The abrasive buzzing of a generator idling at 8 p.m., in the middle of two baseball fields at Boysen Park, in an otherwise sleepy stretch of Santa Ana’s suburbs, slowly attracts a couple hundred teenage punks out to Orange County. Like moths to a light.
1503 Productions promoted the show on Instagram but instead of listing an address, the promoter who goes by “Alto” listed “Ask a Punk” for the location, the current scene’s thin veil of gatekeeping. It’s intended to protect this underground subculture that has existed since the late '70s against posers and narcs. The only way to know about these shows is by being active in the scene and if the promoter or band doesn’t like your vibe or DM, they’ll never tell you the address or where the show is.
The majority of the kids showed up to see Spunk, one of the most exciting and talented bands to come out of the San Gabriel Valley since the days of Circle One in the ‘80s.
“We’re Spunk! We got merch. Everyone should kill themselves!” shouts the frenetic frontman, Bruno Sid Benavides, as he lights the fuse of their brief set by launching into their first song, “Bomb City.”
There is no stage and a mosh pit immediately erupts on the grass, within inches of the band, after their drummer kicks the song off and Bruno shouts his lungs out, “Gooooooo!”
The portable PA that Bruno carries over his shoulder, like a boombox, isn’t working and the severely under-powered generator can barely keep up with the guitar and bass amps.
Nonetheless the band continues on with the song and no one cares about the sound. They came to sing along and Spunk’s hit, “Operate!” is up next. The circle pit grows larger and more than half the people are pushing each other and pogoing.
Spunk’s punk style is on the thrashier side, heavy on distortion but still short of metal. Any old punk head who shows up to their shows will probably hear a little bit of The Accüsed’s “Martha Splatterhead” in their sound and vocal style. But Bruno’s way too young to have heard of them.
In short, their sound sounds a lot older and straightforward, in the vein of '80s-style punk, but refreshed for a doomed generation.
A helicopter hovers overhead and the police show up. But for the first time in two decades of going to these kinds of DIY shows, the police leave the kids be and then leave themselves.
Alto, who is 19 years old, comes back to the crowd and tells everyone, “OK they left. I just went over to reason with them and asked them, ‘What are we doing wrong? We aren’t stealing electricity. No one is tagging. And they gave me a warning and just left.'"
The show goes on and everyone sings their heart out to what Alto calls their song “for all the lovers out there! So grab your loved one and come on down to the dance floor!” The song is titled “Wish You Were Dead.” It’s slower and more melodic, with plenty of sing-along.
“Ohh, you made me blue, you broke my heart, right in two. Ohh, with him instead, well I wish you were DEAD.” A couple of fans appear to cry while singing the last part.
“Me and the drummer, Brian, started the band in eighth grade during the pandemic,” says Bruno, catching breath after their electric 25-minute set. “We played our first show when we were freshmen in high school and we just never stopped.”
Jayven Cardenas, 18-years-old, plays bass and Jacob Arandas, 20 years old, plays guitar.
Bruno started a punk band because he wasn’t down with the alternative reality of growing up in a barrio as a young person. “Well, it was better than joining a gang,” he says, half-jokingly.
He says he got into punk after sneaking into a few of the shows his brother, Gino, threw at the 5 Star Bar in Downtown. The band’s name was inspired by the English slang term for semen, says Bruno.
“We just thought it was funny!” he tells L.A. TACO.
In just five years, they had already played Rebellion in London, largely considered a mark of success for any punk band. They were so well received there, they were asked to play the festival again in 2026.
They also stand out because, unlike many other punk bands that come and go in L.A.’s underground punk scene, they have amassed an amusing collection of well-produced music videos for their hit songs, including one where they pretend to be The Beatles but with much faster music.
Even though they aren’t quite headliners just yet, their pits are among the biggest at any show they play and many fans who are mostly under 21, are known to leave right after their set.
Bruno and his band hope to one day make music full time. For now, Bruno works a graveyard shift at Del Taco on weeknights, which allows him the flexibility to play his heart out on weekends.
Their future plans, for these teenagers and 20-year-old say, is “world domination,” Bruno says.
Keep up with Spunk’s shows on their Instagram account.
