NEWSLETTER 016
02/16/22 - SCOTT MAGRATH I
This week’s Scheme newsletter brings you a discussion of love songs for the unloved and an interview with SCOTT MAGRATH of Maggot Stomp…
SCHEME REPORT:
In case ya missed it last week, we're doing two releases for the Carolina Straight Edge band, SEARCH FOR PURPOSE. The first will be a tape consisting of two new songs and the second is a remastered, new pressing of their 2018 LP, Eternal Emotion. Both will be up for order and streaming in Mid March - the LP is estimated to be completed early Summer. We forgot to link it last installment, but here is a good interview that Shining Life conducted with SFP a couple years ago.
Both ALMIGHTY WATCHING and WRECKAGE played CT the past week in celebration of AW's defacto quasi record release…CT was alive and well in the suburbs of Wallingford. The AW/WRECKAGE kinship continues at the upcoming BURIED ALIVE show in April. Speaking of WRECKAGE, their debut Scheme release, "II" is officially sold out. However, some new practice demo tracks have been floating around in various inboxes.....what will come of these? Find out next time on Scheme....
SCENE REPORT:
We've talked about it before but Tony Rettman knows how to conduct a good interview.....he's been piecemealing out his interview that he conducted with the singer of FOUR WALLS FALLING the past couple weeks that is for sure worth a read. He also just dropped a tape / oral history zine of INSTED as I'm writing this out that looks dope...you can find all of this and more on his substack account.
RULE THEM ALL has emerged from hibernation and dropped a new song that is going to be featured on their split with KILL YOUR IDOLS....you can preorder the split via Flatspot Records now.
Lastly, there's a new joint venture between us and Daze: BTK Recordings. While between the both of us we're generally dumb and not serious, this label will kind of be semi serious? You'll officially hear it here first: The debut release is a repress of INTERNAL BLEEDINGs Alien Breed compilation, consisting of their first three demos and the track Alien Breed. It is going to be a 2xLP with a screen printed D side and will contain an eight page 12" booklet containing pictures, notes, etc. of the band from that era. We've been working on this release for a year or so trying to get it just right......more news to shill later this summer when it is expected to finish.
KYLE’s PLAYLIST:
STARKWEATHER - Into The Wire / Crossbearer
CONFRONT - Pay Day
SKIT SYSTEM
WICCA PHASE - Suffer On
LIFETIME 7”
STOUT
VIOLENT WAY - Release The Skins
RIPPING CORPSE - Dreaming With The Dead
![Ripping Corpse - "Dreaming With the Dead" - Decibel Magazine](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb94162c-3661-4624-87f3-b07e84c6f2aa_1414x1413.jpeg "Ripping Corpse - "Dreaming With the Dead" - Decibel Magazine")
ALBIN’s PLAYLIST:
ALCHEMIST - Super Tecmo Bo
CONWAY THE MACHINE - La Maquina
DEHUMANIZED - Prophecies Foretold
VOMIT FORTH - New LP
KOYO - LP Demos
PORTISHEAD - Portishead
SUPERTOUCH live sets
CHUBBY AND THE GANG - Labour of Love
ANXIOUS - Little Green Mf House
HURTS LIKE LUV…
February 14th, depending on who you ask it's a day celebrating love in all forms or a painful reminder of your haunting loneliness orrrr its half way to my birthday. Either way, regardless of what you choose to celebrate on this day its a good enough occasion to to highlight some hardcore that deals with the subject of love.
You as a seasoned reader and enjoyer of core know that we as a people don't have a one size fits all point of view on ANYTHING nevermind on a subject so complicated and misunderstood but I think this small smattering can highlight a lot of the avenues we find ourselves on at one point or another while drifting through this twisted mortal coil.
DEATH THREAT - “You're The One”
You know what’s hardcore? DEATH THREAT. You know what else is hardcore? Admitting you made a mistake and accepting the consequences of that mistake in a song. "You're the one I'll never forget, losing you is my one regret" hard ass mosh with a heartfelt message.
MAXIMUM PENALTY - “Could You Love Me?”
This is an annoying given that they released a heart shaped single for this track like 20 years after the fact but it doesn't diminish the all around musical accomplishment that this song is. Jimmy Williams has the voice of a bald angel, and his lyrics are the hardest pivot from all the other bitter sowerful hardcore love songs that exist. Admitting you need someone ain't easy but if one of the greatest NYHC bands can do it in a song, what's your excuse? Also honorable mention to the emotional moshing part.
WISDOM IN CHAINS - “Land Of Kings”
NO ONE loves the scrapple state more than these burly MFs, truly I hope to one day be able to articulate my love for the I-84 Corridor even half as well as WISDOM IN CHAINS does in this song about Pennsylvania. You know these guys have never faked a thing in their life so writing a track like this can only come from a real place that has an undying respect and loyalty for their motherland.
CROWN OF THORNZ - “Love Sick”
It's not all sunshine and roses in Corona, Queens. Sometimes things go wrong, and love turns sour and you're self with deep mental and possibly physical scars and a hard ass NYHC song.
This week we got part one of a two part interview discussing the 'core with Scott Magrath; half the brains of Maggot Stomp, the finest current purveyors of underground death metal. Continue below for solid talk of CTHC, MOUTHPIECE disses and more:
Introduce yourself...where did you grow up? Around what age did you find punk / hardcore / metal and which one came first? What were some of the first records that really clicked with you?
Yo, I’m Scott and I am the small brains behind Maggot Stomp. I grew up in the 80s in Bolton, a small town in Connecticut, and was initially into heavy metal while I was in junior high and my early high school years. I was into MAIDEN, PRIEST, OZZY, lots of hair metal bands and then I started getting into speed metal and thrash metal and then one day I borrowed a magazine from a friend that had OZZY on the cover. This mag had some record reviews including TOKEN ENTRY’s Jaybird and the PAGAN BABIES record. I thought the cover of Jaybird was cool. This was the beginning of my junior year of HS, I was 15. I bothered my mom to stop at the Crystal Mall the next weekend on our way to my aunt’s house. I popped into Cassette World and they had both, TOKEN ENTRY and PAGAN BABIES tapes. I only had enough money for one so I grabbed TE cause Ernie’s art was dope. It was a little while later I overheard this skater kid Luke talking about TOKEN ENTRY at school so I approached him and told him that I liked TE and he gave me this weird look. Looking back I was probably a strange kid, I was into playing sports, but I wasn’t one of the cool jock kids. I used to just listen to music and I used sharpies to draw my own band t-shirts. I was basically a dork that was good at baseball. Anyhow, this kid brought me two mixed tapes the next day. One was nothing but NYHC demos & 7”s like SICK OF IT ALL, RAW DEAL, GB, the From Beneath The Streets record etc. The other tape had MINOR THREAT on one side and 7 SECONDS on the other. I listened to those tapes so much until I got my mom and step dad to drive me down to Waterbury so I could hit up Phoenix Records. I was so confused cause I was on the second floor of some office type building. I went in and it was so small and tightly packed in there. I found a 7” box and grabbed everything that had Revelation Records on the back and some other 7”s that looked “hardcore”. I got SOIA, GB, SIDE BY SIDE, WARZONE, NFAA etc.
Some of those early HC records that I remember listening to an ungodly amount were Blood Sweat and No Tears, Start Today, We’re Not In This Alone, Brightside and the Where the Wild Things Are comp.
How soon after being introduced to underground music did you start heading to shows? You've said that a SOIA / RAW DEAL show was your first....how'd you find out about the show in the first place? What other notable shows did you catch when you first started coming around?
It wasn’t long after that I got those two mixed tapes that that dude Luke mentioned that he was gonna drive to that show. The line up was GORILLA BISCUITS, SOIA, RAW DEAL, SCREECHING WEASEL, LAUGHING HYENAS, SPONGE TUNNEL and 24-7 SPYZ. So he picked me up at my house in his VW thing. It was a cold ass December night and a VW thing is basically a steel box with wheels. We were cold as fuck. The show was at the student union ballroom at UConn. It was maybe a 30 minute drive from my house. I remember we had to go up some stairs to get to the room where the show was and we had to wait in the stairwell til they let people in. There were a bunch of kids wearing fresh CHAIN OF STRENGTH tees pulled over Champion hoodies standing and waiting to get in. I was jealous cause I had no idea that Chain had played in CT. Once we got upstairs there was a sign saying that 24-7 SPYZ had cancelled, the punk bands played first. At that time I gave zero shits about punk and those bands. At this time I still give zero shits about them. My most vivid memory of RAW DEAL was Anthony singing and he had this one vein that ran down the middle of his forehead, I kept thinking the whole time that that shit was going to bust. Then SICK OF IT ALL were just awesome, during Pete’s Sake someone fell on my head and my glasses fell off my face and they got wrecked. After SOIA we stood around for a while and then maybe after an hour we were told that GB had broken down and weren’t going to make the show.
Honestly I had no idea about shows happening. I would get all of my records at Record Breaker at the Manchester Parkade. Someone started dropping off flyers for the Anthrax there and I’d see these shows happening but I had just turned 16 around then and didn’t drive. That dude Luke had graduated in 89 and turned into a Discord hippie over night and bagged on NYHC. While I was in HS the shows I caught were at UConn. Aside from that SOIA/RAW DEAL show I saw SUPERTOUCH, MURPHY’S LAW, I saw TOKEN ENTRY play a garbage set of tracks mostly off of The Weight of the World. I missed a VISION, UP FRONT show one night because I couldn’t find anyone to fill my shift at the pizza place I worked at, still bummed about that.
It wasn’t until I took a shitty color theory class at Manchester Community College and met a couple of other dudes that were into HC and started finding out about more shows in New Haven, New Britain and NYC/Boston.
What bands / people were you rolling with at the time or were you going to a lot of shows solo? Did you do any bands / labels / art during this time or were you more of a spectator?
For the most part I went to most shows by myself. Especially early on I’d go to the Moon and to the Urban Jungle/Tune Inn by myself. Eventually I met other dudes to chill with, but mostly I’d go on my own.
One of the dudes I met in my color theory class was in this CT band BIG MISTAKE. We talked a lot in class and he mentioned that his band was going on tour and they needed a roadie so I volunteered. I jumped in a van with 5 people I barely knew for a month long trek around the US. I became good friends with them on that trip and hung out with them a lot going to shows and selling merchandise for them, drawing t-shirts and making flyers.
Describe your experience living and participating in the north east hardcore and metal scene in the 90s...how much crossover did you see between the two? How often and far were you traveling for shows? What were some of illest shows you caught during this period?
Looking back, CT was probably the sickest place to be in the early to mid 90s. CT never had a huge metal scene from what I remember. There was the Agora Ballroom in West Hartford in the 80s that always had sick metal shows, but it was 21+ and had shut down before I was old enough to get in. In the 90s most death metal tours came through and played the El n Gee in New London. I saw CANNIBAL CORPSE, ENTOMBED, GRAVE and others there.
There wasn’t a lot of crossover between metal bands and HC bands sharing shows, not in CT anyhow. You’d get SICK OF IT ALL playing with BIOHAZARD at the Urban Jungle, BIOHAZARD would bring out some metal dudes but it would still look like a HC show.
The mid 90s were great, I was going to multiple shows a week. The Tune Inn and the Sports Palace in New Britain had so many great shows. I went down to Wetlands a bunch, CBGBs a few times, ABC No Rio once and some other spots in the city. I went to Boston a bunch, the Channel had sick shows, I caught SIX FEET UNDER, IMMOLATION and INTERNAL BLEEDING at the Rat. Babyhead in Rhode Island had so many shows for a while. We’d go to Albany to the QE2 to see WITHSTAND. Some friends and I drove up to Schenectady in the middle of a huge snowstorm to see INTO ANOTHER only to find out when we got there that we had mixed up the days and that INTO ANOTHER had played the night before. I went to New Jersey only a few times for shows. We went and saw SAVES THE DAY and NEW FOUND GLORY at a rec hall or some shit in Jersey. But some of the best shows were BURN and SUPERTOUCH at the Tune Inn, MERAUDER at the Sports Palace. DEICIDE at some rock club in Danbury when they toured for Once Upon The Cross was nutty. MURPHY’S LAW and SLAPSHOT at the old EM Lowes in Worcester was awesome. MURPHY’S LAW came out to Todd Youth playing the star spangled banner while a GIANT American flag was lowered behind them.
With the internet shining light on all the good, bad and ugly of hardcore throughout the years... are there any bands from your youth that you feel like still have never got their due? On the contrary, are there any bands that people currently love from that era that you think suck ass?
I think DIE MY WILL were one of the best bands from CT that got overlooked, it’s nice to see them getting some love now with the reissue of the demo on vinyl. And I think RIGHT BRIGADE should get more love.
Do people still love FOLLOW THROUGH? You Booze, You Lose was a fun singalong but they weren’t that good of a band. And MOUTHPIECE had cool shirts but their LP wasn’t that good, the FACE TOMORROW 7” was cool and HANDS TIED were good, but MOUTHPIECE? Pass.
The CTHC (un)holy trinity...fuck, marry, kill; 100 DEMONS, DEATH THREAT and HATEBREED
For sure I’d fuck 100 DEMONS (Steve Karp is a sexy mother fucker), I want to spend the rest of my life with DEATH THREAT and I’d kill HATEBREED. Don’t get me wrong, I love HATEBREED, but fuck the Ozzfest bro crowd they attract. They played the Showcase Theater (RIP) here in Corona as A Call For Blood and it was one of the wildest shows I’ve seen.
