Punk in Picton

Punk music show raises awareness of food insecurity

The punk music scene came back to Picton with a loud and energetic show at the Elks Hall on Saturday night. The show was organized by Andrew McLuhan, who was once a member of the punk band Polidicks, and was a fixture in the punk scene in the ’90s and early 2000s. At that time, there would be a punk show at the Elks Hall every other month, attracting a raucous crowd of up to 150 people. McLuhan wanted to see if there was still an interest in punk in Picton. “Maybe I’m getting up to my mid-life and maybe you can call it a crisis, but I miss it, and I was curious to see if kids still played music and if garage bands were still a thing,” he says. “I got a little tired of moaning about it, so I decided to throw a show.” He looked around for a local punk band, and found one—Scum, whose members are only recently out of high school. He managed to get five other top-quality bands from the GTA to provide a full night of punk in a concert named Feast Your Ears.

J.T. Wisteard of the punk band High Anxiety plays during a concert at Elks Hall on Saturday night.

Part of the punk aesthetic is to use their music to improve the community, and McLuhan made this night a fundraiser for food insecurity in the County, with proceeds going to the three foodbanks, Food to Share and Food not Bombs. “We decided on food insecurity because it’s a big issue,” says McLuhan. “In the six weeks organizing this show, I’ve learned a lot about it and it’s not a simple thing to talk about. It’s very nuanced and layered. I have friends who have to make use of the foodbank and it’s a tough thing. It’s not just about throwing a few bucks towards it, because we’re not going to raise a lot of money. Hopefully we are going to drive home the message that this needs to be attended to.” McLuhan says he received great community support for the concert. The Elks donated the hall rental, and Long and McQuade donated the sound system. Food was provided by Bree Seely of the County Yum Club, and musicians Trevor Norris and Stew Jones made a donation. “A lot of people pitched in because they believe in what we are doing, and you can’t do this without a community,” says McLuhan.

Ticket sales were a little less than expected, but there was still a decent crowd at the hall. Picton band Scum opened the night, and were followed by High Anxiety. The latter band had one member from the now-defunct Polidicks, and encouraged McLuhan to join them for one song, and he showed them he hadn’t lost his punk chops. For the uninitiated, McLuhan describes punk music as rock music taken to the extreme. The pace is rapid, verging on nearly 200 beats per minute, and the vocals range from guttural to, well, screaming. But there was no denying the musical talents of the players. Drums, guitar and bass all seemed in perfect sync, despite the frenetic tempo. The sound level did increase as the night progressed. After the fourth band plugged into the amps, the avalanche of sound could be felt even at the front doors. That did not diminish the enthusiasm in the “mosh pit”, which remained a whirlwind of moving and colliding bodies.

Dylan Spackman, frontman for local punk band Scum, puts some emotion into his singing.

Leigh Nash, whose daytime persona is the publisher at Invisible Publishing, is a long-time punk music fan. “It’s the best. It’s vibrant, it’s got the most energy and it’s always political,” she says. Her company recently published a book by Vancouver punk band Nomeansno on the 30th anniversary of their album Wrong, released in 1989. “I saw them play three shows in a row at the Horseshoe in Toronto, and I consider that a highlight of my showgoing experience.” She is also very much aware of the problem of food insecurity in the County. “Food insecurity affects everybody, so anything that raises money for that is good in my books.”

Addressing food insecurity is also an important issue for Spike, who fully embraces the punk lifestyle and prefers to be known by his street name. “Punk music is the voice of the people and the working class, the people who really have to fight to create a living, to have a roof overhead and to have food,” he says. Spike volunteers with the Not Alone Team Quinte, an organization that provides an evening meal every day at the Belleville Farmers’ Market to the homeless and less-privileged. “We’re trying to raise awareness and show there’s a crisis. There’s a lot of people who go hungry. We’re there for the homeless, the low-income families, anyone who is in need of something. We are there as a community.”

For McLuhan, the return of punk music to Picton was a success. The event raised nearly $800, and the feedback from the bands has been all positive. “The bands told me it was the best show they’d played in a long time, and I think because we don’t get bands like that in Picton, we appreciate them more.” Plans are underway for a second punk show later in the summer, with details to be available on the “Feast Your Ears” Facebook page.