By: Vanessa Polojac
Take a trip back in time to the world of overly tight skinny jeans, fringe hairstyles and teenage angst with Boston Manor.
Influenced by pop-punk and emo and hailing from Blackpool, England, the band is currently in the midst of touring their debut album Be Nothing.
Despite only forming in 2013, Boston Manor has managed to release three EPs, a debut album and catch the attention of Pure Noise Records while cultivating a large following online.
Band members Henry Cox (vocals), Dan Cunniff (bass), Mike Cunniff (guitars), Jordan Pugh (drums) and Ash Wilson (guitars) all bounded through their love for bands from the late 90s and early 2000s.
“I have always sung and I used to do theatre when I was a little kid… I have sung for as long as I can remember [but] I was only in one band really before this,” explained Cox.
“I have been playing guitar since I was 12… I grew up learning Green Day songs and Blink-182 songs,” said Wilson.
The band was formed as a fun project for the members to write songs and track the response they got online. Since their debut EP Here/Now, Boston Manor has vocal and instrumental progression in their first full-length album.
“I think with the first EP it was very much one person’s idea or two people’s idea of how they wanted the band to sound and when more of us got involved with the writing processes the sound shifted entirely and kind of pushed and pulled it other ways. In three years your music taste changes so much,” explained Wilson.
“The album is three years of growing as musicians and three years of hard work. We spent months writing the album and I am very proud of it,” said Cox.
Be Nothing was released in late September and consists of 10 songs. The visual component is a crucial element to the boys of Boston Manor and features artwork by Mir Land from Austin, Texas.
The ambiguous front cover of a boy falling or diving into the sky is open to interpretation just like the songs featured in the album.
Be Nothing opens with “Burn You Up”. The most fast paced song on the record, it introduces the band’s pop-punk influences and their own unique style.
The lyrical themes of abandonment and guilt are the main topics throughout the album.
“The album is not autobiographic but most of it is my own experiences and most of the songs are about other people… You have to write about stuff you feel strongly about otherwise it’s not genuine and in my opinion it’s redundant. I want other people to connect to the songs on their own level,” said Cox.
The American punk rock record label Pure Noise Records to which State Champs, The Story So Far and Knocked Loose are all signed onto caught onto the rising success of Boston Manor in September of 2015.
“We wrote the Saudade EP in Christmas of 2014 and we finished it in March or April. We wanted to push this EP out to record labels and to see who was interested in putting it out for us,” explained Wilson.
“We got approached by a few labels and [got] a couple of offers here and there. Pure Noise came along and we chatted with them on Skype and we left thinking we need to sign with this label.”
“They’re really genuine music lovers and they really get us. They give us creative control and they are supportive. They are honestly the best label for us,” added Cox.
The band wrapped up their North American tour on Nov. 6 at their packed show at Club Absinthe. Boston Manor has been touring for a majority of 2016 and tour life can take a toll on a band mentally and physically.
“I have anxiety issues with losing my voice and it’s taken a year of touring to come to terms with it and kind of get over it… I just get really paranoid about it. It’s been a personal victory to overcome that,” said Cox.
“When you’re away you miss things at home whether it’s like loved ones or relatives or even like cats and things,” added Wilson.
Despite the success of Be Nothing Boston Manor is not stopping anytime soon. They still have a European tour for the end of 2016 with plans of coming back to Canada in the spring.
By: Sahra Soudi
Locals in and around the GTA cherish Hammer City Records, an independent punk record store on James Street North.
On Sept. 26, the record store hosted their second VHS punk film festival at This Ain’t Hollywood. Surrounded by flickering candles, the audience couldn’t help but cheer in excitement for a night of campy punk rock vibes.
The festival presented two LA punk favourites: Suburbia (1983) and Repo Man (1984). The venue felt intimate and inclusive. Even dog owners were welcome to bring their pets along to the screening.
While the movie the was being set up, snacks were passed around as well as contagious laughter due to sporadic hissing thanks to technical difficulties—gotta love VHS!
Hammer City Records was founded over six years ago in homage to Reigning Sound, a punk record store that used to exist in Hess Village.
Over the years they have collected an impressive selection of punk records and zines, while cultivating a local space for punk rock artists and enthusiasts. Hammer City Records prides itself on carrying records from independent labels, ranging from early punk to ska and reggae.
With the resurgence of video tape nostalgia, Hammer City Records’ Leah Visser and fellow Hammer City Records loyalist Tara Bursey reviewed what sparked their attraction to VHS.
“It’s less about the movie than it is about the medium right? I mean, we’re all here to see Repo Man and Suburbia but we’re hearing the VHS hiss and we’re seeing the snow. I mean, its pretty neat to have that experience collectively in bar,” Bursey said.
The VHS format surprisingly cultivates an audience diverse in age.
For some, the screening is their first introduction to these films, and for others it’s a chance to revisit old favourites.
“It’s a generational thing. Now, more than ever age doesn’t even register to me because of the record store. People come in so enthused and so full of questions…. the last time I watched Repo Man I was sitting next to a twenty-nothing year old in Toronto and just having the grandest time,” Visser explained.
Naturally, the shop has a conspicuous influence and focus on its surrounding community.
Supporting music and artists that incorporate social justice is very important to Hammer City Records and punk culture itself. The record store hopes to facilitate community discussion, particularly about anti-displacement work being done in Hamilton.
The proceeds of this event went towards bringing journalist, activist, and zine-maker Erick Lyle (aka Iggy Scam) to Hamilton on Oct. 5 to launch his book Streetopia and lead discussions about anti-gentrification celebrations of art and culture.
“It’s like the original social network, for punks. Opening a record store wasn’t a money-making scheme," explained Visser.
I am also a transplant from somewhere else and now I work at This Ain’t Hollywood with one of my oldest friends and its crazy how we all like circled back into the punk scene.”
Hammer City Records is looking forward to future community events, including their Halloween themed VHS screenings of Class of 1984 and The Return of the Living Dead.
As the humble punk store prepares to wind down for another nostalgic night in front of a CRT, Bursey is reminded of the importance of the record store in her life.
“The really great thing about punk stuff is that regardless of where you’re from, you know you can find that punk shop where you feel safe in the city. So I basically moved here and knew Hammer City Records was going to be my first stop… I know I can go to this space and immediately find a home.”
Josh Parsons
Music Editor
In the world of punk rock, few have stuck to their guns like Mike Watt has. He was a member of legendary econo-punkers Minutemen, currently plays bass for Iggy & the Stooges and has continually been active as a solo artist for the past three decades.
This week, ANDY had the chance to chat with Watt, as he sat in his sunny living room in San Pedro, California. It was humbling to hear him so eager to speak openly in a slow paced Virginia-via-California drawl about the relevance of punk today and his newest material.
“Punk wasn’t a style of music, it was an attitude. We tried to do stuff that wasn’t on the beaten path,” Watt asserted. “Don’t get all cock-sure of yourself, just have a little nerve to try stuff that might not fit in.”
Watt has renown in independent music circles for his strict adherence to a low-cost, econo approach to music. “If you feel like you don’t fit in you have to do it yourself, you have to keep that autonomy. In not being a style, but a set of ethics, you don’t have to worry about stylized things or being out of date.”
Watt’s latest project, Spielgusher, is a far-out collaboration with a Japanese drum/guitar duo, playing to poems written by renowned rock lyricist, Richard Meltzer.
“Meltzer gave me 48 spoken word poems and we made about 63 pieces of music to go behind it – kind of Minutemen style,” Watt laughed. “I got together with these guys in Tokyo for three days and just wailed out all these jams to go behind it.”
Since the end of Minutemen, following the tragic death of front man D. Boon, Watt has stayed away from the fragmented writing style they became known for. “I gotta tell you, I didn’t listen to a lot of Minutemen after [Boon] got killed. It was bummer.”
But in 2005, two filmmakers approached Watt with the idea of shooting a Minutemen documentary, forcing him to dig up a painful past. “These guys, Keith and Tim, they were too young to actually see us. So they wanted me to do the spiel. I had to listen to the Minutemen for this thing and I kind of got into it again. I wanted to write like that.” The result was the award winning, We Jam Econo.
What followed was Watt’s first effort since 2004, Hyphenated-Man, inspired equally by the Minutemen and the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, who“made one thing out of a lot of little things, little creatures, you know?
“I didn’t want to make just some nostalgia trip. I wanted to make it about where I am now, a middle-aged punk rocker. I wrote ‘em all on D. Boon’s guitar, so I’m not ripping off the Minutemen. I usually write my stuff on bass. It gives the other players a lot of room. I thought, ‘maybe if I use his guitar I’ll have the courage.’”
After three decades, it’s incredibly inspiring to see Watt still venturing forth into untouched territory, embodying in his art everything that he believes
Josh Parsons
Music Editor
This past week, amid the end-of-term scramble, I found myself distracted from school work, choosing instead to dwell upon the details of an age-old philosophical problem: what is ‘punk’?
Punk infatuated me as a kid. In elementary school, I realized I could terrify my teacher by threading safety pins through my t-shirt and swearing. The idea was simple and complete, and I connected with it immediately. I was angry about something and I wanted people to know it.
Today, I now realize the term is so much more complex, elusive and powerful than my pre-teen self could have fathomed. For me, punk is no longer a means of expressing my anger but an entire perspective through which anger can be channeled and dealt with creatively.
It is important to make a distinction between punk rock, a form or music, and punk, an attitude. The ‘ground zero’ of punk rock is often agreed to be north-eastern American in the mid-’70s. But punk, as an attitude, has existed since the first caveman contested an arrogant chieftain.
Punk rock first populated headlines in 1976, after the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten famously said “shit” on live television. Rampantly attempting to snuff punk at its source, media outlets sought to expose the emerging punk scene in Britain, forever tying the attitude to the spiky-haired, safety pin fashion.
But punk attitude is older that Johnny Rotten or Iggy Pop, and has maneuvered under the guise of many other terms throughout history, including rebel, degenerate, outsider or freak. The fundamental cornerstone of punk is a discontent with authority, accentuated by a desire to change things yourself.
Punk found its most forceful manifestation in 20th-century rock music, but there were countless historical predecessors who laid the foundation. Sun Ra, legendary leader of the mystical-Zionist-jazz Arkestra, was a total punk. As was Nietzsche, and the artists who popularized the Dada movement.
But it’s necessary not to confuse punk attitude with revolutionary or counter-cultural desires. At the heart of punk is a feverish dedication to a do-it-yourself ethic and the idea of precipitating seperate subculture within the larger sphere of culture.
