924 Gilman Street — Berkeley, California

924 Gilman Street in Berkeley is a collectively run all-ages punk venue that opened in December 1986 and became the incubator for the East Bay punk scene that produced Green Day, Rancid, the Offspring, Operation Ivy, Neurosis, and dozens of other bands. Founded by Maximum Rocknroll founder Tim Yohannan and a volunteer collective committed to keeping shows alcohol-free and all-ages, Gilman operated (and continues to operate) on strict principles: no major label bands, no violent acts, no racism, no sexism. The ethos was explicitly political, and the venue's character — raw, sweaty, community-run — was the antithesis of commercial rock production.

Green Day — Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool — were Gilman regulars in the late 1980s and early 1990s, playing shows and attending those of other bands. Their signing to Warner Bros. subsidiary Reprise Records in 1993 led to their being banned from Gilman on the grounds of major label affiliation — a ban that has since been lifted. The irony of a band nurtured by the most fiercely independent punk venue in America going on to sell tens of millions of albums was not lost on anyone involved. Armstrong grew up in Rodeo, California, and the East Bay landscape features directly in Green Day's early lyrics.

924 Gilman Street remains an active, volunteer-run music venue and community space. It is one of the longest-running independent punk venues in America. The neighbourhood around it has changed dramatically — Berkeley and the greater Bay Area have been transformed by tech industry wealth — but the building itself, and the collective that runs it, maintains its original character with remarkable fidelity. It is one of the genuinely important addresses in American punk history.