War On Women have announced an east coast US tour with Cancer Bats and Spaced! They kick off the tour on 11/28, performing in Boston at The Middle East Upstairs. Tickets go on sale on tomorrow, 10/7.
Five New 25+ Years of Bridge Nine All-Silver Anniversary Editions Available Now!
Five of Bridge Nine’s heavy hitters have received the all-silver 25+ Year Anniversary Treatment
When Bridge Nine reached our silver 25th anniversary, we began releasing special “All Silver” editions of some of our heaviest hitters. Silver vinyl, silver labels, and album artwork converted to black and white and printed on silver board to commemorate the event. Each pressing is limited to 1,000 copies and only available for a limited time. Grab one while you can HERE!
The Silver Edition lineup so far:
1. American Nightmare "Year One" - SOLD OUT
2. Ceremony "Rohnert Park" - SOLD OUT
3. H2O "Self-Titled" LP (in partnership with Blackout!) - Available Now!
4. Terror “Lowest Of The Low” LP – Available Now!
5. Death Before Dishonor “Count Me In” LP – Available Now!
6. H2O “Nothing To Prove” LP – Available Now!
7. Have Heart “Songs To Scream At The Sun” LP - Available Now!
8. Have Heart “10.17.09” LP – Available Now!
Bridge Nine Records NOW OPEN In Beverly, Massachusetts
The Bridge Nine record store features a hand-painted American Nightmare banner circa 2000.
Bridge Nine is proud to announce that we have opened our new flagship retail store at 282 Rantoul Street in Beverly, Massachusetts. Just 35 minutes north of Boston, this former 1930s-era car dealership-turned-glass-company has been painstakingly renovated over the past 18 months to turn an old drab showroom into a beautiful modern boutique to showcase our label and the music that we love. In addition to Bridge Nine, we are sharing this space with Sully’s Brand, the Boston-centric apparel brand founded in 2000 by B9 founder Chris Wrenn. To raise the money needed to push his bands, Chris ventured to the Fenway neighborhood with his roommates and members of the bands that he was promoting to sell the stickers and t-shirts that helped fuel the biggest rivalry in baseball between Boston and New York. Every dollar earned was invested in recording new albums, pressing vinyl records, buying plane tickets and vans for bands to tour the world in, helping put the Boston music scene and the Bridge Nine label on the map. Their effort was so successful that it became a second business, and Sully's was born.
Come visit both brands and say hello!
Our hours:
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday 11am-5pm
Thursday 11am-6pm
Friday 11am-6pm
Saturday 11am-6pm
Sunday 11am-5pm
Chris Wrenn outside of the new Bridge Nine & Sully’s Brand storefront.
Bridge Nine Records (Beverly, MA) Grand Opening on 9/10/22
Almost a year and a half after we started gutting an old car dealership-turned-glass-company to be the new home of Bridge Nine Records and Sully’s Brand, we are pleased to finally announce that we will be opening to the public on Saturday, September 10th at 11 am! Please join us in celebrating what has been the wildest project we’ve ever taken on! We’ll have new pressings of vinyl and apparel that will be available for the first time. Save the date and if you’re on Facebook, let us know you’re coming via our event page HERE!
Can't make it to Grand Opening day?
We'll be open Sunday, September 11th as well, 11 am - 6 pm. Following our grand opening, our initial hours will switch to the below schedule. You can always check our Instagram or Twitter as well for any schedule changes or announcements.
Monday - CLOSED*
Tuesday - CLOSED*
Wednesday - 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
Thursday - 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Friday - 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Saturday - 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sunday - 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
*If you are in town on a Monday or Tuesday and want to stop by the shop, email us at info@bridge9.com or stop by! We are here daily working at the warehouse and would be happy to come out and help you in the store.
Getting Here
Our new store is 35 minutes north of Boston. If you're driving, there is plenty of street parking available along Rantoul Street and the first 20 minutes are FREE to park. You can also take the Newburyport commuter rail from North Station to Beverly. Beverly is the 5th stop out from North Station, however, they're doing work throughout September on the rails so check the MBTA website for any travel updates.
What is Sully's Brand?
For those who don't know, Chris Wrenn originally started Sully’s Brand as a way to fund the release of records on Bridge Nine. This led to a decades-old tradition of hardcore/punk musicians selling ‘Yankees Suck’ & “Believe In Boston” merch after Sox games. Now in its 22nd year, Sully’s Brand has become a beloved New England institution and its trademarked slogan Believe In Boston has brought New Englanders together on more than one occasion. Sully's Brand helps locals represent their favorite Boston teams, with our line of supersoft vintage-style tees, hoodies, banners, glassware, gifts and more!
What else is in the area?
The Beverly/Salem area makes for an awesome daytrip. First off, there are 4 other record stores within a couple miles of us...
RECORD STORES
Soundtracks - Shop owner DJ 7L combines his interests of Music and Film with a handpicked selection of records both new & used at his new shop, Soundtracks, which is located just up the street from us at 265 Cabot St in Beverly.
Residency Records - Check out the new Residency Records location at 7 1/2 Church St in Salem. Owner Breaux Silcio's new space is about 5 times larger than his original space near the Satanic Temple, where the store operated for the last 4 years, and is now one of the largest independent record stores in Massachusetts.
The Record Exchange - The Record Exchange is one of the oldest used brick & mortar record stores in the United States, founded in Salem in 1974. This is a great place to find some rare gems.
Beverly Coin & Estate Shop - Don't let the name fool you - this is where you go to find rare, vintage vinyl and I'm probably breaking an unwritten rule of the North Shore by sharing this hidden gem of a shop. Beverly Coin is located just up the street from us at 38 Rantoul St and you could easily spend hours finding gold here. Happy hunting!
COFFEE
Crave - 199 Rantoul Street, Beverly
Kid Dream - 5 W Dane St, Beverly
Atomic Coffee - 268 Cabot St, Beverly
Odd Meter - 60 Washington St, Salem!
EATS
The Castle* - 240 Rantoul St, Beverly
Taku Sushi Bar - 289 Rantoul St, Beverly
Anmol* - 258 Rantoul St, Beverly
Soall Vietnamese Bistro* - 211 Rantoul St, Beverly
FRANK Restaurant + Market - 112 Rantoul St, Beverly
Delphine's French Kitchen* - 261 Cabot St, Beverly
A&B Burger - 206 Cabot St, Beverly
Jodi Bee Bakes* - 282 Derby St, Salem
All Souls Cafe* - 282 Derby St, Salem
Spitfire Tacos* - 105 Lafayette St, Salem
Flying Saucer Pizza* - 118 Washington St, Salem
Melt Ice Cream* - 60 Washington St, Salem
*Vegan friendly
SHOPS
Soy Much Brighter - 285 Rantoul St (across from us!)
Worthy Girl - 276 Cabot St, Beverly (across from Soundtracks)
Simply Placed - 281 Cabot St, Beverly
Copper Dog Books - 272 Cabot St, Beverly
WKND - 269 Cabot St, Beverly
Paper Asylum - 260 Cabot St, Beverly
Unpacked Living - 156 Cabot St, Beverly
Die With Your Boots On - 9 Church St (next to Residency Records), Salem
Oak + Moss - 143 Washington St, Salem
HausWitch - 144 Washington St, Salem
Witch City Wicks - 302A Essex St, Salem
Black Veil Shoppe - 137 Boston Street, Salem
MORE...
Garden City Tattoo - 330 Rantoul St, Beverly
Old Planters Brewing Co. - 232 Rantoul St, Beverly
Channel Marker Brewing - 95 Rantoul St, Beverly
Gentile Brewing Company - 59 Park St, Beverly
Backbeat Brewing Company - 31 Park St, Beverly
Notch Brewing - 283R Derby St, Salem
Witch Dr - 109 Lafayette St, Salem
Seagrass Dispensary - 3 Dodge St, Salem
War On Women Kick Off UK Tour
War On Women kicks off their summer UK tour this evening - their first UK show since 2019. They’ll be supported throughout the next few weeks by deux furieuses. Be sure to check them out if they come through your town!
Redemption 87 "All Guns Poolside" LP (Silver Vinyl B9 Exclusive, ltd. to 100) ***UPDATE: Sold Out!***
Chris Wrenn in the still-being-built-out record store at Bridge Nine
***UPDATE: SOLD OUT*** Head to Blackout Records HERE to find another variant of this LP that is still available!
Bridge Nine is very proud to offer a special metallic silver vinyl edition of the Redemption 87 “All Guns Poolside” LP, from our friends at Blackout! Records. Grab one HERE, while you can!
Not familiar with Redemption 87? They were an East Bay hardcore-punk band that featured members of Unit Pride, Skankin’ Pickle and Token Entry and were influenced by NYHC bands like Youth of Today, Sick of it All, Warzone and Gorilla Biscuits.
This album originally came out in 1999, with the band breaking up shortly after. Guitarist Jade Puget continued on in AFI (he joined in 1998) and vocalist Eric Ozenne formed The Nerve Agents. Give them a listen!
Redemption 87 “All Guns Poolside” B9 exclusive - 100 copies on silver vinyl
'This Is Hardcore' Celebrates Another Successful Fest After 2-Year Pandemic Hiatus
Congratulations are in order for Joe Hardcore and the This Is Hardcore team on another successful festival. This Is Hardcore Fest takes place in Philadelphia each year and kicked off on Thursday, July 7th with a headlining set from H2O. The days that followed included sets by Section H8, End It, Hatebreed, Madball, Comeback Kid, Terror and culminated on Sunday evening with Thursday performing Full Collapse in its entirety (pictured above, photo by Wass Photography). We wish we could have been there, especially since it was the first fest since 2019, but we are all hands on deck working to finish the Bridge Nine space here in Beverly, MA. We hope to see everyone at This Is Hardcore Fest next year!
Striking Distance Announce Two Shows in July
Striking Distance have announced that they will play two shows this July! First up, they’ll be playing on Friday, July 22nd in Baltimore, MD as part of the record release show for End It, a fantastic hardcore band and one of my recent favorites. Then, they’ll be playing Saturday, July 23rd in Richmond Virginia with fellow heavy hitters BURN, Crown of Thornz, Naysayer and End It. These will be incredible shows so check them out if you can.
Chris Wrenn feat. on One Step Beyond Podcast's 100th Episode hosted by Aram Arslanian (Champion, Betrayed)
Aram Arslanian (Champion, Betrayed), in addition to serving as President & CEO of his leadership coaching company Cadence Leadership, also hosts an awesome podcast called One Step Beyond. The podcast is a weekly business and education series focusing on transformation through leadership. Aram hosts and interviews people who are creating change in business and in their community, many of whom are either directly related to the punk/hardcore community or a few degrees of separation away, like artist Linas Garsys, Jordan Cooper (Revelation Records), Kurt Ballou (Converge, God City Studios), Joe Nelson (Trust Records), Armand Majidi (Sick Of It All), Karl Hensel (Kings Road Merch) and Sunny Singh (Hate5Six) to name a few.
The One Step Beyond podcast celebrated its 100th episode on June 29, 2022, with a special episode called “Ask Aram”. This episode featured past podcast guests, including Bridge Nine label founder, Chris Wrenn, asking Aram all types of questions. Click above to check it out on YouTube or listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify. To listen to the original podcast episode with Chris, click here. And congratulations, Aram!
20 Years Ago Today...
The Boston Globe, cover of the Living Arts section, June 28th, 2002. Article by Steve Morse.
20 years ago today the Boston Globe wrote about a music collective called “Initech.” Located a block from Fenway Park in the basement below a Domino's PIzza and a Red Sox souvenir store, it was the mastermind of @ramathomasdavidmayo of @BigWheelRec, an opportunity for he and @aaronbturner (@hydrahead) & Mark Thompson (HH & Tortuga Recordings) to move their labels out of apartments and share resources in one office. I moved in as a Big Wheel employee and when @BridgeNine got too busy in 2001, started paying rent for my own corner for B9 and what would become @SullysBrand. After Rama moved to L.A, @xmattpikex & @mattgalle moved the Kenmore booking agency in. @BryanSheffield was also there working for Doghouse Records when he wasn't taking incredible photos & @JenMalone666's music PR company was upstairs. At the time, I was the least "experienced" person in the mix and had the most to gain by being surrounded by so many inspiring people. It was work, but in that environment you couldn't help but be motivated to grow and get better. Two decades later, everyone from this Class of 2002 seems to be thriving and continuing to inspire, here's to 20 more!
Photo from the shoot for The Boston Globe
This dilapidated door might not look like much, but it opened to an entire world.
Chris Wrenn in the shipping area of the old Initech office, circa 2002. Photo by Casey Davis.
Bridge Nine desk in the Initech office, circa 2002.
Starting to look like a record store in here...
The Bridge Nine side of our new store at 282 Rantoul Street in Beverly, Massachusetts is starting to look like a record store, in great part due to the master craftsmanship of carpenter Larry Kelley. Chris just added a 2nd coat of primer paint on all of the custom-built record bins, looking forward to seeing these all filled with records, soon! Details about our grand opening will be coming soon, too!
War On Women Summer 2022 European Tour Dates
War On Women is headed to Europe this summer, check out all of the tour dates HERE!
This Is Boston (Hardcore) Playlist for Trust Records
B9’s Chris Wrenn was tasked by our friends at Trust Records to curate a Spotify playlist of Boston Hardcore classics as part of the rollout of their announcement that Trust would be finally re-releasing SS Decontrol’s classic first two LP’s. Give it a listen HERE!
Al Barile (SSD, Gage) & Pat Flynn (Have Heart, Fiddlehead) Talk 40+ Years of Boston Hardcore at The B9HQ
Al Barile / Pat Flynn / Anthony Moreschi / Chris Wrenn
Bridge Nine was happy to host our friends Pat Flynn (Have Heart, Fiddlehead) and Al Barile (SSD, Gage) at our new HQ for a conversation that Trust Records organized, in support of their announcement of SSD finally re-issuing their first two albums via Trust. We had 40+ years of Boston hardcore in the room, and it was filmed by none other than Anthony “Wrench” Moreschi!
Pat Flynn (Have Heart, Fiddlehead) and Al Barile (SSD, Gage) at the B9HQ Warehouse
The Story Behind the Frank Turner ‘Beverly’ Record
Frank Turner and Chris Wrenn (with Frank’s limited “Beverly” 7 inch)
Frank Turner kicked off his ambitious 50 States in 50 Days Full U.S. tour on Monday, June 13th with a matinee in Portsmouth, NH and an evening show in Portland, ME. Chris was excited to see Frank and give him the limited edition green vinyl variant of Frank's "Beverly" 7-inch. This 7-inch features a recording Chris made via DV cam in 2009, when he played an impromptu intimate performance in the backyard of Matt Pike (Some Kind of Hate, 33 & West), who lived in Beverly, MA at the time. Many people don't know that, while he is primarily known for his folk-rock sound, Frank started out in a hardcore band called Million Dead and is still a huge hardcore/punk fan to this day. In fact, his favorite hardcore bands are Black Flag and Converge, who three members of which coincidentally joined us at Pike's house for this private show. Frank wrote of the evening in his tour blog:
"Some nights things come together in such a way as to make me pinch myself. My all-time, hands down favourite hardcore band ever is Converge. I have everything they’ve done, seen em a bunch of times (hell, I fell in love with a French girl whilst watching them at the Electric Ballroom a few years ago), and am generally utterly, hopelessly into them. So imagine my total, piss-stained shock when, in Matt’s garden, I find three members of Converge (Jake, Nate and Kurt) waiting for my impromptu show. This was serious fan-boy territory for me, but after pulling myself together, I found them to be really very nice. Evan was laughing his arse off at me constantly as I bit my lip and asked for a photo (mainly to send to Ben from Million Dead, so he’ll hate me, which totally worked). The show was improvised and entertaining – Matt’s two kids are big fans, so as well as hardcore heros, I had a bunch of two-year-olds dancing for me while I played Photosynthesis, their favourite song. Like I say, a surreal evening to say the least, and I went to bed feeling happy."
You can see a bit of the performance featured on Frank's tour vlog of that day, including Pike's kids (who are grown now!), and me behind them with my DV cam, by clicking here.
Left: Photo of Frank by Matt Pike in Matt’s backyard the night after the show. Right: Back of the Frank Turner ‘Beverly’ 7-inch record.
Fast forward 11 years to 2020 when Bridge Nine Records were notified that we were getting the boot from our HQ and we needed to figure out how to transition to a new space. As I packed up the Bridge Nine vault for the move and looked at old, archived recordings, I found this one and contacted Frank to see if we could press the songs on a 7" as part of our "Raid The Archive" 5-record set, and he graciously agreed. Making the record even more special, I commissioned a painting of Matt Pike's house from my dad, artist Roy Wrenn, for the record cover. It was serendipitous that the new home we found for Bridge Nine was right back in Beverly. As a huge Frank Turner fan myself, I am deeply grateful to Frank and Xtra Mile Recordings for allowing this record to become a reality.
Frank will be selling very limited amounts of the green vinyl variant of the "Beverly" 7-inch at each show throughout his tour. If you miss out, it's still available as one of the special records featured in the "Raid The Archive" mystery set (pro tip: there's a blue variant in HERE). Click here for all of Frank's tour dates and say hi if you're going to the Boston show!