![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/924-Gilman-Natera-13.jpg\")
The mosh pit during a set by the Los Angeles hardcore band Desmadre. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\nThe side doors open and the punks spill onto the corner between sets much as they have for four decades, spikes in their hair and on their jackets, to talk, smoke, take in the fresh air and give their eardrums a few moments of peace.<\/p>\n
They filter back inside the graffiti-covered walls as Godstomper, practitioners of the aggressive rock subgenre known as powerviolence, wrap their soundcheck. After several pummeling songs that each burn out after a few dozen seconds, the band\u2019s drummer leads the crowd in an a capella singalong of \u201cA Whole New World,\u201d the anthem from Disney\u2019s \u201cAladdin.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the Central Valley hardcore band Sissyfit tears through its set, a scene veteran known as \u201cGrinch\u201d stomps around the mosh pit with help from his cane; later, a boy of about 10 joins the circle of careening bodies.<\/p>\n
The mosh pit during a set by the Los Angeles hardcore band Desmadre. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n
It is, in other words, another night at 924 Gilman<\/a>, the volunteer-run, all-ages West Berkeley venue that has shaped the East Bay\u2019s music scene for generations<\/a>. Best known as the proving ground that propelled Green Day to rock super-stardom and the home base of the seminal punk band Operation Ivy, Gilman today remains essential to an ecosystem of local bands, teens with limited options to experience live music, punks looking for a place to crash into one another and anyone searching for community.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new generations are coming in,\u201d said Alex Galinda, a Berkeley 13-year-old who came along with her older brother Jesus to the show in May with Godstomper and Sissyfit. \u201cThey\u2019re accepted here.\u201d<\/p>\n New Year\u2019s Eve will mark the 40th anniversary of Gilman\u2019s first show, a turn into middle age that seems scarcely believable for a \u201cDo-It-Yourself\u201d punk club in the modern Bay Area.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beloved independent music venues are shutting down, from Oakland\u2019s New Parish<\/a> to San Francisco\u2019s Bottom of the Hill<\/a> and Thee Parkside<\/a>, while many of those that remain are struggling<\/a> as giants like Live Nation exert more control over the industry. Artists and creative spaces have been priced out of the region, and audiences still aren\u2019t turning out for live events the way they did before the pandemic. Performing arts groups around Berkeley have closed their doors<\/a> or say they\u2019re barely hanging on<\/a> \u2014 even Berkeley Repertory Theatre has run multi-million-dollar deficits<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet the volunteers who keep Gilman running say their venue is financially stable, which counts as a monumental victory for a place that has flirted with disaster plenty of times. Its longevity is rare for any music club, never mind one as unconventional as Gilman, said UC Berkeley professor and punk historian Tom McEnany<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know of any other venue in the U.S. or elsewhere that has been volunteer-run and has lasted as long as Gilman has,\u201d McEnany said.<\/p>\n But the venue has an Achilles heel: 924 Gilman doesn\u2019t own its building in a gentrified corner of West Berkeley. Now the collectively run club is mobilizing to change that, with an ambitious $2.4 million campaign to buy the property from its landlord and, members hope, secure its long-term future.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we buy the building, it could take a lot of weight off of our shoulders,\u201d said Kian Alexander, the club\u2019s executive director, and allow Gilman to keep going \u201cas long as humanly possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilman has a great landlord. What if that changes?<\/p>\n The future Gilman fans dread can be found at a forlorn red building on 17th Street in San Francisco\u2019s Potrero Hill.<\/p>\n Thee Parkside was a dive bar and music venue with a low ceiling and stage that barely rose off the floor, where bands played intimate and memorable shows from 2007 until it closed for good last month. Owner Malia Spanyol told Mission Local<\/a> that the husband of the bar\u2019s longtime landlord put the property on the market after her death, and a developer outbid Spanyol for it. People don\u2019t know what will replace Thee Parkside, but they\u2019re pretty sure they can guess, and that\u2019s why if you peer into its dusty windows and look through the empty bar toward its back patio, you can see the wall where someone spray-painted \u201cthis will be condos you can\u2019t afford!\u201d<\/p>\n After watching Thee Parkside and other venues close their doors, Alexander said, the Gilman collective felt it was important to start working to buy its building \u201cbefore it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe just are really adamant about this place being here and us being able to do something about it now,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n The only landlord 924 Gilman has ever had, Jim Widess, is one of the people who deserve credit for the venue\u2019s survival, volunteers say.\u00a0<\/p>\n Widess bought the former grocery store at Gilman and Eighth streets a few years after moving his cane furniture supply and repair business in as a tenant in 1979. The Caning Shop<\/a>, which occupies the southern side of the building, is a dizzying Berkeley institution in its own right: Wicker furniture crowds the aisles, sent in for repairs by people from around the Bay Area, while the walls and shelves are packed with supplies for caning as well as Widess\u2019 other passions, which include musical gourds and Hawaiian leis.<\/p>\n Whether you fought off skinheads, rode Big Wheels in the mosh pit, saw an iconic band or made lifelong friends, tell us your favorite Gilman story and why the club matters to you. We may use your response in a future article.<\/p>\n Send us an email at editors@berkeleyside.org or use the form at the bottom of this article.<\/p>\n Widess isn\u2019t a punk \u2014 he prefers classical music \u2014 but when Tim Yohannon, the founder of the influential magazine Maximum Rocknroll<\/a>, pitched an all-ages, alcohol-free music venue for the space, Widess agreed to lease it to him and worked with early Gilman volunteers to convince a skeptical city bureaucracy to sign off.<\/p>\n \u201cI was sold,\u201d Widess said. \u201cI thought Berkeley could really use such a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Anna Brown remembers plenty of other venues from the 1980s punk scene she grew up in \u2014 the Tool and Die<\/a> in San Francisco, the New Method, the On Broadway<\/a> and the Farm, to name a few. None of those clubs are still around, Brown said. Plenty didn\u2019t even make it to the end of that decade. Other shows were in warehouse squats, backyards or basements.<\/p>\n Gilman, which Brown walked into for the first time in 1987, was supposed to be different.<\/p>\n \u201cThe club spaces were always so ephemeral,\u201d she said. \u201cThe whole thinking behind Gilman was just to make a place that was un-shut-down-able \u2014 that was totally [above] board and had a permit and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n The ensuing decade saw an explosion of punk creativity at Gilman that spurred all of the best-known stories about the venue.\u00a0<\/p>\n These tales focus on tentpole figures such as Yohannon. The DIY values and rules stenciled in the club\u2019s entryway<\/a>, among them \u201cno racism, no misoginy\/sexism, no homophobia.\u201d The night Gilman punks fought off neo-Nazi skinheads<\/a> who tried to infiltrate the club, a showdown dramatized in the movie \u201cFreaky Tales.\u201d The had-to-be-there shows \u2014 by Op Ivy<\/a> and teenage Green Day<\/a>, as well as a festival\u2019s worth of other regulars, from Rancid and Jawbreaker to Neurosis, Crimpshrine and Kamala and the Karnivores. The early plays<\/a> staged by Miranda July. The early zines from punk scribe Aaron Cometbus.<\/p>\n Yohannon, who infused the club with radical politics that shape it to this day, used revenue from Maximum Rocknroll to backstop it financially early on, while also chronicling the Gilman scene for readers far and wide. McEnany said the magazine was a \u201cpunk bible,\u201d and its coverage put Berkeley and Gilman on the map for a generation of fans across the country.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople know Gilman, and they know it before they know maybe any other place, other than CBGB,\u201d he said, referring to the legendary New York club where The Ramones, Blondie and other foundational bands got their start. \u201cAnd CBGB is another place that closed down<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n West Berkeley and Gilman Street back then seemed like the ideal place for a punk club, a neglected industrial corridor where people were less likely to raise a fuss about loud concerts or teens in the streets. Today, Gilman\u2019s neighbors include outposts of Whole Foods and Philz Coffee, plus craft breweries and natural wineries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite those changes, Widess has kept rent increases modest \u2014 the $5,300 the venue paid in monthly rent last year was cheaper, once you adjust for inflation, than the $2,000 per month it paid in 1986.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Widess is 81. And while he insists Gilman devotees don\u2019t need to be concerned about the venue losing its home, the building is its most glaring vulnerability.\u00a0<\/p>\n The organization doesn\u2019t have much in the way of payroll expenses \u2014 only security staff are paid, while everyone else, including elected leaders such as Alexander, do those jobs out of their own dedication to the DIY ethos. Most other music venues, Alexander says by way of understatement, are \u201cmore structured.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey have paid employees they have to pay, they have bars, they have back-of-house, front-of-house staff,\u201d they said. \u201cWe have, \u2018Hey this person wandered in one day and wanted to do this, and now they\u2019re here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Gilman has run a surplus in each of the past three years, and ended 2025 with enough money in the bank to cover a year of rent, its second-largest expense after payments to artists. The vast majority of its revenue comes from ticket sales, most of which goes right back out the door to bands, though the club has made some money in recent years from merchandise, a Patreon page and arts grants.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Gilman collective voted earlier this year to reintroduce the club\u2019s $5 annual membership cards, bringing back a fixture of its early days that every attendee must present to attend a show \u2014 think of it like \u201cDIY Costco,\u201d volunteers say. The cards represent a contract, with attendees signing their names to affirm they will abide by Gilman\u2019s rules as well as prohibitions on drinking and vandalism around the club (\u201cangry neighbors & angry city councils close all ages clubs everywhere,\u201d the contract warns). They\u2019re also a source of revenue and have helped bolster the venue\u2019s finances, Alexander said.<\/p>\n This early stage of the campaign to buy the building has been low-key, and Gilman has not yet begun to tap its roster of illustrious alumni for donations, Alexander said. The goal is to raise money to buy the building over the next 18 months to two years, and let Widess keep his shop there as long as he likes, rent-free. Gilman boosters launched a similar effort<\/a> a decade ago, but didn\u2019t wind up making an offer to buy the space.<\/p>\n Widess said he has discussed the latest campaign with the collective and supports it, though he declined to say how much he thinks the building is worth or what terms he would seek in an agreement. Widess is also negotiating with Gilman over a new lease that he said would give the club a number of renewal options that could keep it in place well into the future.<\/p>\n \u201cI very much would like to see the club stay here and be protected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What Gilman is now: The story didn\u2019t end with \u2018Dookie\u2019<\/p>\n Jesus Galinda used to avoid the mosh pit, where people sprint and stomp in rowdy circles or slamdance, planting their feet and swinging their fists wildly. Some hold their arms up in front of their faces to avoid getting hit; others catch a blow and need to grab one of the free ice packs Gilman volunteers stock at a mutual aid table near the front door.<\/p>\n But when the Los Angeles hardcore band Desmadre took the stage for the headline set at the show last May, the 16-year-old Galinda dove into the swirl.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like a rush, when you\u2019re in there letting it all out,\u201d he said. Galinda described the feeling of connection in the pit as \u201cchaos without no fear, because they\u2019ll help you back up.\u201d<\/p>\n Desmadre\u2019s show was part of what volunteers and fans describe as a thrilling hardcore scene that helps define this Gilman era, often driven by Latino bands and audiences. Performing at a table draped with the Mexican flag, the band\u2019s DJ spun cumbias, old-school hip-hop and even the beeping earworm \u201cEl Sonidito<\/a>\u201d between songs; the crowd moshed through just about all of it. The concert was a benefit for ICE detainees<\/a> and bail funds for those arrested in protests against federal immigration enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ricardo Sanchez, a 32-year-old from Richmond, said he appreciates Gilman\u2019s inclusivity and noticed how different the audience looked from the ones he found going to emo concerts growing up.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the [shows] were mostly white crowds, white singers, white musicians,\u201d said Sanchez, wearing a shirt from the San Jose band Sunami, another hardcore act he saw at his first Gilman show three years ago. \u201cIt\u2019s a very, very diverse scene right here \u2014 it makes me feel more welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n Those popular stories about Gilman leave out nights like this, because they rarely make it past \u201cDookie.\u201d The breakthrough 1994 album Green Day recorded after signing with an imprint of Warner Records would go on to sell over 20 million copies, herald the arrival of a pop punk wave that shaped rock music for the next decade<\/a> and famously cost the band its home at Gilman<\/a>. Seeing Green Day as sell-outs, the scene shunned its members and the collective instituted a new prohibition: no major-label bands.<\/p>\n Sissyfit frontwoman Breanna Ennis worries the club\u2019s first decade is so lauded it means people spend too much time talking about \u201cwhat Gilman was.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t get enough credit for what it is now,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is the heart of the bay when it comes to punk music, hardcore music [and] alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexander said they don\u2019t mind that so many people focus on the club\u2019s 1980s and \u201990s history.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt still gets people talking about this place,\u201d Alexander said. But, they added, \u201cI always try to turn the conversation around to what\u2019s currently going on, and the bands that play here now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The club remains a haven for punk and hardcore shows, but it also resists being pigeonholed. You\u2019ll find emo, ska and bluegrass bands on the stage, along with drag shows, open mics and the occasional \u201cgoth night,\u201d where black-clad teens are invited to dress up and dance. Yoga classes, narcotics anonymous meetings and a group of gourd aficionados organized through Widess\u2019 shop use the space some days.<\/p>\n Even turn-of-the-millenium pop punk, with its fraught history at Gilman, has found a home there: A show this month included a local band that covered the 1999 alt rock radio mainstay \u201cMy Own Worst Enemy,\u201d while the bassist for another act on tour from New Jersey sported a Sum 41 T-shirt.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of venues where you\u2019re strictly going to find one thing,\u201d said Alyx Feied, who sings and plays guitar in the East Bay band Mugslug, after a show in April. \u201cGilman is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a country band here,\u201d drummer Kazuma Minton chimed in.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Feied said, \u201cthey\u2019ll let anyone play, as long as they\u2019re not signed to a big label.\u201d<\/p>\n Ah, right, the ban on major labels that \u201cDookie\u201d prompted \u2014 which applies to bands as well as industry scouts \u2014 is still in effect. So does that mean Green Day is banned from Gilman?\u00a0<\/p>\n No. Well, not really. But kind of?\u00a0<\/p>\n You won\u2019t find photos of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt or Tre Cool on the back of the door to the club\u2019s office, the wall with pictures of those who have been \u201c86<\/a>\u2019d\u201d for bad behavior. Relations between Green Day and Gilman thawed in the 2010s<\/a>, when the band made its triumphant return to the venue\u2019s stage<\/a> \u2014 or, rather, played on a new stage it bought for the venue \u2014 and put on a benefit show to support the club<\/a>. Not everyone was thrilled; after the band bought Gilman a new sound system ahead of its concert, the person who had installed its old sound board took it back, incensed the venue had accepted anything from Green Day. The band has also filmed a music video inside the club<\/a> and visited it with a CBS News crew<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Alexander said Green Day could not, if it so desired, simply fill out the booking form on the Gilman website<\/a> like any other band. If Green Day wanted to play, that request would have to be approved by the Gilman collective at one of the meetings where most decisions about how the club is run are made by a vote of volunteers. (Representatives for Warner Records did not respond to Berkeleyside\u2019s request to interview members of Green Day.)<\/p>\n There would probably be debate over the idea of Green Day playing Gilman again, because volunteers debate everything at the collective meetings \u2014 a recent one included extended discussions of the fine details of a merchandise order, and whether to place a $15 ad in a community newspaper.\u00a0But what about a Green Day benefit concert to help with the push to buy the building? Gilman hasn\u2019t asked the band, but Alexander would be OK with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSeeing as this is really to preserve the history and preserve the space and make sure it\u2019s here for many generations after us,\u201d they said, \u201cI don\u2019t see how it would be the end of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The 40-year relay that keeps Gilman alive<\/p>\n Less than two years after Yohannon opened Gilman, he shut it down.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of burnout, he was kind of over it, and he closed the club,\u201d board member and longtime volunteer Phil Ramey said, recounting the history from a couch in the Gilman office, where the walls are covered in fliers for bygone shows from Fugazi<\/a> to The Linda Lindas.<\/p>\n For all the work to make the venue un-shut-down-able there was never any guarantee that Gilman would survive, and by the fall of 1988, it looked like it wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n But then a bunch of Gilman kids, who Yohannon had given jobs running the club and steeped in DIY punk values, put them into action. They organized collective meetings up the street at another stalwart Berkeley music venue, Ashkenaz<\/a>, and eventually reopened the club without its founding father. Ramey distilled their message: \u201cYou taught us how to do this, so we don\u2019t fuckin\u2019 need you.\u201d<\/p>\n In so doing, those punks created the template for how Gilman would sustain itself for generations to come.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s never been about any particular person,\u201d Ramey said, \u201cnot even Tim Yo.\u201d<\/p>\n When Bottom of the Hill\u2019s three co-owners announced their plans to close, they told Coyote Media<\/a> a range of challenges factored into the decision, but the main driver was an understandable desire to move on after decades of tireless work running the venue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gilman, however, operates on a self-perpetuating cycle where people discover the place, fall in love with it and are immediately enlisted in keeping it afloat.<\/p>\n The typical Gilman kid might go the first time for a band \u2014 maybe their friends\u2019 group, or someone they found on social media or a streamlining platform. When they walk through the door, they find something they\u2019ve been looking for.<\/p>\n They go back for another band, an opener they liked from that first show or one from a flier on the wall that caught their eye. That show will beget more shows, until they\u2019re volunteering to work the side door or sweep up at the end of the night so they can get in for free.<\/p>\n They keep coming back until, at some point, they don\u2019t go to Gilman for bands anymore. They go because it\u2019s where their friends are. Where they can dance or dress the way they like.<\/p>\n \u201cHere, I can be who I am,\u201d said 16-year-old Leila Dacascos, who worked the front door of the Desmadre show.\u00a0<\/p>\n They start showing up for collective meetings, and eventually take on some job that needs doing.<\/p>\n \u201cI can try my hardest to help keep this place alive,\u201d said Viktor Maese, 15.<\/p>\n Gilman\u2019s lead coordinator, who goes by Strychnine Valentine, grew up in Arizona obsessed with Green Day. She made what amounted to a pilgrimage to Gilman shortly after she moved to the Bay Area, Valentine said, then \u201cnever stopped going.\u201d Within a couple of weeks she was an elected Gilman volunteer with keys to the venue. Some old punks might scoff \u2014 Valentine fell in love with Green Day\u2019s 2009 album \u201c21st Century Breakdown,\u201d when the band wasn\u2019t just commercial, it was pop \u2014 but she\u2019s the one volunteering 40-plus hours a week to put on shows.<\/p>\n Alexander knew nothing about Gilman\u2019s history when they came to work security at a show in 2022; three years later they were running the club.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more special than feeling like you don\u2019t have your place in the world and then arriving somewhere, and being given agency,\u201d said Corbett Redford<\/a>, a former Gilman board member who directed the 2017 documentary \u201cTurn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n No, it\u2019s not always easy to wrangle teenage volunteers. Yes, the burnout rate for the club\u2019s leaders is high \u2014 people rarely just leave Gilman, says former executive director Alex Botkin<\/a>, they only move, die or have a falling out with the collective.<\/p>\n But the volunteers pour their lives into the place because they see young people bored of being on their phones and desperate for somewhere to hang out. They do it to make sure Gilman is there for the next person who is about to walk through the doors for the first time.<\/p>\n \u201cThose kids need a place where they can come and feel like they\u2019re a part of something,\u201d Valentine said. \u201cIt\u2019s worth it when I see the kids having a space where they can have fun and make community.\u201d<\/p>\n Gilman has carved out what Alexander describes as a \u201cperfect, odd middle ground\u201d between ephemeral creative spaces that get red-tagged<\/a> or evicted and venues farther up the brutal music industry food chain that are struggling. The club is established enough to be lauded by city officials and draw on the support of former regulars whose days in the mosh pit are behind them \u2014 Redford envisions alumni coming together \u201clike Voltron\u201d if the venue was truly at risk of closing. But the DIY punk spirit still animates Gilman, which means it\u2019s constantly reinventing itself and enlisting new generations of bands, fans and volunteers to carry the torch.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those rules on the wall foster an environment where people can find themselves and feel valued for whoever that is. It was the draw 40 years ago, when neo-Nazis were lurking outside, and it\u2019s the same draw today, when white supremacists are marching in the streets and lurking on the devices we carry in our pockets.<\/p>\n The people and the sounds can change \u2014 the musicians can be legends in the making or teenagers who will never record an album \u2014 but what Gilman offers will always be in demand.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\tGreen Day guitarist is obsessed with the hidden pathways of the Berkeley Hills<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tAugust 18, 2026Aug. 19, 2026, 3:41 p.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\tFilmed in Berkeley and Oakland, \u2018Freaky Tales\u2019 is a love letter to East Bay\u2019s punk scene in the \u201980s<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tApril 3, 2025April 3, 2025, 10:01 a.m.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/924-Gilman-Natera.jpg\")
Alex Galinda, 13, inside 924 Gilman. Credit: Ximena Natera<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787788939_313_924-Gilman-Natera.jpg\")
Her brother Jesus Galinda, 16, outside the venue. Credit: Ximena Natera<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787788940_411_924-Gilman-Natera.jpg\")
924 Gilman is working to buy its building from Jim Widess, the owner of a cane furniture repair and supply business next door who has been the venue\u2019s landlord for the past 40 years. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Historic-924-Gilman-photos.jpg\")
Tim Yohannon, foreground holding a hammer, holds a meeting with early 924 Gilman volunteers as they prepared to open the venue in 1986. This image is one of thousands of Gilman scenes captured by photographer Murray Bowles, a fixture of the East Bay music scene who documented some of its most legendary bands and concerts. Credit: Murray Bowles<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787788941_379_924-Gilman-Natera.jpg\")
The East Bay punk scene veteran who goes by \u201cGrinch,\u201d left, flipping off the camera, poses along with Breanna Ellis of Sissyfit and others outside 924 Gilman. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/924-Gilman-Natera-2.jpg\")
924 Gilman Executive Director Kian Alexander poses for a portrait inside the club\u2019s office. 924 Gilman is run almost entirely by volunteers \u2014 only security staff are paid, while club officials such as Alexander do those jobs out of their own dedication. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/924-Gilman-Natera-12.jpg\")
\u201cGrinch\u201d shows off a \u201c924\u201d tattoo on the back of his head. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/924-Gilman-Natera-8.jpg\")
Hardcore fan Ricardo Sanchez, 32, poses for a portrait inside 924 Gilman. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NATERA_gilman-btakes-001.jpg\")
The Los Angeles hardcore band Desmadre play at 924 Gilman. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/webimage-Historic-924-Gilman-photos-FG6AlG.jpg.jpeg\")
Green Day perform at 924 Gilman in 1992. The band was banned from the venue after it signed with an imprint of Warner Records and released its era-defining album \u201cDookie\u201d in 1994, but returned for a benefit concert in 2015. Credit: Murray Bowles<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787788944_399_924-Gilman-Natera.jpg\")
Gilman volunteer Pati Zapatita stands at the venue\u2019s concession stand, known as \u201cStoar.\u201d Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/924-Gilman-Natera-10.jpg\")
A crew of 924 Gilman volunteers and security staff outside a May 2026 concert. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NATERA_gilman-btakes-001-2.jpg\")
Gilman volunteer Viktor Maese, 15. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787788945_624_924-Gilman-Natera.jpg\")
Hardcore fans of all ages in the mosh pit. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/924-Gilman-Natera-5.jpg\")
The entryway to 924 Gilman includes the legendary wall spelling out the venue\u2019s rules prohibiting racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and violence. Credit: Ximena Natera for Berkeleyside<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Filmed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FT_01151RC2-scaled-1.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Director-Corbett-Redford-interviews-Adrienne-Melanie-Stone-of-Spitboy-for-the-documentary.-Photo-by-.jpeg\")
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