Brothers Shawn and Mark Stern had been already veteran punk rockers once they first began Punk Rock Bowling 25 years in the past. However that they had no concept they had been within the midst of a seminal second by launching what would quickly turn into one of many largest, longest-running and most vital annual occasions the style has ever seen.
Whereas they is perhaps greatest recognized for forming a number of L.A. punk bands (the most important of which being Youth Brigade) beginning within the late ’70s, the Stern brothers had been additionally answerable for BYO Information, 1984’s “Another State of Mind” tour documentary with Social Distortion, a short-lived however influential Hollywood punk home known as Skinhead Manor and a number of different DIY punk rock undertakings. So when Andre Duguay, a BYO worker on the time, prompt the duo begin a bowling league for SoCal punk rockers within the late ’90s, it made an excessive amount of sense for them to go up.
What began as a bowling night time (at Santa Monica’s now-defunct Bay Shore Lanes) for native bands, labels and zines finally grew to a weekend of partying in Las Vegas for the Sterns’ punk rock associates all around the area. All through the 2000s, the occasion remained primarily centered on bowling and debauchery over President’s Day weekend, however 2010 introduced it to a brand new location that contained an enormous outside area, opening up the likelihood for a full music pageant and quickly turning it right into a Memorial Day staple for punk followers all over the world.
Suicidal Tendencies performs at Punk Rock Bowling in 2023.
(Rob Wallace)
However irrespective of how massive Punk Rock Bowling has gotten, Shawn Stern has all the time made certain it’s saved its community-first ethos.
“We arrange [Punk Rock Bowling] as musicians first, so we look at this as, ‘If I go see bands, I want to have a good time,’” Stern says from the eating desk of his Venice Seaside house. The Sterns got down to create one thing that was the antithesis of the large company pageant, the place every thing’s overpriced and it’s tremendous packed.
“They’re not trying to make this a communal experience of having a good time and enjoying the music and the message,” he stated. “It goes back to pagan times when we’d get together for the harvest and feasting. Humans don’t really need much reason to get together and party, and this is our alternative to religion.”
Regardless of leaving Los Angeles for Sin Metropolis many years in the past, Punk Rock Bowling maintains its SoCal roots yr after yr. Not solely is Mark Stern again because the pageant’s official booker this yr alongside his brother, however each the lineup and viewers all the time comprises a heavy California presence. From legends like Social Distortion and FLAG to fashionable stars like FIDLAR and the Interrupters (all of whom are performing this yr), the Stern brothers all the time be sure that a number of generations of their native scene is represented on the pageant — and never simply because it’s the group they grew up in.
Stern and his crew had been surfers who acquired into punk rock as a result of it was that type of revolutionary music that the ’70s not had. “As much as I love Jimi Hendrix and saw a bunch of big concerts like Led Zeppelin, that music didn’t really speak to what I was feeling. As soon as the [Vietnam War] was over, that music became co-opted by big corporate labels.” As an alternative, Stern and his associates would hand around in the very small punk scene in Hollywood whereas all of the bands had been popping out of New York and the UK. The scene was very close-knit, they usually didn’t have any pretension of getting signed to a significant label or something. Although it was completely grassroots, they knew that when the surfers actually began stepping into it, it was going to blow up. “In those days, there were certain rebellious things with surfing that would work well with punk rock,” he stated. “That’s what happened in the early ’80s, and it’s changed a lot since then, but it’s just kept growing.”
Maybe greater than another style, the evolution of punk rock (each in Los Angeles and all over the world) isn’t extra obvious than within the age vary of bands at music festivals. This yr at Punk Rock Bowling, not solely will the Stern brothers be performing of their mid-60s with Youth Brigade, however a number of the British artists that preceded them just like the Damned and Cock Sparrer shall be gracing the stage alongside nice fashionable artists who might be their grandchildren (just like the Bay Space’s Religious Cramp). And but the followers — from youngsters to senior residents — will flood the Downtown Las Vegas Occasions Heart for them no matter era.
Shawn Stern, proper, enjoying together with his band Youth Brigade at Punk Rock Bowling in 2021.
(Jason Prepare dinner)
That cross-generational enchantment isn’t present in loads of different genres, nevertheless it’s a distinction that Shawn Stern believes punk rock shares with one in all its ancestors.
“It’s all just folk music — protest music,” he says. “A lot of people try to rewrite history as though somehow punk rock’s not political, and I call bullshit. Punk rock for me has always been political and it always will be. That’s really what makes this music last, and it’s also what makes the blues last.” The music nonetheless reaches out to individuals, no matter age, Stern stated. “The words that I was singing in 1980 are just as relevant now, if not more so. … Sure, some bands that are considered punk rock just write poppy love songs — which is fine if that’s what you’re into — but that’s probably why I don’t really like some of that pop-punk and emo stuff.”
Moshpit insanity within the crowd at Punk Rock Bowling.
(Andrew Repcik)
So long as Stern is concerned, Punk Rock Bowling will all the time hold that lineage of resistance. Significantly with in the present day’s political local weather, the lifelong punk sees his platform as an artist and a pageant host as a vital option to remind everybody to face up towards authoritarianism and fascism even when it’s circuitously affecting you and your environment simply but. “We were writing about Reagan [in the ’80s], and now we’ve got someone who’s much worse than Reagan ever could have been,” he stated.
Stern has already seen worldwide bands have newfound bother flying out and in of the U.S. this yr, and as a Jewish immigrant from Canada, he’s taking the present scenario fairly critically.
“I think it’s important for everybody that listens to punk rock and comes to Punk Rock Bowling to remember that every day you have to question everything and fight against the authoritarian bent that this country is on,” Stern stated. “They’re disappearing people in the streets, and that may not be you right now, but if you don’t stand up for those people, it could be you or someone you love in the future. A lot of my mother’s family died in concentration camps, so you don’t think it could happen to you or you always wonder what you would have done — I’m not saying we’re facing that yet, but I think we’re pretty close. But if enough people stand together, we can stop this — and I think the community of punk rock is just carrying on that tradition of protest from the beatniks and the hippies.”
