UMFM PROFILE

The UMFM profile is a column that highlights various programming on the University of Manitoba’s campus and community radio station. If you are a host or would like to recommend a show for a profile, contact oxide@mts.net.

Punks In Parkas

Laura Blakley Staff

In a world where every radio station uses the same backbeat, where people think that vinyl is something you make a purse out of, and all over the land people are crying out for a hero, the sound of something fresh may come along with the faint rustle of a Gore-Tex sleeve.
“If I had to have a slogan, I’d say it would be ‘Satisfying mods for about a year now,” said DJ Penny Lane, who hosts the Tuesday-night UMFM show, Punks In Parkas.
Like some kind of musical archaeologist, Penny Lane, whose mild-mannered alter-ego is English literature grad Amanda Yusishen, has been sifting through the stacks of CDs and records that are at her fingertips to find the forgotten jewels of every genre, be it punk, ska, motown, noise rock, and all the classics we’ve grown up with but not grown out of. She sees hope for the future, in bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the Ravonettes and the fact that the Pyramid Cabaret has Mod Club performance nights on Thursdays.
When asked of the challenges facing Winnipeg musicians, Penny Lane’s feelings on our fair city seem bittersweet.
“Winnipeg is such a good starting point . . . . You can get yourself out there and get yourself heard, but you eventually have to leave. The scene here is strong, but it’s not that strong yet. The city just needs to grow,” she said.
When asked to choose, Lane said she’d take old over new, naïve versus not, and dark rather than light.
“The dark is where I live, [in] my dark clothes,” she said. Naiveté will serve well, as she cited the need to have “that curiosity about everything . . . and everything new is taken from the old.”
So she keeps up with what was in order to show you what is and find what will be. It’s fitting, coming from the one who saves us all from listening to the same old songs on Tuesday nights by playing the oldest songs for inspiration. Take heart, young hipsters, mods and punk rockers, for you have in DJ Penny Lane someone who will stand for you and play something that is right on beat.
Tune into Punks in Parkas every Tuesday night between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.