For Dan O’Day, “there’s no better feeling” than performing live music for a crowd and feeling the energy go out and come back to you.
“I think about these moments of just having people sing along to your songs, know your music, cheering you on,” he said. “I think I took a lot of it for granted — that stuff that normal people don’t get to ever experience is that feeling of that pure love of performing and getting that reaction from it.”
O’Day is the lead songwriter for Steppin’ Razor Blades, a two-tone ska band formed of musicians from all over New England. Steppin’ Razor Blades is one of nine local punk and ska (an upbeat form of punk and reggae) bands slated to perform at “Skunkfest,” a brand-new festival that plans to celebrate both the music and the “do-it-yourself” ethos of punk.
Skunkfest — a portmanteau of ska, punk and festival — is slated to take place Sept. 26 in Randolph, outside of The Underground, a local music venue, thanks to the combined efforts of The Underground and tattoo parlor Black Meadow Gallery and Tattoo.
For the festival’s organizers and performers, it showcases the thriving punk ecosystem and the deep connection between punk and Vermont culture. One band, Vallory Falls, proudly describes itself as “maple-fired punk rock.”
But the festival also comes at a time of uncertainty for the future of punk in particular and live music in general. Venues across the state have been struggling, and The Underground is a part of that trend. In fact, owner Vincent Freeman said the club’s regular live shows will be going on an indefinite hiatus by the end of the year.
The Underground began as a recording studio 15 years ago, offering local musicians a recording space and audio engineering, Freeman said. But during the pandemic, he began hosting weekly livestreamed concerts in the basement.
Freeman and Kate Branstetter, co-owner of Black Meadow, have talked for years about organizing a festival, inspired in part by local punk flea markets and smaller concerts.
Alongside the music, Branstetter has put together a punk-themed craft and makers’ market. “We’re looking at a flea market of band memorabilia, and homemade DIY crafts, and paintings that are asking intense questions, and graffiti art,” she said.
The festival will also have a “fixer tent,” where visitors can see live demos of how to repair their own items. To Branstetter, that do-it-yourself attitude is one way that punk intersects with Vermont culture.
“Vermont is a place for the nostalgia of the original punk and ska scene, because we’re just a little bit more removed from a lot of stuff, (so) we’re used to being DIY and crafty and scrappy,” she said.
Vermont also influences the music of some of the bands coming to Skunkfest. Riley Rae Burridge, manager and drummer of Vallory Falls, said that the band’s latest EP, “Porchlights and Field Lights,” has songs like “Citronella” with lyrics that are partly based around life in Vermont: “At the base of this green ridge, Citronella candlelight / As the flames die down, I’ll hold you close.”
But as passionate as she is about Vermont, Burridge worries about signs of a decline in the punk scene here, especially when it comes to places to see and hear bands. Radio Bean in Burlington closed earlier this year. Jim’s Basement and 242 Main, other popular Burlington punk venues, have both closed in the past 10 years.
“A lot of folks tell me that Burlington used to be like the main scene for punk bands,” she said. “And right now, we’re kind of in a place where we’re trying to figure out what to do and what to go on with.”
Freeman said he’s been struggling with both his insurance costs and music licensing fees for song covers. With those expenses and others, he’s been barely breaking even on weekly shows.
“We were a (bring-your-own-booze) venue, and then yeah, my insurance company just dropped me overnight and said, ‘Hey, we’re not going to cover you anymore,’” he said.
He’s also the father of a 14-month-old child and feels like he doesn’t have the capacity anymore to run a part-time venue.
“The other end of this DIY culture is … there aren’t these large organizations that are financially backed doing this; it’s all our musical creative community,” he said. “We have an idea and we want to roll with it and are super passionate about it, but eventually we burn out because we don’t see enough support.”
These issues are part of national-level changes in the music industry, such as the increased concentration of venues into the hands of large corporations, and Freeman doesn’t know how Vermont will move forward with them. But he’s proud to support local businesses where he can, such as by using Seven Days’ ticketing platform rather than Ticketmaster.
And he still believes that live music is “crucial” to human connection.
“As an avid concertgoer, it’s such a cathartic exercise physically and mentally to attend a concert,” he said. “You can just let out everything that’s weighing on you, any negative energy, and also celebrate the positive energy.”
Burridge said despite punk’s loud and prickly reputation, she’s found punk shows to be incredibly safe, and she’s felt very accepted as a trans person in the community.
“A lot of people think punk and think like, ‘Oh, it’s scary. Oh, there’s a lot of folks that just look mean, look like they’re gonna hurt me.’ It is not like that. It is one of the most caring communities in the entire state,” she said.
This story was first published by VtDigger and is republished with permission as part of the Vermont Journalism Trust’s Community News Sharing Project.