By the sounds of it, Ottawa’s punk rock music scene is a lot like Victoria’s, which should bode well for Ottawa punk group Steve Adamyk Band’s upcoming show in town.
Around the same size as Victoria, Ottawa’s underground music community is tight-knit enough that Adamyk and his band have gotten the local support that has allowed them the chance to release three albums to date, and be able to tour regularly.
“The scene we’re part of in Ottawa is extremely unique,” says Adamyk. “I like to think of it as a product of the size of the city that we’re in, in conjunction with a lot of the right people here at the right time. And because Ottawa isn’t a huge market, like Montreal or Toronto, there’s not really a lot of room for people to compete with each other, so everybody’s friends here.”
Adamyk explains that Ottawa has a lot of bands per capita, even more than any other city in Canada, he guesses. And if all of this sounds a little familiar, look no further than Victoria’s own punk scene, a dedicated, tight-knit of group of bands and promoters that are always willing to help each other out.
“People have actually told me that about Victoria as well,” says Adamyk, “and it’s almost the same size as Ottawa, so it makes sense.”
Adamyk played in other Ottawa punk bands before settling on his namesake band (“No matter who quits the band, I can keep it going and no one will ever question who’s involved, because it’s always going to be my name,” he reasons), a trashy punk garage concoction rooted in ’70s punk, ’80s power pop, and the melodic punk rock that followed.
Adamyk says that Ottawa has always had a strong punk scene with dedicated, inventive people who aren’t afraid to troubleshoot the drawbacks of living in a smaller city.
“Even if there aren’t a lot of venues for bands to play at, people will come up with other solutions and help each other out,” he says. “But the main part of it is there’s a huge punk scene in Ottawa that can’t be ignored, and even the bands that don’t fall into that punk genre are also friends with us. Everyone plays shows together and helps each other out, and no one’s competing for opening slots or venues.”
Again, this is familiar territory for the Victoria punk scene, which has the same spirit of camaraderie. The only key difference between the two punk scenes, it appears, is the big white elephant in the ocean: you don’t need to take a ferry to get to Ottawa.
“Yeah, no kidding,” laughs Adamyk. “That ferry ride can be pretty rough.”
Steve Adamyk Band
Thursday, October 2
Logan’s Pub
steveadamykband.com