pgp389: a Punk Black Fest

The rhythms are discordant, raw and angry. The base is either on par or behind the roar of the guitar, screaming fire to patrons who lose themselves into the rage of music that others would say is not their own – ugly words that they all stopped listening to a long time ago…

PUNK BLACK is an independent rock music showcase featuring musicians of color. Started less than a year ago, the event has become the outlet for Atlanta’s upcoming rebels in the music scene. Typically the monthly event is composed of five bands, a DJ and local art vendors.  However, on the eve of the Afropunk Fest in Atlanta that never happened, PUNK BLACK hosted a fest of it’s own that endured as others fell away.

Their mission is to give our community a place where they can belong. The members of HOWLING STAR got together and put the show together with other bands they knew and dug in the scene and community. PUNK BLACK: Festival Edition is like the mega version of their monthly PUNK BLACK. With a band line-up of thirteen performers, more than twice their typical showcase, the PUNK BLACK Fest had a broader range of music with a more inclusive showcase of talent. Twice as many bands, twice as many vendors, and twice as many experiences. The menagerie of performances is organically eclectic with each performance defining it’s unique facet of broader genre.

The alternative earthSistas of Manic Pixie Noir are the event’s bar maids who provided the patrons with libation and across from them, there are a couple guys creating gourmet, custom grilled cheese sandwiches there were, in some kinda way, out of this world. Their space was the bridge between the performance venue and the gallery of the art vendors. The visual creatives provided fashions, jewelry and original art and prints all of whose styles and genres ranged from afrocentric to goth, again, reflecting the eclectic complexity of the patrons themselves.

As you listen to the punk/rock musical assault with the swagger-rich undertones in it’s base and drum beats, you see these performers and patrons, finally, loose themselves to a celebration of raw rhythms that, no matter what anybody said, they knew were their own. And like the works in the gallery, the men and women of this eclectic community cannot be defined by the rough cuts used to describe them. Those definitions, too small and confining, don’t go deep enough and are not rich enough. And if you haven’t figured that out yet.. well what the hell are you doing?

But don’t worry about it. The PUNK BLACK movement continues tonight. The bands rock on.

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