When something upsets Jeff Brown, he might take a hammer to a cinderblock to vent his frustrations.
Or, he could use a wrench to bang on a 50-foot iron chain instead.
Either way, his goal is never destruction. All he’s doing is turning his anger into music.
Originally, that cinderblock, hammer, wrench, and chain were just tools he found on his farm in Cantrall. But with the help of technology such as guitar pedals, contact microphones and channel mixers, Brown can turn those common tools into instruments for his one-man band, Aporia, which creates harsh noise, or music that focuses on noise, such as the cacophony Brown makes when grinding on that cinderblock with his hammer.
The trick is sound distortion. For example, when Brown hooks his contact microphone up to part of an instrument and then hits it, the contact microphone will pick up on the vibrations within that object. Those vibrations make their way to a distortion pedal, creating “earsplitting static.”
He adds to that by screaming.
“It’s just me, screaming my heart out about things that make me mad,” he said.
Because of this, Brown considers his music to be punk-influenced.
Punk, a genre of music Brown calls “fast and angry,” also features real people talking about real issues — something Brown incorporates into his own style, not only by venting his anger but also by making sure he never takes more than 10 minutes for a performance.
Punk music helped Brown first bolster confidence in himself during his teenage years, and now the same genre is becoming a staple of Springfield’s music scene.
In 1982, NIL8 was the band that brought punk to Springfield (and is among the handful of local bands to experience national success). The punk music scene has been growing and changing here ever since.
“Springfield’s got it’s own unique ethic and vibe, which is pretty cool,” said Kevin Bradford. “We’ve got a really neat place here.”
Bradford is one of the original founders of The Black Sheep Café, a music venue at 1320 S. 11th St., that recently hosted DumbFest, a two-day concert featuring punk bands from around the country.
All of the bands were punk — but punk didn’t sound the same in each case.
“It’s (punk) more like a mindset,” said Cory VanMeter, who played bass guitar in The Caterpillar Club, Soap Scum and Say Something at DumbFest. “Lots of bands fall under that umbrella, but they all have a different sound.”
‘You show up and do it’
VanMeter, who also volunteers at Black Sheep, believes in a punk ethic more than a specific sound, or even a specific look. It’s a “do it yourself” ethic toward nearly everything the bands do, from booking the next concert venue to deciding what tracks will go on the next album.
“You show up and do it,” Bradford said. “If there were restrictions, it’d be like a height limit on a merry-go-round.”
Despite the success of punk and punk-influenced bands such as The Clash and Green Day, punk often doesn’t fall into step with mainstream record labels.
“It’s like, let’s do something opposite of that. Let’s do something we wanna listen to on our own terms,” Brian Galecki said.
He notes punk artists instead build small communities with other punk artists from other areas, play in each others’ towns and provide lodging for each other when they visit for performances.
“That’s what the whole purpose of having a punk scene is about,” Galecki said.
Galecki, another frequent contributor at the Black Sheep Café, coordinated DumbFest, and also provided vocals for Soap Scum. Bradford plays drums in Soap Scum and guitar in The Caterpillar Club.
Sometimes, though, bands that start out as being underground, or out of touch with the typical mainstream, get picked up by the mainstream anyway.
However, this doesn’t necessarily change those bands. For instance, a member of the band Fallout Boy spent the night with other musicians at Galecki’s house before a show the next day. And even though Green Day has become a household name, they still “do their own thing,” Bradford says.
In general, though, VanMeter notes that punk typically steers away from the mainstream.
Additionally, Bradford notes that the punk scene has its own type of media, with people doing interviews with bands for fanzines, or magazines created by fans.
Creating a scene
The punk scene isn’t limited to musicians, though.
Brittney Tyler and Aaren Hampson, both of Chatham, feel as though the punk community at the Black Sheep Café is where they belong, too.
“I like coming here because I’m not accepted a lot (elsewhere),” Tyler said.
She first started coming to The Black Sheep Café last year during Black Sheep Fest, another music festival the Black Sheep Café holds that features local bands.
A couple months ago, Tyler brought Hampson with her. He liked it, too.
“It was different, but I liked it,” he said. “The music was different, but the sets were great.”
Like Brown, both Tyler and Hampson could relate to the lyrics of the music they considered to be punk.
“I like punk because it speaks to me on an emotional level,” Hampson said. “I was never really liked by people, but punk made me feel like I belonged somewhere.”
Tyler also enjoys the Black Sheep community.
“I love how close-knit it is,” she said. “Everyone can just be themselves.”
On the walls inside The Black Sheep Café, Tyler once wrote, “This is my soundtrack, but you are not my critic,” which means, “This is what I’m into, and you can’t judge me for it.”
While she was inside, she noticed a painting on the wall. A flock of white sheep stand on one side, and a black sheep stands on its own, being fed. This, Tyler believes, also represents part of the underlying message behind the punk community: acceptance, no matter who someone is or what they look like.
Bradford, VanMeter, and Galecki say that when punk first started in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, there was a stereotypical punk look — green hair and combat boots.
Tyler and Hampson think there could still be a certain look to punk, but if there is, it’s not really that important. What’s most important, they believe, is what people listen to, and their beliefs.
Bo Mellado agrees, stating punk isn’t about “who has the most green mohawks.”
While Mellado feels accepted by the punk community at Black Sheep Café, he doesn’t think happiness is what brought many of these people to the punk community in the first place.
“A lot of people were drawn here because they were angry about something,” he said. “This place isn’t necessarily about having a good time. People come here because they’re not satisfied.”
Mellado, who has been coming to the Black Sheep Café since he was 14, is now 19 and writing music and providing vocals for his own band, Mildred. He notes that this generation of punk is full of positivity, and “not judging people for their choices.”
Quincy Curran, the bassist for Mildred, has been listening to punk since he was 13, and can now tell the difference between punk music and what’s put out on the mainstream.
“There’s a lot more energy being around this music than the mainstream,” he said.
Austen Connelly’s band, Montagh, plays folk instead of punk music, but he still has an understanding of punk music.
“Punk culture is doing what you want and getting help along the way,” he said.
Hey remember that crazy festival we had last June called Dumb Fest? And remember the great article that the State Journal Register did about the festival and punk music in Springfield? Well some of you may have forgotten the story but here we are later in the summer and the story of Dumb Fest is now sweeping the nation and touching the hearts and lives of many. Somehow that picture above ^^ got “tumblr famous” on the internet. We are not even exactly sure where the paper being pictured is located! Here’s another version of the article in an Indiana newspaper (which might have been recently taken down), and here’s another one online from some “Illinois news” site. You can find our original post on the Dumb Fest article here.
We are in the paper AGAIN? What’s it for this time? This time the State Journal Register has a long article in the “Heartland” section about punk music in Springfield. Black Sheep and Dumb Fest gets plenty of mentioning. The article also mentions many Springfield bands including 
Dumb Records 