Skull Fest began as a birthday party.
In November 2009, a couple of punks — Dusty Hanna (of the band Oh Shit They’re Going to Kill Us) and Jimmy Rose (Annihilation Time, Eel) — celebrated the beginning of their 30s by putting together a show at Belvederes. New Jersey hardcore band Chronic Sick reunited especially for the occasion, sharing the bill with metal bands Midnight and Nunslaughter, and the semi-legendary local band Short Dark Strangers, featuring the late Bobby Porter.
And this was no small cake-and-ice-cream affair: About 200 people showed up. “People bought me, I want to say, between a hundred and a thousand shots,” Hanna recalls, with a grim smile. “I threw up … a bunch.”
The next morning, Hanna and Rose talked on the phone, and despite being hungover and exhausted, both agreed that they should do it again.
Now, Skull Fest — happening this Thursday through Sunday — has matured into something that attracts major headliners and attendees from all over the world. (And you might argue that Hanna has matured with it: He hasn’t thrown up at a fest since that first year.)
While the inaugural fest featured only one big show, Skull Fest 2, which was moved to the summertime, more closely resembled the multi-venue, weekend-long event that it is today.
“The second [year] was when we started incorporating other things,” Hanna says. “We started having renegade-style generator shows, and shows in abandoned areas. That since has become a standard for a lot of other punk fests across the country, but a lot of that was just done out of necessity more than anything else.”
This year, Skull Fest organizers — a small collective which Hanna refers to as “the punk illuminati” — expect to see 1,000 attendees or more. In past years, the fest has drawn people from Australia, Germany and the U.K., as well as Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, New York City, Chicago and many other cities and small towns within driving distance.
“People come and tell me, ‘Oh I’m from’ — insert name of a town I’ve never heard of — ‘I’m the only punk in my town, this is great to see these hundreds of people,’” Hanna says.
Planning for the fest begins in January, when organizers pool their lists of dream lineups. According to Hanna, those early meetings usually involve a lot of yelling, and a “PowerPoint presentation,” which is really just a piece of drywall that the members write on with Magic Marker. (“Usually somebody gets mad and breaks the drywall. Then we just flip it over.”) Over the next few months, they shave that dream list down to something more realistic. “We try to make it somewhat genre-spanning,” Hanna explains. “We have the cider-crazed crusties, the ghoulish death rockers, chain-wielding hardcore enthusiasts, speed-metalists; we try to get it so that there is something for everyone. When we formed the collective, we picked from people who were in different subgenres of punk, so they could pick whatever bands they know to be super hot right now.”
The extensive Skull Fest 7 lineup includes more than 60 bands playing 15 shows. Headliners include D.C. hardcore elder statesmen Government Issue, reunited Connecticut punks the Pist, and Black Death, from Cleveland, which is are noted for being the first heavy metal band with an all African-American lineup. (Another headliner, Belgian grindcore band Agathocles, planned to play its first and only U.S. show at Skull Fest, but had to cancel after being denied entrance into Canada.)
As if that isn’t enough to keep ears ringing through September, the packed schedule features touring bands like Nervosas (from Columbus), Fuck You Pay Me (from Cleveland), Zex (from Ontario), and locals Killer of Sheep, Blood Pressure, Derketa, Concealed Blade and Eel, to name just a few. There are also highly anticipated reunion shows by Pittsburgh bands Behind Enemy Lines and Caustic Christ, each of which played its last show in the late 2000s.
Venues are all located within a 10-to-20-minute walk of each other, and include the Shop and Brillobox, in Bloomfied; the Rock Room and Gooski’s, in Polish Hill; and Spirit and Cattivo, in Lawrenceville. There are also a few top-secret locations. Looking for the inside scoop on those spots? As the saying goes, “Ask a punk.”
While Skull Fest doesn’t have a cohesive philosophical objective, Hanna says that organizers tend to pick bands with anarchic or left-leaning ideas, and don’t shy away from promoting those ideas themselves. “We have people that distribute literature at the shows, on Sunday we provide people with free vegetarian food. We definitely try to focus on bands that have an anti-fascist, anarchistic, animal-rights-type message, though that obviously isn’t required.”
Drunken chaos is par for the course, but Skull Fest has managed to avoid any serious problems over the years: It’s never had the cops shut down a show, and no one has ever sustained major bodily harm. (“We do not have the Hells Angels for security,” Hanna jokes. “We learned from Altamont not to do that.”)
But Hanna hopes people get more from the weekend than a good time and a hangover. “I definitely think some people come away with some cool ideas. Maybe somebody goes to the hardcore show, gets their head kicked in, wakes up the next morning and eats some lentils and carrots and thinks, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll be a vegetarian,’” he says.
Ultimately, “the primary goal is really just to have this gathering of punk tribes from all over the place, and for everyone to have a good time, and hopefully come away from it with some cool experiences. And to create an interesting situation and create good vibes. And to spread peace and love.”
This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2015.
fuck you