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Comment by ktf | Hacker News Reader

> there are a ton of interesting bands coming out of Brooklyn right now

Not to nitpick, but many of the bands "coming out of Brooklyn right now" are bands that moved there from elsewhere to try to ride the "Brooklyn band = good" wave. It's weird how arbitrary and amorphous these various scenes can be. If you can't find good music coming out of SF, you're probably not looking hard enough.

> Compared to that the whole art-car, techno, cyberpunkish thing in S.F. just seems so provincial and quaint.

It seems odd (and inaccurate) to sum an entire city's culture up with 3 indistinct generalizations.

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The local music scene in SF is not good. There are few good places to see national acts but no local bands. The best you're going to get locally is DJ acts but even those guys seem to have moved to LA.

Can anyone name 5 bands from SF? 3? 1?

In contrast, when I grew up in Minneapolis there was a huge local music scene and one of the main things people did was go see local bands. There were dozens of bars with 3+ acts playing all weekend, and often during the week.

Deerhoof, Bassnectar, Girls, and Nodzzz are a few just off the top of my head. A lot of great stuff happening in Oakland, as well. The Anticon collective, etc.

There are lots of bars and venues, but I recommend checking out Bottom of the Hill in Potrero -- their shows tend to be cheap and they feature local talent a lot.

I get your point: SF isn't the top dog when it comes to music, but honestly... you can find local music no matter where you are, as long as you look for it. And if you don't look for it, all the local bands you're not going to see are just going to move to Brooklyn (or wherever else is cool that year) along with everyone else.

I've lived here for 10 years and in that time I've been to art openings, film festivals, all kinds of theater, museums, countless concerts etc and S.F. doesn't fare too badly considering it's really not a very big city at all. However, it's just not in the same league as a city like London, NYC, Berlin, Paris, or (IMO) even LA.

There are upsides to living in a smaller and less hectic city too, but you can't have it all.

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