Punk Rock Aerobics is one of those genius ideas—and part of its genius is that it seems inevitable that someone would crash the loud anti-social-ness of punk into the whole disgustingly perky fitness world.

But it wasn’t inevitable. It began around 2000. And it began here, launched at the Middle East nightclub in Cambridge by Hilken Mancini, then best known as the lead guitarist in the indie rock outfit Fuzzy, and Maura Jasper, a video artist who had designed album covers for SubPop and Atlantic Records.

“The whole point of the exercise class was that it was for the misfit,” Mancini, who actually got certified as an aerobics instructor when they began the thing, told me a few years back. “There’s no mirrors, dark lighting, you don’t have to bring anything. We give you bricks for weights. It’s for the anti-exercise kind of person, or someone who just would never do this. But they’ll do it because they get to jump up and down to the Ramones or Eater or something.”

They’re back at it at noon Saturday at Once in Somerville to benefit Girls Rock Campaign Boston.


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Categories: Music