KGNU’s Iris Berkeley joined Chair Bomb, the dynamic duo that created the Punk Standard Collective. The session featured live performances of their energetic punk tracks, with a mix of humor and insights into their music, their influences, and the origins of the Punk Standard Collective. (Interview date: 1/30/2025)
Iris Berkeley: I got some folks in the studio right about now, a special appearance on Kabaret tonight. We got them live tonight, today. It’s one in the afternoon. I’m already looking forward to Friday, right? All right. We got Chair Bomb and Soneffs in from the Punk Standard Collective here in Boulder. Chair Bomb is up first. You got a couple of tracks first. You want to take it away, my friends?
[Chair Bomb plays Albuquerque, Mommy and Alpha]
Iris Berkeley: And it’s the Afternoon Sound Alternative here on KGNU Community Radio. We got some special guests here in our Kabaret studio. It’d be Chair Bomb of the Punk Standard Collective. My friends, you want to introduce yourselves?
Chair Bomb [Cody Townsend]: Hi, I’m Cody Townsend. I play drums and do vocals.
Chair Bomb [Zane Manning]: Hi, I’m Zane Manning. I play bass and foot guitar.
Iris Berkeley: Alright. And what did we just hear?
Chair Bomb: We heard Albuquerque, the first song. Then we heard Mommy. And then we heard Alpha.
Iris Berkeley: Alright. You wanna fill us in on a little bit of the details?
Chair Bomb: Sure. Alpha is just when we took a road trip to, er, no, Albuquerque is just when we took a road trip to New Mexico. And it’s a bunch of stuff we saw. It’s I Spy, the punk song. And then, Mommy is …
Iris Berkeley: Is that autobiographical? I gotta ask.
Chair Bomb: Mommy, yeah. Yeah. It’s about the time that some girl pushed me off the side of the slide when I was four, and my mom fell over. And Alpha is about dropping out of college or high school. Depending on which one of us you’re talking about.
Iris Berkeley: Alright. I got all kinds of questions. I know that there’s two bands in our studio today and we got a little bit of time between them. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna bring some of you in between to talk about both bands.
Soneffs and Chair Bomb, and then also just a little bit about Punk Standard as a collective, but you want to give us, let’s, you want to do two more, two more sets of three, and then we can have a little chat? All right, what’s up next?
Chair Bomb: Okay. We actually have a poem. For everyone. This is a wonderful time to take a seat, if you’re standing, and get out your snapping fingers. I’m a little nervous. Poetry really stresses me out. Thank you.
[Chair Bomb plays I am a Couch, Ferris Wheel, I am a dog and Jam]
Iris Berkeley: All right, we’ve got Chair Bomb here in KGNU’s Kabaret Studio on the Afternoon Sound Alternative. You wanna, I don’t know tell us how you really feel about jam bands?
Chair Bomb: We’re both from Boulder, let me start off by saying that. So it’s naturally part of the culture here. But, we’ve grown quite sick of it, especially with the amount of jam cover bands. Solos that are 5 minutes long, 10 minutes long. One time I was on a bus ride and my friend made me listen to 3 20 minute versions of Darkstar.
Iris Berkeley: That’s cruel. Are you still friends?
Chair Bomb: Unfortunately.
Iris Berkeley: But it brings up a question. How, if you are from maybe the jam band capital of the world, how did you all get started?
Chair Bomb: Probably with listening to jam bands. I refuse to admit that. I was a Deadhead when I was 12. And then I found punk music when I was like 13 or 14 and I understood things more.
Iris Berkeley: This is fair. What else did we hear?
Chair Bomb: We just heard, I Am a Couch, obviously.
Iris Berkeley: Yeah. Do you have a song about a chair? I’m very confused.
Chair Bomb: No, unfortunately, they weren’t actually related. Which is the unfortunate nature of our band and our songs.
Iris Berkeley: What’s the deal with the name anyway?
Chair Bomb: Our name? It comes from the fact that you can make a bomb out of a swivel chair, and we thought that was both stupid and neat. And so we were like, what’s more awesome than a punk name that’s also really dumb?
Iris Berkeley: This is also fair. Alright, what about that middle song? What did we hear?
Chair Bomb: We heard Ferris Wheel, and then into what’s the name of that song? Oh, I’m a Jam Dog? I am a Dog into Jam.
Iris Berkeley: Alright. You wanna I wanna have a chat with you, but we’re on the other side of a wall right now. You come on in before Soneffs set up. And I wanna ask, all about Punk Standard. As a collective, but you got a few more before we do that?
Chair Bomb: Yeah.
Iris Berkeley: All right. Give us three more
[Chair Bomb plays a song]
Iris Berkeley: You want to call it? You want one more? All right, go for it
[Chair Bomb plays a song]
Iris Berkeley: We got Chair Bomb here in KGNU’s Kabaret studio here in the Afternoon Sound Alternative’s special performance by a pair of bands from the Punk Standard Collective. Guys, you want to come on in the main studio? I got a couple of questions to ask you and we can have a little chat before Soneff’s comes in. Does that sound good? All right. I will eagerly await you all. Coming through the door. In the meantime, if you are listening, wanna give folks a little bit of background to what we’ve been hearing. I have a couple of questions for these gentlemen, but basically we’ve got two bands in today from Punk Standard. This started out a couple of years ago at The Coffee Stand in Boulder, and I believe the guys from Chair Bomb got all this started off. They are no longer at that venue, but they’ve been using the Methodist Church over at 1290 Folsom Street. That’s across from CU Boulder’s Engineering Center to host some monthly shows. But this is really part of a burgeoning punk scene in Boulder. We didn’t have too much of a punk scene for a little while here in town, but at their height. This collective has sold more than 300 tickets of shows to DIY crowd, had a bunch of touring artists, folks like Time Heist come in and play a set, and yeah, we are lucky to have these folks here. We got a huge amount of craziness going on in the studio right now. I’m gonna just buy us a little bit more time while our friends come in, but we got a little bit of music in the meantime. What do we get? How about some Wet Leg? That was a little bit of Wet Leg. A little bit of a, I don’t wanna say palate cleanser ’cause we got another band coming up. We got Soneffs coming up. If you just tuned in, it’s the Afternoon Sound Alternative. I’m Iris Berkeley. I got Cody Townsend and Zane Manning of Chair Bomb here in the studio. Just start at the beginning. Tell us everything. Tell us about Punk Standard. Tell us what all this is about.
Chair Bomb: The beginning, I was a C section. Were you a natural birth? No, I was also a C section. Okay, so we were both C sections. But Punk Standard really was birthed through kind of like the total lack of an ability to play punk in Boulder.
Iris Berkeley: Yeah, because it’s been a long time. I mean at least since the Blue House. Yeah. A few years ago, at least. Yeah. Was it like a pandemic thing? You think pandemic pandemic kind of wiped out so much.
Chair Bomb: Yeah, all joy. Any reason to live. No, fair.
Iris Berkeley: Yet we’re still here.
Chair Bomb: It really came from us not being able to find shows or anywhere to play in Boulder and that the music scene in Boulder was entirely, almost, I think, almost entirely indie bands or jam bands. There’s only so much you can mosh at an indie show before people scream at you and try to kick you out. Yeah, they get really mad.
Iris Berkeley: This is a fair point. And so the Coffee Stand hosted y’all for a while. When did that start? It’s been a few years, right? No?
Chair Bomb: June.
Iris Berkeley: Seriously? Okay.
Chair Bombs: Yeah. And we actually had Soneffs on that bill. The first bill. Soneffs have played so many times. They’re so amazing. So definitely stick around for them. But the coffee stand started off because our friend Nate was working there. And he got us in. Renting out the garage and we would get there early and we’d have to move literally everything out. We put all the furniture outside. Just like around back. One time, all the power in downtown Boulder went out and we had to go get a generator from Home Depot.
Iris Berkeley: I remember the power went out. I did not know about it. So, the show went on?
Chair Bomb: The show went on. It was pretty awesome. It’s insane.
Iris Berkeley: I love it. And that kind of ran its course?
Chair Bomb: Yeah. I think really what it comes down to is punk shows are very chaotic. And there’s not a lot of places in Boulder that I think really want to be branded that way. It’s a lot of, a lot more hipster, hippie vibes.
Iris Berkeley: So now you’re in a church?
Chair Bomb: Now we’re in a church. We’re in a church.
Iris Berkeley: When did you head over there?
Chair Bomb: We were looking for places for a month and a half after the stand fell through and stumbled upon the Methodist Church on Folsom Street. Our friends in Gaunt, a local metal band, rehearsed there. And we just emailed the church, honestly, and being like, we would love to do this.
Iris Berkeley: I’ve done yoga there. They’re very open minded. Yeah, it’s very cool.
Chair Bomb: And the Reverend Ashley is an awesome woman. So we hope to keep doing shows there.
Iris Berkeley: I just have this vision in my mind for I don’t know, like a punk church service. What would that even be like?
Chair Bomb: I have no idea. I grew up Jewish . Yeah. I don’t know.
Iris Berkeley: So you approach this with a totally open mind. Yeah. All right, so you all have been around for, as a band for how long? A year? What do you wanna do with it?
Chair Bomb: Honestly, I think our main goal is to make community. In here. We obviously like getting out and playing shows, especially playing shows in other towns and stuff, but it’s really like creating a space for people to meet each other and form their own punk bands and stuff like that and just really get that not indie not jam band focus back in Boulder.
Iris Berkeley: Yeah, and these are once a month right now? When’s the next one?
Chair Bomb: February 8th. Week and a half.
Iris Berkeley: Saturday, February 8th. Admission? Five dollars?
Chair Bomb: Five dollars at the door. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Iris Berkeley: Awesome. We got, these guys, they look like they’re almost getting set on up.Have you been on the air before?
Chair Bomb: No.
Iris Berkeley: Literally the first time doing radio.
Chair Bomb: Can you tell?
Iris Berkeley: No. What’s that feel like? Because I’m here like every week
Chair Bomb: There’s a lot of CDs. I came to a yard sale here and then some lady took all the Fela Kuti CDs and I was ready to fight her over them, but that was the last time I was here.
Iris Berkeley: That’s a fair fight but okay so this actually brings up an interesting question because you know you’re in a punk band and you’re like man some lady stole the Fela Kuti CDs like what do you what are you into? Give us your influences.
Chair Bomb: We both love City Pop. The Japanese City Pop. We both actually burned City Pop CDs and listened to it all the time. I used to play jazz guitar. I love Midwest Emo. Not much punk in my repertoire. I go salsa dancing every week.
Iris Berkeley: So why did you go in this direction with this band? Like you’re just like, yeah, I want to be in a punk band. Like how did this happen?
Chair Bomb: Mosh pits are awesome.
Iris Berkeley: Yeah, legit.
Chair Bomb: I think honestly, for me at least, it feels like it’s a part of my soul. And there’s obviously so many other factors to liking music and being in a band and stuff. But I feel like every time we play together, we always just want to make punk music. I feel like when I go a week without going to a punk show or playing, I’m like, start like going through withdrawals and start shaking and stuff,
Iris Berkeley: No legit. So You know, there are, there are people who are just like, ugh, punk music’s scary, I don’t know, Say someone hears this today, and they’re like, Yeah, I wanna go hang out at the church. What would you tell somebody?
Chair Bomb: The show, the punk standard shows that we put on are easily the nicest mosh pits I’ve ever seen in my life. You fall, someone picks you up, you just get shoved around, no ones trying to like, hurt each other. So it’s just like a really good intro to what being in a mosh pit is. A big part of it was we felt that the Denver scene was really intense and hardcore.
Iris Berkeley: Because there’s a fair amount of humor in your music.
Chair Bomb: Yeah, fair. Yeah. I like dogs.
Iris Berkeley: Alright. Anything you want to share with the KGNUniverse?
Chair Bomb: Hi mom. Hi, also mom. Rock on and enjoy Soneffs. Alright. And shout out to Jack Armstrong for making this possible. Yeah. And the KGNU team. Thank you Iris.
Iris Berkeley: We got Jack as a silent partner here taking pictures. Jack Armstrong, erstwhile of our news organization. And for me, Jack, I’m putting you on mic. Hop on red. Tell us about your role in all this. In all this cause you’re an advocate for scenesters.
Jack Armstrong: I was reluctant at first. Yeah, they love me now. I interviewed them once for something that I did for Radio 1190. Oh twice. None of it actually made it on Radio 1190. And ever since I’ve just really believed in it I think, what Cody said, mosh pits are awesome. I love and listen to a whole lot of music.
Iris Berkeley: We’ve sort of watched your DIY transformation.
Jack Armstrong: You, you watched me go through three months of totally into punk space. And I loved it so much that I thought these guys, what they’re doing for as long as it lasts needs to have a bigger burning light.
Iris Berkeley: One more question. What’s the best way to find out about these shows? Is this getting on social media? Is there like a … that feels a little bit not punk. Like how?
Chair Bomb: I literally have a flip phone, right? Zane manages all of our Instagram. If you want to find out about the shows, go to punkstandard.com. We post all of the shows. And we have an email list. And also we put flyers literally everywhere and carry leaflets on us at all times. You’ve probably seen us around. If you’ve been in downtown Boulder, you’ve seen us harass you. Spreading the gospel. We have an Instagram, @punk.standard. We post all our shows there and Chair Bomb, of course, also on Instagram.
Jack Armstrong: And if we walk up to you and we ask, would you like to go to a punk show? Always say yes. Your life might change. And then bring other people over to you and tell them, “I’m going to this punk show. Come to this punk show.” We want to be like a virus.
Iris Berkeley: But like the good kind of virus. All right. We got Soneffs in there. They look like they’re warming up. I’m going to throw one more song on here and then we’ll introduce these guys. We got Cody Townsend and Zane Manning from Chair Bomb and the forefront of the Punk Standard Collective. Do we call you a collective? Is that the right word?
Chair Bomb: I don’t really know. Keep saying collective If we’re trying to brand it, we’re saying.
Iris Berkeley: Alright then. It’s been a pleasure.
