Breakdown

Emily Schweich on Adley Rutschman, Breakdown and Crisis of Your Creating

I first connected with Emily Schweich when she interviewed me in 2023 for her show NOT A PHASE on Gutsy Radio. I’ve since enjoyed tuning in to her show and checking out her other creative outlets, and was excited to turn things around and interview her for Serve ‘em a Sentence:

I loved the first two issues of your Substack, Crisis of Your Creating. How did you decide to start this as an additional platform to complement your other creative outlets, and how often are you planning to share new writing?

Thank you! In 2023, I started working on a few essays about art and more personal topics that I didn’t feel fit into Parkway, a zine I made in 2022 with my friend Joe. I decided to package five essays into a zine about finding companionship in art. I got stuck in the graphic design process, which is not my passion, but I still wanted to share the essays, so I thought I’d try Substack. I’m hoping to publish weekly or so, but we’ll see how sustainable that is.

You had talked about you and Joe potentially taking Parkway Zine online – does your Substack replace the zine, or did starting a digital outlet provide further impetus to transition the zine to a digital platform?

The Substack is not a replacement for Parkway; it’s solely my own project. We have laid some groundwork to turn Parkway into a blog, with the hope that we could be timelier and more spontaneous than we could with a zine. Still figuring out what the future looks like there.

How did you start doing your show Not a Phase on Gutsy Radio, and do you have any advice for someone starting their own show?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I joined a series of Zoom emo nights featuring female and nonbinary DJs, and I got to DJ the last installment. After that, my friend Alicia invited me to join an informal internet radio collective, and I started the first iteration of NOT A PHASE in February 2021. About six months later, the radio collective folded, and I took the show to another network called Gutsy Radio, where it has lived in its current form since.

When I first started the show, I told a former college radio DJ that I felt sad when nobody listened. He said, “You really have to do radio for yourself, not for anyone else.” I’ve heard a few different versions of that advice, and it’s not always what I want to hear, but it’s true. I always say I create to foster community, but I’ve realized that I rarely get the exact reaction I seek, so creating something I’m personally proud of is the best I can do.

What are some of the recent episodes that you are most proud of, and what can we expect from your upcoming broadcasts?

In January 2024, I spoke with Ned Russin of Glitterer and Title Fight about the new Glitterer album, Rationale. We had a conversation about what it means to be rational that I still think about often. I enjoyed speaking with members of Velocity Girl in November 2023. They had just reunited, and I enjoyed seeing how their group dynamic unfolded in an interview setting.

I’m also very proud of my annual Christmas shows, which are probably the most “me” thing I’ve ever put out into the world. I play all my favorite holiday music and read a bunch of bitter Wendy Cope poems. It’s a lot of fun. My old shows are archived on Mixcloud.

For future shows, I’m hoping to talk to music writer Miranda Reinert about her new zine, Portable Model, I’m hoping to interview a couple D.C. bands on the rise, and I’m planning a “30 Years since 1994” episode.

Since you have multiple outlets, how do you decide what to cover on each, and has there been a lot of overlap in topics? Has your radio experience made you more or less likely to want to do written interviews too, or keep the zine more reviews oriented?

Sometimes I struggle with this. I always prefer talk to text, so I think I gravitate toward radio as a medium for interviews and print/digital as a medium for essays. I like the ability to ask follow-up questions on the radio, interact in real time, interpret tone of voice, and go on fun tangents. For reviews, I appreciate the more deliberative writing process. There is some overlap among outlets, and I do consider the implications of having someone on a show and then reviewing their work somewhere else, but I think my work in those situations is all grounded in enthusiasm for “the scene,” so I try not to worry about it too much.

As a knowledgeable host, what is your process of researching and preparing for your show? Is the Substack more spontaneous?

When I’m talking to a musician, I usually like to listen deeply to their music and study the lyrics. With any type of artist, I like to listen to and read other interviews, but that’s a tough line sometimes because you don’t want to repeat what others have done. I also think there’s a lot to be said for admitting when you don’t know something. I think Jeremy Bolm sets a great example on The First Ever Podcast. He’s always honest when he isn’t familiar with a topic and open to learning more.

Throughout the show, I like to play not only the artist’s music but also music that played a big role in their musical journey. Some people, like you, take a really hands-on approach to helping craft the playlist; others are more hands-off. I find a lot of joy in using music to tell people’s story.

The Substack might look spontaneous, but most of what I’ve posted so far has been sitting in my Google Drive for months and going through many editing rounds. I am hoping to share timelier work later, but I also really enjoy the editing process.

When you mentioned finding some hardcore bands via Lost Indignation, I was like if one person got into Breakdown and Side by Side from my novel, my work is done! What made you want to check out certain bands from the book, and have you discovered other bands from books in a similar way?

You mentioned that Indignation sounded a lot like Breakdown, so I wanted to have a soundtrack in my head so I could imagine what an Indignation practice or show sounded like. I took really detailed notes while reading, including a page for every character and a list of every band mentioned; I think I got into Breakdown the most. I can’t say I’ve ever gotten into a band because of fiction before. We need more books like yours!

What books have you recently read and enjoyed – and what’s on your to-read list?

I loved the memoir Holler Rat by performance artist Anya Liftig, about reckoning with her family history in rural Appalachia. It’s the first memoir that felt like a page-turner to me. I recently wrote about Worry by Alexandra Tanner, a novel about two codependent sisters navigating their relationship and the Internet in 2019 Brooklyn. The author crafted a compelling relationship and really captured a specific time in the Internet’s recent past. I also recently read I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both by Mariah Stovall. Emo and punk play a big part in this book, and I hope to share a review soon. I look forward to reading Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest book, There’s Always this Year, and the new Rachel Cusk book, Parade.

How many library cards do you have, and in what systems? And what is your favorite library?

I have three library cards from two Maryland counties and Washington, D.C. I love the MLK Jr. Library in downtown D.C. Designed by Mies van der Rohe, it has an awesome rooftop where they host concerts in summer and a nice cafe operated with D.C. Central Kitchen that provides job training for people facing barriers to employment.

The library also has great exhibits. In summer 2023, I saw an exhibit on doo-wop music in D.C., as well as Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus, which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The library has a permanent exhibit about D.C. music with reproduced zine samples, as well as a robust digital zine archive. The D.C. system really feels like a library for and of the people. The Mount Pleasant Library Friends sell t-shirts that say, “What’s more punk than the public library?”

I also have to shout out the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library at the University of Maryland. It reminds me a lot architecturally of the library I went to growing up, and I liked visiting when I was a homesick student. They have a lot of really cool punk collections that I’ve enjoyed perusing.

I don’t even want to talk about how so many of my favorite people in hardcore are fans of AL East rival teams … but what is the most significant sports moment that occurred while you were at a show?

This is kind of a stretch, but on a Wednesday night in September 2023, when the Orioles were a few games away from clinching the AL East title, I was down the road at Ottobar to see Scowl, Militarie Gun, and MSPaint while the O’s played the Nationals. I was having a weird night for other reasons and just kept thinking, “I wish I were watching baseball right now.”

For some reason, I thought the O’s would lose Thursday’s game to the Red Sox and clinch on Friday. It was right after Brooks Robinson died, and they were doing a special tribute to Jim Palmer, so I thought it would be an extra special night at the Yard. I had plans to see Slowdive that weekend with a friend who bailed, so I sold the tickets and used the money to buy tickets to Friday’s game.

But I was too late. On Thursday night, they doused each other with champagne, and Ryan Mountcastle and Kevin Brown sang “I Miss You” by blink-182 in the locker room. On Friday, all the stars were too hungover to play. That infamous picture of Adley Rutschman looking queasy in the dugout is from that night. It was raining. Someone ran onto the field. We lost. Strange vibes! We’re going to do it all this year, though, and I’m going to be there for it.

In the first issue of your newsletter, you talked about finding a friend in art and the experience of returning to visit favorite paintings after the worst of the pandemic. How was your experience returning to live shows similar or different from returning to see visual art in person?

It was similarly joyful, and I didn’t realize until I returned how much I had missed live music. My first show back was a benefit at and for a D.C. DIY venue called Rhizome. It’s in an old house that was slated for demolition to build condos, and they were operating in “wait-and-see” mode for months. I’m happy they just bought a new, permanent home. Glitterer and a local band called Prude played, and it rocked. I have seen a lot more live music in the past two years than I did before the pandemic, because I know now that all things are passing and we should appreciate them while we can.

Any shows coming up that you are particularly excited about?

This summer, I’m going to a gig at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, which will be a fun taste of the Bruce Springsteen lifestyle, and hopefully I’ll see Fiddlehead again.

Thanks again for doing this! Anything else you want to shout out or discuss?

Thank you for having me. I’d like to shout out Girls Rock DC, Positive Force DC, Shining Life Press, Joint Custody Records, Songbyrd Music House, and Chris Richards—some of the pillars of our scene.

Colton Cowser, if you ever want to come on my radio show, I’m free on Monday night and would like to talk with you. Please respond to this and then come on my radio show on Monday night when I am free. (Kevin Brown, you too. I saw your 2023 year-end list.)

Chris Skowronski on Rockin’ Rex, the Knicks’ Playoff Readiness, and the Yonkers Riverfront Library

You may know Chris Skowronski from Killing Time, Uppercut, his many other musical projects, and his enduring love of the Knicks. He also played a crucial role in shaping Lost Indignation, both through an early background interview and later as its editor. We talked about the Knicks’ playoff chances, the different types of editing, and Killing Time shows on their home turf in the 914.

So Killing Time is playing in Ardsley on April 22! What is the best Westchester show that you’ve played (so far), and your favorite Westchester show you’ve attended? (Sidenote: everyone please take my Westchester shows survey at iquestionnotmedia.com/poll)

Believe it or not, I haven’t played many shows in Westchester in the 30 or so years I’ve been playing in bands, and I think all of them may have been in Yonkers. For the best, I’m going to go with a show at Rockin’ Rex around ’91 or ’92. I was playing in a band called Mind’s Eye, which was a post-hardcore project that was basically me and the other guys from Uppercut, plus Carl. We were opening for Killing Time, so Carl was doing double-duty that day. (This was before I joined Killing Time—I think it was when they had this dude Alex playing bass). Anyway, Anthony has a notoriously bum shoulder which would dislocate really easily if someone bumped him; it had happened at shows before. And this show was on the floor of a tiny record store, so of course it was packed. As soon as KT started, everybody went nuts and piled on Anthony, immediately dislocating his shoulder. This was literally, like, 20 seconds into the set. So, he bailed to go to the hospital, and I actually sang the rest of the Killing Time set. That was fun.

Favorite show I saw in Westchester but didn’t play? I’d probably have to go with something at Streets in New Rochelle. I saw Nuclear Assault there around ’88 or so. I was really into them at the time, and I think Maximum Penalty might have opened? A lot of those shows in the late ‘80s at Streets were mixed thrash/hardcore shows. It was kind of the beginning of the whole crossover era. It always led to a slightly dangerous vibe with all the heshers and skinheads and hardcore kids all mixed together. Over time, that became much more of a normal thing, but back then, there was always a certain amount of consternation about the potential for long hair-short hair violence! Seems very quaint now.

What was it like learning all the Breakdown songs for the Rich McLoughlin memorial show and playing a hybrid Breakdown – Killing Time set without Rich?

When we first decided to do the memorial show, we had some discussions about whether we would find someone to fill in for Rich on second guitar in KT. But we pretty quickly decided that for the show—and moving forward in general—we wouldn’t replace him and would just play with one guitar, as Raw Deal/KT had originally been a one-guitar band before Rich moved from bass to second guitar anyway. On the Breakdown side, there was some talk at first about inviting different friends who play bass to come up and play on various songs. It was a cool idea, but logistically, it just seemed like a pain in terms of getting various people in to rehearse, etc. So they just asked if I would do it. We figured we would just book longer practice sessions and start rehearsing both bands’ sets during the same practices. Of course, I was happy to do it, but I did have to quickly learn the whole Breakdown set, which was a little tougher than you would think. Rich had a lot of unique bass parts on those songs, and I wanted to make sure I played them exactly as he did. I’ve played in Killing Time for the last 17 years and over that time have put my own stamp on many of the bass parts from the old KT stuff. But the bass is kind of the most prominent instrument in a lot of those Breakdown songs—lots of solo bass breaks and hooks—so I had to learn them note-for-note, not just as a tribute to Rich, but to make them actually sound like the songs.

Carl suggested the split-set idea once we decided that I would play bass for Breakdown, since that meant both bands were going to be the same three guys, with the two singers being the only difference. And since Carl, Drago, and I were going to be up there for two sets in a row anyway, so why not put a twist on it and do something special? Plus, it would give Anthony and Jeff a breather every other song, which is important at our advanced ages! God knows I could’ve used one. It was a long set—I think something like 25 songs?

As far as playing on stage without Rich, KT had actually played our first show without him at This is Hardcore in Philly about a month before the memorial show. It was definitely weird and very sad not having him up there. Rich and I shared the same side of the stage, and we’d always be bumping into each other, getting our guitar cables tangled, or just looking at each other and laughing if we messed up a part or something like that. I just missed him being up there. We all did. The memorial show had a little more of a celebratory vibe, which helped a bit. Also, I was so focused on not screwing up any of the Breakdown songs that it took my mind off of it a bit.

*From 2011? Performance-enhanced bass parts on the Breakdown demo*

Besides the upcoming Killing Time show, are any of your other bands actively playing? Is Gordita Beach going to record those great news songs I’ve only heard live?

Carl and I played a couple Kings Destroy fly-gigs recently, but there is nothing really on the horizon with that band, at least not right now. Gordita Beach is still playing. We have a gig on May 19th at Our Wicked Lady in Brooklyn.

GB will definitely make a record that includes those new songs at some point. Killing Time is going to Europe at the end of June, and I think we’re going to play a small local show somewhere in Brooklyn as a warm-up right before we go. So, between this Westchester show and those gigs, we have to kind of get all the KT stuff out of the way before we can figure out what we want to do about recording the new Gordita Beach material.

*Gordita Beach in Brooklyn in 2021. I reviewed their set for In Effect.*

We talked about the Will Library a bit while you were editing Lost Indignation. How many library cards do you own, and in what systems? And what is your favorite library?

Currently, I only own just one library card, and it is from the Brooklyn Public Library system. I had a library card from the Yonkers Public Library system when I was growing up of course, but a while back I took out some books and kept them so long after the return date that I didn’t want to bring them back because I feared some severe sanction by the library police. So, I sadly let my Yonkers card expire. That was sometime around ‘93, as they were books I’d taken out to work on my college senior English paper. Anyway, if you go to a Yonkers public library looking for books on Lord Byron and are disappointed in the lack of selection, I apologize!

My favorite library is still the branch of the Yonkers Public Library that was local to the neighborhood where I grew up—the Riverfront branch. Beautiful views of the Palisades across the river (hence, “Riverfront”), very cozy. I think we probably talked about this when we were editing your book, but the Will Library is way over on the East side of Yonkers, and I grew up on the West side, near the Hudson River. But as I also mentioned to you previously, when I was in middle school one of my sisters used to drive me over to the Will Library to play in a weekly Dungeons and Dragons game. So I do have a soft spot for the Will branch. The Yonkers Public Library also had a Bookmobile that would come to my grade school once a month when I was a kid. I don’t know if they still have the Bookmobile or if people even know what they are now. Basically, it was a bus that was filled with bookshelves, and the library would fill it with age-appropriate books and park it outside of schools. We’d have a free period where we could go in and take out some books. The driver was a librarian and would have a little check-out station up in the front. I always enjoyed the days the Bookmobile would show up. I remember that it was always on a Friday afternoon, which added to the vibes.

I know you are a dog person but were any of your classic riffs or songs written when there were cats in the room, and what classic riffs were perhaps never written due to cat interference?

At the time when I was writing a bunch of the songs for the third Killing Time record, I was living in a house with two cats, and they were definitely in the room (and walking all over whatever equipment I was using to record demos). I don’t know if you would consider any of those songs “classics,” but I think they’re all pretty killer, though I’m biased of course. For the second part of your question, I am sure that cats have prevented many classic songs from being written over the years. I am also sure that those cats do not care at all about what they have done.

What are your favorite feral stairs (step street) in Yonkers, and your favorite food in Yonkers?

Ah, deep local Yonkers knowledge questions! There was a pretty good step-street off of Lake Ave near the high school I went to in Yonkers. Also, the one behind Public School #16 near my childhood home was cool. My favorite might not technically be a step-street, as it was inside Untermyer Park. We called it the “thousand steps,” though there were probably only a hundred or so. There was a little round clearing at the bottom, and it was a popular keg party spot when I was in high school. I spent a lot of my youth hanging out in that park and being a general dirtbag. Anyone who knows anything about the Son of Sam and the alleged devil-worshipping cult he was connected to will know about Untermyer Park. One of the most metal places one could possibly hang out, drink beers, and listen to Venom on a boom-box.

My favorite food in Yonkers is the baked ziti from Gi-Gi’s pizzeria on Odell Ave. I think it’s still there, though I haven’t been there in many years.

*Feral Stairs of Yonkers, though not the Lake Street stairs in question*

How do you feel about the Knicks’ playoff chances?

I’m not sure when this interview will come out, but I am writing this on Easter morning, and the Knicks are playing the last game of the regular season in a couple hours. So if this comes out after the first round of the playoffs, I might be eating crow, but I feel really good about their chances. The East was super tough this year, with both the Bucks and the Celtics having really dominant years. But we match-up pretty well with the Cavs (whom we play in the first round) and took the season series off of them 3-1. That being said, we do have a pretty young team. It is one of our strengths, but of course it also means we don’t have many guys with playoff experience. Regardless of what happens, this year was a tremendous success considering where we came from last year, and this is without a doubt my favorite Knicks team since some of the ‘90s squads. I’m too superstitious about the Knicks to make any definitive prediction, but again, I do feel good about our chances, in the first round at least. If we get past the Cavs, I think we can make things hard for any of the better teams in the East. We are scrappy, and I can easily see us being a spoiler.

What is the most significant sports moment that occurred while you were at a hardcore show?

This is a great question. I don’t think I have any, at least none that I can remember. However, I have a very clear memory of coming back from band practice when I was in Uppercut, going into a Chinese restaurant in the Bronx to get some food, and seeing on an old television there that James “Buster” Douglas had knocked-out Mike Tyson and become the heavyweight champion. That was in 1990, and it was probably the biggest upset in boxing history, as not only was Douglas a massive underdog, but nobody had even knocked Tyson down at that point, never mind knocked him out. (To be fair, Tyson hadn’t taken him too seriously and wasn’t in shape; plus, it was a lucky punch.)

What is your favorite baseball book or movie?

The Natural (both book and movie).

What advice would you have for someone writing their first novel – and what type of editing services do you offer?

My two pieces of advice would be to write what you know (cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason) and to get a good editor! Seriously, you need someone whose talent and opinion you trust to give you honest feedback and help with the finer points of grammar and usage, as you can be a great writer and still not have the best command of those things. This is why editors exist, of course. As far as the types of editing I do, most people don’t know that there are different types to begin with. There is a general editor, who will work with you on the overall vision and story and give larger-scope advice on things like character arcs and cutting or adding large sections. Sort of like a music producer does with a band. Big picture stuff. Then you get into what’s called line editing, which is correcting the grammar and usage while also having a fair amount of leeway to rewrite sentences completely, cut fairly large chunks, suggest additions, question if something a character says makes sense, etc. This is basically what I did with you on Lost Indignation. It’s sort of halfway between a general editor and what is called a copy editor. A copy editor is someone who just corrects the grammar and usage of the sentences while preserving the author’s original writing as much as possible. You don’t really make cuts or suggest any additions—you just make sure whatever the author wrote is correct, grammatically. So, it’s the next step down from a line editor, in terms of how much “power” you have (or in this case, don’t have) over the material. Then there is proofreading, which comes at the very end. A proofreader is just there to be the final set of eyes after the editor(s). You are just hunting for typos or the occasional grammatical mistake that the line/copy editor may have missed before the manuscript goes to press. I can do and have done all of these. Hit me up!

Thank you for doing this! Anything else you want to cover? And to close us out, what is your favorite last song on a hardcore record?

You are very welcome! This is another good question. I’ve always loved “Unexpected” on Leeway’s Born to Expire. I’m a sucker for the old false-ending trick, and when they bring it back in with that sick mosh riff, it’s just such a killer way to end a great record.

*“Brilliant and unusual” applies to both*!

Seth Meyer on Cats in the Room when the Riffs Were Written

What’s up Seth, thank you for doing this interview! Over the past few years, you have been putting your past projects on Spotify and Youtube. What are some of the underrated gems on each platform?

On Spotify, I’m going to call a lot of my solo music underrated because I’m not sure how to find the right audience for it. The people that like it really love it but it’s not straight up hardcore and there’s also a lot of electronic music that goes in a lot of directions so the average hardcore fan is not usually feeling it. I just don’t know how to market it to get it to the right people but I’m proud of it. In 2013, I put out a solo album called “The World Does Not Exist” and then last year, I re-released it with a bunch of electronic instrumentals I did in the early 2000s in between the songs under the name Seth N’ Violence – Hardcore Fantasy. I am really proud of all of that stuff but it’s mostly unheard.

On Youtube, I put up a lot of band practices of unrecorded music and us just jamming. So many songs go to waste over the years because a band breaks up and songs don’t get recorded or line-ups change. I just wanted people to hear this stuff.

Mike Bulldoze is one of my favorite riff writers and so I put up a tape of our early Homicidal practices with riffs and beats that were never turned into songs. We still hope to use some of them one day.

I was also in another band with Dan One4One called Plan B is Dead, we released a short 5 song demo but we had a lot of practices of the band just jamming and making up stuff that I thought was incredible and needed to be heard, so I put that up.

What type of music are you creating these days? Do you have any new bands in the works, or mostly solo projects?

Right now I am still developing it so I don’t know what it’s going to turn into. I always want to do something completely different from what I have done before but at the same time, old school hardcore is part of my DNA so I also have a bunch of songs that are that and nothing more. For some songs, I have a bunch of riffs and beats and choruses put together but I want to layer them with different sounds but I want to get a new synth first. Getting a new synth with new sounds always gives me new ideas. All my old stuff was recorded with a Korg Triton that I bought in 2000. It was great for its time but it’s outdated. I’ve also been studying classic hip hop albums and learning about sampling and manipulating sounds. Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies by Brian Coleman has a goldmine of information.

I’ve slowly been building a home studio but I haven’t started recording anything yet and won’t until I have all the equipment. Last year, I remixed “Unbreakable” by Homicidal and added all these electronic colors so that could give you an idea of the colors I would like to mix but the new songs will be actual songs with verses and chorus unlike this remix.

I’m also trying to spend a lot more time working on writing lyrics and creating vocal flows. I think that has always been my biggest weakness. I come up with hooks for choruses but then get stuck while trying to write the verses. I’ve been reading a lot looking for inspiration and also spending time on vocabulary.com trying to improve my vocabulary. I have a whole notebook of words and phrases that I just love the sound of that I am hoping to find a way to use in songs without it sounding forced. I’m a big sci-fi and fantasy fan too so I try to make sci-fi sounding music. I am hoping to find good sci-fi books to write a song about. On my last solo album, “Maze of Death” was based on the book A Maze of Death by Philip K Dick. “The World Does Not Exist” started off being based on Old Man’s War by John Scalzi but completely morphed into something else although the original 4 lines remain. “Terror to Forever’s End” is about Zod, Ursa and Non being trapped in the Phantom Zone in Superman. I have a completed song that is based on Stannis Baratheon’s final stand. I recorded a cheap home demo version of it in 2016 but I plan on re-recording that for the new album. I also lifted lyrics straight from the Dhammapada in my song “Immortality.”

When did you get interested in classical music, and how does it inform your writing process? Does having a foundation in music theory also help?

I got heavily into it when I was 18 but I think it was always in my DNA because piano was my first instrument and I’ve been playing my whole life. I was learning how to play a lot of simple classical music before I really got into music as a fan of music. But it was really film music that drew me in. Specifically, I rediscovered Star Wars at 18 and would listen to the soundtrack all the time. And I also had the Clockwork Orange Soundtrack and I loved Rossini’s “Thieving Magpie” and the way the film contrasted it with violence. Then Ren & Stimpy used the same piece in Space Madness and it really made me think about how much I loved the music. There was so much great classical music in Ren & Stimpy that led me on a mission to find out what the music being played was. I started playing piano again right after that. I had for the most part stopped when I started playing drums at 8. Classical music is all about harmony and knowing what works with what. When I write riffs, I don’t really think at all. I just play. But when it comes to putting another riff on top of that or a solo, it’s important to know what key I am in and what will work with it. Also, if I get stuck while writing a song, I can use harmonic progression theory to give me an idea of what key to try next. Even in Homicidal with Mike’s riffs, if we get stuck, I can say to him, try something on this or that fret and that can get us out of a jam

Thank you for being the source of the “cats in the room when the riffs were written” question that I’ve been asking here and am compiling for I Question Not Me #6. What riffs or songs were written when there were cats in the room, and what classic riffs were maybe never written due to cat interference?

You’re welcome. In the room itself, I am not 100% certain. I am pretty sure my cat Wolfgang (2006-2012) was in the room for most of the Plan B is Dead riffs and then the riffs for my 2013 solo album (which were originally Plan B is Dead riffs) but I can’t say for sure. But he couldn’t have been far away so he definitely heard them from outside the room if he wasn’t in it. My cat Stimpy (1993-2006) was most likely in the room for the Fat Nuts Theme Song, and “Setting it Straight” by Fat Nuts and probably “Absence of Sincerity” by 25 ta Life. Also, “Thoughts” by One4One but I hate that song so maybe I shouldn’t mention that one. Stimpy was in the house for a lot though. All my bands practiced in the house so even though he wasn’t in the room, he definitely heard a lot of songs being put together. He would have been there when One4One put Control together, when Rey wrote the first riff for “Stand” (Stimpy would sleep on Rey’s head when he left it at my house), he was there for the first Homicidal jams, he was there when One4One was rushing to put In Search of Together. And he was there when we were putting together some of the Strength Through Unity tracks, specifically the double bass part in “Took My Kindness for Weakness” and the first part of “Make it Work.”

I have probably lost a bunch of riffs forever thanks to when Wolfgang knocked over my digital 8 track in 2007 and I lost everything in it. I had 5 years’ worth of music in there. I wouldn’t have lost any completed songs because I already burned those to CD but definitely a lot of ideas in the works. I woke up in the middle of the night to a loud boom in the living room. I ran in, saw the machine on the floor, Wolfie running away and then I heard clicking coming from the hard drive (which is never a good thing). I took it to a repair shop but everything was lost.

Out of all the bands you’ve played in, which one featured the most cat owners, the most cats, and your favorite cats?

It would be the In Search Of line up of One4One or One Family which was the exact same members minus the one person in One4One that didn’t have a cat. I’m not sure how many cats because I’m not sure how many Dan had. He always had a lot of pets at his mom’s house. Andy, Chris and I had 1 each. My favorite cats are and were Mike Bulldoze’s. I love his cat Daphne and she loves me. She is a super friendly huge gluttonous yellow cat. She is obsessed with my guitar case and every time I go over there, I usually have my guitar. She comes running to the door crying until I put it down and open it for her. It got to the point where I felt like I needed to bring the empty case if I was going over there and we weren’t jamming just because I didn’t want to let her down. I also loved their late cats Norman and Seymour. Seymour was a little slow and would just plop down on your lap and not move. He died in 2014 and that’s when they got Daphne. Norm took a lot longer to warm up to me. He was scared of everyone. But one day after Seymour died, he came and sat on my lap while we were watching Game of Thrones and I was so happy that he finally took the initiative. And then he came to sit with me every week after that. He never came out until the kids went to bed. Unfortunately, he passed right before the pandemic started. They got a new cat named Leela but I only just met her in Feb 2020, and due to the pandemic, I haven’t been over there since then.

Honorable mention also goes to Tomoki’s cat (Homicidal, Hell Brigade) from 2005. I don’t remember the name of the cat but Tomoki lived on 131^st street in Harlem on the 2^nd floor of a brownstone. The cat would climb out the balcony and be up and down all of the buildings. Sometimes I’d see her outside roaming the streets of Harlem. The cat was a trooper. Doug E Fresh actually lived a few houses away and he had these front steps with these awesome Asian lion gargoyles on the banisters so I always wondered if the cat ever chilled there with the gargoyles and Doug E Fresh.

I also love Andy from One4One’s current cat Gertie (I hope I spelled it right). I never met her but he’s always posting pics and she has a really distinctive “I’m not impressed” face.

I have really enjoyed seeing your kittens on Instagram – how did you decide it was time to get a pet again and how did they come into your life?

I just needed one. I had pets most of my life but I never went looking for one. They were all found on the street. My sister found my dog Lucy down the street from us, my ex found Stimpy in a parking lot and Wolfgang was trapped in the engine of a car in front of my building when I found him. It always felt like destiny so I was just waiting for it to happen again but all of the sudden, 10 years had gone by, and no pets. People were suggesting Petfinder and all these sites but it felt like online dating. I couldn’t tell from a pic whether or not they were right for me. I wanted to meet them and see what kind of connection there was. So, then AWESOM in Stroudsburg said they were getting some kittens in and I went to check them out. They were in a batch of 5 and I really loved how they all had a bond with each other. I wish I could have taken them all. I never had 2 cats at once before except a 2-month period where I lived with my ex but both cats were already old and her cat hated Stimpy. I had a cat and a dog at the same time but Stimpy HATED my dog. He absolutely resented her and treated her like she was a rodent from outside that didn’t belong. He used to look at me like “yo wtf? Why is this thing in the house?” My kittens (Luke and Leia) love each other. They are inseparable. Watching them interact is one of the greatest treasures I have ever had the pleasure to experience. They go on these exploratory missions around the house. They fight. They sleep all over each other and chase each other all around the house. I’m not sure where they are at this moment, but I can guarantee that wherever you find one of them, the other is there too.

When I got the In Effect book last summer I remember noticing your bands were all over the book. What are some of your favorite parts of the book, and your favorite In Effect issues?

I can tell you what my least favorite part of the book was. It was that underhanded dig at the Mets in the foreword. What was up with that? At first, I was like “oh nice. Becky wrote the foreword but then 2 seconds later I was like WTF? Why? Was this really necessary?” Haha.

My favorite parts were the ‘80s issues because I had never seen those before. I had always heard about them but it was all fresh reading. I loved reading the reviews of all these classic recordings as new music. Also loved that it all started with Outburst. My favorite issue during my era was the one that had our Japan tour. That was the best trip I ever went on and to see it documented in the zine like that was an honor. I always looked up to the zine. I was proud just to get a review in there the first time. I always felt In Effect was the official state of the union for our scene and the paragon of what a zine should be. I helped out with interviews for a NJHC zine called God Bless Hardcore. In Effect was the inspiration for it. Its founders Gerry and Tito wanted it to be the NJHC version of In Effect.

How many library cards do you have, and what is your favorite library (in each state where you have lived?)

I actually signed up online yesterday for my new local library here in PA (Western Pocono Community Library). I saw they have curbside pick-up so I can just order the book and pick it up. I haven’t physically been there yet. I guess I still have one for the library in Plainsboro NJ. I did like that one. It was 2 blocks from my house and they had a front and back door so I would walk through it on my way home from local stores. They always sold used books for like $2-$3 and I would just buy a bunch and save them for a rainy day. About 5 years ago, I picked up Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel on one of those walk throughs and I just finally read it a couple of months ago.The timing was perfect because reading about the ascetics in the mountains was exactly what I needed at this point in time and since then, I’ve really been embracing the isolation and solitude of being up here in the mountains during a pandemic. Plainsboro was the only library I used in NJ.

In New York, I really loved the library at College of Staten Island. I still lived at home when I was in college so I used to go there all the time just for the quiet but they also had a really great selection. They had everything I needed for all my research papers. They had the scores for almost every major classical piece. They also had records you could go listen to with headphones in a silent room (this was pre-mp3). And when I was taking History of Opera, they had all the operas we had to watch for class so I could go in there and watch with headphones.

What is your favorite baseball book or movie?

Book would be Big Sexy: In His Own Words by Bartolo Colon which was co-authored by Michael Stahl. Michael Stahl is the guy that wrote the article The Last Time New York was Hardcore for Narratively. So it was awesome to see the book was by a hardcore kid. Plus it was a great book.

Movie would probably be either A League of Their Own (the original) or 42. It’s hard to compare a comedy to a serious historical film. The part in A League of Their Own where the letter comes from overseas with the death notice always stuck with me. I really want to see a period movie that centers around New York Baseball in the 1880s. You have the start of the Dodgers and the Giants and also the first World Series ever with the original New York Metropolitans at the Polo Grounds in 1884. Someone please make that!

What is the most significant baseball moment that occurred while you were at a hardcore show?

I was at CBGB’s for Bulldoze and Death Threat when the Angels beat the Giants in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series. The game was on at the TV by the door and I kept going to check on it. I was disappointed. I was going for the Giants. My family was NY Giants fans before the 1969 World Series so they are my #2 team.

How do you like living in PA, and what are some of your favorite vegan spots you have found since moving out there?

I love it for the most part but the food is definitely a problem. I’m up in a rural mountain town and there are no vegan spots. The closest thing is a vegan bakery about 35-40 min away. There are places that advertise having “vegan options” but then you look at the menu and it’s literally just a bowl of fruit and a salad. So I have to settle for supermarket food. I just love the peace and quiet up here. I love the scenery. I love seeing no people and nothing but trees when I go for a drive. There are a bunch of trails I want to check out but I’m waiting for the fall. I don’t fuck with summer. I think I will check out some winter stuff like skiing and snow tubing because it’s all right by my house. I’ve never done any of that stuff before.

Who is your favorite PAHC band, and the most underrated bands from NY, NJ and PA?

Wisdom in Chains for sure. They have a deep catalog now. I don’t think anyone can compare. I love Punishment too. I would listen to them at the gym all the time. “1000 Daggers” makes me want to kill people. I’m not really up on current bands but I still think the most underrated bands are the first wave of NYHC when all the focus was still on DC, Boston and Cali. The bands that had long careers like AF and Reagan Youth obviously get all their due recognition but I love bands like the Abused, the Mad, XKI, Ultra Violence, The Stimulators and in NJ, Even Worse and Adrenaline OD. The last show I went to was Darkside NYC at A7 (Niagara Bar) and they played “I Hate Music” by the Mad, which is one of my favorite songs of all time but I think I was the only person there that actually knew it. That’s the beginning of it all.

When Wreak Havoc passed in 2020, you posted some early Homicidal songs with him on vocals. Tell me about the early days of Homicidal and how did you end up with the permanent lineup?

I don’t think we really ever had a permanent line up. There was a steady line up between 2008-2019 but I wasn’t in that except for when I would fill in for whoever couldn’t make it. It started off with me showing Zack some riffs I wrote in the summer of 2001 and he was like “yo you gotta get together with Mike. You guys are on the same shit.” So, me and Mike started jamming with me on guitar. Then 9/11 happened and things kind of fell apart for a while. We also didn’t really want to go too far without a drummer anyway but finally in 2003, I caved in and said I would play drums. I had also been talking to Frank from NJBL for a while about doing something and both Mike and Frank already had Brian the kid on board for both projects so I just combined everything. First, we had Junior from Heidnik Stew (currently in The Way Of) on vocals but that only lasted a few weeks so then we got Wreak. We already had the music for the 2004 demo when Wreak joined and he pretty much wrote the vocals on the spot in the studio. He was great at writing lyrics quickly. No one did it better. But we only had 3 songs so we weren’t ready for a show yet. Wreak left in the fall and that’s when we got McG and recorded the 2005 demo in Jan/Feb. We played just 1 show with that lineup and Brian and Frank were replaced by Rodney and Tomoki. That’s the lineup of the 2006 Live at CBGB’s recording. And then I was out of the band and replaced by Dimi. There were a few more changes before the State of Mind lineup of Mike Bulldoze, Dimi, McG, Mike H and Zack. Then Mike H left in 2019 and I replaced him on bass. We played 2 shows in 2019 but right now we are inactive.

Along with being an official member of One4One, Fat Nuts, 25 Ta Life, Homicidal etc, you have filled in for other bands like Terror Zone. How many different instruments have you played onstage, and what’s the least amount of notice you had to get on stage and fill in for a band?

I’ve sang, played guitar, drums, bass and piano on stage although piano obviously wasn’t at a hardcore show. I had 2 minutes to prepare to play for NJ Bloodline. I can tell you the story or you can hear it for yourself here at 12:50:

Also, the first time I played for Bulldoze was at the BNB Bowl in 2008. I went there specifically to see the OG lineup of Breakdown. I hadn’t seen Breakdown at all since the ‘90s and never the OG lineup. That was really all I cared about. After Fahrenheit 451, Mike came up to me and was like “wanna play drums for Bulldoze?” and I was like “when?” and he was like “now” and I was like “I haven’t played drums in almost a year” and he was like “so what. Come on.” And so we went backstage and went over the songs for 30 minutes acoustically with me tapping on my legs. I had played “The Truth” with Homicidal before (but not in over 2 years) but I never played “Beatdown.” I was nervous the whole time because the first time I was gonna actually play the song on a set was live at the busiest time of the night in between Terror and Madball and with cameras on me. It was a surprise set. No one in the crowd knew it was going to happen. Mike didn’t even play because we didn’t have a lefty guitar to use so we did it with just 1 guitar. For the most part, I pulled it off but I did fuck up once in Beatdown. I wound up missing Breakdown because they played while I was learning the songs. I had to wait for the DVD.

Thank you for doing this – and anything else you’d like to cover?

I would just like to thank you for doing this. It is greatly appreciated.

And I’m also gonna shamelessly plug my YouTube and Spotify pages. Everything released on Spotify is also on all the major streaming sites such as iTunes and Amazon Music.

Youtube channel

Seth N’ Violence

25 ta Life

One 4 One (including 94 demo and I Won’t Lose 7 inch)

Homicidal (including both demos and Live at CBGB)

Fat Nuts

Hell Brigade (Wreak Havoc on vocals)