Valencia Tool & Die

The cellar space was reached through a trap door and a narrow staircase, which led Damage Magazine publisher Brad Lapin to label it "the black hole of Calcutta."

By mid-1981 Valencia Tool & Die had begun to book hardcore punk and thrashcore shows featuring three bands for three dollars, a policy which had disappeared years before [elsewhere in San Francisco].

The Die was a street-level storefront with a semi-sound proof basement, a seven-foot ceiling laced with pipes, brick walls and a concrete floor.

Outside on the sidewalk there would inevitably be a dozen or two skulking kids in the nearby doorways, or leaning on parked cars while catching a breath of smokeless air.

Gigs at Barrington Hall in Berkeley, New Method Industries in Oakland, and the occasional party at Valencia Tool & Die are the rowdiest (the heart of the scene) with a full cast of day-to-day regulars."

Plenty of people at this gig arranged by MDC, and the crowd was pretty friendly - no real fights (which seem to be on the decline), and a lot of women thrashing."

During his tenure, Halen worked with Timmy Yohannon, Dirk Dirksen, Paul Rat, Kevin Thatcher of Thrasher Magazine, Dream manager of The Circle Jerks just to name a few fellow promoters and supporters of the underground music scene throughout the U.S.

Some of the punk bands and new music musicians that performed at Valencia Tool & Die included: Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, Faith No Man (the first incarnation of Faith No More), Flipper, Dead Kennedys, Toxic Reasons, Social Distortion, Minor Threat, DRI, Butthole Surfers,[3] Verbal Abuse, The Units, The Nubs, The Job featuring the beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg, the girl groups The Contractions and The Varve, Vancouver's Pointed Sticks, Translator, Code of Honor, The Tanks, The Lewd, Timmy Spence, Clocks of Paradise, Barry Beam, Los Microwaves, The Symptoms, The Neutrinoz, The Dickheads, The Invertebrates, Mr. E and the Necromantics, Ribzy, Executioner, Los Olvidados, Crucifix, PLH, UXB, Fifth Column, Red Kross, Social Unrest, Bad Posture, Fang, Rebel Truth, Intensified Chaos, The German Shepards, Arkansas Man, Ultra-Sheen, Nervous Gender, The Zeros, The Appliances, Henry Kuntz, Loren Means, John Gruntfest, Steve Ruppenthal, Bonnie Hayes and The Punts, Voice Farm, and Indoor Life.

Later in the article Goldberg continued: "With its low ceiling, wooden posts (running down the middle of the room to provide support) and brick walls, this place reminds one of the hideaways devised during the Nazis' reign of terror.

Artists who participated in Mainstream Exiles were: Leonie Guyer, Bill Jacobson, Kim Anno, Will Roscoe, Beth Rose, Blackberri, Swingshift, Avotcja, Inner Peace Rainbow, Susan Griffin, Randy Johnson, Cherrie Moraga-Lawrence, Emanuel Ro, Karen Brodine, Steve Abbott, Judy Grahn, Robert Gluck, Canyon Sam, Tede Matthews, Rose Mitchell, David Arndt, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Jan and Vicki, Brown Bag Theater, Chris Tanner now known as VonTanner, Ruth Schoenbach, Carol Roberts, Michael Barry, March Thomas Armstrong, Lesbians Against Police Violence, M. J. Lallo, Gay Theater Collective, Adele Prandini, Whole Works Theater, Canyon Sam and Genny Lim of Unbound Feet, Marilyn Curry, Marc Huestis, James Armstrong, Ann Hershey, Connie Hatch, Michael Brayton, Allen Page and Susana Blaustein.