people and communities that connect Plowshares with other music communities in the past and the present. This thesis focuses, in particular, on Plowshares as a place of music making that built and nurtured community and contributes to an expanding literature about places of music making that build community and function as community centers. Ideally, this research will provide a foundation for deeper investigation of music communities in the future. Approaching the research from the perspectives of music, history, and anthropology (folkloristics and ethnography), the data collection and analysis employed an emic, or insider, perspective. Informal ethnographic interviews, oral history interviews, and an online survey provided first-hand information on how different people experienced Plowshares. Ongoing participation in contemporary music communities helped reveal additional information and insights about Plowshares, its operation, and its influences. The San Francisco Folk Music Club's newsletter, the folknik, provided information on the concert schedules, vision, development, and challenges of Plowshares. The San Francisco Folk Music Center's organizational papers—particularly the meeting minutes—provided detail on how the organization operated. This thesis provides a brief history of Plowshares, the circumstances that enabled its emergence, and an assessment of the forces that contributed to its cessation. The people who created Plowshares were motivated by their passion for sharing their musics—and by a countercultural ethos that valued egalitarianism, peaceful anarchy, DIY (do-it-yourself), and collective action to effect change. The collective energy of the nearly-all-volunteer effort swiftly grew the concert series during the first five years. However, volunteer burnout, shifting demographics, economic pressures, competition from new venues, and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake led to a long, slow decline. The same countercultural ethos that contributed energy to Plowshares' initial growth seems to have contributed to its cessation as well. Dependence upon "Ralph" (i.e. volunteers who would do whatever was needed) too often led to unpaid bills, insufficient publicity, internal organizational strife, miscommunications, and overloaded volunteers. Nevertheless, a twenty year run is impressive for a live music venue, suggesting a significant level of community engagement and support. Many of the people who were involved consider their experience at Plowshares to be foundational. Many remember relationships that began during the Plowshares years—and continue to this day. Plowshares veterans can be found attending, performing at, teaching at, and helping run concert venues, festivals, camps, contra dances, conferences, community music schools, and university music programs. The evidence suggests that Plowshares drew from and strengthened a network of acoustic-folk music communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, across the nation, and through time.