Pairing with print issue #33 of New Noise Magazine is the story of East Bay Punk. The issue includes a limited Flexi of “If There Was Ever A Time” by the East Bay supergroup Armstrongs, made up of Billie Joe (Green Day), Tim (Rancid), Joey (SWMRS), and Rey Armstrong. The song is featured in “Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk.” The cover of the exclusive subscribers only magazine was done by Richie Bucher, who is famous for Green Day’s Dookie album cover. New Noise Magazine has more on Kamala Lyn Parks, an All Ages Venues op ed and the general community of the East Bay Punk.
Kamala Lyn Parks
“From Scene Networker to City Planner” | Interview by Jon Coen
If punk’s common thread is anti-authoritarianism, one common mindset is a nihilistic race to self-destruction while the other sows seeds of positivity to sprout from the underground and influence society as a whole.
Certain scenes and venues have a tradition of fostering the latter thanks to the individuals within them. Drummer, promoter, and tour booker and manager Kamala Lyn Parks was a networker of East Bay punk, unknowingly designing what would become a blueprint for DIY scenes worldwide. “Like many people who get into punk, there’s anger, angst, and some abuse in your life that generally leads you to question the status quo,” Parks explains. “It resonated in the ‘80s when Reagan was president, but even before that for us in California, because he was governor. He fucked up our state and then went on to fuck up the nation. We’re still in the throes of that revolution.”
Parks was drawn to the bands who discussed society’s ills and became a vegetarian before she even got into punk. She and Victor Hayden partnered with Maximumrocknroll to establish the Gilman Street Project—better known as the venue, 924 Gilman—in 1986, which included participating in the city council meeting for the venue’s zoning approval to get the doors open. Her bands played there and she booked shows, but she gives most credit to the hardcore volunteers who were there every weekend, noting, “It was music and community. They key was not deifying the bands, but letting the audience know that they were as integral a player as the bands. There was heckling. People were encouraged to interact. There’s no backstage, so bands can’t readily disappear.”
Parks drummed for Kamala And The Karnivores, Cringer, The Gr’ups, Naked Aggression, and Hers Never Existed and booked tours for bands like Operation Ivy, Neurosis, and Citizen Fish, giving her a uniquely wide perspective. “Sometimes, you’re involved in something and you think that it’s very precious,” she admits, “but other places had this great energy and sense of community going on too, especially when things were still underground.”
What makes Gilman so unique is that it’s a collective, whereas other scenes have to rent halls and adhere to the rules of the owner. “On one tour, The Gr’ups were playing in Rapid City, South Dakota, at a V.A. hall with The Offspring,” Parks recalls. “Our female singer wasn’t wearing much. She had her bits covered up with duct tape that kept coming off. After our set, the V.A. guys said they were going to stop the show because there was nudity. They were always under the thumb of whoever was operating the venue. Gilman is different because we have the permits and we run the place.”
Parks’ is also an important voice in “Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk.” “I think it did a good job of not getting lost in the negative aspects,” she says of the documentary. “Not that you want to paint everything with a rainbow brush, but it really concentrated on the constructive aspects. There’s always going to be the squabbles—for example, when Green Day signed to a major record label, that was a major rift. It’s not sidestepped. It’s treated even-handedly. What [director and producer] Corbett [Redford] did was not rely on one person saying something. It had to resonate with many people to be considered a major event, topic, or band. There had to be a critical mass, and he dealt with that very well.”
Coincidentally—or perhaps, incidentally—today, Parks is a transportation planner in Berkeley, working on different initiatives to lessen the city’s traffic and carbon footprint. “My interest is making sure our city is more oriented toward pedestrians, bicycles, and public transit users,” she explains, “making vehicles feel more like a guest than dominating the city.”
She says she finds herself using her experience in the punk scene just as much as her Civil Engineering and Planning degrees from the University of California.
From 924 Gilman to The New Direction:
Why You Should Support All-Ages Venues (Even When You’re Over 21)
By Ben Sailer
Before it closed its doors last fall, The New Direction was the only dedicated all-ages venue where I live in Fargo, North Dakota. Named after a song by youth crew legends Gorilla Biscuits, its six-year run as a cornerstone for punk and hardcore in a middle-of-nowhere city was nothing short of remarkable. Located in an unassuming downtown basement space, it brought in acts like Touché Amoré, Balance And Composure, Comeback Kid, and more. When rising costs driven by gentrification led to its closure, a going-away festival headlined by regional acts sold out the 140-person capacity room.
If only it had that much support when it was open. While bigger bands could consistently draw crowds at the venue, attendance levels were otherwise hit or miss. Money was a constant concern, and keeping the lights on without alcohol sales to lean on wasn’t easy. For those over the legal drinking age, attending a show at the venue could easily mean being the oldest person in the room, with the exception of its owners—and maybe the bands playing that night. That—amongst other factors—often led older showgoers to practically forget the place existed.
No matter your age, there’s a lesson here for all of us: support all-ages venues.
Locally, The New Direction’s closure was a major blow to a small scene that fights and scraps for everything it can get. Nationally, however, it’s another story in a long line of all-ages venues shutting down before their time. A quick Google search reveals no shortage of stories from local publications across the country lamenting a lack of places for younger kids to see bands. This isn’t limited to tiny towns either; cities from Portland to Milwaukee to Hartford can be included on that list.
This should be concerning on several levels. All-ages spaces offer music communities valuable vehicles for youth empowerment, giving kids a constructive outlet for self-expression and opportunities to build their own sense of community, free from negative influences. They show youth what can be done when they take the initiative to make things happen. The awkward kids throwing down in the pit at your local American Legion hall are the same kids who will keep your scene alive years from now. If you’re not that kid now, you probably were at one time.
So, if you care about independent music and culture, it’s hard not to care about all-ages venues. All of us involved in this scene likely owe what we have to an all-ages venue somewhere. However, there’s a massive difference between understanding something’s value and investing yourself in actually supporting it. There often comes a point after turning 21 when the idea of going to an all-ages show turns into a punchline, depending on the company you keep.
That’s partially because tastes change. What hits you at 15 might not connect the same way at 30. There’s also the fact that feeling like the oldest person in the room at a show can get weird. No one wants to be the one old person hanging out around kids possibly half their age, especially when there isn’t a comfortable range in demographics present. You grow up, your priorities change, and you become more selective about which shows you go to—if you keep going to them at all.
There’s something else that happens too: for many, shows become an excuse to drink as well as a way to see bands. They start to feel like any other night out at the bar, except maybe with better tunes. Fall into that trap long enough, and eventually, spinning records at home sometimes sounds like more fun than hauling your ass out of the house on a work night. You start to lose touch with some important things, like what going to punk shows used to feel like and how important every show seemed to be.
Some of these changes are unavoidable. We all fall in love with punk’s three chords and hard truths, we all get old and die, and somewhere in between, going to punk shows stops being a priority. However, the way punk shapes how you view the world and find your place in it can last a lifetime. If you’re reading this, you probably wouldn’t be who you are, where you are, doing whatever you’re doing—with the people you’re doing those things with—without the influence of independent music, art, and culture. You literally wouldn’t be the same person, and you’d almost certainly be worse off as a result.
Odds are that everyone involved in every aspect of the music you love has a similar story. Independent music moves in an endless cycle of people paying it forward, and when we forget to do our part, everyone loses the whole way through that entire ecosystem. Bands break up, publications go under, and the venues that form the bedrock of the entire community get turned into luxury condos or lame retail stores. Though it’s always easier to see the end coming in retrospect than when you’re living in the moment; miss a show, and you figure you’ll catch the next one.
Until there isn’t a next one.
Of course, for those of us who are officially old as shit, there has to be a reason to want to go to an all-ages show. Generosity and goodwill aren’t enough to persuade most people to pay money to see bands in places they don’t think they’ll feel comfortable. So, what’s in it for you? For starters, there’s a magic to a good all-ages show that bar venues can’t really replicate. Without distractions from booze, they put all the focus where it counts: the music—as cliché as that sounds. If ever I’ve needed a reminder of what keeps me interested in any of this, even at 32, I’ve often found it—or rather, rediscovered it—at an all-ages show.
When you’re going to shows to support bands and your community, it becomes less about keeping pace with your friends’ (probably problematic) drinking at the bar and more about the event you actually paid to see. That isn’t to say that bar shows aren’t fun. They are, and I’m not about to advocate for going to all-ages shows exclusively—and not only because that isn’t an option. Bar shows and all-ages shows just offer two different experiences. There’s a purity and simplicity about all-ages shows that’s uniquely capable of reminding you what matters most. And when the venues that host those shows close their doors, it’s another reminder that too often comes too late.
So, if you’re fortunate enough to have an all-ages venue nearby, give it your support before that happens. If you’re under 21, hold on to what you’ve got. If you’re old enough to blow half a paycheck on five rounds of shots, maybe go see what’s happening there instead. Get enough likeminded people to do the same, and you might even shift the culture in your scene toward one that’s truly inclusive and sustainable. At risk of getting too preachy, that seems a lot closer to what punk ideals—by most definitions—should be than getting old and giving up.
Music is for everyone, regardless of age. Let’s protect the spaces that make it possible for all of us.
Unity, Unity, Unity!
Keeping The Spirit of Community Burning Bright
The East Bay punk scene, 924 Gilman, and the many bands they birthed all came together to form one of the most influential DIY music communities of all time—but it’s far from the only one. Local scenes have thrived for decades in the basements, bars, and American Legion halls of cities both big and small. These communities are only made possible by the hard work and dedication of their members, who are often forced to defend their strongholds against noise ordinances, zoning laws, gentrification, the bacon, and every other facet of an establishment constantly seeking to shut them down. As DIY spaces all across the U.S. and Canada continue to be targeted for closure and countless diehards are retiring from their scenes, we must remember—now more than ever—that our communities are still worth fighting for.
Members of The Acacia Strain, Hundredth, Smidley, and Bent Knee offer their perspectives on why community matters to them—and why it should matter to you too.
Vincent Bennett of The Acacia Strain
“[Community] gives me a new faith in humanity. It’s weird, because a lot of The Acacia Strain is anti-human. All of our songs are very angry and against the human race, but on the inside—while we are out there and doing things—we definitely feel it when it comes to the helpfulness of people. It’s a big world, and the amount of people that do what we do is pretty small. It is a community, and there are X amount of people that do this; once you do it for as long as we have, you get to know pretty much everyone, and everyone becomes a friend. And those friends become family. And their friends become your friends, and it’s a cool thing. It’s like a web: it’s connected, and everyone is willing to help when other people need it. Which is crazy to me, because I did not think that people like that still existed. We’re very quick to turn our nose up at strangers, but at the same time, when it comes to this, it is like, ‘Hey, I don’t know you, but my friend’s friend’s friend knows you. You need help with XYZ, and I’m going to do it.’”
“Everyone that comes to a show will participate as well, whether it is buying merch or coming to hang out, it’s like a web. It’s cool. There’s, like, a heartbeat. I don’t want to sound like a weird hippie, but we are all in it together. It has definitely renewed my faith in humanity. There are bad eggs everywhere, but for the most part, it is a really great feeling to be a part of this, and [it’s] not found in other music scenes. Country has a community, but I feel it is not as tightly knit as hardcore or metal. I was talking to some guy who was a DJ, a hip hop DJ, and we were talking about music. He said, ‘It’s so cool in the hardcore community, you all are in it together, you like each other’s bands.’ Hip hop is different: it is [often] dog-eat-dog, no one helps you out, and no one wants to see you succeed. I think that is a bummer. Hardcore and metal are very different than any other kind of music, because we all have each other’s backs.”
Chadwick Johnson of Hundredth
“Everyone within the hardcore community—not that we have been a crazy traditional hardcore band, [but] anyone who is involved remotely in that subculture and community, I have always felt like they have not only listened to that genre of music. I have always been into different things outside of it that are kind of attached [or] that are just different. The first thing that comes to my head is Quicksand. I have always liked that band, but they are not necessarily a hardcore band; they are on the outskirts of it doing something different, and it is refreshing to hear that. For us, on this [new] record, [RARE], we just wanted to take the scene we were in and push it in a different way and carve our own way. We want to move with our progressions, but rely on the open-mindedness of the hardcore community—as cliché as that is. This is still rooted in punk aesthetic and ethics, and hopefully, some people come along with us on the journey.”
Conor Murphy of Smidley
“Making the [new self-titled] album is definitely all to do with all the people that I have met over the last five or six or seven years—I don’t know how many it has actually been. Doing these Foxing tours, I have met so many incredible people, and pulling all of those resources for this album is awesome. The community around it—well, I don’t really know how it is going to be for Smidley until I hit the road with this Tigers Jaw tour I have coming up. We’ve only played two shows so far. It’s different lineups every time, so for this tour, it’s going to be six people in the band, and I am really excited about it, but I don’t know how it is going to be received or if the fans of Foxing’s music will receive it. I am going into it with as little expectation as possible and hope to be surprised.”
Ben Levin of Bent Knee
“Music is a team sport, and community is everything. To me, community is about acknowledging that life is bigger than the span of an individual’s life, and it takes a big old team of folks to really explore any of it. My band can accomplish a lot more than any of the individuals on their own, and we all fill in each other’s personality holes. Being part of a successful community requires compromise and humility and makes people more empathetic.”
For more on East Bay Punk, check out Issue #33 of New Noise Magazine.
