06/08/2026
Over the years, the Local has hosted a who’s who of punk rock royalty, and produced some of its own. Every era has its share of nights to remember, shows where those who were there remember it forever. That love goes both ways, as many of those bands go on to spread the word about the Local and keep the club packed with great out of town talent alongside the homegrown favorites.
Scott McCloud of Girls Against Boys, Soulside, New Wet Kojak, and Paramount Styles has fond memories of Flint Local 432 as a trusted stop on tour for Soulside in the late 1980s. In the late 1980s, finding safe, reputable places to play was not easy for punk bands.
“Back then, there was a lot of skinhead violence at shows, especially in the Midwest, for some reason. Detroit did not seem like a good place for us to play. I got Joel’s contact information from Ian [MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi],” he explains.
Soulside quickly discovered that the Local was a welcoming place for them. “At that time, the punk circuit was dotted with smaller cities like Kenosha, Wisconsin or Manhattan, Kansas. We didn’t know much about Flint before our first show, but we immediately recognized we’d found a place we liked playing. The Local drew a more youthful, super enthusiastic crowd. There was a focus on the fun of the music rather than punk skinhead posturing,” he says.
Soulside played the Local several times between 1987 and 1989. “We knew we could expect a good crowd each time, which always seemed like a homegrown thing. Flint seemed like the kind of place that could foster a local punk scene because, especially back then, having a safe, cool venue to play was essential to the whole music scene. I always knew when organizing a show with Joel was that his passion for the Local also meant that we were going to play somewhere where people would care, that it would be fair. After the first time, it was always a priority show for us. We weren’t going to miss the Local and Flint,” he says.