I bet none of you would have predicted that I’d one day be writing a book review for a book that is, technically, about baseball. Let’s be real, though, what brought me here was the music. Chris Wrenn is the founder of Boston-based record label Bridge Nine, who primarily release and promote hardcore punk music. With B9’s initial claim to fame being the release of American Nightmare’s first EP, they’ve also expanded their reach and offered releases from bands like H2O, Strike Anywhere, Polar Bear Club, Terror, War on Women, and Crime in Stereo (go listen to …Is Dead, that album rules).
Anyway, Fenway Punk: How a Boston Indie Label Scored Big on Baseball’s Greatest Rivalry is about Wrenn’s entrepreneurial powers to build Bridge Nine from the ground up. The genesis of the label is pretty bizarre: Wrenn recounts how he bankrolled his initiatives by selling novelty t-shirts outside of Fenway Park. He played into the rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees, selling “Yankees Suck” shirts and stickers. The fact that he was able to squirrel away some funds and use that to record music for American Nightmare is pretty entrepreneurial and admirable, I will say.
One of the less palatable components of the book is, well, the reflection of a different time. Wrenn talks about fighting in parking lots for money, rolling with crowds that broke into houses to steal booze, and other youthful shenanigans that strike me as the kind of bro-ish machismo that drives so many people away from the hardcore scene.
One of the more interesting aspects of the book is hearing about the politics of being a vendor outside a stadium. Wrenn gives background into how they had to operate under the radar and avoid being busted. Strategies included things like having one guy with a money bag and extra merch while someone sold a few things at a time—if they got caught, there would be less loss because the guy in the backpack could throw on a cap and blend into the crowd. The structure of the market also made it easier to sell, for example, stickers. Selling stickers at Fenway and later Hot Topic funded Wrenn’s musical projects, which is just wild to me. Back to politics, it was also interesting to hear about how the code enforcers built relationships with vendors. It was like reading about the mafia and / or crooked cops making secret deals.
More of the book was about baseball than I would have expected, which is my own naivety. Wrenn seems genuinely invested in recounting the glories and heartbreaks of the Boston-New York rivalry. The highlight of that component of the book was hearing about New York playing in Boston following the September 11th attacks and how the community changed around the time. Mostly, I didn’t really feel much towards the baseball drama.
Honestly, I wanted some more music stories from the book. When I heard about links to Converge or Sick of It All or Crime in Stereo, I perked up and felt invested, but the music faded into the background. With Wrenn’s long career of supporting music and being on tour with bands, I would have thought that there would be far more stories about the dramas and landmarks of the Boston hardcore scene. I wanted to hear those stories. Surely it would be appropriate to have a journalistic approach and share some fun anecdotes about Wrenn’s personal involvement with bands. Why did bands explode? What went wrong with releases? I mean, sure, there’s the time Terror got scooped up, but I feel like there are other layers of chaos that could’ve been addressed.
All in all, it was an enjoyable experience, but I would have preferred to spend more time in the pit than in the stands.
Happy reading!
