A 1970s Counterculture Bash at Zodiac News Service. Were You There?

It was 1977-ish, and the scruffy but earnest folks at Zodiac News Service were putting on a bash. Were you there?

I need to know because I have a slew of photos from that party. I’d like to put names on the faces. I’d also like to know who took the photos. So I need your help.

If you are — or can identify — any of the folks in these picture, just post a comment below. Thank you!

The scene was Zodiac’s inky second floor office, located above a noisy print shop on Howard Street in what was then the down-and-out South of Market district of San Francisco and is now the trendy SoMa.

Posters, maps and newspaper clippings cluttered the walls. Telephone books and a TV set — it had an antenna! — crowded one bookshelf. Typewriters and telephones were pushed aside to make room for a abundant, but low cost, wine and cheese spread.

We were still hippies then, most of us. We had lots of hair, often down to the shoulders and beyond. Most of the men still wore beards, mustaches or sideburns. Our drink of choice was wine — an Almaden chardonnay or cabernet would do just fine. Marijuana optional.

A 1970s Counterculture Bash at Zodiac News Service

I’m guessing this was a birthday party. There’s a sheet cake in one photo and it has a wax candle in the shape of a five. Jon Newhall, who founded Zodiac News Service in 1972, is present at the cutting of the cake.

This was probably Zodiac’s fifth birthday bash, and the party and the photos were most likely taken in 1977.

KSAN’s Dave McQueen Was There

I remember the party, whenever it was. The place was jammed with Zodiac staffers, stringers and subscribers. The beloved anti-establishment KSAN newscaster Dave McQueen was there. So was counter-culture reporter Scoop Sweeney.

Also present and having herself a very good time was Marlene Edmunds, a Zodiac editing staff stalwart who went on to found another alternative news service, the prize-winning feminist publication Her Say.

And, yes. I’m in the photos, too. I don’t know whether I’m there as Barbara Falconer, one of the original founding staffers at Zodiac. Or as Barbara Falconer Newhall, newly wed in 1977 to Jon, my former boss.

If you weren’t at that party — and if you weren’t, that’s too bad, it was fun — and have never heard of Zodiac News Service, here’s some background:

Alternative News — Traditional Journalism Standards

Jon’s intention with Zodiac was to report news stories he felt were being suppressed or ignored by the mainstream media — using traditional journalism standards of accuracy and reliability. Subscribers included college radio stations and other counter-culture media — print and radio — all over the U.S. and Canada.

The Vietnam War, ecology, Black civil rights, disability rights, the American Indian movement, women’s issues, the gay liberation movement, all were grist for Zodiac’s counterculture mill. So were sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and the occasional man-bites-dog story.

Typewriter, Paper, Printer, Envelopes . . . and the Post Office

We printed up the six-page packets on our own printer, a Gestetner, stuffed them into envelopes and delivered them to the post office, Monday through Friday, with a sixth issue sent out for the weekend.

The digital age was still a decade or two in the future, thus a Zodiac office crowded with typewriters, a printing press, a postage meter, reams of paper, telephones and fat telephone books.

It had been hard work, digging up those stories and getting them printed and mailed, day in and day out for five years. A party — a bash — was in order.

And so, if you were there, or know someone who was there at that party, please take a good look at these old black and white photos so I can put a name these very young, very idealistic, counterculture faces.

Claim Your Photo Credit!

And if you took these photos, let me know so I can give you the photo credit.

Again — if you can identify any of these folks, please post a comment below. To make things simpler, refer to the photos by their number. Thanks!

Don’t miss last month’s post about Zodiac News Service: Widowed: Archiving My Husband and Zodiac, His Scrappy, 1970s News Service. 

Thoughts on our office romance at “Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, Jon and Me.”

Reflections on losing Jon after forty-four years of marriage at “Widowed: It’s Jon the Old Guy I Miss the Most.”