Featured Guest  Nancy Barile (Author, I’m Not Holding Your Coat: My Bruises-and-All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion)

Host and Producer  Melinda Lewis, PhD (Associate Director, Marketing & Media)

Dean  Paula Marantz Cohen, PhD (Dean, Pennoni Honors College)                                                                                                                          

Executive Producer  Erica Levi Zelinger (Director, Marketing & Media)

Producer  Brian Kantorek (Assistant Director, Marketing & Media)

Research and Script  Melinda Lewis, PhD

Audio Engineering and Editing  Brian Kantorek

Original Theme Music  Brian Kantorek

Production Assistance  Noah Levine

Graphic Design  Camille Velasquez

Original Photography  Bruce Rhodes and Allison Schnackenberg (courtesy of Bazillion Points)

Logo Design  Michal Anderson

Additional Voiceover  Malia Lewis

Recorded October 5, 2021 through virtual conferencing.

Pop, the Question is a production of Marketing & Media in Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University.

 Copyright © 2021 Drexel University

To learn more about Nancy Barile, visit Bazillion Points at www.bazillionpoints.com.

Episode Summary

Philadelphia’s punk rock legacy, much like Rocky Balboa, is one embodying a fight to the finish and unsung achievements. Such is the story of author, educator, and lifelong rabble-rouser Nancy Barile, whose autobiography, I’m Not Holding Your Coat: My Bruises-and-All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion, revisits her beloved Philly and a revolutionary period in music culture. Host Dr. Melinda Lewis stage-dives into conversation with Barile for a return to the author’s old stomping grounds and the punk rock lifestyle that made her who she is today as a high school English teacher and hardcore punk historian.

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Transcript:

Melinda Lewis:

Welcome to Pop the Question. A podcast that exists at the intersection of pop culture and academia. We sit down and talk about our favorite stuff through the lenses of what we do and who we are. From Pennoni Honors College of Drexel university, Dr. Melinda Lewis here, I'm your host.

Melinda Lewis:

I am here with Nancy Barile, author of I'm Not Holding Your Coat: My Bruises and All Memoir of Punk Rock Rebellion, which is all the things. It's about punk rock, it's about a coming of age, joy, finding your rage and harnessing it. And I'm very excited to talk to her about the book, the scene and all of those things. Hi Nancy.

Nancy Barile:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Melinda Lewis:

Nancy, are you ready to stage dive into this?

Nancy Barile:

I'm ready to stage dive right into this, go ahead-

Melinda Lewis:

But I was concerned because I remembered you got a concussion that way, right?

Nancy Barile:

Stage diving, yeah, but it was still fun.

Melinda Lewis:

What a wonderful like framework and model to like do what you want to do live your life. (singing) I also think this is a really great oral history of Philadelphia during the time that you're living. And I was hoping that you could talk about what it was like to be in the city, which has just changed so drastically since what you've described.

Nancy Barile:

Yeah, it's so funny. My students and I were watching The Warriors in my film class today. Oh my gosh. And I was telling them, you know, how the movie was a reaction to what was going on in New York at the time.

Speaker 3:

Warriors, come out to play. Warriors, come out to play.

Nancy Barile:

And I started to tell him about Philadelphia. And I said, nostalgia makes you look at things with rose-colored glasses. But Philly was such a dangerous place at that time. And I loved it. And I was talking to my students about the creativity that came out of all that blight and all that poverty and crime and destruction and everything was just booming, in the clubs, in fashion, in art, in music. (singing)

Nancy Barile:

Just everywhere you went, music was blaring out of record stores. And it was just such an exciting time to really be alive and a great time to be alive, musically. I already know I'm romanticizing it. Of course, I am. I don't know if that's still happening right now. I think that maybe it is from, I read the New Yorker and the New Yorker tells me that there's... Rage Against the Machine's a new band to me. So I don't listen to a lot of new music. I'm still kind of stuck in the seventies and eighties. I'm still listening to the Bad Brains at my [inaudible 00:03:30]. (singing)

Melinda Lewis:

I wanted to bring up the fact that we have just passed the 40th anniversary of Punk Fest One.

Nancy Barile:

Yes. By far one of the happy days of my life.

Melinda Lewis:

I don't know if it feels like this at the time, but at least reading the book that this is a turning point for you in terms of, let's just put together our own thing.

Nancy Barile:

We really had no idea what we were doing. There were some people that had done a show there with Bauhaus and Pylon. A few months before that we decided that that's what we wanted to do, but there was no blueprint for do-it-yourself projects back then. So it was all kind of just figuring it out as we went, and so the day we looked outside and we just saw people lined up for blocks, like it was the best feeling, but it was exciting, and it was absolutely thrilling, to do something like that at that age and have it come off okay.

Melinda Lewis:

Well, and not only come off okay, but be like a really great example of what you could do yourself...

Nancy Barile:

It was an incredibly empowering experience, and I felt enormous sense of accomplishment-

Melinda Lewis:

And I feel like that's the sensibility that comes through in this book of the liberatory aspect of punk in particular, but also music in general, like music is the thing that continually pushes you despite being a worrier.

Nancy Barile:

I'll tell you, this was the time in my life when I was most present for everything. And I knew when I was experiencing it, that it was something special, from seeing David Bowie and Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, to doing Punk Fest. And so I've never lived in the moment like I did during those years. And especially if the band was on stage, I was just living it. And it just felt amazing.

Melinda Lewis:

How did you carry that momentum from Punk Fest one into your future booking? Was it an instant, "I want to do this again and I have to do this?"

Nancy Barile:

Yeah. We wanted to do it immediately. We wanted to ride on that wave to the next show. And we had chosen between at different places, CBGB's-

Melinda Lewis:

How would you describe Philadelphia's scene at the time?

Nancy Barile:

Philly's scene with the bands from Philly was great because you could go to the Hot Club or the East Side club or the [inaudible 00:05:59]. And if a local band was playing, you wanted to see them, they were usually pretty good.

Speaker 4:

And make sure you come down to the show tonight. This last song that Lee's going to play for us is Rejection off our tape. Come down to 1229 Chestnut street, East Side Club. Sadistic Exploits, our sets are at 12 o'clock and two o'clock, be there. And we have to wish our manager, a happy birthday was last Friday. She became 22. Nancy, happy birthday.

Speaker 5:

I don't think that Philly ever gets its due for the bands that came out of that city, mainly because there's not a lot on record. And the bands didn't tour, like some of the other bands did. (singing)

Speaker 5:

So that scene was really vital and happening all the time. And then, Philly of course, was a stopover for every big band that came. You know, they always played Philadelphia too. Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys, and whoever else was in town, they were all playing. So, there was always something going on. Every single night, there was something to do. And then you take a club like the Love Club, where they had poetry, reading and art and punk rock and experimental rock and art rock. You could see Executive Slacks one day, and you could see T.S.O.L. another day. It was a lot of crosspollination between groups, and it was fun. It was really, really fun.

Speaker 5:

Tonight, we have a special treat: the loud, hard, fast east coast punks, The Excuses. (singing)

Melinda Lewis:

What were the bands that for you epitomized punk?

Nancy Barile:

I remember seeing the Bad Brains for the first time at the Elks, and my friends in Autistic Behavior said to me, "When you see the Bad Brains, your life is going to change." And I was like, oh right. And I just was pulled up to the front of the stage like a magnet. And there's a picture of me in the book where you can just see me, the look on my face is pure awe. And you can just see me looking up at Darryl. I can remember exactly how I felt seeing them at that time. And just my heart practically coming out of my chest because it was just such an experience. They were such an incredible live band. (singing)

Nancy Barile:

And I went and saw that band play everywhere, New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, wherever they were playing, I would go and see them. They were so phenomenal live in that heyday of '81 and '82. You've never seen anything like it. Minor Threat was probably my second favorite band to see after that, Black Flag was amazing. And then SS Decontrol. Those are probably my top four. I loved TSOL. At the time, my taste definitely started to go more towards in '81, '82 to go more from punk into hardcore. I like that physicality of hardcore. I really liked the anger and the craziness of it all. I don't know, something about that appealed to me. (singing)

Melinda Lewis:

I was just going to say, there's a really great picture of you, I think at an SSD show, where you're just beaming. The pure joy of you being at that show radiates.

Nancy Barile:

Yeah, and that's how I felt when I used to go right up front and I would just get so excited when those first notes would hit, and it was like a physical transformative thing. I don't think anything has ever come close to that in my life. And it was really special to me and really important to me at the time. And I was really lucky. There were a lot of bands playing, and I had the energy to go to New York on a Tuesday night to see the Bad Brains play, and then make it home and get dropped off in front of my job and put my pantyhose on in the elevator and go the work. So it was such a fun time. (singing)

Melinda Lewis:

Before you really discovered punk during punk. Now, how have you defined it over the years, and how has it changed?

Nancy Barile:

Yeah. So my definition of punk is that I don't attempt to define it.

Melinda Lewis:

That's great.

Nancy Barile:

I really don't, and I will see sometimes in different Facebook groups, "this isn't punk." Well, the least punk thing you can do is try to say what punk is. So, I don't make myself the arbiter of what is punk and what isn't. Back in the day, when the music started blooming, Tom Petty was punk rock. Devo was punk rock and the Pretenders were punk rock and Patty Smith was punk rock and the Runaways were punk rock, and they're all very different bands. And then what's pose punk and then there's hardcore, and then there's gutter punk. And then it's just a million different kinds. I just say, if you like it and you call it punk, then it's punk. (singing)

Speaker 6:

Hey, it's your mom. I have a question about that podcast you do. Are you on the Instagram or the Twitter or the Facebook? If I have an idea for a podcast, how do I get in touch with you? Love you, bye.

Melinda Lewis:

Step mom, yeah. So you can find us on all those things, actually, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Just go to PopQuestPod on any one of those and follow. If you want to send us ideas, you can either go over to our website and leave us a message at Pop Q Podcast, or you can get us directly at popq@drexel.edu. You can actually find us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher. I can help set it up when I get home, but then you have to promise me to rate and review. All right, love you. Bye.

Melinda Lewis:

You referenced this early on in the book when you talk about your students coming up to you and being like, "Hey, I saw a picture of you as a punk." How did they conceptualize you as both a teacher, but also somebody who is not just plugged in at night waiting to teach them the next morning?

Nancy Barile:

Most of my kids don't know anything about punk rock, but they like the social activism piece. They like the fact that I protested the KKK. They like my stories about the danger, having bombs thrown at you, and police sic dogs.

Melinda Lewis:

Yeah, some small adventures.

Nancy Barile:

They like, "Tell us the story Miss Barile, and so I'm always up for a story, and I like to tell them things that can help them navigate life a little easier too. So I always tell them if you want to do something, you have to make it happen. And so we wanted to see the bands we loved, so we made it happen, and they get that. I really love it when my kids stand up for what they believe in. I've seen my students do amazing things. And so they like it, and the kids are really excited that I wrote a book. They're like, "You wrote a book, Miss Barile?" They look it up in the Amazon. They think it's really, really cool.

Melinda Lewis:

Well, in fairness, it is really, really cool that you wrote a book. Is there the potential for a follow up?

Nancy Barile:

So I did a photo essay book with my husband, Al, who was in SS Decontrol and Philin Phlash, who is a photographer, where we tell some stories about the years after with SS Decontrol. And I wrote a teacher book, but the more I think about it, the less, I think I'm going to publish it. It's about my students. And I feel like their stories are their stories, and who gets to tell your story? And so I think this might be it. I contributed to some books. I contributed a story to a book that's coming out. It's about clubs and venues that were important to you when you were growing up. And the Elks was hugely important to me.

Speaker 7:

What are your plans in the near future for the band?

Speaker 8:

Yeah, we're playing at the Elks Center.

Speaker 7:

It will be featuring Autistic Behavior, Bad Brains from New York, the Excuses, Informed Sources, and Seeds of Terror, a New Jersey band. That'll be five bucks to get in, all ages, there'll be no hassles.

Melinda Lewis:

I would love to know any books that you had read that maybe influenced how you approached this particular memoir.

Nancy Barile:

When I read Patty Smith's Just Kids, I was absolutely blown away by it. And I probably read it about four years before I wrote my book. And I knew that I wanted to reach my audience the same way she did. I wanted to have that same effect, but I was afraid that my emulation would be imitation, and so I had to put it aside a little bit. I love David Sedaris. I love the way he writes and his sense of humor. I legit could probably go on all day about [inaudible 00:16:14], but I would have to say if I really had to narrow it down to one, it probably would be Just Kids because that book was just so good, and her writing style was so powerful.

Melinda Lewis:

There are very few books that I've read that I've had to literally put down so that I could cry, and that is definitely one of those books that just spilled to that breaking point. (singing)

Melinda Lewis:

The part of the book that I just really, really loved was the real centerpiece of joy of just how much you clearly love music and love punk and love hardcore. And I would like to talk more about when you realized that you could do that, how did you put those pieces together?

Nancy Barile:

So I won a couple awards for teaching, and they always ask you, "Well, what makes you a good teacher?" And you usually just give them some trite answer. But when I really thought about it, I realized it was punk rock that made me a good teacher because it enabled me to connect with marginalized and alienated teens, mainly because I was one and so were my friends. It enabled me to create assignments for my students to help make them independent thinkers and learners and check and evaluate sources and to question authority. And then what really helps is that whole do it yourself work ethic helps me get a lot of resources for my classroom, books and guest speakers and field trips and things like that that are so important in a school like mine, where we don't have a lot of money. (singing)

Nancy Barile:

And so I just found the entire scene very empowering, especially for me as a woman. My first education about politics came from punk rock. I knew nothing when I graduated from Catholic school, zero about government or politics. And it gave me a very rich education on a lot of different things. So I used so much of punk rock, and it gets me in trouble sometimes, even at my age, I still question authority and I will still speak up if I think that someone's attempting to harm my student or there's a policy in place that I don't think my students will benefit from. I will still say something. And it's not always welcomed. It's not going to stop me.

Melinda Lewis:

So thanks so much, though, for sitting down and talking with us about your book. I really did just gobble it up.

Nancy Barile:

Thank you so much for having me. I do really appreciate it.

Melinda Lewis:

Pop the Question was researched and hosted by Dr. Melinda Lewis. Our theme music and episodes are produced by Brian Kantorek with additional audio production by Noah Levine. All of this was done under the directorship of [Erica Levi Zelinger 00:19:32], the deanship of Dr. Paula Marantz Cohen, and the Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University. (singing)