Punk isn’t dead. Sure, punk is old enough that it may be dad — or mom — but it’s still by and for the kids. For proof of life, one needn’t look any further than Pokey’s Fest 3, two all-ages nights of hardcore punk and other assorted music for freaks that will take place June 13 and 14 in Iowa City’s Public Space One.
Punk’s year zero was 1977, an epochal moment that saw the release of debut albums by the Clash, Sex Pistols, Damned, Dead Boys, Television and other first wave bands. Its out-with-the-old ideology was articulated in the Clash’s song “1977,” in which they declared, “No Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones in 1977!”
With punk inching closer to its 50th birthday and firmly middle-aged, there is a case to be made that this subculture has been fully co-opted by the corporate nostalgia machine. The Sex Pistols’ current tour with replacement frontman Frank Carter or Green Day’s recent headlining appearance at Coachella would support such a claim.
However, all you have to do is dig a little bit deeper underground to realize that punk is alive and well here in the Midwest, and elsewhere. A new generation is keeping punk’s communal flames lit by embracing the DIY spirit of second wave bands like Minor Threat and their indie label Dischord Records.
“The first time I heard Minor Threat,” PSYOP vocalist Dolly Sperry said, “it completely changed my life and gave me a trajectory to follow. I listen to all sorts of music, but hardcore really became sort of a focal point. I first heard the Clash when I was probably 8 or 9, and then I heard the Sex Pistols pretty soon after. My mom’s shitty boyfriend had a big CD collection, and he was like, ‘Oh man, you’ve never heard this? I’m sure you’re gonna like this.’”
Middle school was a huge music discovery period for Sperry, which coincided with the tailend of the illegal file-sharing era and the beginning of streaming. Growing up in a small Iowa town of about 10,000, there were no record stores, so the internet served that function.
“I was like, ‘Oh shit, I need to figure out what the hell is this all about! I need to know more.’ So I just started refining my taste based on looking at that whole landscape and being like, ‘I like these kinds of bands and what they’re doing, and not so much these kinds of bands.’ I got very voracious and started seeking out as much as I possibly could.”
Sperry moved to Iowa City straight outta high school in 2016 because she wanted to be an active part of a DIY punk scene. She was initially planning on moving to one of the coasts, genuinely unsure if such a thing really existed in Iowa, but that perception changed when Sperry played a couple shows in Iowa City.
“I sort of just immediately fell in love with the place,” Sperry said. “I started going to as many shows as I possibly could and then playing in as many bands as I possibly could, you know, hopping on my friend’s tours whenever I could. It was sort of the end of the last time the punk and hardcore scene in Iowa City had been popping off, particularly the era of Supersonic Piss, the Tanks and Nerv.”
Like any college town where the population is transient, Iowa City’s music scenes have ebbed and flowed over time. The years after Sperry moved there were certainly a quieter time for hardcore, especially when the pandemic closed everything down. 2020 was the first time since Sperry was 16 that she hadn’t played shows on a weekly basis, and by the middle of that year it was still unclear if live music was ever going to come back.
“I found myself searching for community and wanting to create something very specific,” she said. “I’m a multi-instrumentalist, so I taught myself how to record. I recorded a demo and then I was like, ‘OK, I wanna put this out and I’m gonna start a label because I also want to release multiple bands.’ Basically, I wanted to document the scene, to archive what was happening like Ian MacKaye’s Dischord label did for the Washington D.C. scene.”
“I love the history of punk and hardcore punk,” Sperry continued, “and how that has had such a tremendous effect on fashion, aesthetics, culture, politics and the working class. It’s just a very interesting intersectionality among many groups that you wouldn’t necessarily see being related in that way.”
Sperry ended up re-recording her PSYOP demo once she got band members together to play the songs, and as shows began coming back, it was high time to release a single. Her other band, BOOTCAMP, also released a seven-inch single through her newly founded Pokey’s Records imprint, opening the door to other bands.
“Shows had kind of popped off since 2021, just, like, way bigger attendance than we were used to, with a lot more kids coming out,” Sperry said. “So a festival just seemed like the next natural step to take. Our first fest was crazy. It had a way bigger turnout than I expected, and about 20 or 30 bands coming in from throughout the Midwest.”
The first Pokey’s Fest was primarily staged at the James Theater, along with a few house-show venues. Public Space One also hosted one bill. For Sperry, being a first-time festival promoter was a baptism by fire — literally.
“The first time you do it, you really have no fucking idea what’s going to happen,” she said. “It was a huge success and was really fun, but also was super wacky and a nightmare, with bands dropping out the week before, and trying to put the calls out for replacements. At the PS1 show, some speakers caught on fire and someone was swinging from rafters and hurt himself and ended up having to get stitches. It was ridiculous. I mean, safety is important, but you know, I think a little bit of chaos is OK.”
The PA went up in flames because someone had messed with the settings in a way that ensured that the speaker would be, for lack of a better technical term, absolutely fucked. They got the speaker out of the venue well before it posed a hazard to life or limb, but it still filled the room with electric-scented smoke.
“Yeah, it was not great,” Sperry said. “I mean, it actually was fine. Nobody was in any real danger, but it did suck because that’s a piece of equipment that is very, very expensive. For a not-for-profit thing, when shit goes wrong, it’s not like we can say, ‘Oh, we’ll just ask the sponsor to cover it.’ Nope. But it was still awesome, and so the next year I was just like, ‘How do we make this even more insane and get this to the next level?’ People were so thrilled the first year of the fest, and there was this tangible sense of unity.”
As for Pokey’s Fest 3, Sperry is super stoked about how it is shaping up. A couple bands are traveling all the way from Philadelphia, though the event is still rooted primarily in the Midwest punk scene, with bands from Chicago, Omaha, Minneapolis and St. Louis representing, plus local bands. “It’ll just be a lot of really good hardcore punk and some freaky electronic music for the weirdos,” as she summed it up. “So yeah, a good combination of things.”
Sperry thinks the appeal of hardcore for kids coming to these shows has everything to do with building a sense of community. It feels good to be around other likeminded outcasts, or those who are queer, or who come from different classes and social backgrounds. The local punk scene here is populated with people who are committed to political organizing and other forms of activism. For example, the drummer in Sperry’s band BOOTCAMP, Oliver Weilein, has spent the past decade in Iowa City advocating for housing as a human right, and was recently elected to the City Council.
“There’s certainly an appeal in finding that sort of community through the punk scene,” Sperry said. “But fundamentally, for me, the appeal is the music. Fast music. I want it to be in your face. I’m not trying to make music for jocks. I genuinely want to create art by and for weirdos. We’re not trying to have careers or make lots of money. We are making art because we want to build community around the love and the joy of creation. That’s what it’s about.”
Upcoming event:
Pokey’s Fest 3, June 13-14, various venues, Iowa City (Single Day Pass: $45; Full Fest Pass: $75; Student Full Fest Pass: $60)
Kembrew McLeod would like to go loud, hard, fast — but he’s getting slower and duller with every year that passes. This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2025 issue.
