Punkfest founder had heart of gold
/WARREN HASTINGS (1937-2009) By Barry Ellsworth (Quinte Media)
Warren William (Spider) Hastings could be "kind of intimidating," admits his niece, Robin E. Jenkins. He was, after all, a six-foot-five punk rocker, with multi-coloured hair, body piercings and tattoos and he wore T-shirts with messages that would make a sailor blush.
But, as many testified last Saturday (Feb. 21, 2009), beneath that unorthodox exterior beat a heart of gold.
About 250 people filled the John R. Bush Funeral Home in Belleville to say goodbye to the man everyone simply called Spider. The Marmora-area resident died Feb. 15 at his beloved Spiderland Acres from health related issues. He was 72.
"I spent three-and-a-half years with him," Jay Young, 26, said just prior to the 1 p.m.service. "He took me in when I was a kid. He turned my life around."
On the streets, not yet 16 and battling an addiction to alcohol, Young met Spider who took him to Spiderland. "He took me in to visit his place and told me, you know, just to stay for a week," Young said. "He ended up putting me back in high school."
Spider also got Young into a career. The former cook at CFB Trenton taught Young culinary skills. Today, Young lives in Lanark, near Ottawa, where he is a chef and he plans to open his own restaurant.
Many of the young people Spider met were visitors to his annual Punkfest, held each year on the weekend closest to his birthday, July 13.At first in the late 1990s, Marmora residents liked Punkfest because it attracted money, said Jenkins, a Baltimore, Md. resident who had returned for the funeral of her uncle. Spider had no children.
"I used to come up for Punkfest a lot," the former Marine said. "At first, they (Marmora residents) enjoyed having people there because they were bringing in revenue." But sometimes there would be more people arriving to party than there were residents and people began to get nervous.
One year, an injunction was procured and Punkfest had to move to Marlbank. But as residents battled Punkfest and succeeded in limiting parties to 50 guests, or else a permit was required, Robin said, some of the stuffing went out of Punkfest. But it never died. Young said, whether there were five or 500 at Spiderland. "You couldn't stop Punkfest,"he said. "It was his birthday."
Robin's siblings, Sherman A. Jenkins Jr. of Bowling Green, Ohio, Rochelle E. Jenkins and Warren William Jenkins, both of Lockport, N.Y, were also at the funeral.
"My uncle would take them (young people) in, give them a place to stay until they could kind of get their lives back in order," Sherman said. "He would never turn anyone down. He saved a lot of good lives."
A one-time crony of the infamous English punk band The Sex Pistols, Spider was also a Woolworth's store manager. He got the nickname Spider when he was a stockboy in an A & P store in Toronto. A lady dropped a bunch of groceries because she thought a spider was on her, and he began to pick up the foodstuffs.' Someone said he looked like a spider and the name stuck
Community Press Feb 26, 2009 Page 16 & 17
Here are the lyrics
Way out yonder on the Shannick road, out in the township of Marmora, was a little farm called Spiderland the favorite venue for a punk rock band.
The punk rockers came from all around, they turned that forest to a campground, they built an amphitheatre in the back 40, the rest of it's all history.
It was that Spiderland, Punkfest, heaviest show you could find, that Spiderland, Punkfest, a time for the beer and the wine, a time to get drunk and get high
Old Spider grew, became an old man, retired to the swamps of Marmora, called all his friends who were in punk bands said my 'parties are the loudest in the universe, man'
The French punx came with lots of drugs we had to fight some locals we just passed joints to the friendly ones come on over and lets share some.
At Dave's chip truck and the tattoo shop you could hear the bands rock a 3 day party underneath the stars, away from the cities and away from the cars
Anarchy alley was the back woods trail, we tripped, stumbled and we fell, take me back to the day when the living was right, come on over big party tonight;
The township tried to shut it down ; the OPP patrolled. They said at a meeting in the nearest town for too many years this has gone down.
