Common Threads: The Art, Craft and Aesthetic of Mount Pearl Punk

 

MPxHC illustration by Erin Slaney

Much like the wide and eclectic musical spectrum that is covered by the broad term of "punk rock", the style and aesthetic of the subculture is innovative and diverse. The relationship of punk rock music and fashion is a particularly complicated one. Attitudes of anti-materialism, nonconformity and utilitarian anti-fashion have long been a part of the many decades of the punk movement. Yet, on the contrary, many elements from the various eras of punk rock aesthetic have become so iconic that they continue to influence and infiltrate many aspects of mainstream fashion and popular culture.

In the history of punk rock from Newfoundland & Labrador, the heaping contributions from kids in Mount Pearl have created much more than just music. For multiple decades of Mount Pearl punk, there are two prevalent relationships that help stitch together the multiple eras and scenes of the music community: the influence of skateboarding culture, and a D.I.Y mentality and ethos. These two elements have long influenced the direction of the style, art and presentation of local punk.

Skateboards, silkscreens and handmade art...

Since the 1980s, skateboarding has been more than just a common passion for punk kids from Mount Pearl. The crossover of skateboarding and punk rock was not only responsible for introducing a certain population of kids to the music, but in some cases it was even a contributing factor to the formation of the bands themselves. One of the most popular subgenres in the history of Mount Pearl punk has been skate punk, and a celebration of the recreational activity and art form has been the lyrical topic of some of Mount Pearl’s most memorable punk rock anthems.

The roots of punk rock music and culture are grounded in an outsider approach that has rejected societal norms and strived to keep a distance from corporate influence. As punk rock evolved into a growing youth movement, the limited resources and micro-budgets of kids in the scene further expanded the importance of a do it yourself (or D.I.Y) mentality. This is perhaps the most crucial aspect to the the look and presentation of the various eras of local punk. D.I.Y is present throughout the history of Mount Pearl punk, and that is not just exclusive to the original music, recordings and performances. For many years, bands from Mount Pearl hand-designed their logos, posters and artwork, hand-assembled their musical releases, as well as crafted their own t-shirts, patches and merchandise. From the raw simplicity and practicality of skateboarding culture, to the crude and handmade stylings of D.I.Y art and fashion, the Mount Pearl punk scene has been a platform for creativity of many mediums. Through it all, it is the spirit and determination of youthful self expression that has burned brighter than any one image that can be photocopied or screen printed.

Disrupting the stereotypes of punk rock fashion…

In the late 1970s, bands from the UK such as the Sex Pistols drew a worldwide media frenzy due to their controversial and shocking music and on-stage antics. The bold style and fashion of the London scene that surrounded the Sex Pistols made for a perfectly striking visual to accompany the outrageous stories of this new musical movement in the pages of the press. The Sex Pistols were managed by Malcom McLaren, a visual artist and designer who also owned a fashion boutique in Chelsea, London which became simply known as SEX. The work of fellow fashion designer Vivienne Westwood that would take over the shelves of the SEX boutique became a driving element of the punk rock visual. Intentionally ripped and hand-modified clothing, the incorporation of safety pins, leather, latex and PVC, and the transgressive images and slogans of Westwood’s clothing designs set the blueprint for punk fashion of the era.

Mainstream coverage of the Sex Pistols set a public perception of what punk rock sounded like in the 1970s. At the world's first glance of the movement, the wild and eye-catching clothing of McLaren and Westwood, combined with the spiked and mohawk haircuts, uncommon facial piercings, and adventurous makeup that was common in the London scene, would create a stereotype of what punk rock looked like.

To this day, if you ask a person from outside of the culture what a punk rocker looks like, they would likely still describe something that resembles one of these outfits from the 1970s London scene. While some aspects of the aesthetic from this era have continued to play a part in punk and mainstream fashion, the appearance of punk rock has drastically changed and evolved throughout the decades.

In the 1980s, punk rock shifted to more of a youth-driven movement with the rise of hardcore punk. Just as the music became more stripped down with a “back to basics” approach, so did the style adopted by many of the new punk kids. Some within this next wave of the punk scene saw the focus on outrageous fashion from the previous decade as a distraction from what they deemed the most important aspect of the movement: the music and the message. What was originally intended to be a pushback against the superficiality of stadium rock and disco fashion in the 1970s had in itself become another uniform.

While elements of handmade and altered clothing still remained in punk culture, the look became more attainable to young kids interested in the music who didn’t necessarily have the time or interest in elaborate outfits and accessories. Most young punks didn’t have the money or the access to fashion boutiques like in the London scene. Basic jeans, t-shirts emblazoned with band logos or slogans, thrifted denim jackets, flannel shirts, and sneakers or combat boots became increasingly more common attire.

This new direction to the punk rock aesthetic in the 1980s would crossover with skateboarding fashion, and naturally transitioned into the flannel shirt and ripped jeans look of the grunge movement in the 1990s.

The early look of punk in Newfoundland & Labrador…

Da Slyme sticker featuring the band in their regalia. Photo by Kris Hamlyn

In the 1970s and 1980s, it was hard enough to get your hands on punk rock records in Newfoundland & Labrador, and the idea of a punk fashion boutique was about as far away from the local kids as a plane ride to Montreal. Akin to the satirical approach to their music, the island’s first punk rock band Da Slyme initially wore outlandish costumes during their first shows in the 1970s. These getups were mostly intended as a spoof or sendup of what they thought punk rock was supposed to look like. Leather jackets and hair spiked with Elmer’s school glue was a common look for local punk kids in the 1980s, but by the latter part of the decade, the focus and effort of what you wore became a lot less of a priority.

Similar to the stripped down look of punk in the 1980s, heavy metal had a similar reimagining toward the end of the decade. 1980s thrash metal saw metalheads veer away from the decorative leather-clad biker look, or the glamorous big hair and spandex pants chic of hair metal. Instead, metal kids leaned more toward the attainable choices of band shirts, jeans and sneakers. The most ornamental aspect of streetwear for punk kids and metalheads alike became t-shirts, patches or buttons sporting the logos of their favourite bands. This look shifted the focus back to the music. As the sounds of hardcore punk and metal also began to crossover, another common passion brought these kids together, and that was the interest in skateboarding. The approach to fashion in punk and metal in the late 1980s was also much more practical for skating the streets. The amalgamation of alternative music and skateboarding would ultimately define what the subculture more commonly looked like into the 1990s.

Age of Majority at the LSPU Hall in 1990. Photo courtesy of Doug Jones.

St. John's bands in the 1980s such as Schizoid and Tough Justice represented this new cocktail of hardcore punk, heavy metal and skateboarding culture. At the end of the decade, the first hardcore band with all Mount Pearl members called Age of Majority was formed. Besides a love of punk music, it was Age of Majority's obsession with skateboarding that brought the band members together and inspired them to cover songs by skate rock bands such as McRad. In the years that followed, Age of Majority guitarist Kyle Power began designing and hand-pressing his own skateboard decks, which he continues to do over 30 years later with his brand, Top Notch Skateboards.

Chris Brown of the early-90s teenage Mount Pearl grunge band PUD recalled that when he first thought of punk rock, he imagined “someone with spiked hair and a safety pin through their nose”. Though Brown had already taken an interest in heavy and alternative music, he didn’t immediately resonate with the term “punk” because he didn’t necessarily relate to the image it invoked. It wasn’t until after PUD were already playing music influenced by bands like Nirvana that Brown really discovered what they were playing was rooted in punk. Many of the grunge bands, such as Nirvana, who had broken through to the mainstream music charts in the 1990s came from the punk scene, and their sound was directly inspired by the punk and hardcore bands of the 1980s. Grunge fashion is typically remembered for band tees, flannel shirts and baggy jeans. While PUD were made up of young teens who were in it for the music, Brown does recall trading in his “skinny jeans” for “baggy board pants” around the time of the band’s first show.

The 1996 Good To Go demo tape featuring Ivan Coffin on the cover. Photo courtesy of Chris Brown.

In the mid 1990s, Good To Go would become the quintessential Mount Pearl skate punk band of the era. Not only did the band write and record a slew of songs that mastered the fast and catchy skate punk genre that became commonplace in Mount Pearl for the decades that followed, but Good To Go was initially formed because of skateboarding. Guitarist Mike Pardy recalled how the members of the band would flock to the basement of drummer Trev Sturge while taking breaks from skating the streets of Mount Pearl. Sturge’s father was also a longtime musician, and he had a set up of instruments ready to go in his basement that he would encourage Trev and his friends to take advantage of.

The bulk of Good To Go’s first material as a band came together during these intermittent jam sessions that were squeezed in between the hours they spent hanging out and skateboarding. The hand-designed cover of Good To Go’s first demo cassette even features a snap of local skater Ivan Coffin in action. 

Check out this video footage of Ivan Coffin, Ritche Perez and other local skaters from 1996 from Ritche Perez’s YouTube channel.

The handmade art and craft of Mount Pearl punk…

A Scum Tribe "Pope of Thrash" show poster printed to a shirt, along with two Scum Tribe Records cassettes. Picture by Kris Hamlyn

The method of combining cut-and-pasted photos and hand-sketched logos and designs has been common in punk rock since the very beginning. It is evident on a local level as far back as the gig flyers and spray painted album jackets by Da Slyme in the late 1970s. In the decades before most kids had access to computers and printers, photocopied collages and hand-drawn images were the only way for young punk musicians to craft their band logos, show posters, and album artwork.

From the demo cassettes such as Good To Go’s first release in the 1990s, the handmade approach of the punk bands from Mount Pearl remained intact in the early 2000s. Even as some bands opted to utilize the increasing availability of computers for designing their artwork, the unrefined old school method was still preferred by some. At times this choice was made due to lack of resources, while other times it was for the pure purpose of aesthetic.

Mount Pearl based D.I.Y punk label Scum Tribe Records established a distinct signature look to their designs of posters, cassette artwork and merchandise in the early and mid 2000s. The scratchy sketches of logos and sometimes provocative and eye-catching images used by Scum Tribe Records are still recognizable to local punks today. Not only was the artwork of Scum Tribe Releases often created and photocopied by hand, but most of the bands were recorded by label-founder Kyle Griffin on his analogue four track machine. Every copy of the tapes were then duplicated and assembled by Griffin and his label and bandmates.

Similar to this D.I.Y approach to assembly, another local label with heavy Mount Pearl ties was Cold Turkey Records. The first CDs produced for Cold Turkey Records’ bands such as Mount Pearl’s Dopamine and Three Chord Revolution were also recorded, designed and pieced together by hand.

Patches, pins and silkscreens…

In the early days of punk rock in the 1980s, it was common for kids to make their own band t-shirts and jackets with permanent markers or paint. Throughout the 1990s, an affordable option for printing shirts came in the form of iron-on heat transfers. Some businesses would offer the service of heat transferring your logo onto a shirt with no minimum order. As household computer printers became more common, you could purchase transfer paper which would allow you to print off your artwork, and then iron it onto a garment. While this early method of heat transfer printing was convenient, the quality of the ironed paper logos would only sustain a finite amount of washes before it began to fade or crack. While iron-on transfers would last longer on a t-shirt than permanent marker, they still had a short lifespan. Because of this, many local punk bands of the 90s and early 2000s made t-shirts that are extremely hard to find as their logos gradually washed away.

Kyle Griffin of Scum Tribe Records recalled how he attended a screen printing workshop at a house on Blatch Avenue in St. John’s where members of the local punk community lived. It was at this workshop that he learned the process of making silkscreens for printing artwork to textiles. Using supplies such as mesh, a picture frame, emulsion and ink from a craft store, and a homemade squeegee, Griffin began practicing screenprinting t-shirts and fabric patches for his bands and record label.

Nerve Attack "Gotta Skate" handmade silkscreen from 2003. Photo courtesy of Garrett Browne.

The first silkscreen Griffin made in 2003 was for his hardcore punk band Nerve Attack, which also featured guitarist Steve Renouf, a contributing visual artist to a lot of the designs used for Scum Tribe Records. The Nerve Attack “Gotta Skate” logo was used for t-shirts and fabric patches and turned their popular skateboarding anthem into a slogan that you would see sported by crowds of kids at local punk shows. The design also continued with the other big recurring theme in the history of Mount Pearl punk: skateboarding.

Screen printed cloth patches were extremely popular as handmade merchandise for bands. Not only are spools and scraps of fabric a cheaper option compared to blank t-shirts from thrift stores, but you also don’t have to worry about shirt sizing. Patches were useable by everyone, whether they were stitched onto clothing, safety pinned to bookbags, or thumbtacked to a bedroom wall.

1" pinback buttons for Mount Pearl bands Profession: ill and Cider Squadron 666. Photo by Kris Hamlyn

Pinback buttons and badges were also a common and inexpensive item for bands to make. While some local businesses offered the service of pressing small numbers of custom 1”-3” buttons, button maker machines also became affordable and commonly found at craft and department stores.

T-shirts, patches, stickers and pinback buttons were mostly used to promote local bands and their logos, but they were also used to communicate some of the ideas and messages that had become an important part of many of the Scum Tribe Records bands of the early 2000s. There were patches made by local punk band The Ridiculice with a “Smash Racism Now” design, and patches that stated “Fight Homophobia” in the namesake of one of Shit Legion’s early songs. Shit Legion were one of the politically charged bands of the era who used a combination of music and design to promote statements and symbols of anti-war, anarchism and equality. Shit Legion also commonly flew hand painted banners behind them when they played live.

Shit Legion painted banner circa 2005. Photo courtesy of John Putt.

Body modification such as tattoos and piercings have always been closely associated with punk, skateboarding and alternative fashion. Non-electric stick and poke tattooing has also been a common practice in punk culture as it is less expensive than visiting a professional studio. Stick and pokes can be done at home with a needle, ink, basic sterilization supplies, and a keen eye and steady hand. Aside from the D.I.Y practitioners, many professional tattooists have emerged from the punk scene over the years.

Not only was Nerve Attack’s “Gotta Skate” logo one of the most popular local designs in the form of patches and t-shirts, but it also may be one of the only Mount Pearl punk logos to get tattooed on the arm of someone who wasn’t in the band. Jeff Rose is a close friend and fan of Nerve Attack who brought the logo to a local tattoo parlour to commemorate his love of the band after their breakup in the mid 2000s.

Jeff Rose's Nerve Attack arm tattoo. Photo courtesy of Jeff Rose.

Skateboarding and punk fashion makes it's way to the mall...

Into the mid 2000s, the evolution of the style associated with skateboarding was still associated with punk, metal and alternative music. Baggy “board pants” were replaced for some young teens with tight skinny jeans, and long dyed bangs or “emo swoop” hairstyles became popular with the pop punk, emo and metalcore music of the era. While some of these looks were a contrast to the skateboarding fashion of the 1990s and early 2000s, the connection between punk and skate was still as tight as the skinny jeans themselves.

By the mid 2000s, skateboard shops had expanded from just locally owned niche stores to larger chain stores you could find at the mall. These stores also carried t-shirts of some of the more mainstream punk, metal and rock bands, and accessories like studded belts and spiked bracelets became more widely available. Secondhand bookstores and punk rock merchandise...

In Mount Pearl, Books-R-Us-Plus was a secondhand bookstore on Commonwealth Ave that carried a variety of underground band t-shirts, patches, stickers and posters. For many years in St. John’s, the local chain of Second Page bookstores had been a source for music merchandise, and Books-R-Us-Plus played the same vital role for kids in Mount Pearl.

Brandon Coaker of local punk bands ranging from King Sized Kids to Clocked In got into punk in Mount Pearl in the mid 2000s. Coaker recalled the importance of Books-R-Us-Plus as not only a place to get band shirts, but also as a community hub. Much like independent record labels, kids like Coaker would learn about local shows from gig flyers at the bookstore, and they would also meet and network with like-minded people at the shop.

Though the approach to designing band logos, artwork and merchandise evolved with the accessibility of computers and design software, the visual elements of Mount Pearl punk bands remained significant to the art form. Even as digital music releases became much more common than physical formats for bands in the late 2000s and into the 2010s, the artwork never became less important to the presentation of a release. Many bands continue to embrace the best of both worlds by releasing their recordings digitally, as well as on cassette, or in a rare case, vinyl record. While the art looks just fine on a screen, it always tends to stand out when you can hold it in your hand.

Clocked In merch collection. Photo courtesy of Brandon Coaker. 

Brandon Coaker’s band Clocked In are one of the most prolific Mount Pearl punk bands of the last decade. In two short years from 2010-2012, Clocked In released a catalogue of music and band merch that included t-shirts, as well as multiple CDs, cassettes, digital and vinyl releases. 

The common threads of Mount Pearl punk…

Despite t-shirts or patches, or how tight your pants are, the actual appearance, fads or phases of the punk rock aesthetic are far less important than how it was designed and crafted, as well as the cultures that it connected. Ultimately, the most crucial style to Mount Pearl punk was an attitude of individuality and self expression. While skateboards, silkscreens and hand-designed posters and cassettes connected the dots between different eras of the local punk movement, the main takeaway should be this: Mount Pearl punk was more than just music. It was art. It was craft. It was a community and spirit. Those elements combined are more memorable than any fashion statement could ever be.