Spiderfest

Punkfest ‘93

Spiderfest was not so much a festival as it was a temporary autonomous zone for the beautifully unhinged.

Out at Spiderland Acres in Marmora (a name that sounds like a warning muttered by a gas station clerk at dusk) on a stretch of land that became sacred ground for Ontario punk kids, the annual pilgrimage unfolded every July on the weekend closest to founder Warren “Spider” Hastings’ birthday, July 13.

For three or four days, the place transformed into a legendary fever dream of noise, mud, cheap beer, body modification, and whatever remained of civilization after several hundred hitchhiking punks descended on an acreage with free camping and access to beer trucks.

At the center of it all stood Spider. Folk hero and human exclamation point. Six foot five. Multicoloured hair. Tattoos, piercings, shirts with language colourful enough to make a long-haul trucker whisper, “Bit much.” By all accounts he could be kind of intimidating, which feels like the understatement of the century. He sounds like the sort of man who could silence a room just by walking into it, mostly because everyone would need a moment to process the hair, but also because he carried that general aura of imminent trouble. A one-time associate of the Sex Pistols orbit, no less, which feels almost too perfect.

And yet… this is the important punk paradox… everyone also says he had a heart of gold.

Of course he did.

That’s always how it goes. The scariest-looking guy at the festival is the one helping someone tape up a tent in the rain and making sure everybody’s eaten.

Spiderfest itself became the kind of thing people still talk about with the glazed, half-traumatized nostalgia usually reserved for first apartments, bad tattoos, and concerts that permanently damaged one ear. It was, by every account, a big fest for what it was: great bands, people camped out everywhere, kids coming in from Quebec, Toronto, and every dead-end town in between, many of them hitchhiking in with backpacks full of beer, cigarettes, and absolutely no plan beyond “find the noise.”

Tents pitched in drunken geometries across the acreage, beer trucks groaning under the weight of the weekend, food trucks attempting some last civil gesture toward nourishment, and everywhere the raw mechanics of punk culture grinding away in the open air. Needles pushed through flesh. Ink driven into skin. Boots in the mud. Bodies everywhere. The occasional naked prophet lurching between campsites in the small hours, illuminated by the sickly halo of a bonfire and whatever gods still preside over rural Ontario after midnight.

There were drugs, of course. It would be dishonest not to mention them. Enough narcotic improvisation and pharmaceutical ambition to blur the edges of the whole affair into something half remembered and fiercely believed.

In other words: punk.

But beneath the glorious lawlessness, Spiderfest was something more important. Spider provided something rare and increasingly endangered: space. Not metaphorical space, not the sterile language of arts grants and municipal planning committees, but actual dirt and sky and room enough for punk culture to become what it was always meant to be… loud, communal, unruly, and briefly free.

A festival held together by distortion, goodwill, beer, and the kind of dangerous hospitality that only exists on the fringes of culture.

It was a space where bands could grow, scenes could collide, and kids who maybe didn’t fit anywhere else could find themselves in a field full of equally strange, equally loud people and think, for one beautiful weekend, oh, there you all are.

That’s what made it legendary.

Not because it was polished. Not because it was safe. But because it gave punk and art a place to grow wild.

Artists appearing in this poster collection: Aftermath, Al Cromwell (Mr.Blues), Armed & Hammered, Bittergrin, Black Scorpion, Blood Sausage, Blow Hard, Bronto-Crush Rock, Bunch of Fuckin Goofs, Damaged, Drool, Grim Skunk, Goblynz, Hardground, Mad Hatter, Megalo, Mob Action, Mr.Zero, Northern Vultures, Politikill Incorect, P.W Freak, Random Killing, Raw Energy, Raw Sewage, Scary Mary, Shark Grafitti, The Snowdogs, Social Assistance, Suckerpunch, The Templers, U.K Subs, Ulcer, Voodo Glow Skulls, and X Vacant Lot.

PUNKFEST 93

Appearing live from England, the famous U.K Subs, Black Scorpion and Spider Land Acres presents… 3rd annual PUNKFEST 93 birthday bash, July 16th, 17th & 18th. Fireworks. Carnival rides. Hard core punk bands. Midway. Also from Marmora, Aftermath, from California, Voodo Glow Skulls, from Montreal, Northern Vultures, Raw Energy, Damaged, from Montreal Blood Sausage, from Edmonton, Drool, from Toronto, Suckerpunch, from Toronto, Armed & Hammered, Mr Zero, from Toronto, Mad Hatter, Hardground, The Snowdogs, Social Assistance. Also, Ulcer, Raw Sewage, Blow Hard, from Toronto, Random Killing, Bronto-Crush Rock, from Montreal, Grim Skunk, from Toronto, Bunch of Fuckin Goofs, from Chicago, Mob Action, P.W Freak, Goblynz, from Toronto, Politikill Incorect, X Vacant Lot, Bittergrin, Shark Graffiti, The Templers. Children under 12yrs old free. Advance tickets on sale May 1st, $25.00. WK.D. Info (613) 472-6009. Shannick Road, RR2 Marmoa Ont, K0K 2M0. Canada. Profits for animal welfare. Free camping available. The ultimate party. From Toronto, Mr.Blues Al Cromwell, from Toronto, Scary Mary. Bring a tent, do not drink and drive. Bring donation of dog or cat food.