What is PNF?

Popular Noise Foundation (PNF) is a nonprofit corporation formed to raise funds and operate charitable programs to benefit and preserve the local music community of the San Francisco Bay Area. A number of escalating problems facing the community are described in our mission statement.

PNF is building an effective fundraising infrastructure to ensure the ongoing preservation of the Bay Area music community. As an arts foundation, an important part of this effort is to provide a face for the local music community to the larger, traditional arts community, as well as the business community in SF.

How It Started

The idea for this foundation started after attending an arts community meeting on April 28th at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Arts Explosion had just been shut down and the "dot.coms are killing the arts scene" discussion was reaching one of its early peaks, so we were interested when we heard about the town hall meeting to discuss the problem. The meeting was held by SF Grants for the Arts, and was called to discuss the space crisis and announce a Cultural Organizations Space Study. People from various arts groups around the city were there to relate their rent increase stories and brainstorm about possible solutions. There were representatives from dance groups, theatre groups, visual and performing arts groups, as well as individual artists, but we were surprised that there was not a single person there from a band or any aspect of the music scene as we know it. And this was just two weeks after a major rehearsal space closure. It was apparent that there was a need here to be filled.

The People

Today, we have an eager and able group made up of people that generally straddle the dot.com and music communities, and believe that we have the leadership, vision, engineering skills, business experience, and communications networks to ensure this foundation's success. The people involved in PNF at this point include: Noise Pop Festival founder Kevin Arnold, Zeitgeist Artist Management principal Jordan Kurland, Listen.com VP of Content/Editor-in-chief Nick Tangborn, Chime Interactive music technology consultants principal and IUMA co-founder Jon Luini, Lycos Music producer and co-founder of nineup.com Tim Mitchell, Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads and garageband.com, Scott Kannberg of Pavement and Amazing Grease Records, freelance writer and actor Chris Slater, Sharky Laguana of Creeper Lagoon, Mike Drake of Oranger and Excite@Home, and Sheetal Singh of Stratford 4 and CNET. We're longtime fans and supporters of and participants in the local music scene who also have ties to the Internet industry; we're working with other groups mobilized around these problems such as the Save Local Music Coalition and RockOut . We all have a vested interest in seeing the SF music scene continue to thrive.