Working out Punk Rock Aerobics goes national BY ROBIN VAUGHAN

It began as a joke . . . sort of. One of those ideas most people would think better of the next morning, as the hangover set in. But in February 2001, Hilken Mancini and Maura Jasper — a 30-year-old unemployed musician and a 35-year-old unemployed video artist — asked themselves, after a night of drunken pogoing to old punk songs in someone’s living room: why not invent "Punk Rock Aerobics," an exercise class for the disenfranchised? They had to do something after being laid off from their jobs. And a little exercise wouldn’t exactly kill them, they figured, as they puffed on butts and marveled at how strenuous a little skanking could be once you hit 30. They would choreograph moves based on their own spontaneous spazz-outs (and refined by actual exercise expertise, once they were certified aerobics instructors). The "Whack Jack." The "Lo-Fi." The "Iggy." The "Boob" — a chest-flex inspired by a Real Kids song. It was too funny not to work, and they were too stubborn to fail.

Three years later, Punk Rock Aerobics, LLC, is both a joyful cult phenomenon and a viable entrepreneurial enterprise, with expansion possibilities in every direction. For Jasper and Mancini’s own account of how it all began, read the "Who Are These Idiots?" section in the introduction of their new book, Punk Rock Aerobics: 75 Killer Moves, 50 Punk Classics, and 25 Reasons to Get Off Your Ass and Exercise (Da Capo Press). A DVD/CD set is scheduled to follow this summer or early fall; tracks already in the can include Mission of Burma’s classic punk cover, the Dills’ "Class War," Sahara Hot Nights doing the Undertones’ "Teenage Kicks," and Radio Four covering Burma’s "Academy Fight Song." Mike Watt, Sonic Youth, J Mascis, Mary Timony, the Rogers Sisters, and Apples in Stereo have all expressed interest in covering punk tunes for the record, once an indie-label deal currently in the works is finalized.

For the uninitiated, the genre-busting exercise manual/punk-rock primer is a perfect introduction to the practice and philosophy of Punk Rock Aerobics, and a thoughtful, engaging summary of the punk value system that spawned it. Their hip New York publisher (whose other recent releases include Michael Flocker’s The Metrosexual Guide to Style) didn’t miss a beat on the presentation: the PRA book looks like Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me. (Other graphic style cues provided by the authors included old issues of Conflict and other vintage fanzines, along with such ’70s texts as Our Bodies/Ourselves.) On the back cover, Mary Timony is pictured doing "Jumpin’ Jacked-Ups" in fishnet thigh-highs and Chuck Taylor low-tops; and that’s Burma’s Clint Conley in the corner, pumping bricks in dorky knee socks and terrycloth headband.

Inside, there’s a "Punk Rock 101" discography from the Adverts to XTC; detailed explanations of the class moves, along with thoughtful answers to well-anticipated questions like, "Why don’t I just jump up and down to any old song?" There’s a fitness method here to match the mayhem.

But for music fans and anyone with half a sense of humor and a clue, the book is a well-informed riot from cover to cover. And for any knee-jerk would-be punk defenders out there who don’t get it (like those quoted on the "hate mail" culled from the PRA Web site, where the lovely Hilken and Maura are called things like "poser" and "dumb fat whore"), the warm back-cover blurb by rock-crit eminence Greil Marcus should set the record straight. Also, the book is loaded with exercise demonstrations and Q&A contributions from such PRA fans as Thurston Moore, John Doe, Mike Watt, Britta Phillips from Luna, and Gang of Four drummer Hugo Burnham. If Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis, an early supporter who once came to a class and played "Freak Scene" on guitar, can have his picture taken doing "Face Down Butt Lifts," you’re not too cool for Punk Rock Aerobics.

For self-help addicts, the book’s worth reading for the inspirational DIY success story alone, about how "two dough balls who’d get winded carrying groceries" transformed themselves into the dynamos pictured on the front cover, kicking ass in ripped stockings and dangle earrings.

A few days after the book hits stores, I’m watching Hilken and Maura lead their regular Saturday afternoon PRA class at the Middle East Downstairs, same as ever, for seven bucks a head. Even from the vantage point of a person sitting on her ass on the stairs, the PRA workout looks simultaneously exhausting and exhilarating. Hilken and Maura shout out instructions and goofy banter; everybody gives each other good-natured crap throughout the class, which today draws about 14 people, including four men.

When they get to that climactic point in the class when the Revillos’ "Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight" comes on, and everybody runs around freestyling into each other, I get a vicarious adrenaline rush that tells me I should get over myself and take this class, finally, as I have wanted to since I first dropped in for a look three years ago. The birthday and Christmas-party demonstrations I saw at the Middle East Upstairs and at 608 were endearingly insane; the class, obviously, is far more seriously structured but still looks like the most liberating kind of fun. There’s no group workout like this at Healthworks, that’s for sure. (PRA’s signature snack is the Dunkin’ Munchkin.) The punk soundtrack has even the maintenance people doing spontaneous handclaps as they set their buckets. When they cool down (to the tune of Devo’s "Are We Not Men"), the air is full of jokey conversation across the mats, replete with four-letter dialogue, and no one’s telling anyone to shush so they can focus on their chakras or some phony spiritual crap.

Afterward, Maura and Hilken meet me upstairs to talk about their book, and how it fits into the PRA master business plan. "Business plan?" They exchange a raised-eyebrow glance across the table. Punk Rock Aerobics has proven to be a concept that can be planned only to a certain degree. Seizing opportunity as it presents itself has worked much better. From its inception, the concept was such a media-angle gimme that they were in the local press before they’d taught their first class. A rush of newspaper features followed; they were on all the local morning shows. The PRA profile kept growing as guest celebrities wandered into the picture, by invitation or happenstance — like the time Evan Dando (a houseguest of Hilken and her Count Me Outs/Fuzzy bandmate/boyfriend Winston Bramen) looked up from his whiskey-spiked coffee as the girls were headed out to do a spot for New England Cable News and said, "Hey, I wanna go with you!" The station lost a boombox when Dando got too physical with one of the PRA handweight-bricks, which Hilken says was regrettable. But the resulting footage was priceless.

Then in 2002, they decided to do classes in New York City for the summer, and things really started to happen. They made the papers, from the Village Voice to the New York Times. They taped spots for VH1 and MTV. A story in Newsweek was pivotal, bringing in calls from every kind of would-be business partner from infomercial producers to literary agents, including Judd Laghi of ICM, who had not only signed the Hipster Handbook, but came to Boston in a blizzard to woo them.

"That’s when we got excited about doing a book," says Hilken. Says Maura, "We started PRA with so few resources that it’s really been a take-it-as-it-comes thing. People are asking how come the book came first, before the DVD. Well, we actually didn’t plan that.

"But the book really gave us a chance to get the concept out to people in a comprehensive way. For a long time, everyone was like, ‘punk rock aerobics,’ what’s that?’ They would think we’re a couple of fitness professionals . . . "

"Bimbos," Hilken interjects, "who don’t know anything about music, who just wanted to capitalize on the whole interest in punk rock. Now when people say, ‘Well, what’s punk-rock about it?’, I think the book answers those questions and explains the real identity of what we’re doing."

The strictly DIY nature of the operation, certainly, has a lot to do with its punk integrity: they didn’t grab the first fistfuls of dollars dangled in their faces, and they did everything they could think of to promote themselves by whatever shoestring means necessary. Including running behind a duck tour boat full of their friends for an hour in the cold on First Night, flashing their "Never Mind the Buttocks" panties at the crowds, about half of whom got it. It’s all about taking chances and taking yourself seriously, without taking yourself too seriously.

"We have a lot of creative control," says Hilken. "We’ve been really careful about that from the beginning. We had a vision, and we believed so strongly in it that we kept each other going. If there are times when one of us is like, ‘I can’t take it, I’m tired, it’s too hard,’ one of us is always going to say, ‘Come on, you can do it.’ It makes a huge difference to have a partner. When we were going to tape the VH1 segment, one of us was like, ‘I can’t do this, I’m gonna throw up. . . .’ "

"Yeah. Me!" says Maura. "I couldn’t sleep."

"Then the next day, Maura’s like, ‘What? come on, what’s the big deal?’ And I’m going, ‘I’m nervous, I’m scared!’ Then we get to CBGB’s to shoot it, and I’m like, ‘Dude, whatever,’ and Maura’s like, ‘I’m gonna fucking throw up.’ "

The secret of PRA’s success is its punk-rock heart, after all. As they describe it, every new challenge was like starting a band before you knew how to play. In the course of the summer they spent writing their book, there were tears, panic attacks, and shouting matches to test their friendship. But they got through it all, and once it was over, it took them about three seconds to start thinking about doing more things they didn’t how to do yet.

"The deadline was 5:00, and it was 4:30," Hilken recalls.

". . . and we wanted to go get on a boat to the Cape at like, 5:30,"Maura adds.

". . . so we hit ‘send’ and got in the car," Hilken says, "And there we were sitting in the back seat going, I wanna do this next, I wanna do that, I wanna write a TV treatment!"

Punk Rock Aerobics classes happen every Saturday afternoon at 2 at the Middle East Downstairs, 472 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tickets are $7; call (617) 497-0576. Mancini and Jasper will sign their book on Thursday, February 19 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Bristol Community College, 777 Elsbree Street, Fall River, Massachusetts. Call (508) 730-1220.