By Andre Cornejo
There’s a knock at my back door, and in walks Mischa Decter. He wastes no time in expressing what a disgusting day it is outside. After the walk in the brutal heat and humidity, he has no desire to take the turkey breast (with horseradish sauce) Subway sandwich out of his backpack. Eating fresh just isn’t the same when you’re on the surface of the sun, so we got down to business.
Stylus: Alright so you, Mischa, are one of the people putting together the Disco Needs A Squeeze hardcore festival.
Mischa Decter: Yeah, along with Mike Requeima, and Steve Krysko.
Stylus: And this is taking place throughout August?
MD: August 11 to the 13. And the 14, kind of.
Stylus: The majority of the shows are at the Handsome Daughter, but there are a couple of other spots too right?
MD: Yeah, mostly at the Daughter, but there’s one at the Good Will, and one at a secret location that’s still to be announced.
Stylus: So you’ve been doing things with DNAS for a while now right? There were a couple of shows towards the beginning of the year or something like that?
MD: I guess I had the idea to do a festival around January. I talked to Mike and Steve about it, and they were both really into it. We started deciding what kind of bands we wanted to target, and then we started throwing some fundraisers. We did one in April, and one in May. Since then, we did the Iskra show with OAF, and have the other shows coming up pretty quick.
Stylus: As for the concept of a festival, is that something you’ve wanted to try to tackle for a while? I mean, putting on shows is one thing, but flying them under a singular banner is a whole other process.
MD: Yeah, I mean, I’ve always wanted to do festival type things. This is kind of something that doesn’t really happen in Winnipeg. I’ve gone to things like this in other cities, and they’ve always been really fun. I mean, I still don’t think Winnipeg is a place that can really support it, and like, grow that much.
Stylus: Yeah, it’s difficult with that demographic. When you have maybe one hundred people that are willing to go to those shows, and you’re trying to stretch that group over a weekend of shows.
MD: Yeah, exactly. I feel like if it’s there, people will want to go to it. The people that go to every show are going to go no matter what. My main goal is trying to get people who don’t normally come to these kinds of shows to check them out.
Stylus: The timing of the shows doesn’t seem to matter to the people that are always at these things. The Iskra and OAF show was on what, a Tuesday? It was crazy, it was at capacity all night. I definitely believe that if the bands are there, people will show up. It’s cool to have something oriented towards heavy music too. Without Arsonfest, or any weekend things going on at, say, Negative Space, or anything like that, there’s been a massive void in the city. There have been heavy shows, but nothing really branding itself as a festival. So let’s talk about the shows a little bit. The first one coming up is the 11, with Animal Lover?
MD: Thursday, August 11 with Animal Lover, Slurs (which is Mike’s band) Human Music, who are kind of the only band that don’t really fit in with the rest of the festival, and a new band called Xerts.
Stylus: Those are locals?
MD: Yeah it’s Marshall, who plays in Regurgitated Guts, and Genex. Spencer is playing drums, he plays in every band, haha. Spencer has to play a set every night of the festival.
Stylus: Alright, the next one is August 12, with Mueco?
MD: Mueco is a d-beat band from Montreal. The drummer of Mueco is from Omegas, his name is Paul. He’s actually from Winnipeg. Fucking is playing. They’re a weird punk band from Minneapolis. Also Skeleton.
Stylus: Indignari and Whip as well, who share a stage very comfortably.
MD: The classic locals, haha.
Stylus: The Saturday show is at the Handsome Daughter again.
MD: Saturday afternoon. It’s an early one, four o’clock. I’m hoping lots of people come out, and do bad things during the day. Mocoso is a band that has members from S.H.I.T. and Omegas, so they’re kind of a hybrid between those Montreal and Toronto bands. Mind Control from Minneapolis is playing. And Denial//Error and Karoshi. They’re local punk bands.
Stylus: I was working at that last Sex Fucker and Denial//Error show. From the perspective of someone just watching the gig, it was a lot of fun, but from the angle of someone who was working the floor that night it was more along the lines of ‘oh god everything is broken.’
MD: Yeah, very silly bands. Our big show is on the Saturday at the Good Will. Omegas, S.H.I.T, Genex, and Skunk. There’s an afterparty that night with Taylor Hoodlum Stevenson, who is a member of Omegas. It’s kind of ‘dark Wave.’ Like, goth type stuff. Also Gutes Haar and Memory Hole.
Stylus: Mike (of Gutes Haar, who had recently broken a leg) is feeling firm enough to do the show?
MD I’m sure he will be. I don’t see why he couldn’t play in a wheelchair or something like that.
Stylus: Yeah, he could rent a Rascal for the night and do some donuts in the crowd. Anyways, are you planning on doing more of these in the future, or are you waiting to see if there’s any kind of return on this?
MD: Definitely. The goal this time around wasn’t to make money at all, it was just to break even. Or honestly, to not lose a ton of money. As long as we don’t lose our houses, we’re going to do it again next year. Definitely do some shows along these lines throughout the year. Maybe start finding some bands. To be realistic, nobody wants to drive to Winnipeg. Like, the Minneapolis bands drove here, but we flew in the Toronto and Montreal bands. And really, if enough people are going to these shows, then it wouldn’t be too hard to fly in bands throughout the year.
Stylus: A band would be so much more inclined to saying yes to something like this, if they can just fly in, bang out the show, and have a good time. As opposed to putting their life on hold for a week or whatever so they can drive out to Winnipeg to play a single show.
MD: I don’t want to start thinking about next year too much, there’s still so much to do this year. I just want people that don’t come to these shows to come out. There’s a ton of people that like
punk music, but they don’t really know about their local punk scene. And as it is there are like, six different punk scenes in Winnipeg, that don’t seem to get along haha.
Stylus: Yeah, it can get fairly clique-y. But there’s definitely something for everyone on here. I was kind of surprised when I saw the Animal Lover show get announced. I mean, they’re kind of a jazzy noise rock band, and to see them as part of a pretty heavy, aggressive festival, was kind of wild . . .
MD: What else was I going to say? Oh yeah! Also, we’re doing a record swap at the Good Will in the afternoon on the Sunday. That’s the 14.
Stylus: That’s going to be primarily the organizers working that, or other distro stuff? I know Chris Jacques from Dub Ditch is going to be bringing some goodies down.
MD: Yeah, there’s going to be some Dub Ditch stuff there, and I think one of the guys in S.H.I.T. runs a distro that’ll have some things there. We’re going to try to get all of the touring bands to sell their records there too. We’ll be DJing there and all of that. It’ll be a fun time.