Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #01: Pilot
Episode Description
In this Pilot episode, hosts Dana Bollen (Two Week Notice Podcast / Piebald Tour Manager) & Andrew Mall (Music Professor - Northeastern University) introduce themselves & the panel of 12 individuals that we will hear from throughout Season 1 of this podcast series.
Each panel member also chimes in to describe their personal connection to the term, "D.I.Y." (Do It Yourself) & its connection to their experiences in the DIY music scenes & communities.
Panel members for Season 1 include:
Norman Brannon (Thursday / Texas Is The Reason / Anti-Matter Zine)
Luke Garro (Piebald / Fastbreak / In My Eyes)
Ace Enders (The Early November / I Can Make A Mess)
Joey Chiaramonte (Koyo)
Chris Wrenn (Bridge9 Records)
Brandon Davis (Vanna / Fever333 / Lions Lions / INSPIRIT)
Ali Lipman (Cape Crush / Moon Over Salem)
Chad Johnson (Furnace Fest / Takehold Records)
Johnny Grimes (Furnace Fest / Workplay Birmingham)
Jeff Apruzzese (Passion Pit 2008-2014 / Drexel University)
Matt Dunn (DIY promoter - Syracuse, N.Y. / University of South Carolina)
Tony DeBacco (Videographer - Boston D.I.Y.)
Episode Links
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Listen to music from our featured guests on the Live Free Or D.I.Y. Spotify playlist
Credits
Thank you for your contributions to this podcast:
Anthony Robbins (Research Assistance)
Ioanis Pintzopolous (Production Assistance)
Kira Burr (Graphic Design)
Todd Pollock (Cover photo)
Casey & Iodine Recordings
Piebald (podcast theme music)
Aaron Stuart (cover photo talent & legend)
Northeastern University (funding)
Episode Transcript
Luke Garro: DIY to me, is a combination of a few things. It's a mindset, it's an aesthetic, but it's also means of getting things done.
Dana Bollen: Welcome to Live Free Or DIY, a podcast miniseries that focuses on the DIY music scene, specifically hardcore, punk, emo, and what we just call the scene in many ways. My name is Dana Bollen. I am a podcaster, and I am a touring roadie. I have a podcast called Two Week Notice, where I interview musicians who are in these bands that we love so much, and I also drive trucks and sell merch. I tour manage, I even play the cowbell sometimes. I tour with bands such as Pie Balled, Hot Rod Circuit, The Story So Far, The Front Bottoms, Bayside, Thrice, Alkaline Trio, Unearth. And joining me on this podcast journey, the brains behind this entire operation, my new friend, a professor at Northeastern University, Andrew Mall. Professor, tell the people about yourself, please.
Andrew Mall: Thanks, Dana. I am Andrew Mall. I'm a pop music scholar, an author, and a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, where I teach music industry courses and world music and pop music. Listen, this podcast is about DIY music scenes and communities. They're really close to my heart. I've been involved in DIY music scenes for 30 years, and everywhere I've lived there have been amazing scenes that I've been a part of. I grew up in North Jersey going to shows at local VFW halls and Elks Lodges. I went to college near Philadelphia. My friends and I drove down to Philly all the time, out to New York, even back to the Jersey suburbs. Went to see emo and post hardcore and indie bands in Philly at the First Unitarian Church and the Rotunda and 4040. After college, I moved to Chicago. Chicago's an amazing music city, but as soon as I got there, I was like, I have to go to see shows, the Fireside Bowl, because it's legendary. It was already legendary in 2002 when I moved there. And to be there for a period of transition to see that scene kind of blow up for a little while, to see the Fireside Bowl change hands, to see new venues emerge in Chicago for over the course of the 10, 11, 12 years I lived there was awesome. I went to shows at the Fireside, at the Empty Bottle, at the Hideout, at the Metro. I did community radio almost the whole time that I was there. I helped launch CHIRP Radio, which is a volunteer driven community radio station that's still, to this day, an important resource for Chicago's music scenes. And ultimately, I moved to Boston 11 years ago, pulled back from the scene for a little bit. I have a family, I have responsibilities, but in the last few years I've been listening to a lot more music, talking to a lot more people, doing more research about DIY music, and to be honest, having a lot of fun doing it all. Dana, what about you, man? What's your background? How'd you get into this stuff?
Dana Bollen: Great question, Andrew. Truthfully, up until I was in high school, I primarily listened to hip hop and I had Spanish class in ninth grade with this dude who was in a band called Preston from Massachusetts. And I just had got a brand new video camera. This was when the video cameras went from the big bulky thing on your shoulder to, they made it small enough to be handheld and had the little flip out screen. First 500 bucks I ever made pushing shopping carts at Star Market, dude. Saved up 500 bucks, went to Costco with my dad, bought that camera. And this dude who was in that band, Preston, was like, "You got a video camera? You want to come to my show at the Knights of Columbus and record my set?" And I was like, "Sure, why not?" And that was it. That was my first experience. And then within maybe a month or two, or maybe even right before that, I saw Unearth, they played a show at New World in Lynn, Massachusetts right across from the high school football stadium. And I was frightened, I was scared, but I loved something about it. I loved the riffs and the breakdowns. I remember that part. And I guess kind of the rest is history. I have a question for you, professor.
Andrew Mall: Dana, what's your question?
Dana Bollen: This project, what's the idea behind it? What are your goals with this podcast journey that we're on right now?
Andrew Mall: It's a great question. I've been thinking about the resilience of DIY scenes and DIY communities for a while. Resilience, meaning can they bounce back? If they've been here for the 30 years that I've been going to see shows, will they be here for 30 years more? What will they look like? Living in Boston, where the DIY scene really kind of ebbs and flows every few years depending on the college students that are here, it's kind of weird because it feels unstable. And also in Boston where there's a lot of attention given to urban development and gentrification and property values, DIY venues are few and far between. Even practice spaces for bands are few and far between.
So I started off thinking about, well, is this only a challenge here in Boston or is it a challenge everywhere? What are the challenges? And I started documenting those with the help of Anthony, my research assistant. We surveyed people, we interviewed people, and we also started talking to people about, if you could change things, what recommendations would you make? What needs to change? And here's the thing, there's no easy answer. There's no single answer. It depends on where you are because the scene of Boston is going to be different than the scene in Chicago has different needs. It's going to be different than the scene on Andover, Mass. It's going to be different than the scene in Schaumburg, Illinois. It's going to be different than the scene in North Jersey where I grew up. And the needs are going to be different too. The challenges that people face, they may be similar, but it really just depends on who's there and the policies and laws and law enforcement norms in place. So that's what really got me started thinking about this project overall and what a podcast might actually, how it might be a part of a solution.
We're not going to put out this podcast and the problems are going to be solved. But my hope is that by talking to people and by amplifying those voices and giving the folks we interviewed a platform to share their ideas, that we will be able to reach people that maybe haven't thought about this yet, or at least maybe they thought about it, but not in a coherent manner, like they haven't assembled all those ideas into a single thought or a single chain of thoughts. To think about a music scene isn't something that will always exist and always has existed. To have people say explicitly, "Here's how it was when I came up. Here are the changes that I've seen. Here are the challenges that I see us experiencing. Here's some ideas for solutions." To put all that together into a single narrative, into a single miniseries, my hope is that it's going to open some minds.
Dana Bollen: Well said, professor. And one thing I've learned actually even through this process of building this podcast that we have here is community. And I learned that because we have a whole panel of people, of all ages, of all walks of the DIY music scene life and of all different roles, musicians, photographers, festival promoters, show promoters, professors, people who created zines, people who run record labels. And before we did this, if you said the term DIY, "do it yourself," to me, I think I already have a new meaning in my mind. It means something more to me now than it did. Just by talking--so we talk to at least a dozen people, which we're all going to hear from throughout this whole series and in this episode. But to me, when I think of the term DIY, I think blue collar, I think struggle, growth, art, and more so now than ever, and I think I needed this personally--I feel like I'm actually your student right now--community and relationships, that's what comes to mind for me. Let me ask you, what does DIY mean to you?
Andrew Mall: So I think relationships are key. I'm glad that you ended there. Because DIY cannot be about doing it by yourself. It has to be about doing it with other people, about being able to rely on other people. So there's this misnomer that DIY means being independent or it's nothing. And it's not. It can't be about being independent only, because what does that even mean? That means you can't work with someone that you choose to work with? Does it mean you can't be friends with your neighbor who works for the city? With a partner who works for a major media organization? Does it mean you can't be friends with maybe family members, brothers or sisters who work for "the man"? That you can't sell records or sell tickets to shows to people who they're doing the best they can to support their families, and sometimes that means working for a company that they don't feel great about? DIY can't be that.
To me DIY is about interdependence. And I get this idea from this guy, Mark Anderson, who is maybe best known as being instrumental in Positive Force DC, a nonprofit organization that oftentimes worked hand in hand with Dischord Records and a lot of those DC hardcore and post hardcore bands in 1980s and 1990s to support and promote and advocate for social justice issues. He talks about the concept of "interdependence." Not independence, working by yourself, but interdependence, working with and relying on others. And to me, that is so key. We're probably going to get into this a little bit further in the episode on community, but I just want to lay that out there. That DIY means--it simply cannot mean you must do everything by yourself. Instead, you oftentimes are working in community. Sometimes it means we're making choices about what kinds of compromises we have to make in order to get things done. Because if you just hold to this purity standard, then maybe nothing will get done. You and I, we've been doing a lot of work over Zoom. Is that DIY? I pay Verizon for my internet connection. How DIY is that? So when we're thinking about DIY, and we're doing things in a DIY manner, we're necessarily making compromises against some kind of purity standard in order to put our own vision of what the world could be out into that world.
Dana Bollen: Beautiful. That was well said.
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Speaking of community and needing help from those around you, we have a beautiful panel of friends, peers, guests who are going to join us on this magical journey as we explore the DIY music scene. I think this would be a great time to get introduced to those people. What do you think, professor?
Andrew Mall: Yeah, let's hear what they have to say.
Ace Enders: Ace Enders, I play in a band called The Early November for the past 20 years, and then I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business as well as Ace Enders and a Million Different People and produced and written for many, many artists that are out there doing the thing. DIY for me is I guess sort of how I have always existed. It's been part of my life forever. I'm kind of an outside-the-box learner, not the conventional learner, especially when I was in school and whatnot as a kid. So for me, it was always like if I wanted to do something, I would have to figure out how to do it. I didn't come from too much either, so I couldn't get the hottest new toys when they came out. If I wanted that new Ninja Turtle, I had to get some paper, wrap it around a GI Joe, color it, and make it look like a Ninja Turtle.
So from a child, I've always had that mentality of do-it-yourself, figure out how to do it yourself. And I think what it means to me is the ability to, if you have a goal, you have a dream, you have something that you're trying to find success in, to really just take the bull by the horns and do it yourself, and don't let anything else get in the way, regardless of money, whatever it may be. Because the missed opportunities or lack of, because we're not even taking the chance, probably weighs heavier than anything. So I've always considered myself a very DIY person. It's part of who I am. And yeah, man, so it means a lot to me. A great deal.
When we started playing shows and I started really getting active in the scene, it was built on a very DIY foundation. We had shows in whether they were basements or living rooms, and then moved up to VFWs, and from there like skating rinks or whatever. But that idea of DIY, and I guess the ethos or the ethics that come with it, was always a huge part of the scene around here. So as a kid, I would go to these shows, these VFWs and be like, "Oh my God, how do I get to be one of these bands? How do I get to be a band like this? This is the coolest thing ever." And there would be maybe 30 people there just really having a good time with their friends. But you go to these neighboring towns and you know you want to do it. But at that point in time, we're talking early 2000s, you have no idea. in a lot of cases from a small town where from there's no recording studio, so you don't know how to facilitate that.
So for me, I went out and I got my own gear. I was way in debt as an 18-year-old kid because I'm like, there's no studio, so I'm going to make a studio. And they would give anybody a credit card back then. So I just loaded that thing up, didn't know how I was going to pay it off. Took me years. Honestly, I don't advise anybody doing that. But it allowed me to make the beginnings of what The Early November became. Some of those sounds that you hear on those early, early recordings are those basement recordings from my house when I turned my mom's basement into a recording studio. When I said that I've been DIY for a long time, that's where it all came from. But I think everybody needs a little bit of that. It's a great builder of grit in a human.
Luke Garro: I'm Luke Garro. I am a drummer. I play in a band called Piebald. And in the past I played in a band called Fastbreak and another band called In My Eyes. I'm also a manager of a drum company that makes high end drums called Noble and Cooley. And on my free time, I have a small farm with ponies and goats and chickens and lots of vegetables. So always getting my hands dirty. DIY to me is a combination of a few things. It's a mindset, it's an aesthetic, but it's also a means of getting things done. So it's a mindset because you have to be mentally prepared to go through a lot of trial and error and just figure things out on your own without a ton of resources and without a ton of support, possibly. It's an aesthetic because usually the result that comes from taking a DIY approach has a certain endearing quality to it. It has something that's different from the "mainstream," and that is a key component of making sure something that you're doing yourself has your personal unique qualities and spin to it. And then it's a means to get things done because quite honestly, a lot of the reason why people take a DIY approach is because they can't have access to the alternative, they can't afford the alternative, they don't know how to do the alternative. So they just kind of say, "You know what? I'm going to figure this out on my own." And I think when you have that package of all those things together, you have a nice little DIY wholesome contribution.
Chris Wrenn: My name is Chris Wrenn. I own the Bridge Nine record label and a clothing company called Sully's Brand that creates Boston-centric apparel. So I mean, when people hear DIY, I think most people think of Home Depot and doing housework and renovating. But for me, it was just doing your own thing related to things that I was passionate about. In high school, a lot of my friends were in bands, everybody kind of gravitated towards some sort of role. If friends of mine weren't in bands, they were actively taking photos of live shows. They were doing their own fanzines. There was a kid in my high school that had a backpack distro where he would print out a photocopied sheet of all the records that he had, and then he'd pass it around in the school and you could order from him and he'd bring it the next day. So there was this kind of strong current of people that were just doing their own thing that I was exposed to in high school and was able to learn from.
Ali Lipman: My name is Ali Lipman. I am one of the co-founders of Moon, the music organizers of the North Shore and organizers of Moon Over Salem, which is a local music and community festival. I also am the singer and guitarist of Cape Crush. I think that DIY or do-it-yourself is really what happens, or the communities that we build when there's not a lot of support for underground music and art. So they're kind of communities that pop up around underground music. I've heard DIY referred to as a genre as well, and I kind of relate to that because to me, it's this fast punk sound that came from the 2010s, but I think it encompasses a lot more than just that type of music. The fact is, whenever there's music or whenever there's people who want to do music, there's going to be communities that form around it, and that's when you get DIY scenes.
Brandon Davis: My name is Brandon Davis. I play guitar for Fever333, and Lions Lions. And I also play drums for Inspirit/Vanna. I think do-it-yourself really comes down to the actual literal meaning: doing something yourself as opposed to asking somebody else to do it for you. It's like, your alternator starts acting up, you bring it to the shop, or you go on Amazon and order an alternator and try to figure it out. So that's what it means to me is having the willpower and the motivation to try to do something yourself to the best of your ability.
Chad Johnson: Chad Johnson, founder of Furnace Fest. I lived in Birmingham, Alabama way back in the day, and I ran a small music venue and a small record label, and I fell in love with the scene there and realized that there was an incredible venue that no one was using and that I could actually gain access to for a festival. And thought, "Why not?" To me, it just strikes me as independent business or endeavor of any kind, where without community involvement, you are guaranteed to fail. I guess that would be my definition, broadly speaking,
Johnny Grimes: My name's Johnny Grimes. I'm one of the promoters and partners of Furnace Fest. I'm also an independent music venue owner. We have three music halls, two recording studios, there's office space here. We have a sound stage for video production and movie production. So it's a 30,000 square foot kind of multi-use facility, but it's an independent venue. We run it ourselves. We book all the shows, we clean the bathrooms, we do it all here, man. Yeah, I don't think there's anything overly complicated about it. D-I-Y is D-I-Y, where you do it yourself, everything's contingent upon you. There are no major corporations or anything like that that are involved. Just, it's a do-it-yourself approach as opposed to the massive conglomerate with endless cash, endless resources. So yeah.
Jeff Apruzzese: My name is Jeff Apruzzese. Currently I'm Assistant Professor at Drexel in the music industry program, formerly bass player of the band Passion Pit. And at Drexel, I teach classes and music. To me, historically, DIY was sort of about expression and being able to do something that you want to do that maybe you don't have the opportunity to do either through the traditional networks of major concert promoters, if that's a route you're trying to go, or even through the community where you're at, if there doesn't exist an opportunity or if that thing that you want to do isn't there, being able to sort of do that art, do that music. Are you able to do something for the passion of it, right? Doing the thing because you want to, whether or not it's successful, but because you have that desire to really put it out there.
Joey Chiaramonte: My name is Joey Chiaramonte, and I'm in the band Koyo. Broadly speaking, it is a lifestyle that infects everything. Even if you do things that transcend that, even if you live an aboveboard grandiose life, it is an option and a mindset and a lifestyle that infects everything positively. It's a thing that opens up access within yourself to accomplish things that you otherwise would probably rule out as options for you. Everything is kind of through the lens of subculture for me, and music scene, because that's in large what I'm involved with. So when I think DIY, I think particularly to the hardcore scene, the music scene that I'm involved with. In that context, if you're a young person, that mindset is the avenue to say, "Yes, I can." Say, "Why not? I'll put out this record for friends." Or for people to say, ""Yes, I'll go take this tour and figure it out for my friends and sell merch. Yes, I will book this show and figure out a place for this band that's driving across the country to play for no money. I'll find a way to make them play a show." These are things that I think commonly we would just shut down as options for ourselves, say, "I can't do that." But that is the spirit of it is that, you can and you will. It just produces human spirit and will to accomplish things that can be challenging or just otherwise are ruled out as options, I would say.
Matt Dunn: Matt Dunn, thankfully retired concert promoter from tertiary market of Syracuse, New York. I've been a punk/hardcore kid for 31 years, and I'm currently an entertainment industry instructor at the University of South Carolina, starting my sixth year somehow. So my thought process to that would be the idea, I mean the general premise of the do-it-yourself. So, I would draw a conclusion of independent or separate from a guiding premise, like a mom-and-pop built-from-the-ground-up idea. Clearly all circumstantial to some level. But yeah, in that sense of just, "We're going to do this. We're going to do this our way. We're going to see how it goes." I mean, many can argue even if you have financial comfort, which I certainly never did, you're still functioning in a DIY manner if you're not governed by some larger promoter or some larger direction or objective. So in that sense of just it being circumstantial, but just generally independent of. So I always like to reflect on myself as being a DIY promoter. When I was, I may have done the occasional show with Clear Channel then Live Nation and then AEG and the like. But at the end of the day, it was always my money. It was always me doing all the work, and I would be very vocal about the DIY ethic that was behind it.
Tony DeBacco: My name's Tony. I do a lot of videography in the music scene here in Boston. A lot of it started in DIY spaces, and now I kind of do it wherever my friends need me to. I talk about DIY as a scene and also a genre because I listen to a lot of DIY music. As a scene, it's a lot of young people kind of coming together. It doesn't necessarily, it's not all musicians, obviously, I'm not a musician and I found myself in it. It's usually just a lot of young people looking for a place to belong and test out new stuff, like making art in ways in which there's not really a platform to do so. It's kind of like a testing grounds for new stuff, experimental stuff. There's really not any limit to the amount you need to know before doing it. I've seen a lot of people be like, "Yeah, this is our first playing music live ever." And it ended up being really cool and fun. So that's kind of what I see DIY as, as a scene.
Norman Brannon: My name is Norman Brannon, and I am the publisher and writer of Anti-Matter and the guitar player for Thursday. I take DIY to be the most literal meaning. And for me, that means literally the things that I choose to do on my own. I don't attach to it any sort of ethical or moral significance. I don't attach to it any sort of implication that I'm for or against other types of business. I just see it as a way to operate, a choice that I can make, and I make a different choice for everything I do. A lot of my life has been DIY and some of my life has not. And again, it just depends on the project for me. What are the things that are suited for me to do by myself? What are the things that I know doing it myself will create the best result?
Andrew Mall: Some of the lessons that I have taken away from DIY, from indie, from hardcore is that a lot of the things that we do are worth doing, not because they make us money, and not because they build value, not because they contribute to capitalism, but because they help build sustainable communities, because they help make better lives for ourselves, for the people that we love, because they bring something beautiful out into the world. And so when I work with students, and maybe this is also true for how you work with young people, or your experience working with students or as a musician or whatever, I think that's often at the front of my mind: that the skills that I'm teaching, the critical tools that I'm hoping they learn can serve them well no matter how much or how little money they make. And that also the value of something like Anti-Matter or of all these records behind me isn't how much it can be sold for. And that's not always true for "content creators."
Norman Brannon: Well, whenever you bring in value, the concept of value has many prompts. And value can be personal value, it can be social value, it can be cultural value, it can be artistic value. It can also be financial value. And I think that especially in DIY spaces, this is where honestly, I think we sometimes get into trouble, and we get into trouble in a couple of different ways. So one way is that, let's say I'm a DIY promoter and I've decided that money isn't why I do this. Totally great, love that. But now I've booked eight bands on a $5 show, and half these bands come from out of town, and I have to pay them at the end of the night, no matter how many people show up. And some of these bands are going to wind up having to steal from the supermarket later to eat dinner because they didn't make enough money. And there's a question there of what is the ethical thing to do? What was the ethical thing to do there? Should they have charged more at the door? Should he have spent more money promoting the show? Should the band just fucking eat it? I don't know if everything's an individual thing.
But the other question, I did this interview with Andrew Kline from Strife where he talked about how in the 90s there was a show once where these kids came and they made mock Strife t-shirts where the S was a dollar sign and everyone was incensed that $trife were asking for a $1,000 guarantee. And this was at a show with 700 people. And so Andrew was like, "If you can't make $1,000 when 700 people came to see your band, what the fuck does that even mean?" And so we can't get these weird sort of dogmatic ideas about money intertwined with your DIY.
I believe that whatever your project is, it has value and it has lots of value. All the different prongs that I talked about, yes, but also financial value. And you should be willing to talk about how much you think it's worth. And if the people agree, let them show you. If they don't agree, then maybe it's not worth that. And I think that that's fair, and I'd like to think that people or enough people would respond to that in the same way that people used to respond to putting a couple of bucks in a coffee can at a basement show.
Dana Bollen: All right, and that wraps up the very first episode of Live Free Or DIY. Thank you so much for listening, and please join us on this journey as we explore over the next handful of episodes these crucial pieces to the DIY music scene. Professor Andrew Mall and myself are going to bring you along on this journey. And our friends, everyone you just heard from, is going to join us throughout the rest of this series. And we are going to explore topics such as sustainability and resilience. We're going to talk about exposure. Is there such thing as too much exposure in the DIY music scenes? We're going to dissect that. We're going to talk about community, we're going to talk about mental health. We're going to talk about what are the biggest challenges that DIY music scenes face today? And we're going to talk about why are we still here? Did any of us think we were still going to be here as we approach our forties and fifties? We'll talk about all of that and so much more, so please come along. Professor!
Andrew Mall: Yes, Dana?
Dana Bollen: Talk to me. What do you got for me?
Andrew Mall: Listen, Dana. No DIY music scene is perfect. Some are elitist or exclusive. Others are sexist or racist or homophobic, or transphobic. But many bands and fans have worked hard over years and decades to change those attitudes. And today, the best scenes welcome everyone, no matter who you are or where you're from, or what you believe. One of the things that I love about DIY music scenes is that they make you feel like you belong. Whether you're two-stepping in the pit, you're catching stage divers up front, or you're screaming along from the back, you're helping book shows, you're playing a band yourself, or you're creating content like us, there's a place for you. Having a community like that, a place where you belong, a space where you can plug in and contribute, that's huge. It's huge because it helps build relationships that often remain important long after the bands have packed up and loaded out.
So when scenes start to fall apart, decline, or even die, the effects can be devastating. It's not only about losing places for bands to play shows, it's also about losing safe spaces where misfit teens and grown ass adults alike can be themselves without fear. It's about losing networks that help people share their art, their music, their other talents. And finally, it's about losing the ability to connect with and care for and belong to something greater than yourself. I think we all need that opportunity. Come with us this season as we learn how scenes have been changing and what challenges they face today. I've been involved in DIY music scenes for 30 years. I want them to be around for at least 30 more.
[Credits roll] Live Free Or DIY is co-hosted by myself, Andrew Mall.
Dana Bollen: This show is also co-hosted and produced by Dana Bollen, editing assistance from Ioanis Pintzopolous.
Andrew Mall: Research assistance and production assistance by Anthony Robbins. Funding provided by Northeastern University.
Dana Bollen: Graphic design by Kira Burr. Cover photo shot by Todd Pollock. Podcast theme song brought to you by Piebald and Iodine Recordings. Head on over to Iodinerecordings.com for very special anniversary vinyl represses from bands such as Piebald, Fastbreak, Quicksand, Further Seems Forever, Stretch Armstrong, as well as incredible new artists signings, The New Scene podcast, and so much more. That's Iodinerecordings.com. And lastly, if you enjoyed the show, make sure to rate, subscribe, and follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Instagram. You can find links to everything in the show notes of this very episode.