The Shape of Punk to Come

[August 27th, 2008]

For some people, Labor Day weekend means tailgates, the start of football season and the unofficial end of summer. But for Portland punks, this long weekend is all about the second Summerfector—a cheap, off-the-cuff DIY music festival for those of us who couldn’t give a shit about college football. Originally spawned out of a zine started by self-proclaimed “aging loser punk rocker” Zachary Danko, this year’s Summerfector—booked late summer around a few touring bands’ schedules—features 41 punk bands spread out over four days, three all-ages venues and a park.

Remarkably, constructing such a massive lineup came mostly by accident to Danko, who has sporadically published a free zine called The Defector since October 2004. “That’s the great thing about punk, you can get pretty much anybody to play as long as they’re in town, and usually they only want gas money—if anything at all,” says Danko. “None of us makes any money on this shit; we just do it because we fucking love it.”

The fest features bands far from home (Huntington, W. Va.’s Appalachian Terror Unit, and Cop on Fire, traveling all the way from Spain) and a slew of local favorites (the arty, dirty punk of the Estranged, seminal hardcore band Tragedy and crusty young kids Autistic Youth among them). “There’s no social status hierarchy here,” Danko explains. “We’re all just having fun and living on the margins of mainstream society.”

While the music of the fest ranges from sludgy, metal-inspired riffage to three-chord anarchist punk, one common theme exists: really awesome logos. In preview of the weekend, we decided to ask two local insiders (and, just for fun, one WW theater critic) their opinions of the logos from six of weekend’s participants.

Connie Wallace, owner, Another State of Mind: “Impact kind of font. That’s always been good. You see it, you can read it, and it’s a good logo. This one’s probably my favorite.”

Abraham King, owner, Discourage Records: “ I like logos that are legible. I’m sitting here typing these things in, and you’ve got split 7-inchs and you can’t read either band name. You’ve got employees trying to read these things when people bring them up to the counter, and it can be a nightmare.” Wallace: [Laughing] “You know what? When I see Snuggle, I would think Emo—just the way it’s written, I wasn’t even thinking about the word.

Ben Waterhouse, WW theater critic: “Snuggle’s gotta be baby-core.”

Wallace: “It’s a long name. Short and sweet, one name is usually better…. People aren’t going to know how to spell it. What will happen is, your fliers are going to be misspelled at the club—I’ve seen it a million times.” p>King: “The more clichéd the font, the less interesting it is to me; but, on the other hand, legibility is a nice factor and something some bands have had to learn the hard way.”

Waterhouse: “My hope is that they actually incorporate a banjo at some point. I’d love to see someone shred on a banjo.”

Wallace: “Not original. They need to get some new ideas going on there, because that stuff is 20 years old already.”

Waterhouse: “ They probably have things carved into their flesh.”

Wallace: “It’s a whole sort of genre of logos to themselves. They are kind of telling you what they sound like—they are communicating to you that they are pretty hard.”

King: “I guess I think a good band doesn’t have to worry too much about the graphics; the music should speak for the band more than the logo. The stuff that looks more metal is often going to be more metal sounding—kind of Old English or gothicy-looking type. Hellshock definitely has some metal influence in their sound.”