[Editor’s note: Matt Hunter & the Dusty Fates released their latest album Reindeer Soul out June 7 via Dromedary Records. Hunter is the co-founder of Western Massachusetts band New Radiant Storm King, which released nine albums on a variety of labels over 20 years. Hunter, who often plays guitar and bass, has also played or recorded with J. Mascis & the Fog, Silver Jews, King Missile, the Wharton Tiers Ensemble, and SAVAK, and is alos currently in New York City’s The Whimbrels. Hunter has enjoyed the band format of The Dusty Fates, which features drummers Roger Murdock (of King Missile) and Hampus Öhman-Frölund. Today the singer-songwriter shares an exclusive essay explaining his introduction to punk and how he came to embrace the genre.]
Growing up in Arizona in the 1980s it was easy to feel alienated from the rest of the country. Despite Phoenix being a fast-growing “city,” the rest of our fellow Americans, when they thought of us at all, viewed us as lawless, uncivilized barbarians with a backward religion (read: Mormons) and an economy built on land fraud (which was not totally wrong).
Many, or at least too many, of my fellow Phoenicians were also more than a little nuts – often viciously so. (Blame the heat. We did.) And music could make already volatile people even crazier. This characteristic was on full display when national performers came through town. Local audiences booed Prince off the stage (opening for the Rolling Stones), broke a bottle over (then named) John Cougar’s head on stage, and chased the Beastie Boys off when opening for Madonna (!).
No surprise that the punks and metalheads, even as young as I was at the time (13 or so) were capable of utterly pointless violence, perhaps taking inspiration from the Southern Californian prophets of anarchy Black Flag.
At the time, I was terrified of all of this. Even though many of these aspiring young punks seem pretty tame in retrospect (Catholic school and all) there was a genuine homegrown Arizona nihilism nurtured by and cooked in the 110 degree heat.
Naturally I heard all this brutality in the music all these douchebags liked and wouldn’t stop playing (Minor Threat, The Faction, a million hardcore bands no one’s heard of since) and perhaps even assumed it was the source.
Then once in my bedroom – I don’t remember who played this to me, my younger brother, perhaps – I caught the lyrics, underneath some walloping drums and buzzsaw guitars…
“Say ‘FUCK’ in front of your mom…and
GO TO SCHOOL NAKED!
ANARCHY BURGER! Hold the government
ANARCHY BURGER! Hold the government!”
I laughed out loud. I didn’t think the song (“Anarchy Burger” by the Vandals) was any good, and I still don’t. But when I realized there was a difference, potentially a big difference, between what these performers were attempting to do and what at least some of their fans heard in it, for the first time I could actually hear punk rock on its own terms, not clouded by the antisocial stupidities of my fellow ‘Zoners. That naturally piqued my curiosity and led me to discover others – Meat Puppets and Sun City Girls, Husker Du and Big Black, (and yes, the Replacements) etc.– that would send me down the path that I cannot even to this day step off.
“Anarchy, kill a cat
Shoot James Brady in the back
Raise an army of rabid rats
Beat your neighbor with a bat
ANARCHY BURGER!
Hold the government!”
You can follow Matt Hunter & The Dusty Fates on Facebook and check out their music via Bandcamp.
Matt Hunter
Contributor
Matt Hunter currently leads the NYC rock band Dusty Fates, which just released its debut album, Reindeer Soul, on Dromedary Records. Find it at the coolest record store near where you live.
Matt co-founded Western Massachusetts’ fabled indie rock band New Radiant Storm King, and has played variously with Silver Jews, J Mascis & the Fog, King Missile, the Wharton Tiers Ensemble, and many, many others. You’ll also find him making noise on any given day in the northeast U.S., or around the world, with the bands Whimbrels and SAVAK.
