The Witzard

Team C1 who plays on the Jersey Interchange C1 vinyl LP (SOURCE: Christian Lesperance) Jersey Interchange is a musical collaboration series that re-imagines the songs of the New Jersey Punk, Hardcore, Emo, and Ska scenes of the late 1990's/early 2000's. Conceived as a simple creative outlet by NJ native Christian Lesperance (Skappository!) during the COVID-19 Quarantine, Jersey Interchange quickly blossomed into an exciting project, as over 50 different Jersey-based artists contributed and recorded tracks using home recording set-ups, each bringing a fresh take on the melodies that might have since been buried in basement storage bins, but never forgotten in the memories of fans who sang along with them over 20 years ago. The project gained significant traction and relevance thanks to the fans who tuned-in weekly and spread the word, plus, great support from outlets, like BrooklynVegan, NO ECHO, and many other music-related blogs, radio shows, and podcasts. In the fall of 20...

Dead Best's Brian Sokel, 2021 (SOURCE: Brian Sokel) Brian Sokel is a Philadelphia native. Sokel played guitar in the influential Punk/Dub band Franklin (sometimes, ! franklin) from 1992 until the band's demise in 1999. They released numerous albums and singles on various labels. Sokel on to play in AM/FM with fellow Philadelphian Michael "Mike" Parsell (Frail) and was the primary song-writer. AM/FM released numerous albums on Polyvinyl Records in the early 2000's. They toured numerous times, but, ultimately, disbanded in 2004. Sokel has, also, spent time throughout his career playing music with Atom & His Package, short-lived Misfits-covering super-group T.V. Casualty , Fracture, The Jai-Alai Savant with his one-time Franklin bandmate Ralph Darden, Aspera Ad Astra, and Gonner. Sokel took a 10-year period off from making his own music between about 2003-13 after which he briefly formed a new project, Gonner, with Parsell and one-time Franklin bassist Roy Binn...

Long-time friends Adam "Atom" Goren & Brian Sokel followed interwoven paths through the Philadelphia Punk scene in the late 90's and early 2000's. While Sokel brought riffs to the Dub & Hardcore-blending ! franklin and was the primary song-writer and multi-instrumentalist for AM/FM , Goren was playing in Punk bands Fracture & Armalite and exploring the use of sequencers in his eccentric solo project Atom & His Package . In their respective projects, the two toured The US & Canada together, released each other's music on self-run labels, and Goren would even pay tribute to Sokel's band on the Atom & His Package track "For Franklin." Sokel briefly appears on Atom & His Package's "Out to Everyone" from Attention! Blah Blah Blah. and "Upside Down from Here" from Hair: Debatable, as well as TV Casualty's self-titled 7-inch of Misfits covers. Despite their closeness, Goren & Sokel had never ...

Adam "Atom" Goren pictured with Good Clean Fun in Akko, Israel (SOURCE: Adam Goren) We've Got A Flyer On You will (hopefully!) be a new recurring column here at The Witzard. It's set to feature, examine, and re-visit mixed bill/genre, once-in-a-lifetime, iconic, and otherwise noteworthy Punk/Hardcore show flyers and their corresponding line-ups. As often as possible, we plan to speak directly with the promoters, bookers, flyer artists, soundmen/women, show attendees, and, most importantly, the artists themselves. If all goes well, we're even hoping to, eventually, cover a handful of shows we attended ourselves in years past, as well. For this slightly re-vamped edition of We've Got A Flyer On You, we'll be spotlighting a noteworthy musician, rather than a singular infamous show, for each installment. Adam "Atom" Goren is an Oreland, Pennsylvania-based musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Goren is best known for his one-man...

THE ZAMBONIS & The Hanson Brothers (SOURCE: Dave Schneider) Not entirely unlike Wrestle/Wrassle Rap or Basketball Rap, there's, apparently, a whole sub-genre of hockey-themed Punk/Hardcore—oftentimes, referred to as "Puck" Rock or Hockey-core. Yes, I've been a die-hard fan of Punk/Hardcore for 15+ years and I, too, only first heard about Puck Rock within the last few weeks. Although, once I started diggin' around, I discovered about 10-15 bands at the forefront; this was, then, gradually narrowed down to 10 "front-line" bands, which will be chronicled here over the course of coming weeks. The "top-scoring" bands we selected include: Crippled Youth, SLAPSHOT, The Hanson Brothers/Nomeansno, Two Man Advantage, The Boils, D.O.A. THE ZAMBONIS, Pansy Division, The Hextalls, and The Ramoms' "Gritty Is A Punk" flexi-disc. We sent out a short 6-question interview form to all of the aforementioned bands, received some back, heard a fe...