In 1978, Napa’s State Psychiatric Hospital Hosted a Now-Legendary Punk Show

On June 13, 1978, Joe Rees, the videographer that ran Mission District live venue/punk rock archive Target Video, packed up a portable Sony black-and-white camera and drove to Napa with his cohort, Jill Hoffman-Kowal.

The two were hitting the road to film a live show — something they did all the time. As documentarians that saw the importance of capturing every grimy little punk show they could, they were accustomed to making things work under chaotic circumstances.

Even by Target Video standards, however, this set would be a little bit different.

That sunny June afternoon, The Cramps would play a free concert at Napa State Hospital, a psychiatric facility that had been around since 1875, and which provided mental health services to resident patients. San Francisco’s The Mutants — easily as anarchic as their New York City stagemates — had agreed to perform too.

By the time punk rock got to it, the Napa State Hospital already had quite the reputation. It first opened inside a beautiful brick building, complete with elegant arches and towers, to ease overcrowding at the Stockton State Hospital. But by 1891, Napa State itself housed more than 1,300 psychiatric patients — double the population it was designed for. By 1920, wards meant for 26 people were accommodating as many as 64, and sterilization procedures became common. In 1950, the hospital’s gorgeous architecture was demolished to build more practical, utilitarian structures.

That’s what The Cramps and The Mutants encountered in 1978, as they set up their equipment in the courtyard outside the hospital building, next to the gym. How both bands got there was a series of twists masterminded by music impresario Howie Klein. Back then, Klein was best known as the host of punk rock radio show The Outcastes and the founder of 415 Records. When the San Francisco date of their tour fell through, The Cramps approached Klein and asked for advice. He took it upon himself to book the Napa State show and, already a big fan of the local band’s live antics, invited The Mutants along.

(Remarkably, there was precedence for this in the North Bay: Sebastopol art-punks $27 Snap On Face had previously played at Sonoma State Hospital for the developmentally disabled, and included the applause of patients on 1977’s Heterodyne State Hospital album.)

Sally Webster of The Mutants later stated in 2021 documentary, We Were There to Be There: “We were not thinking of it as ironic or weird or anything like that at the time. This is just an adventure for everyone.” Webster also admitted that she and a number of friends she brought along that day had taken LSD, which gave her a heightened sense of unity with everyone at the show. “It was just an inclusive situation,” she explained, “where the audience and the band were kinda one.”

She may have been intoxicated at the time, but Webster was not exaggerating. During the Cramps’ eight-song set, hospital patients jumped onstage, mimed along, danced with band members and took over the mic and screamed into it. No one seemed at all concerned that some of those patients had come from a special unit at Napa State that housed individuals considered a danger to themselves or others.

“It was a beautiful, beautiful thing,” Rees later said of the show. “I mean, you don’t know who’s who in that video. The band members and the mental patients are the same.”

“Some people told me you people are crazy,” vocalist Lux Interior stated after The Cramps’ opening song, “Mystery Plane.” “But I’m not so sure about that. You seem to be alright to me…”

As can be clearly seen in Rees’ footage above, The Cramps were a hit with the Napa State residents that day.

“They were the people that were just discarded,” the filmmaker stated in his We Were There to Be There interview, “and they were so overwhelmed by someone even caring to put on a show, and they got so into it.”

So into it, in fact, that rumors swirled afterward of several successful escape attempts by patients. “I think someone left with us, to be honest,” Webster vaguely recalled.

Klein’s memories of the ride home were more specific. “There was this one woman,” he recalled. “She was basically wearing a nightgown and she was running down the road, and I stopped and she jumped in [the van], and we drove back to San Francisco with her. And she became a stalwart in the San Francisco scene. She became a respected and loved member of the community.”

Alan Gill, a psychiatric technician at Napa State throughout the 1970s and ’80s noted that the show was most definitely not a hit with one very specific faction: the administration of the hospital.

“There was a lot of pushback,” he remembered. “Administrators obviously are the older folk — the suit-and-tie gang — and they were not at all pleased … I think there might even have been disciplinary action.”

The Mutants’ set from Napa State is not currently streaming, but can be seen in ‘The Cramps and the Mutants: The Napa State Tapes,’ available on DVD.