The Buck Started Here: Marty Balin, the Matrix, and the Birth of the San Francisco Sound

Opens July 17, 2025

The Haight Street Art Center is pleased to present The Buck Started Here: Marty Balin, the Matrix, and the Birth of the San Francisco Sound, opening on July 17th and running through August 24, 2025. Highlights of the exhibition include Balin’s personal scrapbooks and photo albums from the late 1960s, paintings and drawings he created before and after his time with Jefferson Airplane, dozens of Matrix posters and handbills, and a collection of vintage photographs that were taken inside the Matrix and have never before been seen.

Known to friends and family alike as Buck because of his real last name—his father was Tea Lautrec Litho printer Joe Buchwald—Balin founded Jefferson Airplane in the spring of 1965. By August 13, 1965, Balin had opened the Matrix, a renovated pizza joint on Fillmore Street in the Marina neighborhood, to give his new band—as well as the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the Charlatans—a friendly place to play. Thanks in no small part to Marty Balin and the Matrix, the San Francisco Sound was born.

Special event: In conjunction with The Buck Started Here, the Haight Street Art Center will host a special event on Saturday July 19, from 2 to 6 p.m., featuring seven musicians who played the Matrix, followed by the premiere of a film made of footage Balin shot between 1968 and 1970. The program will begin with a “Matrix Musicians” panel moderated by music journalist Joel Selvin.

Panelists will include Peter Albin and Dave Getz of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers, George Hunter and Richard Olsen of the Charlatans, and Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish. Also joining the panel via Zoom will be Steve Miller, whose first paying gig in San Francisco was playing bass for Lightnin’ Hopkins at the Matrix.

After the panel, which will include time for questions from the audience, the lights will dim for “In the Mansion,” an hour-plus film directed by Marty Balin, compiled from video he shot in Jefferson Airplane’s mansion at 2400 Fulton Street, as well as a few other locations in and around San Francisco. This will be the first public screening of “In the Mansion,” which captures a unique moment in San Francisco rock history. Drinks and snacks will be served!