After being frustrated with music venues getting shut down in San Luis Obispo, a group of college students hiked to the top of Cuesta Ridge and put on their own “house show.” This happened over 10 years ago.
“House shows and concerts were really important to us,” Greg Golf, founder of Shabang and ‘16 alum, said. “A lot of our social scene was based around that.”
Originally called ‘The Last Shabang,’ Golf said the show was a way to end the 2014 school year and now has become a San Luis Obispo tradition for 10 years, “[putting] the central coast on the map.”
The first Shabang took place on June 7, 2014. It featured surf rock band William H. Klink for people who like to mosh.
Golf and his friend Carson Stone had the idea for Shabang, and collaborated with their friends Alexander Schwend and Jake Schoonmaker, both members of the band, to bring their equipment to the top of the ridge.
“When you’re up on Cuesta Ridge and the clouds come in low, it’s insanely euphoric,” Golf said.
All 20 people in attendance at “The Last Shabang” camped out after the show.
“We all woke up the next day thinking that was sick, we should do this once a quarter,” Golf said.
A second band was added to the next Shabang held on Oct. 11, 2014. After the initial opening of William H. Klink, their dual punk persona, the Barbados Butsexers came back on stage.
“They would leave the stage and get in their underwear,” Golf said. “It was much more of a punk and thrash vibe.”
The festival was put on once a quarter until Shabang V.
“The first time we realized the gravity and [how] stoked people were about an event like this was at Shabang IV,” Golf said. “All of a sudden we had like 400 people.”
From Shabang VI to XII, the show was held twice a year. Until Shabang VII, it was run by a team of only three people, explained Golf, but the team has continued to grow rapidly over the past few years.
“In 2017, we started thinking we got to keep making this better and better,” he said.
Additional vendors and Funk Safari, Shabang’s EDM stage, were added to the festival.
“A lot of the things you see now at Shabang started small and just started as somebody that was in SLO that thought it would be cool to add,” Golf said.
Shabang now features yoga and movement opportunities, 20 different food and beverage vendors from the central coast, different art installations, a marketplace and silent disco as listed on their website.
With all of its new additions, Shabang still works on helping college students interested in the music and entertainment space with career development, according to Golf.
Throughout the years Shabang has hired students from Cal Poly, Cuesta College and Santa Barbara City College.
For communication studies junior Kailey Dodson, she has been working as Shabang’s digital social media content creator for the past two years. She collaborates with her team to create comedic, relatable and informational content about Cal Poly, the central coast and music culture.
“I feel supported and welcomed in ways I’ve never felt from a job before,” Dodson said.
Because of her current position, Dodson has landed other festival and media gigs such as working for Up & Up Festival.
Similarly, former student volunteers like art and design senior Gabi Pontius landed an internship for Shabang 2024.
“As a graphic designer, it makes me so happy to be able to put my work into something I love and to have people especially at Cal Poly recognize me for that,” Pontius said. “Cal Poly says ‘learn by doing’ and that’s quite literally what is happening for college students working for Shabang.”
Along with providing professional opportunities for students, Golf explained that Shabang helps young artists get their name out on a bigger scale.
Battle of the Bands, a precursor to Shabang, is designed to promote rising musicians. Shabang hosts four different shows across California and invites local bands to compete for the opportunity to secure a spot in the Shabang lineup and win $1,000.
This year the tour began in Santa Barbara on Feb. 23 and continued on until Apr. 4 ending in San Luis Obispo. The winners are The Framers, Mom Cars, Dolphins on Acid and Margot Sinclair.
“It’s a way to help younger bands and creatives get on a larger platform, which is something that’s the most important to me and a lot of our intern team,” Golf said.
Although Golf and his co-founders graduated and have full time jobs, they still work on Shabang as a “labor of love.”
“From 20 to 10,000 people, somehow, some way, I still feel the same energy when I’m at Shabang,” Golf said. “The thing that feels a whole lot different is the level of thought that is put into every little thing that we do.”
While the scale of the festival has changed in the last 10 years, Golf said it continues to celebrate “a good old central coast time,” and the type of people in attendance have remained the same.