Five years ago, Erick Lyle was squatting in an abandoned building in San Francisco, with no home and no job. Offered a book deal and an advance based on the strength of his long-running and influential zine Scam—a publication dedicated to documenting survival based on scamming rather than working—he accepted. Not because he had an idea for a book, but because he needed the money to live.
Eventually, the writer/punk musician came up with an idea. On the Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City is his account of 10 years on the front lines of an ongoing effort to stop the war and keep gentrification from completely taking over the city he calls home.
Lyle’s literary journey began in 1991 in Florida as Iggy Scam, a pseudonym he created for his Scam zine. Lyle describes zines—Xeroxed, self-published magazines born out of the punk rock scene of the late ’70s—as “DIY self-expression … somewhere on a continuum between the ’60s free press and today’s blog—but no blog will ever have the same sense of belonging to a secret underground, or the satisfying qualities or artistic possibilities of the Xeroxed zine.”
Scam told the tales of Lyle and his friends as they attempted to exist in modern society without actual jobs. Their dream was an anarcho-punk utopia where they would brew their own beer and “rule Broward County’s dumpsters.”
Lyle explains, “The zine grew as I grew—taking in the national underground, freight-hopping and hitchhiking, and my obsession with radical history.”
This fascination with radical history forms the backbone of much of Lyle’s work after he made his way to San Francisco’s Mission District, and also serves as a narrative backdrop for On the Lower Frequencies. He discusses San Francisco’s long-running history of radical politics and dissent, and demonstrates a desire to harness that energy to help the current situation, both locally and globally. He calls the book a work of “urban archaeology,” describing it as more of “a first-person account inspired by the nonfiction of George Orwell than a journalistic recitation.”
Disgusted by the reality that San Francisco was well on its way to being the “first entirely gentrified city ever,” and the acceleration of the effort to achieve this reality (a plan originally devised by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Plan over 50 years ago) during the dot-com boom, Lyle took to the front lines to fight against it.
Lyle argues against gentrification as a natural phenomenon, like a “weather pattern”; rather, he claims, the process is the result of “violent action” and nefarious methodology, as evidenced in San Francisco during the dot-com salad days. He talks of the displacement of working class and poor people through homeless sweeps, illegal evictions, and the intentional burning of properties.
Lyle also offers his take on the current state of the nation thanks to the government and corporate status quo, saying, “There is a real breakdown in the public health system, the schools are bad, we’re stuck in a senseless war, and there are countless abandoned buildings that homeless people could be living in.”
One story in his new book focuses on the demise of a former community institution, Hunt’s Donuts; Lyle uses it as an analogy for the current gentrification and displacement tensions, highlighting the disparity in the opposing visions for the city and the economic divide between those who are thriving and those who are barely surviving.
On the Lower Frequencies chronicles Lyle’s efforts as he worked with various groups in creative dissent projects around the city, from putting on illegal punk shows to opening up squatted community spaces in downtown San Francisco; from coordinating anti-war demonstrations to running a skid row newspaper. He recounts the time he handed out fake Starbucks “free coffee” coupons as an example of tweaking the corporate system, and talks of the need for more community-based art and homeless assistance programs.
Lyle reads excerpts from his book, presents a slide show talk, and leads a discussion Thursday, June 19 at 7 p.m. at Food for Thought Books in Amherst. Doris zine creator/writer Cindy Ovenrack Crabb also reads from her work.