Santa Cruz, California melodic punks Too Bad Eugene just wrapped up a run of west coast shows with United Defiance and their touring companions were kind enough to record a bunch of footage. The end result is a brand new music video for “Fool’s Gold”, the opening track from the band’s awesome new record Battle […]
Santa Cruz, California melodic punks Too Bad Eugene just wrapped up a run of west coast shows with United Defiance and their touring companions were kind enough to record a bunch of footage. The end result is a brand new music video for “Fool’s Gold”, the opening track from the band’s awesome new record Battle Scars – out now on People of Punk Rock Records!
Your friends at DyingScene.com have the distinct honor of bringing you the exclusive music video premiere for “Fools Gold”. Check it out below! And after you do that, the very next thing you should do is click this link and buy the new Too Bad Eugene record. Heck, grab their last two records while you’re at it! People of Punk Rock reissued their Mike Herrera-produced 2000 debut At Any Rate and they’ve still got some copies of the band’s 2022 comeback LP Distance in stock.
This premiere is brought to you in part by Punk Rock Radar. If you’d like your band’s music video to be premiered by Dying Scene and Punk Rock Radar, go here and follow these instructions. You’ll be on your way to previously unimagined levels of fame and fortune in no time!
Emotions are categorized as primary – the initial emotions felt as a reaction to a situation – and secondary – the emotions that follow up as a response to the primary. Anger is usually categorized under the latter group; it is a human reaction which sometimes acts as a mechanism for self-defense when facing disgust, […]
Emotions are categorized as primary – the initial emotions felt as a reaction to a situation – and secondary – the emotions that follow up as a response to the primary. Anger is usually categorized under the latter group; it is a human reaction which sometimes acts as a mechanism for self-defense when facing disgust, sadness or surprise which would be some of the recognized primary emotions. With this in mind, the perspective in which we see bouts of anger completely changes since there is now another layer of complexity to the situation for analysis; it is not only a matter of just anger, but a primal response to the emotion caused by something.
In their latest LP, Behind The Concrete Veil by Chicago’s own hardcore and Oi! Punk band Lost Legion, lies an incredibly powerful exploration of the anger and underlying emotions experienced by the ever-growing feeling of disenfranchisement in today’s cultural setting; sometimes heightened by psychedelics, and sometimes caused by a collective deterioration of mental health. In terms of sound and content, the 10-track album features an ever-present dark and cynical tone, both musically and lyrically all throughout, which helps bring all the songs together cohesively, and allows the study of different topics without jarring changes between the tone and mood each song creates.
Without fully deviating from their sound established in previous eps and demos, in “Behind The Concrete Veil” the band crafts a significantly more defined tone that comes across as significantly more confident and assertive. Every musical element in this record works together in the same way a “war machine” would. The pummeling, explosive drums synchronize with the blade-sharp, dry, distorted guitars that set up the general sense of emotional dread that reoccurs throughout the LP. The metallic sound of the bass drives the songs forward coupled with unrelenting and aggressive vocals creating a rough and oppressive sound that alludes to the primal nature of mankind and the angst and frustration depicted all throughout.
Within the context of Oi! Punk andHardcore, this LP achieves what it sets out to do quite effectively. It is raw and visceral. In a way, it also seems quite contained within its genre. This album is not trying to redefine the musical style, or experiment within it. Whether or not that is a positive or a negative, it really depends on the listener, but in this specific sub-cultural context it sets a space for itself perfectly well; just like a puzzle piece in the most efficient way possible. The guitar licks, and riffs, for example, are not necessarily simple — a better way to describe them would be pragmatic, just like a war machine is supposed to be.
One notable track from this album would be the third one titled “The Animals We Used to Be.” This nostalgic song exemplifies one of the recurring themes explored, humanity’s repressed most basic and primal instincts in the dystopian present in which we live. The track is a longing cry for the freedom humans had and lost somewhere along the way, and the complexity of the frustration and sadness that comes with it. Conceptually, this idea seeps through “War Machine,” “Fangs,” and “Primitive,” creating a common thread all through the album.
While neither the band itself nor this LP are overtly political, to create an introspective exploration without touching on some of the fears and emotions that lead to some of the root causes for what are considered political topics is inevitable. “Silhouettes in Blue Lights” and “Disposed” are the two examples of the political undercoat of the album —the first one touches on the tension and divide in between the police and civilians, and the latter about the societal and economic use and disposal of humans for profit. There is an argument to be made for the whole album to be seen as political, but ultimately the human condition, the fears, the anger, the frustration, will always transcend politics, and are universal by nature.
Overall, this album is a great listen; it pulls elements from bands like The Effigies, and The Trouble, while still sounding much like themselves. The LP was released under the Basque punk and hardcore record label Medeku Diskat, and can be found in the band’s bandcamp site as well as Spotify.
South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale, specifically) pop-punk band A Decade At Sea just released their new EP Fuego in February and today we’re premiering the music video for one of the singles “From Crazy, With Love”. Check it out below and find the full EP on Spotify, Apple Music, or pretty much anywhere else you can […]
South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale, specifically) pop-punk band A Decade At Sea just released their new EP Fuego in February and today we’re premiering the music video for one of the singles “From Crazy, With Love”. Check it out below and find the full EP on Spotify, Apple Music, or pretty much anywhere else you can consume music on Al Gore’s world wide web.
If you wanna keep up with A Decade At Sea, might I suggest following the band on one or more of their social media accounts? I just might.
This premiere is brought to you in part by Punk Rock Radar. If you’d like your band’s music video to be premiered by Dying Scene and Punk Rock Radar, go here and follow these instructions. You’ll be on your way to previously unimagined levels of fame and fortune in no time!
Drive a few miles south on US19 from Dying Scene editor Screeching Bottlerocket’s hometown of Clearwater, FL and you’ll find yourself in St. Petersburg, FL. It’s just like Clearwater, but with slightly less Scientology. Why does this matter? Because the band we’re premiering a new song from today is St. Pete’s own Spanish Needles! The […]
Drive a few miles south on US19 from Dying Scene editor Screeching Bottlerocket’s hometown of Clearwater, FL and you’ll find yourself in St. Petersburg, FL. It’s just like Clearwater, but with slightly less Scientology. Why does this matter? Because the band we’re premiering a new song from today is St. Pete’s own Spanish Needles!
The band’s debut EP Sifting Through the Wreckage is due out on May 3rd and they just launched pre-orders for the purple colored vinyl (limited to 200 copies). If you pre-order the record from their Bandcamp before May 1st, you can get it for the low, low price of $12! At $1 per inch, that’s a value you simply cannot beat.
To coincide with this momentous occasion, your friends at Dying Scene are premiering a brand new track from the EP, track #4 “Dom DeLouise”, so go ahead and check that shit out below. Also! One last thing; Spanish Needles will be playing a record release show on May 31st at Bayboro Brewing. You can get a ticket and a copy of Sifting Through the Wreckage on vinyl for just $20. Another unbeatable value. Go here for more details.
This premiere is brought to you in part by Punk Rock Radar. If you’d like your band’s music video to be premiered by Dying Scene and Punk Rock Radar, go here and follow these instructions. You’ll be on your way to previously unimagined levels of fame and fortune in no time!
Main photo by Will Byington Stiff Little Fingers (SLF) is embarking on its final coast-to-coast U.S. tour. The tour also celebrates the 45th anniversary of the band’s seminal debut album, Inflammable Material. I caught up with SLF’s founder and frontman, Jake Burns, in advance of the tour’s commencement. Jake Burns founded Stiff Little Fingers in […]
Main photo by Will Byington
Stiff Little Fingers (SLF) is embarking on its final coast-to-coast U.S. tour. The tour also celebrates the 45th anniversary of the band’s seminal debut album, Inflammable Material. I caught up with SLF’s founder and frontman, Jake Burns, in advance of the tour’s commencement.
Jake Burns founded Stiff Little Fingers in his hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1977. Burns grew up during the “The Troubles,” as the sectarian civil war raging in Northern Ireland was known. Inflammable Material, which included amongst its classic songs, “Alternative Ulster” and “Suspect Device,” addressed the political turmoil and violence all around it, and brought them to the attention of music fans, and others, worldwide. It is still considered one of the greatest and most important punk albums ever made.
As stated on the band’s site, “Along with The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Damned, Buzzcocks, they were there at the start of the punk rock movement and are still recording and touring today.“
Burns, and his wife Shirley Sexton, moved to West Virginia a few years back from Chicago, where they resided for almost two decades. Burns and bandmates, Ali McMordie; Steve Grantley; and Ian McCallum, kick off their US tour on May 1st, 2024, starting on the East Coast and heading west.
Mer Gold: Please tell us about the inspiration for the title of the tour and the latest track from the band. I understand it is inspired by the “Hate Has No Home Here” campaign in Chicago.
Jake Burns: Yes, that’s correct. That local campaign had such a powerful title that I wanted to share it with people outside of Chicago. I felt it applied not just to a neighborhood or a city but, in fact, to life. So, I broadened the scope of the idea in the lyric to be pretty much all-encompassing.
This is SLF’s last US coast-to-coast tour, how did you decide the time was right to make it the final one?
To be fair, my knees pretty much made the decision for me! LOL. Seriously, though, we are all getting older and SLF have always prided ourselves on a pretty high bar when it comes to live performance. So, I decided I wanted to scale back the amount of touring we undertake to try and keep that bar as high as possible. I’ve seen a number of bands move into their 60’s and try to play as often as they did in their 20’s. In a lot of cases, they simply can’t pull it off and “ease up on the gas” a bit. Understandable, but I didn’t want to do that.
Photo by Michael Steff
What are you looking forward to most on this tour? What can your fans look forward to?
Playing a lot of towns that I know I’ll probably never see again. Most of the places we’re playing have incredibly fond memories for me and I’m looking forward to seeing them one more time. Also, they now contain friends I’m hoping to catch up with, even briefly, especially in Chicago. The tour set will be much the same as the recent one in the U.K., which means we’re putting in a couple of songs we rarely, if ever, play, as well as most of the old favorites.
Will you miss touring coast to coast?
I’ll miss the people, but not the travel. That’s one of the main reasons for scaling back. But, we’ll still do the occasional festival if we get asked. They usually involve a few shows around the main date, so it’s almost certainly not the last time we’ll play over here, but it will be the last “long scale” trip.
Last year, you and your wife Shirley, moved from Chicago to a rural area in West Virginia. How did that decision come about for you both?
Well, without banging on about my age all the time as I don’t “feel” that old(!), but 65 seemed like a good time to look at slowing things down in all aspects of my life. Take a bit of time to “smell the roses”, if you know what I mean. Both Shirley and I have always lived in large-ish cities, Washington DC and Chicago in her case, Belfast, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Chicago in mine. So, I fancied living in a small town before I shuffle off this mortal coil. I looked at a lot of small towns, not just here in the U.S. but also back in Ireland and Scotland and we decided on this little one in West Virginia. Shirley has family in the State, so we’d been coming out this way for Thanksgiving etc for many years and knew we loved the area.
Is country life what you expected? I’ve seen some of the photos you have shared elsewhere, which are beautiful.
It’s fantastic. Everything we could have hoped for. We’re still finding new stuff after almost a year here. It’s such a change of pace to come from Chicago to a small town with around 3,500 residents. You know you’re not in a major city anymore when the main story on the local news is a runaway cow blocking the main intersection in town!
Photo by Will Byington
You are married to an American from the DC punk scene, and became a US citizen partially to vote against Trump. What is your reaction to his continued support? And in general, the support for those worldwide whose own autocracy flourishes?
I find it incredibly saddening. From the selfishly wealthy who can never see beyond their bank accounts when it comes to elections to those who have been duped into buying the scapegoat nonsense that his campaign relies upon, it’s all very dispiriting that this is where humanity is in the 21st century. That an obvious charlatan and snake oil salesman such as Trump can deceive and delude so many people, so easily it would seem, is heartbreaking. I refuse to believe that all of his “fanbase” are rabid racists, although a proportion undoubtedly are. I think that we have all been fed such a diet of mis-information over the past few years that it’s very difficult for some people to see the wood for the trees. And, the consequences of that are truly terrifying.
You are well known to be a supporter of Newcastle United FC of the English Premier League. How do you think your Club will finish out the season? Dying Scene readers will recall that you have noted your love for the NUFC in our World Cup special. Have you found a “Newcastle Pub,” in your new stomping grounds?.
A: No pub here, I’m afraid. I did buy the biggest television I could find and install it in the basement so I can watch the games. Newcastle have had a frustrating season to say the least. Hampered by an unbelievable injury list and also by over-achieving last year, I always felt we were a year ahead of schedule. As I said, the injuries haven’t helped, nor has Sandro Tonali’s ban. If they manage to get into any sort of European competition, that will constitute a decent season at this point.
Photo by Michael Steff
Stiff Little Fingers kicks off its final US Coast to Coast tour on May 1, 2024, at the Paradise in Boston, MA. Ricky Warwick, from Belfast, Northern Ireland. It ends (as solo headliner) at Observatory in Santa Ana, CA on May 26, 2024.
Dying Scene will be on hand for the Chicago stop at The Metro on May 10, 2024.
SLF will also be one of the headliners at Punk Rock Bowling in Las Vegas on May 27, 2024. In August they play Rebellion Fest in Blackpool, England; followed by dates in Cork and Dublin in Ireland; and Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Photo by Craig O’Connell
Whether you are longtime fans of the band or are just discovering the punk legends, whether you have seen them live or have yet to do so, make sure to catch them on the road while you still can.
The terms “hard work” and “blood, sweat, and tears” get tossed around almost nonchalantly in the punk community, not necessarily because the words have lost their impact, but because they’ve become staples of what’s so great about the genre. Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi was pretty spot on in describing punk as “playing […]
The terms “hard work” and “blood, sweat, and tears” get tossed around almost nonchalantly in the punk community, not necessarily because the words have lost their impact, but because they’ve become staples of what’s so great about the genre. Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi was pretty spot on in describing punk as “playing music for music’s sake and being part of a family for family’s sake.” Bridge Nine Records founder Chris Wrenn lived by this mantra in pouring everything he had into backing the local hardcore acts he’d grown close with. And after years of DIY promotion and creative forms of funding, Bridge Nine expanded to become, not only a staple of the Boston hardcore community, but a full-blown label touting some of hardcore punks’ most influential names.
Diligent and untiring labels like Bridge Nine, ones knee-deep in the very scenes they represent, have helped fuel the genre, I’d say, as much as the artists themselves, if not more so. Formed in the summer of 1995 in a college dormitory and mainly focusing on 7″ releases, Bridge Nine was a way for Wrenn to contribute to the flourishing and ever-motivated punk scene of Boston, MA.
“With DIY and hardcore punk, obviously there is this drive, it’s a culture of doing things and contributing. It’s not a lot of people just watching from the sidelines, it’s people that kind of roll up their sleeves and say, “okay, I can do this, this is how I can contribute”. And for me, all my friends were in bands, but I wasn’t in a band. So I wanted a way that I could kind of give back, but also something that I could do to make me a part of the process.”
“So for me, it was starting a label, but I didn’t even mean to start a label necessarily, I was helping my friends put out seven-inches and having them pressed. Because in 1995, when I decided I wanted to do that, it wasn’t a unique idea. There were a lot of people my age that were putting out seven-inch records with their friends’ bands.”
But in pre-internet days, information for starting a label, or even having records pressed, especially on a smaller scale, was extremely hard to come by. Through the help of some friends-of-friends, Wrenn was able to learn enough to put into action what would eventually grow into a full-blown record label and a full-time career.
“So, when you decide like, “oh, I want to put out a seven-inch or I want to help my friends do it”, especially at that time, information was pretty hard to come by. It was pre-internet, so there was no “I’m just going to Google this and find out how to do it”. You had to find somebody who knew what they were doing or had done it before; I mean, there were no real instructions on how to start a record label or press records. There were books, but a lot of them were bullshit and they weren’t really at the level that I was trying to be at, which is fairly small.”
“I was connected with somebody who had a label, a friend of a friend. I didn’t know him, but literally just gave him a call and just said, “What do you know? I want to put out a record, where do I even start?” And this dude was cool. He gave me a list of contacts, kind of walked me through it, and told me where I should get a record pressed.”
“So our first handful of records were done at a pressing plant in Nashville, Tennessee called United Record Pressing. They’ve been around forever, I think since the sixties at least, it might even be older than that. I know that they were the first pressing plant, I think in the U.S., to press the Beatles records. So they’ve been around the block a hundred times, pressed all sorts of records. Basically, I just called them and said “I want to press a record”. And they’re like “Alright, send us a DAC cassette with the audio, send us the artwork for the center labels, and a money order for whatever number of dollars it was at the time.”
“And we still work with them to this day, they just pressed something for us this year. 28 years.”
And thus, Bridge Nine Records was born. The label’s early days were defined by seven-inch releases for local acts such as Tenfold, The Trust, and Proclamation, with the label’s first full-length coming in the form of 1999’s “Taken By Force” by Proclamation.
Chris Wrenn working in the basement art department of Tower Records on Newbury Street (1999)
After close to 5 years, Bridge Nine turned a corner. Wrenn joined forces with a group of close friends, the founding members of American Nightmare, and was able to take the brand across the nation and internationally.
“After about four years of just putting out seven-inch singles with friends’ bands, I started working with American Nightmare. Again, their first record was just another seven-inch single, I’d done a handful of them at the time, but they were the first band that was willing to just hit the road, tour, and get out of New England. Because a lot of the bands I was working with prior to that didn’t really even leave Connecticut or Massachusetts, kind of just stayed local. They were the first band that was like “we want to go hit the road, tour everywhere”.”
“For me, it was an opportunity for them to wave the Bridge 9 flag and for me to wave theirs and for both of us to go across the country, go over to Europe, and be ambassadors for what we were doing.”
“So it was probably Summer of 2000 when, instead of just being a local thing, kids all around the world are starting to pick up and get interested. It was still a few years after that before it was like “oh wait, I have to quit my job and just focus on this.”
With this spike in popularity and awareness, Wrenn was faced with a common problem among any subsect of the punk community: lack of funding. Wrenn’s day job in the Tower Records art department was enough to make ends meet personally, but nowhere near what was needed to fund a label. Through an equally creative and unique solution stemmed, what I would argue, is one of Boston’s most defining brands. What originated as a label-funding campaign fueled by bumper stickers and Yankees-hate merch, Sully’s Brand has now flourished into a celebration of Boston pride under the slogan “Believe in Boston”.
“It’s funny cause it’s never really been like a full-time job for me, it’s never been an exclusive thing. I’ve always had other things that I’ve done at the same time to make it happen.”
“Spring going into Summer of 2000, I had signed American Nightmare, I mean it was just like a loose deal. But they were in the studio, had big plans for their record and I needed money. I was working at Tower Records in the art department, making like $7.50 an hour. So I didn’t have money to even cover my own bills, much less push this band.”
“So friends of mine and I went to Fenway Park where the Red Sox play, it was like less than a mile from our apartment. I was already making all these bumper stickers and t-shirts and stuff for punk bands, so I started making stuff for sports fans and would sell it in the street to people leaving the games. Early on, it just riffed on the rivalry with the Yankees, we would make Yankee suck merch, sell to people leaving the Red Sox games.”
“It was wild! You would just be mobbed, just trading money and stickers and t-shirts. Yeah. I mean, it was crazy, it was like drug dealer money with significantly less risk.“
“So it was initially just an opportunity to go find money elsewhere and put it into putting out records. I had tried some of the more traditional routes at the time; my family wasn’t in a position to loan me money, I went to banks and couldn’t get a loan because I was fresh out of college, couldn’t even afford my student loan, much less another loan. I had no collateral, no car, no anything that I could put up to guarantee something.”
“We just had to figure out how to do it ourselves. After a few years, we raised a lot of money doing that, I mean we would come back after every game, a thousand bucks cash, and I would go the next day and buy money orders and send it to pressing plants and pay for magazine ads, all this stuff that the label needed and things that the bands needed. We even bought one of our bands, Terror, their first tour van with like bumper stickers.”
Summer of 2000 Fenway Courtesy of Kate Bowen
Funds were now taken care of, and the business took on a life of its own. What was initially used as a means to fuel the label soon emerged as a formal brand.
“After a few years, I realized this was a better business than putting out punk records and I wanted to expand on it. So I came up with the name Sully’s, started exploring other stuff that wasn’t based on the rivalry with the Yankees, started focusing on Boston stuff and it just grew into its own company. For 15, almost 20 years, they just kind of co-existed in our office, one whole side would be records and black t-shirts, and the other side was all sports stuff. And after a while, I started to meet people that were Have Heart fans, but also wore t-shirts from Sully’s; there was a lot of crossover.”
Just four short years after sales first began on Lansdowne St. outside of Fenway, Wrenn’s business was gifted some major media coverage with one of Boston’s favorite hometown heroes and a connection that stood the test of time over 15 years later. Ben Affleck’s love for Wrenn’s DIY brand eventually led to significant screen time in “The Town” [one of Nasty Nate’s all-time favorites], the Boston-set crime drama directed by, and starring Affleck.
Ben Affleck in “Killin With Schillin” Sully’s Brand tee, c. 2004
“Ben Affleck wore one of our shirts back in 2004, which was cool. It was during the run for the World Series. And he was, you know, kind of showing it off in the picture.”
“And then in 2009, he was directing a movie, that movie “The Town”. Their costume department reached out to us and said “Hey, we bought a couple of your shirts from a local store and we’d like to use them in this movie.” I didn’t know anything about the movie or what the potential was for it. But I was like “yeah, you’re welcome to, I’ll sign whatever. And while you’re at it, take a look at our website and if there’s anything else, let me know. They faxed me like a four-page handwritten list of everything they wanted. It was just like, holy shit. It was like eight of every shirt, like two different sizes.”
“So I drove them down to the costume department when they were filming, hit it off with the woman who was the costume designer, and we basically became their print shop for everything. We ended up having, I think, six of our t-shirts in the movie. One of our Believe in Boston shirts was on Ben Affleck in a scene, we had this shirt that said Irish Pub Boxing that was on Jeremy Renner, we made the hockey jerseys at the end when they all go out on the ice.“
“It was like Christmas for a while because all these people, they wanted to buy the shirts that the actors were wearing and they got them from us.”
From their early days of putting out local New England hardcore seven-inches to a few short years later being featured in major publications and more than one feature film, Wrenn’s DIY approach and motivated work ethic were common themes that allowed the label to grow to much more than a local brand. Wrenn’s dedicated mentality and laborious practice not only helped further punk rock’s grassroots reputation, but also served valuable in keeping Bridge 9 and Sully’s Brand afloat.
Labels are often the first to be overlooked in terms of the impact COVID-19 had on the music community. Artists and venues were at the forefront of attention when disaster struck, culminating in months of canceled tours and restricted gatherings. However, even businesses such as Wrenn’s, one’s enjoying mainstream success, were not invincible. Yet again, in true punk rock fashion, Wrenn was unafraid to get his hands dirty and got to work, utilizing the same DIY, creative approach that had proven successful over 20 years prior.
“Some of my best ideas have come when my back’s been against the wall, and with the pandemic and everything that came along with it, everyone’s back was against the wall, it was kind of like a do-or-die situation for a lot of people and a lot of businesses. And for me, you know, you just get creative. DIY has been fostered in the punk scene since the beginning. And, you know, I came into it wanting to use my hands and get involved. I think people in punk and hardcore are a little more, resilient, like they’re just willing to work harder, at least in my experience.”
“The pandemic was pretty tough because we had to let most of everyone go, temporarily at least. I had Sully’s, a screen printing business and Bridge 9, all three businesses were in the same space, and literally overnight, we had to send everyone home. It was a month, two months, we depended on mail order.”
“Thankfully, we had a pretty large inventory of stuff. So we started doing mystery boxes and had like these inexpensive, but good value mail order items that people could check out to help support us. And we were just kind of on this really low autopilot for a while.”
“Everything that Sully’s does as a brand is related to tourism and sports and both of those were gone. So I was just like sending packages to people, like just trying to get a buzz. So I looked up Ben Affleck, sent him a few shirts with a card that just said “Hey, it was the 10th anniversary of “The Town”, it was real sick that you included us in your movie and we’re still stoked about it. Here’s some stuff from Boston and thank you”.”
“And he wore all of that. Like every day he went out on these pandemic walks with his girlfriend wearing our shirts. Like that was really, really cool. And so we set up a few more things over the next year or so, and he was repping stuff from Bridge 9 and from Sully’s, which was very cool.”
Ben Affleck Sporting Sully’s Brand “Believe in Boston” Tee During COVID (2020)
Although business slowed for Bridge Nine and Sully’s brand during the 2019-2020 shutdowns, the COVID-19 storm was weathered and Wrenn was able to look forward. Both brands continued expansion and a new storefront location emerged, one much better suited for Wrenn’s objectives.
“It was Summer of 2020, we had been in this same building for 14 years, and our old landlord said he was selling the building. So we were in a period of uncertainty, we were kind of trying to find something new. And the new landlord comes in and basically says “I’m going to double your rent”.”
“I mean we had some good times there, but I wanted something new. So through the pandemic, we had to let everyone go, find a new building, and then basically renovate it and get it up and running. And, so the last few years have been some of the craziest, hardest working years I’ve had, but also some of the best because we’ve landed in a much cooler spot.“
Wrenn outside of the new Bridge 9/Sully’s Brand Headquarters
“It’s awesome, it has this big retail space up front. So we have our own record store, it has a big warehouse in back that we’re going to start having bands play, and it’s right on the main street in this kind of quiet, North of Boston town. It’s kind of weird to be selling Dead Kennedy’s records alongside Bridge 9 releases and Minor Threat and Slayer LPs, but here we are.”
“We got the keys on a Friday and then two days later, like on Monday, we get a phone call from a location scout for a movie. And it was for this movie called “The Tender Bar” starring Ben Affleck. And they’re like “we want to use your building for background in one of these scenes. So Ben Affleck came like two weeks later and filmed a scene in front of our building, which was just a crazy coincidence.”
“It’s kind of like “Oh man, the universe maybe is showing me that we’re on the right path.” We got a chance to chat with him briefly, thank him for repping the brand. And then his assistant asked us to design a t-shirt for him as their wrap gift. So, we ended up designing a shirt, it had his signature on the inside of it and we printed like 500 of them for anybody that worked in the film And that was cool, full circle moment.”
Through all of the excitement, from backing local bands in early Bridge 9 days to taking the label international, from selling bumper stickers and “Yankees Suck” merch outside Fenway to establishing a legitimate brand that’s been displayed in movies and major publications, Wrenn’s label was able to reach, and surpass, its 25th year of production. 25 years of operation holds much to look back on and Wrenn had difficulty choosing just one highlight.
“[Celebration for our 25th] was supposed to be 2020. We were going to do a whole bunch of cool stuff, but obviously, that all got kind of blown up. So we pushed that off to the 30th.”
“One of the cool things about doing a label for me has been finding new bands, bands that I get excited about and I want to help other people to know and be able to hear. And we’ve been able to do that with a bunch of bands, the earliest one probably being American Nightmare because those were guys I lived with. They had a demo, they wanted to record something, and being able to be there at the ground level was very, very cool, knowing their potential and kind of helping them realize it.”
“But it’s also really cool, and I found as just a music fan, to be able to work with bands that I liked before I even started the label. H2O, for example. I mean, I was a huge H2O fan before I even started Bridge 9. Never thought when I started the label that I would ever have a chance to work with them, and now we’ve been working together for 15 years. Or when I worked with Slapshot for the first time, I was a Slapshot fan in high school, going into college, and then to be able to put out a Greatest Hits record for them. That was 20 years ago, last fall, and to be able to continue to work with them over the years, it’s just, it’s cool.”
With 25 years in the rearview mirror and the 30th quickly approaching, Wrenn shows no signs of slowing down with either brand. During the COVID shutdown, Bridge 9 shifted their sights away from signing new artists and aimed at 25th-anniversary reissues.
“So we’ve had, I think nine different LPs that we’ve put out with like silver jackets and silver vinyl, kind of leaning into the 25th anniversary color.“
Chris Wrenn (center, holding sign) and members of Boston’s hardcore-punk scene peddling “Yankees Suck” merch at Fenway in the summer of 2000
With shutdowns and restrictions a thing of the past (hopefully for good), Bridge 9 has been able to shift back to a focus on signing new artists. 2023 saw the signing of 2 new artists, Heavy Hex and Incendiary Device, the release of 5 records and 7 exclusive variants, as well as assurance that much more is sure to come.
Greetings, and welcome to the Dying Scene Record Radar. If it’s your first time here, thank you for joining us! This is the weekly* column where we cover all things punk rock vinyl; new releases, reissues… you name it, we’ve probably got it. Kick off your shoes, pull up a chair, crack open a cold […]
Greetings, and welcome to the Dying Scene Record Radar. If it’s your first time here, thank you for joining us! This is the weekly* column where we cover all things punk rock vinyl; new releases, reissues… you name it, we’ve probably got it. Kick off your shoes, pull up a chair, crack open a cold one, and break out those wallets, because it’s go time. Let’s get into it!
Check out the video edition of this week’s Record Radar, presented by our friends at Punk Rock Radar:
Up first this week we have the new album from Me First and the Gimme Gimmes¡Blow it…at Madison’s Quinceanera!. In addition to being the band’s first album in a decade, this is also the first record to feature Strung Out’s Jake Kiley on guitar and CJ Ramone on bass. And like most Fat Wreck releases lately, the colored vinyl already sold out before this week’s Record Radar could go live, which is truly unfortunate. You can still get it on black wax and/or compact disc (otherwise known as CD by those in the trade) here in the US, here in Europe, and here in Australia.
The Offspring’s Smash turns 30 this year and though it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get a reissue with bonus content or anything, the record has gotten repressed on some new colors. So far two variants have been announced: the pearl variant, which is already sold out on the band’s webstore, and the green variant, which is limited to 300 copies and available exclusively at the Punk Rock Museum in Vegas. There’s also the previously announced Record Store Day Essentials “milky clear” color variant that you can get from your local record store, or here.
The MxPx marketing machine thought fast and capitalized on the very short-lived solar eclipse hype. One of many variants of the band’s new album Find a Way Home came with alternate cover art in a die cut jacket showing the printed inner sleeve; you could flip it to show the sun (or maybe it’s an asteroid, idk) or the moon through the cutout. Well they took that same color variant and swapped out the inner sleeve with one that has some solar eclipse art, so that’s cool I guess. You can buy it here if you’d like.
In other MxPx-related vinyl news, some new color variants of the 2018 self-titled album recently popped up on the band’s merch store as well. I’m not sure how limited they are, but can get the record on “Let’s Ride Red” and “The Way We Do Blue” right here. And one last thing before I move on, if anyone involved in the operation of the MxPx Merch Arsenal happens to reading this, you fuckers need to re-enable Media Mail as a shipping option because there’s no way in fuck I’m paying you $14 to ship a single record with USPS Ground Advantage. Sweet Christ.
The friendly people at Mom’s Basement Records are releasing The Young Hasselhoffs‘ The Obsolete Man on vinyl for the very first time, 13 years after its original CD release. This is limited to 50 copies on clear w/ black splatter, 100 copies on white marble, and 100 copies on white w/ black splatter colored vinyl. You can get all three here.
Screeching Weasel side project turned Chicago punk cult favorites Sludgeworth reunited in 2022 and in 2024 they’re releasing their first new music in over 30 years. The band’s new 7″ features two brand new songs, “Together, Not Together” and “Foundation”, and it’s due out May 17th on Red Scare. Check out a live recording of one of the tracks below and pre-order the 7″ here.
Asbestos Records just put some cool records up on their store, the first of which is this first time vinyl release of 2002’s The Least Worst of the Suicide Machines. Like the Young Hasselhoffs record I talked about earlier, this had only ever been released on CD previously. But now you can get it right here on slime green colored vinyl! (limited to 800 copies), or black wax (limited to 100 copies, exclusive to Asbestos Records Subscription Club members (sign up here)), and white vinyl (ltd. to 100 copies). The last one is supposedly a “Ska Fests Exclusive”, see the Suicide Machines‘ upcoming tour dates here.
Also available from Asbestos Records: Spring Heeled Jack‘s new live album Live from the Legendary Toad’s Place. This was recorded at the band’s 2010 reunion shows at, you guessed it, Toad’s Place in their hometown New Haven, CT. It’s limited to 300 copies on orange colored vinyl and you can get it here. SHJ will be playing some shows to commemorate the record release over the next few weeks; go here to check out the dates.
And last up to bat from Asbestos is Sonic Boom Six’s new compilation album Re:Generation. Unlike the orange variant that was released last month in the UK, this US exclusive purple color variant is a 2xLP with a bunch of bonus tracks on that second LP. Add it to your cart before you check out with those Suicide Machines and Spring Heeled Jack LPs, and catch the band touring the US’ east coast this week.
Samiam‘s 2000 album Astray has been repressed on a few new color variants: Smartpunk Records has it on the very wordily named Red/Coke Bottle Clear/Yellow Tri-Split Vinyl which is limited to 300 copies, Down in the Valley Records has 300 copies on Yellow w/ Red/Orange Splatter, and there’s a plain yellow variant you can get on Hopeless Records webstore and probably in record stores once it releases on June 26th – they pressed 900 copies of that one.
Brooklyn’s Radar (no affiliation with the Dying Scene Record Radar) will be releasing their self-titled debut LP on May 17th via Dead Broke Rekerds. Check out the schweet music video for the lead single “Doesn’t Matter” and pre-order the record here.
Also from Dead Broke Rekereds! Another cassette release infiltrates the Record Radar – this time it’s New England punk band Doc Hopper’s career spanning compilation Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blew. Previously released on a very limited # of CD-ROM, you can now get it on a very limited # of green cassette tapes riiiight here (that # is 100, btw). Speaking of cassettes, if you like collecting punk rock on cassettes, Dead Broke has a lot of other awesome punk rock cassettes. So many, in fact, that they dedicated an entire section of their distro to the format. Very nice!
Death By Stereo’s first two records If Looks Could Kill, I’d Watch You Die and Day of the Death have been repressed. The first one’s available on silver colored vinyl right here; the 2019 repress on purple wax is still in stock, too. The latter is back in print for the first time in almost a decade, with a new glow in the dark green color variant that you can buy with money here.
Los Angeles’ Matamoska have a new record coming May 17th (seems like that’s a popular date to put out a new record) on Bad Time Records. The band’s self-titled LP is limited to 350 copied on “Deep Purple” colored vinyl, which you can get here, and 250 copied on “Highlighter Yellow” colored vinyl, which you’ll be receiving in the mail in a few weeks if you’re a Bad Time Record Club member.
And the last release on this week’s record comes from another LA band; it’s the debut LP from up-and-coming street punk band Dogface Bastards. Pride In My Boots is out now on Casualties guitarist Jake Kolatis’ label Charged Records. Check it out below and get it on vinyl here. You’ve got two variants to choose from – Napalm Bastard Splatter (340 copies) and Boot Stomp Splatter (165 copies). Or you can get both. You have autonomy!
Well, that’s all, folks. Another Record Radar in the books. As always, thank you for tuning in. If there’s anything we missed (highly likely), or if you want to let everyone know about a new/upcoming vinyl release you’re excited about, leave us a comment below, or send us a message on Facebook or Instagram, and we’ll look into it. Enjoy your weekend, and don’t blow too much money on spinny discs (or do, I’m not your father). See ya next time!
Wanna catch up on all of our Record Radar posts? Click here and you’ll be taken to a page with all the past entries in the column. Magic!
DS saw a show at the legendary Live Wire with an awesome line up! Child Bite was the headliner with Living Terror, Idol Throne, and Speed Pvssy as opening acts. It was a great way to start the show. Child Bite from Detroit, Michigan shared a unique sound of intense high energy punk/metal their with […]
DS saw a show at the legendary Live Wire with an awesome line up! Child Bite was the headliner with Living Terror, Idol Throne, and Speed Pvssy as opening acts. It was a great way to start the show.
Child Bite from Detroit, Michigan shared a unique sound of intense high energy punk/metal their with Chicago fans! Find them here.
Living Terror from Plano, Illinois. They describe themselves perfectly, “spread true, old-school, aggressive thrash metal throughout the Midwest.” Find them here.
Idol Throne is an Indiana based thrash/power/prog metal band. Find them here.
Speed Pvssy is a speed metal band from Chicago. Be sure to check them out here.
We’re super pleased to bring you another DS premiere to get your weekend started the right way! Cincinnati rock’n’rollers Veronica Grim have a brand new live video of “Straight to Hell”, live from Urban Artifact in downtown Cincy. Co-written by Ryan Malott of 500 Miles to Memphis, the live track comes straight off of a […]
We’re super pleased to bring you another DS premiere to get your weekend started the right way! Cincinnati rock’n’rollers Veronica Grim have a brand new live video of “Straight to Hell”, live from Urban Artifact in downtown Cincy.
Co-written by Ryan Malott of 500 Miles to Memphis, the live track comes straight off of a brand new EP titled Summer Goth. Described as “an eclectic sound reminiscent of Blondie and Social D combined with some Paramore”, the duo of Grim and Malott reminds me some of old 500 Miles to Memphis, but with a brand new spin on it.
Be sure to check out the newest Veronica Grim EP titled Summer Goth, released last month. Recorded by co-writer Ryan Malott, they’ve “conjured up a collection of songs that call back to the finest aspects of punk and rock’n’roll”. After spending some time in LA, Grim once again relocated back to her original stomping grounds to embrace the very music scene that had given her her start. Originally getting her musical start through her love for poetry, Grim’s recent release still very much displays that love.
Happy Friday, friends! There’s a lot of awesome new releases out today, but I’ve made the executive decision to shine the spotlight – the Dying Scene Band Spotlight, that is 😉 – on one record in particular. That record is Hurry Up and Wait! This is the third full-length entry in Canadian pop-punk band Wasting […]
Happy Friday, friends! There’s a lot of awesome new releases out today, but I’ve made the executive decision to shine the spotlight – the Dying Scene Band Spotlight, that is 😉 – on one record in particular. That record is Hurry Up and Wait! This is the third full-length entry in Canadian pop-punk band Wasting Time‘s growing discography.
Here’s what the band had to say about their brand new record, which just came out today on People of Punk Rock Records:
“Hurry Up And Wait is a melodic journey encapsulating many moments throughout our lives with reflective, ambiguous and occasional dark lyrics. These 11 songs reflect a modern spin on our favourite pop-punk bands from the 90s while also displaying an expansion of our sonic palette as a band. We’re happy to have it released today and hope listeners can take in how much fun we had writing, arranging and recording these songs.”
If you are a fan of MxPx, The Ataris, No Use For A Name, etc. you’ll like these guys for sure. But hey, don’t take my word for it, check out the record! You can listen to right below, or on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music (do people use that shit?), etc. by clicking this link. And my fellow physical media appreciators can get the album blue colored vinyl and/or compact disc right here.
Also! And this is the last thing, I promise. If you happen to reside in the Greater Toronto Area, consider attending Wasting Time’s album release show tomorrow, April 13th at the Bovine Sex Club. More details here!
