Meet your Punk Rock Museum tour guides! We’ll be featuring five questions—the same five questions—with each of the ongoing punk rock guides scheduled to show people around the museum in the coming months.
Each one is also putting together their own Punk Rock Museum x New Noise Playlist. Today we’re introducing you to Fucked Up vocalist Damian Abraham who’s a tour guide on July 24 and 25.
When did you get into punk and why?
When I was 14, I met a kid named Nick at my summer job. He did graffiti, rode a skateboard and was the coolest kid I had ever seen. One day, while hanging out at HMV during our lunch break, he told me I should buy a VHS of “1991: The Year Punk Broke.” It’s a documentary Sonic Youth made about their ’91 European Tour with Nirvana. I must have watched it hundreds of times since then. It was an entry point and road map for understanding punk.
What was your first punk show?
My definition of punk tends to be broader than some, so I say when I saw Dinosaur Jr.
What part of the museum are you most excited about getting into deep detail in as a tour guide?
All of it! I know that this seems like a cop out but I’m excited to explore how the museum tells the story of punk. Punk takes on religious levels of importance to the people that love it and, like religion, a person’s relationship to it is deeply personal and unique to them. The Punk Rock Museum has set up a church for believers to go and I want to see how it relates to my, and others, perceptions on it.
What is your favorite era or regional scene?
That’s a good question! I have a few favourite regional scenes and eras: UKDIY of the late 70s and 80s, the mid 80s Dunedin Sound in New Zealand, Japan’s early 90s Burning Spirits Hardcore, Chicago DIY hardcore punk in the mid to late 90s and Cleveland: the whole way through.
What is your personal most prized punk possession?
That’s a hard one… The Negative Approach 7” rejected test press, Confront 7” collection, signed first Viletones 7”, Teenage Head 7” acetates, Paul Maherns’ Ardent Records reel tape, The Bionic tape on SSG Records, Girl’s Germs and Bikini Kill zines, the Awake! 7” with a death threat from Tony Victory written on the dust sleeve, etc.
Tickets are available for the museum here. Stay tuned to meet the rest of your tour guides for the Punk Rock Museum!
