What do sunshine pop, Chicano rock, and gangsta rap all have in common? The roots of all three genres can be traced back to California. For Alta Journal’s Issue 34, we tapped eight contributors to identify the sounds that define the Golden State. In their essays, you’ll encounter familiar characters (Kendrick Lamar, Buck Owens), visit historic venues (the Hollywood Bowl, the Crystal Palace), and discover iconic live performances (Grateful Dead at Muir Beach Tavern, Merle Haggard at San Quentin State Prison).
Preview the chapters of Alta’s music issue below, and let us know—what did we miss? Tell us at letters@altaonline.com.
1. Chicano Rock, by Gustavo Arellano
In August 1965, the Beatles were outplayed at the Hollywood Bowl by their opening act—a Chicano rock group called Cannibal & the Headhunters. Though the two bands would never meet again, the performance left an indelible legacy. “Those two nights at the Bowl are remembered by many Chicanos as one of the most consequential events in the history of Mexican Americans—no joke,” writes Arellano. “If four kids from the tough Ramona Gardens and Estrada Courts projects could rock with the pinche Beatles at one of the greatest music venues on Earth, then anything was possible.”
2. Pop Punk, by Santi Elijah Holley
924 Gilman is an all-ages music venue in an industrial area of West Berkeley that prohibits drugs, alcohol, homophobia—and major record labels. In 1993, Green Day was banned from playing Gilman after signing to Reprise Records. Today, the venue is often filled with teenagers who embrace the club’s straight-edge policies. “Seeing these kids bounce around and bump into one another, laughing and high-fiving, I couldn’t help but smile,” Holley writes. “For all the things in the world we have lost in the tech-obsessed 21st century—community, intimacy, physical connection—the communal and joyful spirit of punk rock, as represented there at Gilman, has survived.”
3. Gangsta Rap, by Jeff Weiss
Kendrick Lamar’s June 2024 performance at Inglewood’s Kia Forum represented a major shift in the West Coast hip-hop community. After launching diss tracks, Lamar finally signaled a call for unity by welcoming four generations of artists to the stage. “By inviting rappers from rival gang factions, the ‘good kid’ from the ‘m.A.A.d. city’ was attempting to heal the internecine squabbles that have long plagued the streets of Los Angeles and gangsta rap itself,” Weiss writes. “His eclectic curation stamped home the message that Black West Coast artists have been stylistic vanguards since N.W.A. rocked their first Raiders jackets.”
4. Mythic Folk, by RJ Smith
Guitarist John Fahey could be awkward, but he knew how to captivate an audience. At his March 1969 performance at Los Angeles’s Elks Lodge, he mesmerized a group of rowdy art-school kids with his focused playing—and even more focused silence. “Skinny, with a cowlick hanging down, flicking ashes into his guitar, Fahey was hip and rude; he looked like a rockabilly artiste,” writes Smith. “His music was casually intense—even silence was part of the set, when Fahey stared out at the crowd between songs, saying nothing.”
5. West Coast Jazz, by Lynell George
The World Stage in South Central Los Angeles is a nexus for the West Coast jazz community. In her story for Alta, contributor George interviewed three club regulars about the venue’s epic history. “They had an old piano, you know, and the sound system was iffy, but the crowd was always totally with you,” says musician Billy Childs in his conversation with George. “Kind of a little storefront place, but it has a magic to it.”
6. Bakersfield Sound, by Ed Leibowitz
In the 1950s, country stars Buck Owens and Merle Haggard resisted the Nashville music machine to pursue their own sound. Freed from the restraints of big record companies, both artists paved their way in Bakersfield, where they used smaller venues to experiment with new instruments and diaristic lyrics. “The Bakersfield sound would pour the foundation for California country rock—from the Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram Parsons’s solo work to Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles to the cowpunk sensibility of Dwight Yoakam,” writes Leibowitz. “Following Owens’s and Haggard’s examples, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings wrested control of their careers from Nashville, with new contracts allowing them to choose their own material and backing bands.”
7. Sunshine Pop, by Paula Mejía
On December 23, 1961, five sheepish teenagers known as the Beach Boys filed onstage at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Newport Beach. The unimpressed crowd rolled their eyes; by some accounts, the group was booed offstage. “A less tenacious group might have quit after the Rendezvous fiasco, but the Beach Boys were back onstage a week later in Burbank,” writes Mejía. “Their doggedness, combined with Brian Wilson’s preternatural abilities as a songwriter and arranger, helped the Beach Boys quickly lap their peers.”
8. Psychedelic Jam, by Brian A. Anderson
In December 1965, the Grateful Dead performed at the Muir Beach Tavern. The event was an early Acid Test—those psychedelic-fueled audiovisual happenings held along the West Coast in the mid-’60s. Concertgoers paid a buck for a capsule and entrance to a life-changing, brain-altering performance that, according to Jerry Garcia, lasted all of five minutes. “Barriers between musician and crowd dissolved under the influence,” writes Anderson of the show. “Everyone occupied the same sonic envelope, traveling together (if still in their own internal worlds), a hallmark of psychedelic music.”•
