Interview with Canthc about his blog “Dressed To Punx”

Let me tell you a story. Andrea, aka Canthc, is a collector of punk rock merchandising and one day he decided to write all of his adventures at punk rock concerts on his blog titled “Dressed To Punk” (http://dressedtopunk.tumblr.com/). He also plays in the bands “Onoda” and “Ricordi?”. Both bands were interviewed by us. Let’s find out more about Canthc and his blog Dressed To Punx!

R: Radio Punk
C: Canthc

-R: By now you should be an expert in interviews, so you know the drill…tell us your story and talk about your blog…

-C: Hi! First of all I want to thank you guys for the interview and for your interest in my project. I’m Andrea, even though everybody knows me as Canth, and I’m a punk rocker. I’m here today to talk about my blog. Dressed To Punx is a trip about my past experiences that started three years ago. I spent most of my life traveling around the world to attend concerts and what I got is a lot of memories and a lot of merchandising. So I decided to put together these two things and talk about each and every piece of merchandising, how I got it and who I was with. I wanted to write down my experiences and so I did it publicly on my blog.

-R: Why do you do it and for who? We’re sure that for some it was a wake up call. Was this part of your objective?

-C: Like I said before, I did it mostly for myself. I wanted to look back to understand what happened during my life. Having the blog and someone following it was something that had me move forward and it’s always nice to have a feedback from the readers. On the other hand, by going public, I had to cut some parts of the stories which couldn’t be told publicly, otherwise there would be the right to reestablish the death penalty for some of my experiences.
About the wake up call, I’m aware of it. Sometimes, at concerts, people stop me to tell me that they have discovered some new band thanks to my blog and I appreciate it.

-R: Favorite song from your collection? Weirdest? A song that you bought and then you asked yourself “why the hell did I buy it, it’s really bad!”?

-C: I have a lot of stuff in my collection, but in the end I find myself wearing the same five Black Metal t-shirts. I don’t wear the ones I care for the most, because I’m afraid to ruin them. I wouldn’t know what my favorite song is, it’s like to ask a mother which child she prefers. All I can say is that I’m very attached to the t-shirt that represents my first post: a Satanic Surfers t-shirt with a skater on it.
About the ugly merchandising, the people that follow me know that there is a spin-off called “Questa l’ho presa mentre ero completamente ubriaco” (I bought this one while I was completely drunk). When I’m drunk I tend to do stupid things and I wake up in the morning asking myself “why did I buy this shit?!?”. Obviously buying an ugly t-shirt is the least of the stupid things I do while in that state.

-R: You also play in two bands. This means that, not only you attend concerts, you also organize them and perform. Do prefer attending or performing?

-C: When I’m at a concert I’m always the same. Just because I play or organize, it doesn’t mean that I hide in the backstage. It’s not my thing to sit on a dirty couch where somebody probably fucked, I prefer to get up and look at the world around me. In punk rock, there shouldn’t be a difference between organizers, performers and the audience; in my opinion, in front of punk rock music, we’re all the same, even though I’m one of the few to think this way.

-R: How much merchandising do you have? Have you ever lost something? Where do you keep your collection? Are you able to post each and every element of your collection?

-C: I’ll never be able to finish my job, I won’t live enough to post something about every element in my collection, it’s always expanding. At the moment, I’m telling some stories and I’m not in a hurry. I write when I feel like writing and I’ll do it as long as I like to do it and only if it’s worth it. I don’t really know how much stuff I have and where I keep it is none of your business, it’s a secret. It’s like a temple and I never showed to anybody.

-R: You past your thirties, do you still enjoy what you do? How is it like to be punk with a 3 in front? For how long will you continue doing this?

-C: There’s a great song by The Lawrence Arms called “Seventeener” that talks about not being able to die young. I see myself a lot in this song. I never thought that I would make it this far. I used to think that, living in a certain way, something would happen to me or the world would just get fucked up. At last, I’m 32 and I’m pretty much in good shape and the world moves on. What can I tell you, I’ll cite Kerouac in “Big Sur”: “A long way to go”.
About me enjoying what I do. I’ll do it as long as I like it and for now I like it very much. I don’t mind having a 3 in front of my age, I don’t feel the weight of the years, sometimes the weight of my memories, but this is my problem.

-R: You have a catchy writing style, you wrote for magazines, webzine and you had various blogs, did you ever think about experimenting something new?

-C: In the past years I wrote stories under different pseudonyms and at the moment I’m writing stuff that’s gonna be published under my name. It’s a way to facts that happened to me and that I couldn’t talk about in my blog. I don’t know when and how they’re gonna be published, but there’s a good chance that they’re gonna be auto-produced, due to the strong and politically incorrect contents.
I was recently invited to participate at a writing project, an insane one that’s gonna probably send to prison.

-R: What else do you do when you’re not traveling, collecting merchandising and writing?

-C: Nothing exceptional. I spend most of my time off studying for university and working. Apart from this, I enjoy riding my bike, swimming, reading, listening to music, following Juventus FC and spending time with the people that make me feel good, drink wine and think.

-R: Speaking of music, what did you recently listen to? Any suggestion?

-C: For suggestions read my blog. If you want, I can look at the history to see the last five albums that I listened to:

The Holy Mess “Comfort in the Discord”
Tom Waits “Closing Time”
Harry Fotter “Nient’altro che un Punk Rocker”
The Gaslight Anthem “Get Hurt”
Giorgio Canali & Rossofuoco “Nostra Signora della Dinamite”

Weird! There’s no Black Metal. I usually listen to that genre. This means that I’m pretty carefree these days.

-R: How’s your relationship with your readers? I read that sometimes people contact you privately to talk to you.

-C: It happens. I always use “you” to create a certain relationship with my readers. When they meet me, it’s like if they’ve known me for years, but I don’t really know the people I have in front and this feels alienating.
It often happens that, after a post on my blog, someone writes to me in private to tell me his/her opinion and I like this confrontation and the fact that there’s a dialogue.

-R: If we gave a white piece of paper, how would you “build” your ideal t-shirt o sweatshirt?

-C: Go to the facebook page of dressed to punx ( www.facebook.com/dressedtopunx ) and look at the latest graphics I created. It was like having a white piece of paper. It was a ripoff of the cover of “Transilvanian Hunger” by Darkthrone to which I added my logo and the writing “Punk blog in nome di Satana” (Punk blog in the name of Satan). I like dark graphics and, before you ask me, I’m not a satanist, but I’m fascinated by the occult.

-R: Thank you Canth, it was a pleasure. Here’s the usual free space to say whatever you like. See you next time and good luck.

-C: First of all, thank you guys for the good job you’re doing and for your interest in my project. It was my pleasure. I dedicate my free space to the people that would like to start a project like mine but don’t have the courage to do it. It’s important to give oneself a challenge. One day you’ll understand if it was really worth it.
To contact me, do it through the various social networks, I always answered and I always will. You can also find me at punk rock concerts, my habitat. Come to find me and say “hi”, I’m the one with the writing “Lovercraft” tattooed on the arm.

PEACE.