Massif highlights the importance of all-ages punk shows

Heather Austin – Local Journalism Initiative

That was a clip from the song Agony by local punk band Laughing Sickness, who are playing the Massif music festival this week. Festival tickets have sold out. But if you’ve missed out, you can still get to the free all-ages show and skate jam this Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Nelson & District Youth Centre. I caught up with festival organizer Jay Hannley, as well as Kevin Corbett from local band Laughing Sickness, to talk about punk rock and the value of all-ages shows.

When Hannley first came to Nelson, he said there wasn’t a whole lot of heavier punk-type music in the city at the time. He says he first started putting on punk shows right here in the basement at Kootenay Co-op Radio, and the Massif festival just grew naturally from there.

“So we started putting on shows in the basement of KCR. Of course, all ages, which is super important…Bringing in bands, like mid-level touring bands or bands that just had never been to Nelson before, but had never had a chance to play in Nelson. So we were putting together shows downstairs, broadcasting them live on the air. And so that kind of just morphed into, hey, we should do a festival and we just started to do a festival from there.”

Hannley talked about how the Massif festival prioritizes gender diversity, local talent and youth involvement. He says he loves how the do-it-yourself, freeing nature of punk music makes it the kind of music almost anyone can play. It’s more about energy than technical ability.

“Punk’s more of an attitude.”

Echoing Joey Ramone, speaking with Steve Harris in 1988, from The Tapes Archive.

“And punk means somebody that… it’s an attitude and uh it’s something that’s osmose in your guts that makes you swing. It’s like ah, ‘I don’t wanna conform, I don’t wanna be like everybody else, I don’t wanna be a part of the masses. I wanna be my individual self.”

Hannley says punk music is just real, it’s gutsy, it’s about not fitting in — and not caring — and it’s not trying to please anybody. He says Nelson is a place where punk can thrive because of the city’s roots in hippie counterculture. Hannley says that, similar to rebellious folk music that hippies might perform, punk is easy to play, so it’s an accessible form of expression.

Local band — Laughing Sickness

I also chatted with Kevin Corbett, drummer for local punk band Laughing Sickness.

“But I kind of think, like, punk should have a bit of a spirit of rebellion and, yeah, anti-authority, kind of too, like I like that spirit of punk, y’know?”

The band formed in 2022 and has been going hard ever since. A curious name for a band.

“It’s like a sickness you get if you consume human brains, (laughing) it’s like a neurological disease that I think it eats at your nervous system. Yeah, but laughing uncontrollably is the symptom, I guess, so yeah…”

He says their music tends toward darker lyrics, but certainly not as dark as it gets.

“They’re not super light-hearted or anything umm… I would say most of the stuff is actually kind of like life experience just and also like just going on in the world too…We’re not as dark as Cannibal Corpse or something (laughing). We’re not NOFX or Blink 182 or any of that kind of stuff, y’know…”

Somethin for the kids

Corbett sees the value of making the fun atmosphere of punk music available to kids. It’s also something he believes Nelson can improve on.

“Massif’s important because there aren’t a lot of all ages events in Nelson. Like Castlegar has a lot of all ages shows which is great to see um, Sean from Toaster, Sean Michaud he’s been putting on a lot of all ages events there and you can see there’s they get tons of kids out…”

Hannley also says it’s important to make punk accessible to young people. It promotes a do-it-yourself method of musical expression and some alternative worldviews that aren’t traditionally taught in school.

“The energy and the spirit of youth, especially at shows is something that’s, it’s magical… Plus, I think the kids seeing people do bands, or play in bands is like totally inspiring because a lot of the music that they tend to play in school and stuff like that is not necessarily heavy, right? Yeah, so I know that when we were doing the downstairs shows, bands just started popping up, just getting out of high school and they’re like, ‘Hey, we can play in a band’, yeah, so it started to create a bit of a scene, which is great. And to see the kids out there in the audience as well, especially in Massif, being a festival that really pays attention to gender equity and music with a message…”

Massif is inclusive

“I think the first year when we were starting to book bands, we kind of just looked and it’s like, ‘it’s all like white dudes up there’…Yeah so, I mean, we made a point and we still make a point of equal gender representation inside of the festival.”

Hannley says that as the years go by, they aren’t having to try so hard to meet their gender equity mandate, as it’s happening much more naturally.

He also says he’s seen first-hand how the camaraderie of a good punk scene inspires real mutual respect.

“It’s funny that people would say that, or think that maybe the heavy music crowd is the worst crowd out there, but I really find that they’re the best. Because I mean, they protect their scene. If they do something stupid, then their scene’s gone and that’s it, right? I know that when we were doing shows in the basement, cleaning up after the show, cleaning up, picking up bottles and cans and this and that… At the end of the show, we didn’t have to do any cleanup. They would just clean up after themselves.”

It’s about creating something to care about and pure self-expression. It’s a sort of middle finger to the status quo, but never mistake the flippant attitude of a punk for a lack of care. The energy of a good punk scene is contagious, and in Nelson, Hannley says it’s snowballing.

“They come out of the woodwork here, it’s crazy. There’s such a scene. I mean, we have so many bands around here too, right? Bands that over the last like 10, 15 years of just kind of like surfaced as well. So and then we have an actual scene here, a record label here…”

Kevin Corbett from Laughing Sickness is stoked to play with some bands from out of town this week.

“Oo-E Boo-E’s is a new band from Kelowna that featuring Mr. Awesome and Alien boys are headlining and they’re really great too, so come check it out at the youth centre on Saturday…”

Come find me on Saturday if you’d like to tell Nelson what the local punk scene means to you. See you at the show!

For Kootenay Co-op Radio, I’m Heather Austin.