Razorcake #141

It’s 2024, not 1977. How is it that there’s still music being made today that I’ve been thirsty for, but I didn’t exactly know what it’d sound like? You know, besides it sounding punk. Dead Pioneers fill a void I knew was inside of me; I just didn’t know how large that void was. That’s part of punk’s ever-evolving magic. It hasn’t all been played out. Punk’s not just a dead tread flapping around a wobbly wheel, slowly veering to a stop in an unmarked final resting place.

I’m going to pitch Dead Pioneers as spoken word accompanied by dynamic, bombastic, intricate punk played in service to a message. It’s explosive and penetrative. For me, their self-titled debut LP is terrible background music. I can’t do any work when it’s playing because Gregg Deal’s voice is front and center and he’s worthy of full attention. From the first bars of the first song, “Tired,” all my focus gets sucked into his proclamation of: “America is a pyramid scheme and you ain’t at the top! / Your demonization of those different than you is not just a cottage industry in America but an honest to goodness American value.” And it doesn’t let go until the final notes of “No One Owns Anything and Death Is Real.”

If you’re a conscientious person living in the United States and are honest with both yourself and United States history, it’s an unassailable fact that Indigenous people have been fucked over since their first contact with Columbus, and they continue to be. Even now, in a time, as Gregg recounts below, when forty percent of Americans believe that Native American people no longer exist. Shitheads like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem recently doubled down that Native children “don’t have any hope” because of absentee parents and baselessly claimed tribal leaders “personally benefitting” from drug cartels. This was after Noem previously ignored tribal objections to fireworks displays over Mount Rushmore. The irony is as thick as red, white, and blue smoke being blown up all our asses since 1776.

Angry. Tired. Wickedly witty. Insightful. Crazy-poignant art. They were punk first… Dead Pioneers.

Beautiful Freaks interview by Rosie Gonce

It’s a packed house at a DIY show in someone’s backyard. In front of me is a stage with a queercore, glam, punk rock band of clowns, dancing and gyrating along to a choreographed creation of controlled and chaotic sounds blasting from their instruments. I look around and realize that many people in the audience are also dressed up as their own versions of clowns and excitedly contort their bodies to the beat, some smiling underneath drawn-on frowns. The singer intensely locks eyes with the crowd while sultrily crooning like Jessica Rabbit in between hardcore screams and maniacal laughs. The song abruptly changes into a completely different genre and the crowd hectically sways along with frenzied happiness. What’s this scene I’ve stumbled upon? What’s this community of clowns? Was that a jazz chord I just heard? Does anyone have clown makeup I can borrow?

I continued to watch this circus act of raw energy, passionately displaying outstanding technical abilities and playing too many musical styles to mention— some that maybe don’t exist yet. Fearlessly showcasing their experimentation with songwriting makes it feel like sonic poetry, pushing the boundaries of self-expression through music. A sea of teenagers joyously churns in front of the band. I see before my very eyes the impact being made on these impressionable kids, who are reveling in the freedom of embracing their freakiness. They’re rejoicing in a space where weirdness, experimentation, and unapologetic fun are encouraged and accepted. The performers and the audience become one during the show and it’s a communal catharsis of clowning around in a mosh pit of manic musical mayhem.

The band is Beautiful Freaks. They’re educated, community-driven, hard-working, Seattle DIY scenesters, as well as close childhood friends. I could feel the love between them as I sat in their punk house in West Seattle. Underneath the wild performances and the clown makeup is a band built on friendship, incredible talent, and dedication to living by their values.

Science Man interview Rick V.

Science Man is fast dystopian hardcore that could be considered chaotic if it wasn’t played so tightly. Sprinkled throughout are some upbeat, blazing guitars that you typically wouldn’t expect in music described as “dystopian.” I think they’d be fine with me calling them a weirdo rock’n’roll-tinged hardcore band from the frozen streets of Buffalo, N.Y. What started as a solo project by John Toohill is now a full-fledged band that has been touring consistently since 2021. John has cranked out new Science Man records on the regular and the first record featuring all the current and past members of the full band lineup is due in the fall.

Science Man shows are a twenty-minute barrage of loud and fast guitars while John jumps, crawls, hangs, and contorts in front of an often confused/stoked audience. Both of the recent Science Man records Mince’s Cain and Nines Mecca are also accompanied by music videos put together by John and his collaborator/partner Lindsay Tripp. If you like this band, watch the videos and prepare yourself for low-budget, candy-coated goth goodness.

I interviewed the band in Indianapolis on the porch of a closed brewery behind the venue they just played.

Aaron Melnick interview by John Piche

Aaron Melnick is a founding member of Integrity. He wrote and recorded the first four Integrity LPs, several cassingles, EPS, and 7”s. He remained in the band until 1998, afterward founding In Cold Blood and The Inmates. Aaron is a frustrating person to know because he’s always moving forward—always pushing himself into new projects, always teaching himself something with a passion and commitment that few in Cleveland have innately. Cleveland punk and hardcore is made by cheap matches thrown on dry kindling. Sure, there’s a spectacularly bright explosion of intense fire, but it burns itself up and out too quickly. The stakes are low, so the drama is high as Cleveland eats its own. But Aaron fits into a lineage of caretakers. He supports, encourages, and lends a hand more than others rip at the seams. With each new interest, new band, and project Aaron tackles them with authentic sincerity. His newest project, Nuclae supports a band and a novel, his first, to complete a multi-decade project inspired by a late night conversation. Now that it’s out, what comes next? Luckily, we will all get to enjoy whatever it is. Interview done February 3, 2024.  

One Punk’s Guide to Therapy by Kurt Morris

“Kurt, have you ever thought about going to therapy?” My friend asked me one night in our junior year of college. We were sitting at a booth in the student union. Our time studying together had become, yet again, an opportunity for me to bemoan my existence in a world of depression and anxiety. My friend was a social work major and went on to be a therapist after college. At that time, however, she didn’t suggest therapy because of some educational insight into what it can provide. She was more likely at the end of her rope trying to help me. Having a twenty-one-year-old college student try to support the poor mental health of another twenty-one-year-old is a big ask.

I’d never gone to therapy. I didn’t know anyone who had gone besides a few people on campus. My sister was in a master’s program for mental health counseling, so I was aware of that world, yet I had no personal experience with it. When I was in college in the ’90s, people rarely shared they were in therapy. Perhaps they were open about it in major cities, but I was in the rural Midwest, and feelings of self-determination and willpower were believed to be vital to developing a young mind. Or so I was taught. There was still a lot of stigma around therapy.

At that point in my life, though, things had gotten bad enough with sleeplessness, depression, anxiety, and the inability to control my emotional reactions to experiences that I was ready to try anything. My initial visit to the college counseling center wasn’t life-changing. In fact, over the course of the visits in the spring of my junior year and fall of my senior year, the main thing I recall was that they got me on my first anti-depressant….


“America is a country that lethally targets Arabs so consistently that we don’t even notice anymore…. Being born Arab shouldn’t be a death sentence.” –Donna Ramone (instagram)

“Jan asked Elvis to play ‘Return to Sender,’ which is an unusual selection for one’s wedding day…. Elvis jammed Black Flag’s ‘Nervous Breakdown’ and we all sang along.” –Jim Ruland (instagram)

“Wealth is how long you can survive without working…. You need to have assets if you wanna be able to relax (I don’t like the word retire) when you’re older.” –Lorde Destroyer

“We have to acknowledge that labor is despised in America…. If you’re a rider on Dillinger Four’s metaphorical bus—that is, if you’re someone who makes all your money by your labor, if you have a boss who exploits you and you wish that boss was dead—it makes sense to ask how you can change this system.” –Sean Carswell (instagram)

“Steve Albini is to be commended for helping many of us season our aging with maturity. It’s just unfortunate that he isn’t around to thank.” –Rev. Nørb (instagram)

“34 for 45.” –Art Fuentes. (instagram)

“I soaked up the weird like a sponge… and the weird-o-meter spiked into the red.” –Rhythm Chicken (instagram)

And photos from the lovely and talented:

Chris Boarts Larson

Mari Tamura

Albert Licano

This issue is dedicated to the memories of Gary Floyd, Steve Albini, and Janette Grant