CY FEST 2024 REPORTBACK

Brought to you by CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 19 – CY FEST KICK OFF SHOW

We rolled into LA like the Beverly Hillbillies: our whole life upon the wagon: sustenance, wardrobe, equipment, furniture, and even another vehicle for local transport—not to mention not one, but TWO recently stitched buttflaps. On the way up we discovered THE TOASTERS’ “Weekend In LA” track, which became our anthem for the trip. “How will you check me later if you don’t dig me now?”

We slept at two different apartments over the coming days, and even had a third we could have fallen back on, but our first stop became our true home for the weekend: Descontrol punk shop, an establishment that earns the name. Within the dusty, leather-laden walls of this dank smoke dungeon we found a world where time receded, punks relaxed, and rockers reached out from punks’ past to remind you: “I too recorded a fucking demo once and it’s better than your pretty record store day 180 gram collectable special pressing you pretentious pus-ey pisshead fuck!”

A siiiiick ass international exhibition curated by Mala Influencia and Osiris Ramirez was on display when we walked into the shop, with gorgeous, large, screenprinted posters from all over the world—at least four continents—and well-balanced on the dis-cartesian plane formed by the chain to egg and anarcho to chaos axes.

After finally unloading all our DJ equipment for the weekend, we somehow grasped ourselves out of dungeon Descontrol and puttered over to First Street Pool & Billiard Parlor for the CY Fest kick off show. This spot seems to have shows often—including LEFTÖVER CRACK just under a month prior WHY DIDN’T ONE OF YOU FUX TELL ME—in case you’re in LA someday, which, legit, not a bad idea… LA is mad punk if you can swing.

I can’t really explain it—that would take too long and compromise the privacy of others—but I’m not lying when I say that my buttflap got us into a completely sold out and PACKED AF show. Turns out a good buttflap can get you far in this town. Buttflap comeback and total DISCHARGE font homogeny punk trend predictions for 2025 lfg lock it in. Speaking of DISCHARGE, THE VARUKERS were about halfway through their set by the time we stepped through the door. That fucking singer is a mad man! Two mohawks up all the way for THE VARUKERS in 2024!!! House was packed and hot but it kinda felt like no one gave into the slumped-over-each-other sloshy-moshy sweat pits of my southern punk rock youth. Was hoping for a little more movement, maybe CONFLICT will deliver. Just a small pit for them. However, CONFLICT’s new additional vocalist, Fi, fuuucking lets it rip. Bravo! APPENDIX closed out the night even though they weren’t on the flyer, officially turning them into the band I’ve seen most—and on the most coasts—over the past year. Last chance for a dance punks… and there was plenty of boppin’ and rockin’ along to the old ‘PENDIX. “Hej! Hej! Hej!”

For me, what makes an LA show an LA show is the vendor scene out back. We drank beers with a cool ass old vendor who had 40-year-old skinhead photo books for sale and lives in his van. I didn’t see their distro until Saturday, but every pool table had a copy of D.I.Y. ZINE ISSUE #2, an excellent Bay Area anarcho-punk newsletter with a 4,000-count print run. My favorite article was the interview with Israeli crust band HOLOCAUSTS. I fucking wish my town had a rag like this. Oh yeah, I live in my van and travel from punk festival to punk festival… punk is my town. Solidarity to all the van punx across the world reading this.

I wish I had caught: TENSO, ANIMALS REVENGE, and FINAL CONFLICT.

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 20 – PRE-CY FEST AFTER PARTY

Friday had the most shows: the Pre-CY Fest Show, which was a festival of its own right, a CY Fest Presents Oi! show with THE TEMPLARS and RIXE, and a Pre-CY Fest After Party. The multiple similar names made it difficult to describe to cool punks you just met which event you were going to, excited about, or who was playing where or when. But I actually liked the disorienting aspect of too much to see, and I hope the billing chaos extends further next year with a Pre-CY Fest Kick Off After Party Pre-Show and a dozen indistinguishable Post-CY Fest Show After Parties, each with its own dozen of indistinguishable grind bands.

We woke up rough, made up our mugs, and asked each other “whattya wanna?”

“Descontrol.”

Back in Descontrol and this time…we didn’t escape. It’s too good. It’s too fucking good there. You’re Aladdin in the Cave of Wonders but made out of old porn, motorcycles, studs and spikes and a cool cat you haven’t seen in a minute who drops off a few copies of the ELECTROCUTAME ZINE COMPILATION TAPE, a benefit for CHICXS ROCKERXS, an inclusive girls rock summer camp in southeast LA.

We hang out so long that we miss both the TEMPLARS show and the pre-fest fest, where I would’ve liked to see HEZ, GOLPE, RESISTANT CULTURE, and WHO KILLED SPIKEY JACKET. Specifically, if I had seen RESISTANT CULTURE, I would have asked what fucking movie the scenes in their “runaway” music video are from. If you know, e-mail me: podcast@crimethinc.com

Oh well, why not roll back around to the pool hall? Literally APPENDIX again. We groundhoggin'? But this time, with even more rockin' and boppin' in the pit! Hej! Hej! Hej! A decent neo-crust outfit with good musicianship played before them, but I honestly couldn’t tell you if it was KIRA or AGE OF FEAR.

The scene at the pool hall was cool as fuck. Punks reconnecting and racking up balls and sharing horror stories just cuz. Everyone was a hot LA punk and me and my girlfriend discussed letting them all run a train on us in the bathroom, however 2 days in LA and still (?!) no other buttflaps in sight! Punk descontento.

I alllmost got to see one artful fucking smooth operator shark some punks at billiards, but the goth DJ had it swirling and swaying so we got on the dance floor until the night ended.

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21 – CY FEST

We showed up early and grabbed a vendor spot next to a cool punk flag distro. They had like, FRAMTID and DISCHARGE flags. Yeah, flags. Another punk trend prediction for 2025? We were there before doors so we got to see DETESTATION’s sound check, which already got me excited for what was to come. Apologies to the homies in PIG CITY for not snapping a shot off when the production dudes rolled your logo behind DETESTATION during sound check.

At our table we gave away free CrimethInc. zines surreptitiously produced at an ex-worker’s ex-workplace. We got a lot of compliments and curious customers and got to talk to other cool print-passioned punks like Burn Barrel Press.

I took a walk around to check out the other vendors, scored some sick records, found out my friend who drummed for RAMBO wasn’t there (miss you love you Dave) and was pleased to encounter not one but TWO other anarchist literature tables: Anarchist Black Cross Federation Los Angeles and DIY ZINE (good luck finding the zine I’m talking about by searching “DIY ZINE” on g00gle.) The DIY ZINE table had bricks and bricks of their newsletter to distribute around the country. Unfortunately neither anarcho-punk table featured buttflaps anywhere in sight.

The venue was a three-floor building with a stage on each floor and multiple staircases, making it a kind of maze to navigate. Each floor had something: the basement floor had the best vibe, the top floor had the best sounding stage on one side of a carpeted entryway and, on the other, the balcony seats overlooking the ground floor auditorium, which had the biggest and busiest moshpit.

I only caught one song of PIG CITY on the big stage but it looked like she had the microphone all the way in her mouth? Whoa. Went back upstairs to tend to the zine table and take it easy before everything got wild. Too late! SOH was on and wild fucking foxy pogo boot in your face punk!!! What is up with three letter punk bands right now? In the past year, I’ve seen SMT, AFK, was supposed to see DHK but Mexico denied them at customs, and now SOH. Singer told me it stands for Sippin’ On Hennessy.

BATSCRATCH was next, our generation’s OLD SKULL. Ok, maybe not an apt comparison given that the only 10 year old member of BATSCRATCH is the vocalist, but it was still equal parts adorable and thrilling. The pit around BATSCRATCH was super tender and goofy and seemed to mostly be carried by the singer’s cousins or brothers or something? That what it looked like to me.

VERBAL ABUSE were the first band to truly pack the house to the point of latter ripple moshpit vibrations into our table. Nicely done.

LIFELESS DARK were my first basement band and FUCK do I wish I set up our table in the basement! Basement was anarcho lair with fine fabric booths, different levels of banister, behind-stage platform, and understage pit from which to see the band. The house was packed for LIFELESS DARK and it was like there were punks posting up on every available surface that allowed for direct eyesight and ear damage. Not to be missed! The basement also had dope ass anarcho style banners proclaiming solidarity with Palestine, migrants, and our furry friends. Cheers to whoever put those up.

The previous day I saw this gloomy ass punk who had a “Sadness Is Rebellion” bag, a “Feel The Darkness” backpatch, and a “DOOM” pin—the next time I saw them was at LIFELESS DARK, go figure.

R.A.M.B.O. had moshpit antics with props and costumes as you would hope from them. Did you know Tony Pointless founded the Birdpunk subculture?

THE PIST were playing in the basement while I caught up with an old pal and sounded way more fucking Oi! than I had remembered but it was GOOD. Like catchy as fuck. Sadly I didn’t get to realize my 13-year-old Napster dream of seeing THE PIST play “Textbook Salvation” because I had to run upstairs for RIXE.

RIXE was where the festigue started to kick in, where all of the loud bass and drums and guitar and shouting starts to sound the same and my back hurts. Went to get beer but a beer was 15 fucking dollars. Fuck Live Nation for real.

Wandered down to the basement and caught PARANOID. Good, but did not wrest me from my slumbergrump.

HABAK heavy. Ugga ugga.

I finally succumbed to the $15 beer prices (not punk. Fuck you Live Nation) to shake the festigue. Ordering took so long that I basically saw all of HELLSHOCK from the bar line. Not the way I’d prefer to see HELLSHOCK, but not the worst way to spend time waiting for the bartender!

Glug glug glug and we’re back! (also not punk, kids.)

But you know who IS fucking punk? Mother fucking DEATH SIDE!!!!! Finally, another fucking buttflap in the building! Despite his constant insistence that he does not speak English (a claim that punctuates almost anything he says) the vocalist’s broken-english banter captivated the audience almost as much as his band’s show, which was world class. “West Coast is wasted coast!” I’ve seen him fronting his other band, FORWARD, and it was a similar deal, his speeches from the stage sucked any dead air out of the room and launched the crowd into laughter and chant-a-long pogo. Sometimes, I like to imagine him speaking perfect English and having a hardcore routine of vocal exercises and Shakespeare soliloquies before taking the stage and that every slurred, barely intelligible sentence that sounds like he only learned English from crust lyrics is actually the cold, calculated execution of a perfect showman.

SKITSYSTEM followed. Apparently two of them were denied entry at the airport. Fuck borders!!!

Back to the basement for QLOAQA LETAL, a Spanish punk band from the 80s whose singer is still going at it. LA punks were fucking stoked for this band.

When we got back to our literature table, which we had abandoned hours ago, we found that ANTISECT had squatted it to sell merch! I hope they sold some of our free zines too, just for a laugh.

We evacuated anything we really cared about from the table and abandoned it to the anarchy of the top floor stage, hoping we’d at least see the table again.

DROPDEAD spoke out against vivisection. Cool. Sitting on the balcony I met this punk who was the right age and location and style to have known my dead friend who coordinated Maximum Rocknroll, and they did. Nice of you to show up, Jen.

DETESTATION closed the night and boy oh mother fucking boy were they the band to do it. First show in a quarter of a century and an absolute class act. The vocalist spoke out from the stage against colonialism, selling punk out, and white supremacy. They were the only band to even recognize the consumption of alcohol, let alone question it, and thanks to their sound check they had the bounciest, locked in mix where every instrument came through clearly and moved you more. Hooray for DETESTATION!

For their encore, DETESTATION played their classic cover of REPUBLIKA’s “Não Mais.” To aid in maximum singalong, the vocalist brought out two giant cardboard prompter boards with the lyrics. The boards had their intended effect and the final song of CY Fest was an adorable, anti-establishment, hardcore sing along. I wish she had told us to all put our arms around each other or some cheesy shit like that, “nao mais!!!” At the very end of their set, the band threw both boards into the audience. The boards could not have come to two more different ends. One was gently received by an appreciative woman who posed with it alongside smiling friends. The other square of cardboard was wrestled over between two dudes in the pit who tugged it back and forth for so long that they both ended up on the ground…and kept going at it. It was taken by one guy, then wrestled out of his hands, then his friend got in it, next thing you know five security guards came over and stood around like, unsure what to do because they weren’t exactly fighting but it was fucking weirding everyone else out like it’s just a sign bro? By the time one of them walked out with the sign it was mangled and unrecognizable. Lame, but entertaining!

Although we had succumbed to $15 beers, we never even ate so we rushed out of the theater and beelined it to the Rainbow before the kitchen closed. Weekend in LA!

At some point we also saw BEHIND ENEMY LINES and the VARUKERS, again. I don’t recall when this happened.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 22 – DESCONTROL PUNK SWAP MEET

Turns out DJing an event with a soundsystem is a whole lot of fucking work. But it pays off. It was an honor to bring the boom in the first free and semi-guerrilla (sidewalk takeover?) punk event of the weekend. Loved the crowd that filled the shop. A Chilean punk with tattooed mohawked studded up dolls, some leather and steel smiths, a punk rug maker, graff, tattoo shit, just a big ass punk street party with endless cool gems to hold and behold. Had there been bands, it would have been a riot. Also, I learned some local LA punk riot history about the 2006 San Bernadino punk riot at British Invasion 2k6 fest. There were fresh tacos and we drank ice cold micheladas on a hot day. Some punks with old ass records shared their shade with us. Sharing!

While we unloaded, every stand I passed had a different little boombox with a cool song on it. I shazzammed some of these songs but at no point did I turn up any artist… what we do is secret. I felt bad drowning out the lots of little speakers, but as I got props and whoozats on the selection the vibes increased. During the golden hour, I made a risky transition to skinhead reggae, and suddenly we got sing alongs, we got boogie woogie, we got rabbithole conversations about LEE SCRATCH PERRY producing SUSAN CADOGAN, we got hoots and hollers from where most of the punks are playing a funny game.

For me, the Descontrol punk swap meet was the high point of the weekend. It was just a little more wild. The fest was fun as fuck, and next year’s looks like it will deliver once again with DISORDER, FUCK ON THE BEACH, TAQBIR, INYECCION, and INFEST already announced to play. But legit, whoever is playing, you should just go and hang out being a cool LA punk. If punk taught me anything it’s that the good stuff is always on the margins, in the shadows. Enjoy CY, but do the random other cool punk weekend shit that’s just punks being punks.