As far as punk cred goes, Mark Stern has a tenured pedigree from his days in Youth Brigade (which he still plays and tours with), to the founding of BYO Records, and ultimately Punk Rock Bowling.
It’s hard to believe that Punk Rock Bowling is entering its 18th year in existence in a culture where bands, scenes, and festivals seldom last half as long.
I recently got the PRB co-founder on the phone to talk about the dangerous days of booking shows in 80s SoCal, the founding of Punk Rock Bowling, expanding to other cities, and what it takes to get on the festival’s lineup.
To start off, tell me what the final weeks leading up to PRB look like for you?
I book all the bands myself, and we took on New Jersey and Denver too, so, I started in October. Pretty much from the beginning of the year, we really start doing the big push. Right now things start to free up for me. We just design the [festival] space and try to come up with new ideas, and see what we can do with the space we have in Vegas.
What goes into deciding what bands will play the festival each year?
I start off with a big wish list and as those things turn into intangible possibilities then we go on to the next, and the next. There are so many festivals out there, there’s certainly competition between here and Europe. It depends on band’s schedules. We’ve been doing this for…this is our 18th year, but as a festival downtown, this is like our sixth one.
Do you also chase reunions like other festivals seem to do?
Yeah, every year [laughs]. We hit up everybody, you know? Bands that play know the appeal, and the people that come know the appeal. It’s a festival, but it’s intimate. You can see the bands, get around, and we try to hand pick all the vendors. We keep the capacity to a limit on purpose because we don’t wanna get to the point where we have to put monitors up there. When you’re at a festival and there’s 50,000 people and I find myself watching a TV monitor because I can’t really see the bands, what am I doing? I’m standing there drinking $12 beer watching the band on screens. I don’t really get it. We try and keep it this way, and if it sells out early, then, buy your ticket earlier the next year. Even down to the club shows, we try to get really cool bills together at the clubs, just for that experience because that’s kinda what music is all about. You want to experience it, you don’t wanna see a little dot onstage with big lights around it.
How receptive has the city been to PRB since starting here? Did they ever have any issues?
No, they’ve been good. Everybody we work with out there is great, and the city is pretty receptive to what we do. We actually don’t have a ton of problems. People think, oh it’s crazy, it’s punk rock.
Before we were downtown we used to do everything at Sam’s Town, which is in Henderson. It’s older people, that’s what that casino is all about. When we first went there it’s like “woah, mohawks!” Then after the first year I went there for a meeting and the dealers, the pit bosses, the people in the restaurants, the locals were all like “when are you guys coming back?” And they always tell me “everybody’s so nice, and they tip.” You know, they respect people.
In regards to the expansion of Punk Rock Bowling, what factors went into deciding to expand, and how did you narrow it down to Denver and Jersey?
Well, the Denver shows are basically a big club, we’re not really setting up as a festival. The bands are going to be touring anyways and we wanted to try and give them something in the middle on the way to the East Coast to keep the routing going.
We were trying to do the East Coast thing last year but it just wasn’t working out. The whole idea on that is that I know there are a lot of punk rockers that would love to go see these shows in Vegas, but they live 3,000 miles away. It’s expensive. You gotta fly there, you gotta get a hotel, it’s a whole deal. It’s more compact in the East Coast. If we brought it up there we could probably field a lot of people that could never make it up to Vegas, and just do a cool punk show.
Actually, Rebellion Fest in England (which used to be called Holidays in the Sun), happened in San Francisco one year in Ashbury and we played [Youth Brigade]. I can’t remember who all played. I think The Exploited, The Partisans, it was more like a Street Punk Oi! fest. It was actually at The Stone Pony. This is before this whole stage setup now, because they do a whole summer series, and it’s right across from the ocean, it’s a great spot.
By expanding PRB, did you ever worry that you’d lose that tight-knit community of people that it’s gained through the years?
No. At most there’s maybe 500 that come out from the East Coast, and probably some of those are still coming to Vegas because Vegas is Vegas. I don’t feel that we’re really losing a ton of people. Like I said, there’s probably a bunch of people that will never be able to come out to Vegas, because it’s an investment. You know, we get California, all West Coast, Portland, Seattle, Arizona. A big hunk of the audience is from Southern California, then we get a lot of people from Canada, South America, Australia. I don’t think it’s gonna really bring it down.
What have you learned from the years of doing it here in Vegas that is helping you run things in other cities, or has helped you run things better here?
Me and my brother Shawn run the festival, and we’ve run our independant label BYO Records since ‘82. I was promoting shows when I was 18-years-old out here in California. Before Goldenvoice was doing stuff out here, we actually knew Gary (Tovar) owner of Goldenvoice at the time. He used to do Santa Barbara and we would do LA, then we started co-promoting some shows together. We did the Hollywood Palladium, one of the first punk shows there with T.S.O.L., Social Distortion, Adolescents, we did a lot of the venues. Basically, it got pretty crazy back then, police we’re not into it. We co-promoted some stuff with Gary and then we did our label.
You can do the shows, we’ll put records out, because it got crazy, there were riots. It was chaos, it was pretty tough. Every time you did a show you didn’t know what was gonna happen, if the bands were gonna play or if the cops were gonna show up. There’d be fights, and then it got real violent. For us, we backed off and we started doing the label, we always toured, we always did D.I.Y.. Especially back then, if you wanted to play you did it yourself, if you wanted to make a record you did it yourself.
Back then, how did the idea for Punk Rock Bowling come to be?
Well, Fat Wreck Chords was doing a little bowling league up in San Francisco and we started one down here. It was once a week that was all for labels: BYO, Epitaph, Hopeless, Fearless, that was kind of how it started. It was great, everyone looked forward to it every week. We decide we should get Fat [Wreck Chords] to come out. We talked to them like, “Hey we do this thing in Vegas, bring all your teams out.” So we did it, it was just for a big party, and then I was like, this is great, it’s South by Southwest except just for punk rock, and no industry. I think at that point we all were kind of tired of going out there. It’s just a million bands and no one was interested.
So, we were like, let’s do this and make it for independant labels only, independant bands. That’s exactly how it started. We didn’t let anyone in that was a major label. The first year we had 28 teams, it was at the Gold Coast, then we had Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies do the awards party at the Double Down. It was crazy. It just kind of built from there. The next year was sold-out with 60 teams. We went like that for a few years, if you already had a team from the year before you had a cut-off date you had to enter your team by, otherwise we opened it up to the waiting list. Then the waiting list kept getting bigger and bigger. Then we did two squads of bowling, then turned it into three squads of bowling. More people were coming out, and there were shows all around town. And we just thought, we should turn this into a festival.
One of the things PRB does better than most of the established festivals in town is always include a good amount of local bands on the bill.
Our whole thing is we wanna support the scene in Vegas. I follow as many bands as I can out of Vegas. Allan [Carter] from SquidHat, he sends me list of bands. Throughout the year if I hear about bands, or if I’m out there and I go see bands I mark them down. You know, first, we look for good bands, if they’re from Vegas that’s a plus.
Does having to curate a lineup for the festival every year keep the process of always being on the cusp of new and emerging bands fun?
For sure, that’s why we do it. That’s why we had a label. To me, it’s the same thing. We’re always looking for bands. I mean, we play and tour as well, so we’re always looking for cool bands to put on shows. People always call me up to see if I have bands that they could bring out on tour. It’s a community. That’s how it all started, that’s what punk rock’s about.
For sure, we’re about supporting the local Vegas scene. We’re doing five of the clubs, we’re not just gonna come in there and have out of town bands. It gives the band a chance to play in front of people and to meet the other bands, and possibly hook something up with them that’s great.
Finally, we’re now on 18 years of Punk Rock Bowling. Most festivals don’t even last that long. Where do you see it going now from here?
I see it going just how it is. We’re not looking to get any bigger. We’re just looking to throw this party every year and have it be successful. Some people are gonna drop out, then we’re gonna get new people. My daughter is 16, she loves Descendents, but she also likes a lot of other good bands. She turns me on to a lot of new bands. A lot of bands I don’t like, but at least, you know…she’s a really good photographer and she’s [like] “check this band out” and I’ve run into a ton of new bands, and that’s what we’re always looking for.
-Alan Madrigal
Photos by Emily Matview
Punk Rock Bowling takes place May 26-30 in Downtown Las Vegas. You can purchase Punk Rock Bowling tickets online at https://www.punkrockbowling.com/.
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