Issue #8 — November 2025 VARNING BREAD &ROSES sTRESs POSITIONS \ DON'T INVERT THE ART! COLUMNS REVIEWS & MORE - =2 ~ . B COUNTERFORCE hardcore punk underground Whatis this? The Counterforces an nifatve to push back against the corparate ‘capture of hardcore purik. Social media apps and streaming platforms dominate how we nteract oniine, inciuding how we share and distrbute our music and deas. The ‘corporations thatrun these platforms extract massive profits from us, which they use. tofund and faciitate expioitation, war and genocide. Meanwhil, our independent and underground altematives have eroded. ‘The goal of The Counterforce s o strengthen and grow the hardcore punk under- ‘groundthat stilexists outside of ths corporate capture. Rather than funnel punk o profit—hiven waled gardens, we want o foment and encourage a culure thatis au- tonomous andindependent This s not just anostalgic, backward-facing project—we. ‘want to explore new altermatives for spreacing hardcore punk online and offe. Vouare reading ssue #8 of the print version of The Counterforce. Findithe fles to rint and distrbute this zine (and otherslike ) yourslf onine at https://the-counterforce.org “There, you wil iso find the other arms of The Counterforce: ‘A WEB ZINE “This sie publishes reviews, etters, scene reports, profiles/nterviews, rants, and how-to ‘guides,al with an emphasis on projects that try to exist outside of corporate platforms. I part,we hope this wil encourage human-criven curation,recommendation, and - ‘covery. Find out about new bands that aren' o the sireaming stes. Submitareview of ‘your ownbband. Compie a scene report or show review and sendit in. We also publish ‘articles and DY how-to guides to help empower other punks to buid and partiipate in ‘ascene thats less centered around evilapps. Alths s published onine, butaso compled into reguar print zne eciions to bring paper back o the punk show ke the version youare reacing now). ‘A DIRECTORY OF SIMILARLY ALIGNED PROJECTS “The internetis breaking down. Websites outside of ahandiulof apps have siowy disap- ‘peared, and the ones that are st ot there are harder and harder to find “The Counterforce provides a directory of these websites blogs, archives, distros,znes, racko shows and podcasts..anywhere hardecre purk can be found online (and maybe offing tool) 'APLACE TO EXPERIMENT WITH AND LEARN ABOUT ALTERNATIVES s easy to shit on the corporate social media and sireaming platforms, but what ather options are there? There are alternatves and we try them out—pubic oniine show cal- ‘endars, open-source socialmedia,self-hosted music sharing—and encourage other punkstojoinus. A DIGITAL ZINE DISTRO Major purk fanzines of the past fel victmto the rising costs of printing and shipping. We publish printable PDF o our zines oniinefor anyone to print and distribute themselves, ‘and encouage other znesters o submit thelr own. ‘Whatif instead of shipping zines around the world,any punk anywhere couidlog on, ‘downioacl some PDFs and scam some copies 1o have a fully stocked, PWYC zine distro atthe next show? Print-t-Yourselt AHARD LINE AGAINST CONTRIBUTING TO FURTHER CORPORATE CAPTURE OF OUR SUBCULTURE + Nolinks to nstagram, Spoty, Linktree, Discord, o cther corporate platforms. + No coverage of releases that are on major labels,or only avalable igitally on ‘corporate streaming pltforms. - Always independent and not-for-profit For expanding the hardcore punk mutual aid autonomous zone. For facilitating human curation and recommendation. For hardcore punk with context and politics. Against celebrity, ladder climbers, clout chasers and influencers. Against the algorithmic fiattening of our subculture. Against the capitalist death machine and the corporate capture of hardcore punk. Contrbutors to this issue: automattack, Ben Rudolph, Greg the Builder, Hobbes, Joe the Photo Guy, Jolie M-A, Kaitlynne Cruz, Marginal, Martin Force, Rachael Shorr, Ralph Rivera, STUNK and Taylor Joy. Cover by Sara Elbourne. Layout by Taylar Joy. CONTACT Mait: The Counterforce E-mail:the-counterforce@riseupnet PObox 25072 Monireal RPO Vileneuve Mastodon: @The_Counterforce@kalekivasacal 4547 Boul Saint-Laurent Montreal, aC Text/volcemaik 518-50-FORCE (518-503-6723) HaT RO CANADA ‘signak: counterforce 99 or 518-503-6723 arcingus comoting e anslete e scerd g o v fom otk Canada yumusindiato s doclard Vel under $20 s, G il oy it s hh wo et 0 1y LIFE IS BRIEF, PUK RULES: ARecap of STRESS POSITIONS Fall 2025 Tour by Ben Audoloh “The first show of our fall tour was at Cobra lounge in Chicago. A nice and early all- ages gig ona beautiu, late summer Thursday. | ick up Steph and we head down to the venue. We are chronicaly on tme to pretly much every gig we play. ono, Russel andDanny are there tomeet us forloadiin. After an hour or so of muling around andhanging out with the other bands, peaple start showing up. Mostly young-ass Kids who are stoked as hell o see the headiiner. Our friends n the band LATTER are celebrating the release of their new EP tonight. A smal cluster gathers n front of the stage trying to secure their spat for the show. love this energy. s refreshing to see people giddy and ready to dance rather thanjaded and drun. s gonna be packed inhere soon KILL MOVES apens the show. They play a sort of mix of emo and noise rock.Changeover takes alitlelonger than deal but now its our tum to play. The ihts onth stage are bright as helland it hard to see whats going on out i the seaof peopie. It seemed like peopie had fun even though haif of them loaked confused for the lack of mosh parts. lay fastor el We rush off stage sweaty as hell SNUFFED. is next They get better and tighter every tme | see them and the kids go absolutely. bonkers.Hel yeah Everyone sings along as their vocalst Carly screams ‘TS MY LOBOTOMY DREAM LATTER s next. They're a somewhat newer band but have been hitting it hard this last yeat They play a down-tuned medey of noise fock and punk Hard to compare to anything n partioular,but s powerful Therr stage show s wid as hell and the orowd is buzzing Hell yeah It so great to se a oom full of sweaty young people hanging onto every word. The show ends at 11and wefe al home by midnight. Tomorrow, 4 R we hitthe road for Cincinnatl The tour s just auick, shcday run hrough Agpalacia, th il cestnation S is Richmond where we wil be playing Dark Days Bright Nights Fest. ‘The next day everyone meets atmy place at 1. We aldote on my new pup Harley,an old anxious pitbul. She's sad to see us go. We hit horrble traffic leaving the city, but once we get throughits about ‘a5 uneventfulas a chive could be. We arrive at The ‘Comet (again chronicaly early for the show) and realize no one s there for the gig yet. A few of us find forest preserve nearby and go for a hike. My favarie pre-show fitual We meet a riendly black catalong the tral. Must be a good sign. Steph and Danny later decide 1o go and do the uick hike and ‘againmeet the biack cat. Definiely a good sign. Back at the venue we are alkiling time by playing pool. The Comet provides free food for bands and we allstuff down buritos. Some people hate al the waiting around you have to do on tout llove it It wil always beat going to work BUTCHERS DOGs the first band 1o play. I heard their record Purists Piss Codes a whil ago and hadnt seen them ive: yet — they did not disappoint | met Landon and ocie a few years back with another band. They e immense swesthears who are absolute punk Ifers. RAZORELADE from Pittsburgh played as el They re fun as fuck. Punk AF thrash stuft.They dida medley of ‘Come Feel The Noise! it was fun. There was a somewhat solemn note to the evening as we found out the owner of The Comet had recently passed away. He seemed to be beloved by the community for helping create and maintain an al-ag- s space intown. These places are precious and not aways owned by people who have good ntentions so wefre very happy to be able to celebrate the ife of someone. who contributed s0 much Keeping the gigs going through grief seems Ik its exactly what they wouldve wanted. Our g inRoanoke the next day was unfortunately cancelled as the basement venue we were supposed to play had flooded Its a bummer to ose a show on such a short tourbut these things happen. Finding a replacement last minute s easier said than done. We do the 10 hour cive to Richmond It ateast a beautiful winding raute through Appalachia to help pass the fime. We finaly get o our hotel at around 10prm. | ‘grabbed us some cookies from the Subway next door and we surf the TV for a whie ‘and end up watching Queen of the Damned, We al pass out by midright Hell yeah. Getting good sleep on tour i a high commodity. We wake up early and smash the free breakfast at the hotal A few of s use the gym. Coffee and then more coffee and is time to head to the venue. Load nis at 2. We get there at 145 to make sure we can snag a good parking spot. There are e 10 bands playing today 5o weld rather make sure things are easy. The venue s called Studio Two Three. The buiding s reminiscent of an old schoohouse. The frst floor has a soreen printing shop. The show wil be upstars n what seems ike an old school gym/ ‘assembly hall Atthis pointinmy lfe fve been doing punk shit for longer than haverit. The buzz get showing up for fest s the same as it was 20-odd years ago when| first ot nto touing. llove scanning al the tables for merch,records and zines. ove seeing peo- ple lhavent seen in years andreconnecting as it oy been a week.| owe so much to these experiences and frisndships. The bil today is absolutely stacked and filed with riends. A musically very eclectc bil as well SLOW HOLE, EYE FLYS and GREAT FALLS all blow me away. The venue had a giant projector. Allthe bands got ta ick what they wanted to have playing behind them. We chose a compiltion video of dogs just doing cute dog shit Who doesnitlove that? IRONLUNG playedlate n the evening. They were pulverizing.Less stand up comedy in between songs than ather fimes Ive seen them, but that added to the vibe of today's set It was relentless and punishing REVERSAL OF MAN ciosed out the night It was. 50,00 o finall see them. The four of s grew up n Florida and never had a chance ‘while they were il active. They were fantastic and fulof the same energy that allof the lore speaks to. A bucketIst band for me and Jono especialy. A great way to end anepic day. We setoff for Ashevile early the next morning. Again, another beautiul crive winding through the mountains. We arrive at Static Age, again early, and find cofee. This was our first tme playing here with this band so we didrit know what to expect. The smallrecord store filed up quickly after the doors opened. Aot ofreally enthusiastic young puks showed up whichs always a good sign MOCKERY played right before us and they fucking ripped. Nine minutes of raw D-beat A kile first set for them. Look out for recorcings soon. This was probably my favorite performance for us on this un. love playing a smallroom. Steph and | are constantly dancing around each other frying to not knock the other over.ft never gets old. The kids wen bat shit, side to sides and slamming the whole time. The room was electic and we were al buzzing after Hellyeah. . S A ——— STRESS POSITIONS Another beautful cive to Louis- vile Torights show s at ware- house spot called Camp Space- man. The whole place reminded me of one of the big squat venues in Germany Wall-to-wal graffi and a sick professional PA. The stage s just high enough to dive, offbut not too high to where youteel far away. The gig starts promptly at 7 TOTAL FLESH were. one of my favorite bands of the tour They play fast, 80s-style ‘American hardcore. No bulshit and catchy i al the ight ways. DEADY headined. Another band Ive beenitching to see for awhie. Aty unigue and refreshing band. They sounded immacuate. Their last song o the setinvolved inuiting everyone n the crowd on stage to dance andbang on the. drums. People went nuts. Good vibes allround. We headed back home to Chicago the next day. The news that the National Guard is supposedly being deployed to our streats sets in. We've been reading about and hearing from friends allweek about the massively increased ICE presence and their Kidnapping of people n our home. For now we have a few hours n the van to con- template the last fow days and savor how lucky we are to get o this stuff Life s bref. Punk ules. § SKULL FEST 15 AUG 14-17 PGH p P Wa’% |||l"| LUNG u”fi!fi B Anxxiet! [an u’h && PR E{ z oR N Bé i uf KDAIEDISAS‘CGR L UTBODY | Wene HOUMS ST 1 SUBMACHINE llzuummkl‘ X N ecxs( 7 MACHINE GUN R3% Q.,, mmutten %fil tcaa FAZE %’t’r RER headsplitters SHATTER fimmflbn m éLapPrREGUNTA? Shugger ! fi SRS TAZ m. ’u ‘ KNOLL ultlmu‘mm Ry ermm BREBMAGE FRTH() 2 [ P15 TON e CONDUIWE SCOUTRE o |mm\'( m EKGs 0ty mne save.. OO iy ®en"7 Jnstinet /\tgnu Py @n%m) AMUSEMENT ALLERGY “ies” Skull Fest 2025 Reportback by Greg the Buider Photos by Jos The Photo Guy ‘Another hurid mid-atlantic August means another Skull Fest nlovely steel city, Pitisburgh, PA.Iknow, | know, ‘another fest?” How many fests do we really need? | donitreally know, but or me at least, Skull Fest feelsfike the one that breaks the mold. Instead of being a weskend of punk and hardcore curated by one persons taste, Skul Festis true colaborative effort You getamix of punk that s sure to hitall your sen- siilties: punk, hardcore, hardcore punk, orust, goth, and for better or worse, even ol The amountof bands playing Skull Fest is overwhelming and you are sure to get as much as you can handie, but the main reason| love going to Skull Fest s hanging out Most shows have an opportunity to see al your friends, there's the punk's pienc, he. afterparty, and of course the tips to Page's Dairy Mart or some vegan Oreo peanut butter arctc swits or eating Spak Bros by the Sphynix with boobs statues in that graveyard. Amerkkicais current politcal climate and tightening bor- der poiiies had a noticeable impacton the usual handful of ntemational bands this year Regardiess, there were stll some banger sets every. night I wasit there, butmy. colaborator on this report back,Joe the Photo Guy, said SEX DWARF (who might have been the only full in- ternational band?) were widl Thursday night My weskend started Friday by missingal of the matinee Show because somehow t ran way ahead of schede. The lasthalf of ZYCLONE's last song was good though! Later that day,Ipoppedinto Spiritto catch SHORT LEASH (who played a surprising and welcomed 85 MENTAL- ITY Cover) and IRON LUNG. Those 2 dudes stil gott. After some Sexless //No sexihada lovely walk over tothe Profane Existence 36" anniversary show. FLOWER played another powerful setand were followed by the first of two DESTROY sets of the weekend. | didn't know what to expect from the DESTROY set but t racked. They were tight,loud, and stil angry. Asa sidencte, 1 had no dea the gutarist of NO STATK was in DESTROY. Sick. Upstars from the Profane show,|caught EARLY GRAVE, akiler band from Phiadelphia, PEACE TALKS, who are always greatlive, and UNIFORMED SERVICES, another band from Boston who has that Boston sound and does it really wel. ied to stay up for the aftershow, butIm ‘amorning person and I know my lmitations, o lun- fortunately never got to see SEX DWARF. Bummer. Saturday started at the Prevention Point matinee. show. This s where my enjoyment of hanging out started to confict with seeing al the bands playing. lended up only seeing CHILDREN WITHDOG FEET, who playeda very sick PENI cover, and WHO PAYS?. 1akso gotin troube for playing a game of Com- mander in an area we shouldn't have beenin, but thats a story for another time. From there | headed! back to Spii for thatright’s crust show. DESTRUCT proved once again that they are on o the best bands in this horrble country llve in DROPDEAD riped. Afer althese years the anger, passion, and commitment the message is il there. Bob gave several impassioned speeches, something| feel s missing from most shows today. | caught the first half of DESTROYs secand set and it was stil good. From Spiitheaded over to Spit Quest where wil admit I went to the i show, but friendship rocks and! Iwanted o see my homies In SECLUSION play.Gen- uinely enjoyed theirset. Afterwards, hung around o catch some of NO TIME where their singer Adam (whois aiso a Skul Fest organizer) once again put s body on the fne and broke his hand from racking toohard Muchike the night before, no matter how much | ntended 0 go 1o the aftershow to see CONDUMB,a band who putout one of my favorite records of the year, Iwentto bed. Sunday’s matinee show is usually my favorite show of the weekend. The lneup for this one had some last minute changes. MACHINE GUN and DEMON- ‘STRATE, a band that proves straightedge s st punk, unfortunately dict play, BUT we were bless- ed with second FLOWER set. Right before that bonus set was ULTIMATE DISASTER who give their felow Richmand dwellers, DESTRUCT, a run for their money for best band in Amerikka at the moment. UDinto FLOWER was my favorite two set combo of the weekend. | wouid listen to a UD/FLOWER spit untilmy turntable broke. The one thing noticeably missing from Sunday afternoon ‘was the Evil Ways wresting show that has happened the past few years. | think Cole. puts alot o effort and care into giving a group of people who might not know what the fuck s going on a good shaw. The man truy cares about the art form of death- match wresting. My Skul Fest closed out with the STORMCROW gig.| caught ZYCLONE again who fucking RPED, holy shit that band is good live, and LANGUD, who are from Edmon- ton, Canadabbut might as wel be from Sweden. Absolutaly perfect ANTI-CIVEX wor- ship. This was STORMCROWs fist gig on this side of the country, which sounds ke it canitbe true butl quesstis! it was a very sick set,they sounded great and was arice endcap o the weekend. Ididnot expect to write this much about the weekend.| think how 1 appraach Skull Festis different from others, but punk gave me a ton of eat riendships and for me its a celebration of that. Carit wat for next year. Thanks o Joe for the pictures. hink he does a great ob capturing ‘the culture”. & DON’'T INVERT THE ART by Hobbes. Punks ke black shirts. This s an refutable fact.As a food spiling person,1am of the: same mindset and wil aways choose a shitin the punkest shade over any other color Butis there an unknown cost we have allbeen paying while hiding it stains? Lets get started.My friends, what comes to your mind when you see thess two examples? e i | Do younofice something a e strange? Well it daesnit bother you et that the tlar black flag s now a white flag, I wil show you a few more examples o further drive my point home. On the left shirt, the designis completely gone. The detail of this Frankenstein artwork s lost and has become unrecognizable. Surely, if Sakevi had intended for the "Great Punk Hits" punk to have blacked out ceeth and white eyebrows, that crazy man would havejust drawn it that way. Our poor skull cupids on the left have been inverted already proper reworks of the 1084 EP art to read well onablack shirt. SKULL TALK There s no condition known on ths earth that causes a person to have a biack skull with white eye sackets. Even upon death. Im sorry to break t to you but this ph nomenon exists solely within punks-fucking-up-artuark. We have decided, a genre, that we do not care about biacked out teeth and glowing white eye holes — as ong as it means the design goes on a black shirt sctually adapted for ablack background,and fi t anyway 1o go backon toa white shirt LET'SFIXIT Talk To The Artist Firt and foremost its always worth reaching out o the artst before you change the background color or reverse the design. They llunderstand how the shapes and de- tails behave when everything gets darker, and they can help you avoid odd-looking highights orloss of detail I you want extra gold stars, teling your artst ahead of tme that you ntend to do black shirts wil be helpfulin their design process. Ask Your Screenprinter Assuming youire not ordering your shirs or patches off some sketchy Recbubble ste, this s a great option. Screenprinters are used 1o adapting artwork drawn on white to print cleanly on black. They can re-balance the ines and colors properly.Just make sure youre communicating this s your desire —and confirming that they worit Justinvert the design. Whil preparing to write this insiructional, asked a screenprint- erfor their opinion on our tendency to nvert designs and they had this o contrioute: “ust last week 2 band came n with artwork of a hooded executioner, but due o their poor choice inink colors — the executioner suddenly became a kiansman. You don't want that. Please don' invert your art” Dot Yourself Armed with touch of Phatoshop competence, you can avaid sacialzing entrely and absolutely solve this issue yoursel. Tl show you an easy trck thatll enable you'o. adapt most designs to go on to biack shirs for the rest o your punk fe. ts nothing fancy, and !l feel ke second nature after running throughita couple of tmes your- self. Lets gol QUICK PHOTOSHOP DIY Wefe gonna work on our boy Ratfink here. Someone desecrated our favorite gar- bage rat and wefe going tofixit together so he can be properly appreciated ona black shirt. ToBegin: Access Editing Software Pirate i borrow it froma friend, do not pay hundreds of dolars for a digial program. Vou can also use something ike photopea com whichis basically a free Photoshop dupe for your browser. Step 1:File > Open Dorit work off the screenshot your bandmate sent youn the group chat.Find the originaland opent.Ideally you want a decently large scan of the artwork. Step 2: Remove Background Around The Art Use the Magic Wand Tool (Shortout is the W key) to select all of the white background \ around the art Hit backspace o delste those areas once they're selected. Step 3: Select The Artwork Withthe entre transparent background selected (Hold shift to select multiple areas), you canisolate the artwork by now going to Select > nverse. Now only the artwork willbe selected. Filer View Al Deselect Inverse Step 4: Expand Selection 6o to Select > Modify > Expand. Try 5 pixels and press OK This makes a sort of halo or*forcefieldas a good friend ikes to cal it around the artwork edge. > | Border. s Smooth v Expand. Contract Step 5: White Border Make sure you have the color white selected n your palette. reate a new empty layer behind the artwork. Use that fayer to fl your selection you just made with white by going to Ecit> il S t to Foreground and press OK. ® K3} Ratfink Step 6: Test [t Out On Black Create a biack background layer and try aut the design. Erase parts of the border that donitf, adjust the size of the border to suit the at, Isnit he lovely? Now you can a the very least see where his damn eyes are looking This is 3 simple five-minute dirtbag method of adapting a designto be readable ona black background. Now imagine f you were to spend some tme oni,or colaborate with your artst or screenprinter What a great shirt wanna wear that and spil soup all over i1Enoy! § Normal A (Sober) Varning XVII Reportback by Taylor oy Photos by Rachael Shorr A Varning from Montreal Festival is basicaly Christmas for Mon- treal punks —a highly-anticipated tracition,an international punk family reunion, anda huge party. Nowinits 17th edition, its currently our ity’s longest-running punk fest andlves up tots reputation of bringng n high qualty bands from across Canada as wel as the S, Europe and even Japan. You might think that the charged-hai; ‘sword-wielding skeletons fea- turedinal the posters and promo materiatare an exaggeration, but itsnot far from how the crowd ac- tually appears, periodicaly spiling outofashitty metalbar to stk up Montreals downtown tourist shopping core. Armed with a ful fest pass, decided o take full advantage and iry andldlo all 6 shows over 3 days, plus the Saturday punk marke. Here's my reportback: I dicit watch every single band but tred to catcha ittle bit of most of them Firs to honourably mention some great local bands: PORTAL TOMB delivered ther crushingly heavy hits wel, even though bassist Ava had gone through a car windshield a few days prior o the fest and showed up with anose cast and forehead sitches —a true crust warror Fuck cars! WARKRUSHER crushed as much as ever, and| was glad to catch EULOGY again, anewer scandi-flavoured cbeat project featuring well-known local characters. | was wonderingif local power-pop uartet PSYCHIC ARMOUR would feelout of place on the bilbut all the rock'nioll nerdis enthusiastically lapped up Sara andEvans gutar shreddng. There were a fow bands that | saw earle this summer at Scorched Earthin Vancou- ver that I was excited to see again.Victorias HEDONIST were high on that st —m not ahuge metahead, but they are clearly at the top of their game right now, and their name came up again and again when | asked people for theirfest highlights. Van- couver crusters EXTENSIVE SLAUGHTER were excellent, and were also a great crew tohang and enjoy both fests with. Edmontoris LANGUD was ‘the sonic equivalent of crinking a beer” according to one of my bandmates. Phily's ALEMENT also played ® both fests I have seen them a few times now and had fled them i the category of ‘bands | can recognize are good but dont really ot for me; but at Varning something clickedtand Iwas totaly hypnotized by their set A high poin of face-melting fun and chaos was Friday when ULTRARAT played — a local raw dbeat tio that has recently re-actvated, with Nick from MUECO flng n onbass for this set. Mutiple power failres only added to the insanity. At one point llooked aroundin the crush of absolutely anninlated punks with shit-eating grins, catohing wafts of beer breath and poppers fumes and idly wonderedif it was possible to break edge by proxy. 1had fun though. Bostoris INNOCENT had a tough act to follow, but they deiivered a high-ener- o set that was one of my favourites. of the weekend. Overal,not enough dbeat at Varning this yearl Admitiedy, Idipped before Friday's headiners VARUKERS. | heard they were fun, satisfyingly nostalgic, and it say. anything stupid, which s ahuge win for any old band. Wil I spent the weekend moon- lighting as a cruster, im ahardcore punk gire at heart so must shout- out some sik hardcore punk acts. INVERTEBRATES (Richmond) were Super fun headlining the Friday matinée, and local faves TOTAL NADA miraculously brought energy and ife tothe il-advised Saturday Aftershov The hardcore punk bands at Varning are explcitly more of a palate cleanser than the main event, but any local hardcore: enthusiast who missed the matinée with PEIs CELL DETH and POISON SPEAR really fucked up. By the time LIFELESS DARK Boston) and DISTURD (iapan) closed the Saturday main show,was seriously losing steam — both bands were great butneither blew me. outof the water, whichis objectively kind of an insane thing to say. Especialy about LFELESS DARK whose three previous Montreal shows have been major highights of the ast 10 years for me. Some finalshoutouts: Ottawais BOOT who not anly brought energy o ane of the. toughest slots o the whole fest (opening the Friday Matnée show) but also proved that your Oitrevival band doesnithave to be a boys club. I also wanna mention TRAUME from Poland, who headlined on Thursday — m o the biggest post-purk. fan, but I made sure to catch them at the behest of friends who saw them while touting Europe this summer, and they were realy good.Ifelt additionally lucky to see them, as thef travels to Canada were complicated by Russian incursions info Polish o airspace around thei departure. s Boris reminded us during TOTAL NADAS set s apriviege to be where we are n the world, and wee lucky tohbe able to come together to elebrate and share our music with ach other. The world s getiing shit- ter and scarier and Imreally grateful tothem andal the bands that traversed continents, oceans and borders to come play in Montreal The music was great and we had lots of fun — buta few minor caveats: TOO MUCH SMOKE. Props to the autonomous actor who unplugged the extremely overactive fog ma- chine after ahuge puff completely Shrouded LIFELESS DARK during the openingriffs of thei set. | coud barely see the drummers the entre fest,and whats the pointof Varning if canit watch the crummers?2? THE AVERAGE ATTENDEE AGE WAS PROBABLY PUSHING 40. A riend tokd me that when he came to his firstVarning in 2008 he also thought “why i everyone here so old so uess its always been this way? Dont getme wrong, love ancient crusties and| aspire o be one, bt also want the kids to be able to hear actually great bands and participate. inamutigenerational scene. I made ajoke about how under-25s should getdiscounted passes, butlam actually kind of serious. INBATTLE THERE IS NO SOBRIETY. Varningis aparty,and pecple go realy hard with the alcohol,crugs and smoking,even by Montreal star- dards.Its a tough fest to be sober at ~heard this especialy from friends who are early in thei sobriety or are justtying to moderate theirpartying, T —— A oo BN AR tion, annoying coked-up punishers EY and probably some sloppy dude randomiy trying to iss you Im not trying to shame anyone's consumption ust noting that it a pretty integral part o the whole vbe of the festandif thats hard for you to be around it might not be yourfam 'SPEAKING OF “SOME SLOPPY DUDE TRYING TO KISS YOU" Iheard from a fow people who had to deal with creeps or unwanted invasions of their personal space._. some of this can be chalked up to the venue, whichis ot our” spot by any means. butitalso overlaps with the point above. Its defintely the kind of show where f Im trying to take a breather alone after roughly 10pm, find a decoy friend to stand next totolessenthe lkelihood of being creeped on. Yuck. 1 guess Imentioned n the ntro that there was a Punk Market on Saturday. tabled PWWYC punk/anarchist zines and was a bit more successful than at the night shows (where people didn' take many zines, but rather used them as coasters for their bee I cicup my stud count and snagged a MURO tshirtthat Janick was trying to un- 0ad, 50 t wasn a toal flop, but honestly there's not much o say about it other than thatithappened But onamore positive note — the fest was really wel-organized tis year. In years past allof the information, announcements,set times, . were only on Facebook {yes,Montreal s perpetualy in 2005) The introcuction of a proper, consistently-up- dated website this year was a game changer The organizers also tapped me to design and print paper programs with the schedule and fest info, which think were a big hit — | saw people consuiting them throughout the duration of th fest. Organizers also made sure the info got posted and kept up to date on our local onlne calendar. m eally happy that the organizers prioiized accessible,non-corporate ways of disseminating al the informa- tion and I think that it was part of the. reason everything ran super smootly. ‘Additional huge shoutouts to: 1 Who- ever updated the food recommenda- ton st o include mostly vegan/veg options 2 The people who prepared a huge, diverse buffet of deicious and healthy vegan food 1o feed the bands andvolunteers alweskend 3. The stage managers, who were on top of itand kept everything even sightly ahead of schedule, making sure the main shows ended before the Metro stopped running..unt the lastnight ‘when shitsort of went of the als. |t ‘was bound to happen at some point Whie incredible bands and great people can make for a good fest the levelof care and organization put o Varning this year made it ruy great & F0 COMPLETE =2 NIGHT oF sceeh, 2 SW FIND N\YseLi Z INKING CoFFEE 2 ORI FoRBIDDEN 3 HourS WEIRD, 2 S \DEEP S HAVE] CoNFUSEn SoMETl! TRY By Fp B SOMETIMES | RUN o NewgHBovRS WHo ARE AlSo AWAKE BUT HAVENO bed R HES TS You 'y A HAvewT st AND guenTuAlly THE SuN RISES, | OFTEN FEEL WHEM T DOES, THAT UVE EXPERIENCED Too . MucH ALREADY, THE NEXT DAY IS $PENT FEELING "BETWEEN WoRUS ST = Bread and Roses CPEASNIAON 2025 Reportback by Jolie M-A | & — — Inthe years since 2020, there's been arunning joke that punks i NYC are in an ongoing competition tohostthe mastinsanely llegal shows. Makeshift “venues’ began cropping up allover the city as ‘organizers began outdoing one another, putting p- b abere anel m unpor st bonn A o0 oot o for one ight only. The moring after, Tk Toks woukd = = cutacootfogs g ovoris oonga & Car 5 B Sea i moshers,somehow nthe middioof Manmat. SAERfg RSN wecer i . an When theres not much sce o fum fo by vay of | SRRt T ) DIY venues and everyone s sick of having shows at |~ e e emies s #4675 the same four bars that allow us, ft makes sense that the underground becomes not ust anecessity, but a badge of aleged authenticity ‘and commitment to keeping a ity scene ungovernable and raw. Inkeeping with ths traciton, Bread and Roses Fest set the bar for keeping the indie ‘experience. indie. Generator shows are back, and audiences have accepted a level of danger and spontaneity ina city governed by such principles on a dady bass. And there was no one better to ot than thefr IY colective, committed to halding the most punk and least-corporate event possibl, tuly taking ‘doing it yourself' o another level. Hosting almost 40 bands over three days, the event was advertsed via ‘email and a Goagle e folder with handmad flyers, many of which were missing a ‘confirmed venue. it ended up that most would be outdoor generator gigs, some per- mitted and some not, with:a phone number 1o text fo the coordinates. The temporary atonomous zone was real every show started two hours late and was hostedina pie o trash outdoors, with varying degrees of cooperating PAs and weather They were all$20 or Pay What You Can, and rest assured o one WAS turmed away for lack of funds. “The callective, heimed by Donna of CHRONOPHAGE and Jake from BULLSEYE, did fantasticjob of getiing tagether DIY bands from every ether of the indie and purik spectrum It was a group effort though, with so many types of people helping out t0 ensure that the show couid and dd go on, even when logistical hurdles threat- ened to extinguish some of aur fun. Theiintent of ‘uniting anarchist and communist non-hardcorists and peac punks for the sake of enriching our connections and ‘community” seemed aute successful Indeed, they gathered some of the best and most committed underground artists across North America, with a dynamic crew of people, blasted into the chaos of an uncanirolable and sprited festival, “The firstfestival evening was locatedtin an almost comicaly cutty ‘venue' carved outof a scrap of a skatepark along Newton Creek n a seemingly abandoned and industrial part of Long lsland City. Waking there consisted of a pigeon-shit-splattered ‘overpass with shattered bottes litering the abandoned sidewalk — not abodegain sight — through a cinematic wasteland with no homes, just pure industrial fith.In order t0get to the garden where the generator was set up, you had to scutle across a bro- F kenbridge and watoh your step tomest the dozens of other weirdos huddled about inclumps of woodchips, dangerously close to the poisoned body of water Locallegend HOME BLITZ opened up the evening with s signature blend of weird- ‘as-fuck, medieval-sounding flamboyant pop guitar genius It was a treat o see Austir's TOUCH GRL APPLE BLOSSOM's jangly, heartfelt HEAVENLY-inspired indie pop, ‘which got everyone moving and feeing good, bopping along to front woman Olivia (Garders sing-song but powerfuly twee vocals A fest highight was GOOD FLYING. BRDS from Indianapolis, who brought the party down using their multile tambou- fines as weapons. The makeshift stage was squished with seven members,jamrming raucously with co-singer Susie Saughter screeching as she passed outlooses to the audience. The band refused to slow down or stop screaming and wiggiing for evena second,and their Gen Z exuberance was contagious. I fltfor HORSEGRL, who were st game to go on around 2am, eschewing their usual n-ear-mantor- type professional shows for the complete disorder of Breact and Roses. They were: good sports and sounded even better, with their melodic and restrained style of mainstreamindie-approved guitar music successfuly reaching the outdoor masses, including their compelingly soft vocals that sounded beautfulon even the scraggi- estof blown out speakers. The following day we somehow dusted offfor found two, starting Up ata church n Ridgewood for the day show. Catered by Food Not Bombs, sat outside skuping their hearty soup to get braught back to e for the morning show: The basement scene Showed out new bands as wel s NYC faves, and the most fun was litering outside getiing toknow new peaple who had the enduring curse and biessing of sharing the ‘same subculture. TW33DY from Kansas City were among those new comradss, and their blend of sightly country-twinged loud,fangly indie fuzzed out the audience with aun ‘Cry No Tears' NEL YOUNG cover. PROVIDERS played their frst show, featuring (Groovy Mike from VEXX, VANITY, and a milfon other guitar projects alongside my bandmate David from RIBBON STAGE — btter known for TERCER MUNDO, POBREZA MENTAL HYSTERIC POLEM and also a millon other nternational punk bands, as well s Ava from CBS and an eponymous solo project she also performed under. The daytime event was deightfuly accessible compared to Saturday s evening cha- o5, which was located behind a fence and past a park on the Willamsburg waterfront. Attendees were given coordinates to a location where someone was supposed o wakk them nto the show area, but Im not totally sure i such a person existed. Real ‘it youknow, youknow" hours,and don' expectit tobe easy if youwantan intentonally anti-corpo- rate event. Thisinvolved clmbing on ateral rash can to get over a fence, then walking another 100 yards down a carpet of broken glass toa smal enclave of rees ontop of rocks before the East Av- erstarts. We wer vreated toanendof summer rain that pretty much did not stop allnight,ghtly dusting our electronic equipment ‘and creating problems with gear, prolonging the shows start to atleast 3 hours after alleged start time. Miaculously, the generator held on, and RAT HENRY finally kicked it off with some stelar 38 CLOCKSstyle catchy and down tempo post-punky, scrappy gultar music. My band, RIBBON STAGE then showed up for asurprise super-short set n true B& R fashion, we were added to the Ineup two days beforehand, and had only practiced with anew band neup once before our three-song debut Naturall, it was amess. Idicintlove looking ke a crowned at while desperately trying o pee n the bushes before playing to animpatient crowd of some of my most beloved and annoying. peers, but one has to pretend to be hardcore and not care about such luxuries. JEANINES played after us, coming down from Wester Mass to blast their saccharine. ‘andmelody-laden clean indie tones through demonically loud amps, alowing Alcias clear and dreamy vocals to shred the whole waterfront Other bands included the al- ‘Ways great GALORE from SF, whose recent LP ‘Dirt" was one of my favorites of 2025 ‘and quite overlooked inmy opinion. Also on the neup were MOPAR STARS, a Phily fa- Vorite with members of SHEER MAG and POISON RUN who have an upcorming debut record onKin 202 tink the show finshed before 3am, but at least there were dalis nearby if youfelt ke hopping the fence again to get to them We closed out the weekend at the amphitheater at Far Rockaway, an amost refresh- ingly “normal” venue by virtue of having a bathroom you could walk to close by —one that even had tollet paper ovingly provided by the NYC Parks Department Due to permiting issues, the show had {0 startate and end early, but the morale was high as. artists ke BULLSEVE took the sunny stage. Itwas alovely, sunny day and Dan Dimag- ‘g and ook a dipin the water, which was defintely 00 Cold at the absolute tal end of summer but stila necessity at the rock show. W didritput our shoes back on and induiged in the amphitheater's smooth floored safety to dance barefoot fo Canada's ‘swesthearts, GARDEN OF LOVE. A Sunday highight. the three piece was fronted by Donnais frequent collaborator and multimeda artist Jane Harms who joined s from Monireal. They shared the stage with indie mainstays LIGHTHEADED from New Jersey, ‘a5 well as hometown heroes the avant-garde AUTOBAHN who heralded the young~ er end of fest participants. | watched them whil eating more nourishing yet sightly. bland vegan food, provided by the llustrious Food Not Bombs squad once again. ‘The sunset ona successiul event that brought together lke-minded freaks from ‘across the spectrum of whatever might be called “independent rock music” The ‘ollective also graced us with a comilation tape and zine with artsts who played, printed onnewsprint and effectively capturing the ethos of Bread and Roses in alts xeroxed glory,avaiable on an esoteric Youtube ink. Th fests vibe was decidedly In- ‘accessile — yes they provided allthe coordnates, but youhad to willyourself to get there, descending into the ‘freaks only* kind of atmosphere. You have torealy want tobe there to be there, but somehow hundreds of peaple did Overall we were lucky to be together and have fun especialy ina city with ncreas- ing brutalty toward those wh fall outside the mainstream, and Im grateful o the organizers for creating such a dangerous and inclusive environment Yes, the dream of the 90’ s deact and “ndie rock”no longer exists, but for one dazzing weekendits ‘corporate capture could be ignored to keep the DIV dream aiive in NYC. € 3 :OLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS COLUMNA MARGINAL OCTOBER 2025 ot care about Haloween, s ot prt of my cultre and don' wantit o be prtof anything aroundma.| apenly hato the North Amercan/@itah culure, which,fo some rea. Son,is cooler than ou raditonsicelebrations. that o old (vey old) and beauti,normally rolate onature.The orly good ting about his culural colorzaton|s that | can spoak and witoEngish, so1mablo o communicate withmany people that couldt otherwiso. But by i Englsh the goballanguage andnot Catalan? Tho same ting willbo thoughtby the people o Per about Spanich,and otaly Support themin thor defonse of Quechua, Aimara, . Why dowe have fo so a calonz erlanguage? Wel ince maware ofthe good partof Spoaking an understandiatio anguage by many people{refuse to consider it common sinca, for e tis aforoign language that 1 was forced o earn m order t be abe o stucy, work and bo an averago ciizen),and l kesp wiing sing 1, bt gong o e you, dear roador toloarn now languages that donot ropresent tho capitasm and colonizers of e workd.Leaming alanguage may sound cha longing, but it actual ko an hour per day (o understand tho basi things inabout amonth o two.You probably have that imelifyouo natie Engish speaker, youcan considor It s way:manyof those who spoak Engishhad that time t earn so we could communicate with you Why aro you ot making thateffor Okay ot mako easir Thore's aperfoct language or those who dorithave much time. and spoak anguages that como fom Europe s calle Esperanto, Ves! It st xita! 5 2 beautiullanguage with aboautul commu- ity 3t simiar to punk i many ways For ‘oxamlo, pooplo tavel trough tho world Vitng ecperantists because they know ey wilhave alot i comimon, o they rusteach other Sounds alot ke punk,f be honest Also,esperantsts hoid events constantly so they allmeet there, andif you atisnd ona they. willove o find now pocple to this anguage. and valvos. Vory punk st The vakies and potical context whore Esperanto s dovoloped can bo found i many places. Irecommend you o check . But aince s the statofthe month and . actualy recommending you some music from Sandcamp, | decided t acd some esperan. tststhat make music 1hope you rjoy them and ry to anslato tho Iyios and tles. Thats nowlloarnt Enich when! was 10 ranslatng Groon Day lyrcs! SOCIOLADIFEKTA - Kreski My curent favorte esperantist band s SOCIO LADFEKTA,a Japanose band that tokos the sound o the rust anarchopurk rom the 90s/oarly 00s andbrings 1t back. They share mambers with another band that also uses Esporanto as.amai language, MALMPLKL and ako share members withother amazng bands ke UNARM and BLISTERING NOSE. TS EPis aitto gom for thoso rterestodin anarchopuni Using Esporantofo thlyrcs s bigstand against any colonizercutise, Romambor hat Japan was (and could bo arguod thatt st ) colonizer aton, and that the US hadinvaded and controld them sinco Workd War I changing o country fo- e, Alo, anarchism & not the most popuar polticalopton lapan, ot venin punk 5o 11 band i challengng in many ways all hat they have arounc. The musicis a non-stop hardcor attack,with bilant musicianship and the amazng offect of o vocais that trn this sy punk actinto s [COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS - COLUMNS ! aferocious stance. Poico Fikas Abuor Po. o8 Fuckng Bastard 7) s an amazing startng track,and now my favort Esperanto phvase. incal oven wear abadgo wihitItsounds. way better thanin Engisht wouid e to reference ths music ith other bands that you might ke, butits ust aperfoct oampl of lapaneso uniqueness brutl hardoro, an experimont with sound that doosit ool ke an oxperiment atal but avery wel-propared punk act Doyou ko DISRUPT, DOOM.LFE, even some DISCLOSE? o, they sound ciferen, but then you wil e SOCIO LA DIFEKTA.Kreski s no the only roloase of this band,they ater rleased a promo cordod i thel praciicarooms cnly for tha Japanese tour wih SUBDUED. VOGO PROTESTA - Neniam Konficu Al Lastato Japan Japan, Japars Fuck Japan and avery state!Fuck borders Bt when v tak about Esperantistpunk, i the st we can ois ot ge far fom tistrtory and thir amazing scane VOE0 PROTESTA aro ono of the frst bandis flearmt that wera st using tis inguage. Wo playod with them n Tokyo n 200 after MALMPLII and coukritbeleve hatl was seaing (or hearing That ight was. probably the one when| naly startec o have hat fearad chvoric it can be akind of puri baptiem, o th start of apurk rtre- ment tdopends onhow you want 1o seo . Horalam soven yoars tor sol quess chose. my path o thorestof my lfe: bong doaf and gt mysellmakng me thr ke ot f bands thatsound e whit noe. Anyway, we ar horo 10 tak about music inotnoisa hehel decided to choosa ths VOCOPROTESTA reease because it sounds amazing andi foallko s abit overooked compared ith teir pevious P Vojo A Lberaco. Never rus he state is th e of theso songs of classic sound passed trough = asapanesa crasher crust fiter, bt very Subtlo compared with thok ot recordngs. Actualy it sounds more “hardcore" than thelr provious oloasos, but they stlvo pretty xromo nagood way.m takinghoro s i were friends in'a ba having some beers, <0 don' mind my vague descriptions hsis nota scientiic nvestigaton. 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