SKULL FEST GOES TO 11
About an hour into a conversation about Skull Fest, founder Dusty Hanna hits on one of the things that sets the hardcore festival apart from other music events.
“We have this intention to make people feel safe,” he says, “but it’s not the same kind of safe. If you’re not trying to get a black eye, Skull Fest might not be the place.”
As the name clearly implies, Skull Fest is on the aggressive end of the musical scale, with a main course of hardcore punk and a side of metal, new wave and goth.
It started in 2009 as a one- day event with a joke name at Belvedere’s in Lawrenceville to celebrate the birthday of a friend in the band scene. This year, with a nod to a certain mockumentary, it’s billed as Skull Fest Goes to 11, and so, Hanna says, “essentially, we have more bigger bands than we’ve ever had.”
That begins with Portland, Ore., legends Poison Idea, once described by “Unpopular Opinion” rock critic Nicholas Pell as “an ugly band for ugly people.” Poison Idea dates back to 1980, when it formed taking inspiration from The Germs.
Frontman Jerry Lang ( aka Jerry A.) has been the only steady member of the band, which hasn’t played Pittsburgh since the early ’ 90s, according to Hanna, and is now on a farewell tour that had it playing the Rebellion Music Festival in England.
“There were definitely one of the more vicious and nasty bands of the American hardcore movement of the ’ 80s,” Hanna says.
Also from that Rebellion Music Festival comes Rubella Ballet, the day- glo anarchopunk band led by Sid Truelove and Zillah Minx that dates back to 1979 and did its first gig crashing a Crass/ Poison Girls show.
“They kind of took X- Ray Spex’s ‘ The Day the World Turned Dayglo’ and ran with it, adding a lot of color and vibrancy to the otherwise stark black and white imagery of their Crass- inspired peers,” Hanna says.
This is one of just five cities Rubella Ballet is playing on its third- ever trip to the United States.
Hardcore/ powerviolence band Dropdead, from Providence, R. I., formed in ’ 91 and also inspired by the anarcho bands like Crass.
“They’re super dedicated to human animal rights and play some of the most intense thrash out there,” Hanna says.
They’re on the Spirit bill with Poison Idea and Pittsburgh’s own Caustic Christ.
“With that show, I tried to create just the ultimate heaviest hardcore show I could,” Hanna says. “Four- chord punk played at breakneck speed.”
From the Orange County, Calif., punk scene comes Rikk Agnew, who was an early member of Social Distortion and the Adolescents before going on to play in gothrock band Christian Death for its 1982 debut, “Only Theater of Pain.”
Also in ’ 82, he played every instrument
on his solo album, “All By Myself,” earning him the label “the Brian Wilson of punk.”
“I’m so flattered by it,” he told The Fix in 2016. “The Beach Boys were one of my favorite bands since I was a kid. I always liked Brian the best, and when I was going through my drug and drunk days, he was kind of a hero to me.”
Elsewhere, Skull Fest ranges from Japanese band Skizofrenia to dark electronic duo Hide to Pittsburgh heavies Killer of Sheep to new Pittsburgh hardcore band Detainees.
Hanna, who opens the festival Thursday with his GBH- inspired band Charged DIS, says it’s much easier now to draw bands to the festival than it was a few years ago.
“Pittsburgh has one of the best punk scenes in the country right now. Bands want to play here. When we first did Skull Fest, we had to beg bands to play here. They’d be like, ‘ Oh, that city where Half Life’s from. We haven’t heard anything from there since then.’ A lot of people referred to us as a secondary market, but it’s starting to change.”
And the longevity of Skull Fest is part of that narrative.
“I’m just generally shocked that we made it this far, to do an 11,” Hanna says. “It’s one of the longest-running punk festival sin the U.S ., definitely the longest-running on this side of the U.S. There’ s Punk Rock Bowling in Las Vegas, they’ve been doing it longer than us, but I don’t think there’s anyone else that has.”
“Pittsburgh has one of the best punk scenes in the country right now. Bands want to play here. When we first did Skull Fest, we had to beg bands to play here. They’d be like, ‘ Oh, that city where Half Life’s from. We haven’t heard anything from there since then.’ A lot of people referred to us as a secondary market, but it’s starting to change.” — Skull Fest founder Dusty Hanna