The Witzard

Tightwire full-color illustration (CREDIT: David Buist, @david_buist) The best Pop-punk bands come from the Midwest. That thar's a scientific fact. Another proven law of Ramones-core is that the second album is even better. So, you can see why we're fired up about this new record: Head Full of Snakes is destined for greatness! Tightwire came storming outta Minneapolis in 2018 with a catchy/crusty/spooky debut, Six Feet Deep, and toured with Dillinger Four, CHIXDIGGIT!, Off With Their Heads, and more. Since then, they've only gotten stronger with the addition of Noelle Stolp on second guitar and added vocals. She's Iowa Punk royalty! And now that Tightwire 2.0 is armed with 12 new songs about darkness and damnation, they'll be hitting the road on some tasty tours and festivals. It appears as though since Tightwire's 2018 effort, Six Feet Deep, the band has gone through some major changes, re-structuring, revitalization, and is now back better than ever! We g...

The Bollweevils (sometimes, known as Rat Patrol) are a Chicago area Punk band, who were originally active from 1989-96. At that point, The Bollweevils broke upp/went on hiatus from about seven years while frontman Daryl Wilson finished up medical school and became a doctor morphing into Dr. Daryl Wilson, M.D. The Bollweevils played their "last" show at The Fireside Bowl in November of 1996, but soon re-formed for then-one-off shows in both 2003 and 2006 before fully, properly re-forming in 2007. The Bollweevils had a bit of a rotating cast of members and players for a number of years during this phase of their career, but have now solidified their current line-up as Dr. Daryl Wilson, Ken Fitzner AKA Ken Weevil, Peter "Pete" Mittler, and Pete Mumford AKA Sensitive Pete. Around 2012, The Bollweevils started diligently working on their first album together since re-forming and being fully revilatized. So, some 11 years later, The Bollweevils released their first ...

Elway L-R: William Orender, Tim Browne, Joe Henderer & Brian Van Proyen (CREDIT: Tom May) Elway have stuck with Red Scare Industries for a few years and, now, we've all been rewarded with their best album yet; or, at least, that's what they're saying. Elway's Tim Browne, Joe Henderer, William Orender & Brian Van Proyen, also, tell us that the prevailing theme of this collection of songs is, "... The Candide/Quixote Dilemma. As in, are we naïve for being optimistic?" Hoo-wee, sounds like Red Scare's gonna get rich off this thing! The Indie Punk quartet recorded a buncha songs out in their home state of Colorado and, then, they painstakingly whittled it down to the best 11 tracks for The Best of All Possible Worlds. All bangers here! Even though it's been lean times for Indie Rock/Punk tours during The Pandemic, Elway has managed to play some recent shows with The Lawrence Arms, Hot Water Music, and The Menzingers and we expect the good tim...