Glitterer

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.)

Ned Russin on Horizontal Rust, Wilkes-Barre and a lost Free Spirit business card

Ned Russin of Title Fight and Glitterer recently completed his first novel, Horizontal Rust, which was published by Shining Life Press.

Author photo from Horizontal Rust (photo by Sarah King)

What’s up Ned, thank you for the opportunity to do this interview. When I saw Horizontal Rust on the Shining Life Press instagram I immediately ordered since there does not seem to be a ton of fiction written by people in hardcore, and it’s a departure from Shining Life’s existing books and zines. How did you start the conversation about publishing a full length novel?

Thanks for having me, I appreciate it. I completed the first draft of this book in early 2019 and had always planned to do it on a small press. So I started shopping around a more complete draft in early 2020. And by shopping around I mean sending it out to agents and publishers and getting turned down. My initial idea wasn’t panning out and so I just kept working on revisions while also submitting queries. I was finally making some progress in talking to publishers when one night I FaceTiming with John from Shining Life and, as a joke, asked him when they would publish their first novel. He said something like, “Whenever you finish one.” That was exciting to me because, yeah, it was approval but it was also a new idea that I didn’t even consider until that point. I’d known John and Zack for a long time obviously but this was new territory for both of us and at first I was unsure if they’d be interested in actually publishing a novel. They were totally into the idea. So after a few more conversations with John, I rescinded all of my pending submissions and fully committed to Shining Life.

How did the pandemic impact the completion of the book – did you have more time to write due to a lack of shows and other events?

I’m fortunate in that I started and finished this book while touring pretty consistently, so I would always have these stretches of time where I’d be home and I could try to work on another draft with few other distractions. I probably would’ve gotten the book done somewhat faster had I not been on the road so much in the first place, though I’m thankful that it gave me this buffer time between drafts so I could look at the pages a bit more objectively. I feel like I benefited from putting the manuscript away for a month or so, it would give me a fresher set of eyes. But I will say that the editing process was definitely helped by everyone being stuck in one place. Matt LaForge, my editor, and I were able to go over notes and drafts faster because we were both available somewhat regularly, which felt like a rarity.

Libraries are briefly mentioned in Horizontal Rust, though more in the context of study spaces. How many library cards do you own, and in what systems? And what is your favorite library?

I have a total of three library cards, though I lost one. I currently have my Columbia alumni library card which works for their library system (even though I don’t live in New York anymore) and I have my DC public library card which is what I currently use. I had a Luzerne County library card but it was lost when my wallet was stolen in Costa Rica. I had already moved out of Wilkes-Barre at that point so I never bothered getting another one. I was more upset about losing my Free Spirit business card.

Getting a book signed by Keith Gessen (photo by Sami Reiss)

Was it a conscious decision to write about a protagonist not involved in punk or hardcore, and one who stayed within the “Columbia bubble” when presumably you spent a lot of time exploring the city and going to shows during your own time at Columbia?

Yeah, very much so. I haven’t tried to write about someone involved in hardcore yet, it’s almost too daunting. Not saying I won’t ever do it, but it’s just something that, in my mind, was too complicated. It’s not that I think Graham is more universal because he isn’t involved in punk or hardcore, it’s that I don’t think it’s necessary to explain his motives or desires.

How did your experience playing in bands and finishing albums help you complete the formidable project that is a first novel – and was it easier or harder than writing a record with the rest of a band?

To be honest, playing in a band didn’t prepare me for writing a novel at all. The only thing that was familiar was the feeling of being in the middle of the process and being unsure of how it would ever get done. If you’re a band, you write songs. When you write enough songs, you record them and that’s an record, an EP or LP or whatever. There can be thematic throughlines, sure, but it’s really just working on a bunch of ideas until they’re ready. With writing, however, it’s different. I assume most fiction writers start off doing short stories. And if you study writing in school that’s all you’ll do. A novel isn’t just a couple of short stories thrown together. It’s one singular piece. It’s made up of smaller moments but they all need to come together to a certain extent. I guess to compare it to writing to music it would be like if you made a record that was a single 35-minute song. The book took me a lot longer than writing a record ever has. Maybe because it was the first time I did it or because it’s just something that you have to do all on your own, but either way that alone made me feel like it was more difficult.

Glitterer in Wilkes-Barre (photo by bedfordtowers)

Along with documentaries, there seem to be more and more books coming out on different subsets of hardcore – in fact, I just realized I had highlighted your quote about Trumbull Escapades for the straight edge book in the Serve ’em a Sentence interview with Sami Reiss in 2019. Do you think people are interested in more novels coming from the hardcore scene, or mostly still in nonfiction books? What is one area of hardcore not yet covered in book that you’d like to see?

I don’t know too many novels out there about hardcore. There was that Ten Thousand Saints book (and movie) that I never read and the last Nell Zink book starts off talking about harDCore, but I don’t really know of any other books that talk about hardcore or use it as a setting. I think being so involved in anything makes you skeptical of its representation. I could completely wrong here, there are millions of books out there, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a novel about hardcore written by someone who was actually involved. I’m sure people within hardcore would be interested in that, but hardcore is also so interested in history and tradition that it seems like the preference is for nonfiction. People love minutiae, myself included. Obviously I’d love to see someone do a book on early 00s hardcore, something about early Lockin’ Out or Posi Numbers or whatever. But for me personally, I’d like to see an actual critical take on hardcore, any scene at all. It’s nice to see the oral histories, but I’d prefer to see a person synthesize that information and make claims.

Did the parallel of hardcore kids from all over the world descending on the 570 for Posi Numbers cross your mind at all as you were writing about visitors arriving for the Slavic Brotherhood Organization convention? How would you describe Wilkes-Barre to someone who has never been there or has not yet read your book?

It’s actually not something that I thought about but that does work well. I remember always being impressed by the turnout of Posi Numbers. People would always tout the fact that people came from all over the world to come to the fest. It was like people from Belgium flew to the US to go to a firehall near the old Dominos, the same firehall that was probably booked up for graduation parties for the rest of the summer, to watch some bands play and experience the town. I romanticize it a lot in my mind which misrepresents it some. Because the fact is there were a lot of people that just came from their own small town probably not that far away and probably didn’t wander around Wilkes-Barre. The people in the book who come to the SBO convention are also mostly coming from little podunk PA or Ohio towns, but their trip is to fulfill a professional duty. Overall though it’s not too far off. I have a hard time explaining WIlkes-Barre, though. It’s a small, generic Rust Belt town, a former coal city. It’s not a metropolitan area, even downtown Wilkes-Barre feels more like a suburb than a city. But it’s just this little area in Northeast PA, not too far from Appalachia, that feels pretty plain and beaten down. Despite having two colleges, the area has no real culture or industry, which is a big reason why an underground music scene has thrived there for so long — young people have to make their own fun because there’s nothing else really going on.

“Here’s a posi little number for ya” – Slapshot opening with No Friend of Mine at Posi Numbers 2003

When reading the part about experiencing deja vu when seeing the ballroom dressed up for the next event, I started thinking of how many novels have comic or absurd moments centering around events in hotels – everything from Marie-Helene Bertino’s Parakeet to The Autograph Man, by Zadie Smith. What are some of your favorite works with at least one scene set in a hotel?

Scanning my bookshelf, here’s a small list: Ben Lerner Leaving The Atocha Station, Joan Didion Play It As It Lays, Peter Handke Short Letter, Long Farewell, basically every book by Frederick Barthelme has some roadtrip scene where they stop in a hotel, Martin Riker Samuel Johnson’s Eternal Return, JD Salinger The Catcher In The Rye….

Speaking of travel – what are the best books you have read while on tour?
There are only a few books that I really have distinct memories of reading on tour. The first was probably Steinbeck’s East Of Eden which I read when I was in my early 20s while driving through California. The second would be reading Simon Hanselmann’s Bad Gateway in one sitting at the merch table in Cleveland, OH. And finally my friend JDK sold me a copy of William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways shortly before he passed away. He told me it was one of his favorite books, so I read a book about travelling around the US while driving around the US. It felt like a fitting tribute.

If your book was a movie what songs would you want on the soundtrack – and did you have any in mind while writing it?

I wrote the book over such a long period of time that I feel like the soundtrack I had playing in my head changed many times over. Graham is a college kid from the early 2010s so I feel like the nu-indie stuff from that time would be fitting. I feel like Wilkes-Barre setting shots needs something a little bit more sad, though. Like any slower song from Harvest would do. Eno ambient stuff would work well for that, too. For early Graham/Ollie scenes it’s got to be ELO, like “Living Thing” or something. Ideally, though, I’d write something for it.

Any last thoughts you’d like to share – about reading, writing or your other recent projects?

I’m never great on last thoughts. I’d just like to say thanks again for the interview and thanks to anyone who has checked the book out. It’s very much appreciated.