Between seasons we take a look at an EP from San Diego hardcore punk band STRUGGLE, formerly known as PROLETARIAN STRUGGLE. The themes on this self titled EP from 1994 lead us to believe they have opinions about current events.

Side Two of this album is the EP we are reviewing today if you want to check it out here. https://struggle31g.bandcamp.com/album/one-settler-one-bullet

At the turn of a decade, 1990, aligned a group of angry, disenfranchised teenagers from San Diego who connected in that they all had something similar to say about the city around them– one afflicted with racism, consumerism, abuse, animal cruelty, sexism etc. (much like any other). The message, in essence, was to say “fuck all of these things”, and the result was some of the members’ first “official” forays with fast-paced, aggressive music in a hardcore band. Struggle (Initially called Proletariat Struggle, but later shortened due to the fact that it was a bit of a stretch to say that the members were all “working class” at that point in their young lives, or that the main focus was merely classism) would turn out to be the seed for what would later splinter off into various but equally important and beloved artistic avenues for the six members.

Transcript

0:22

to today's bonus episode of Side One, Side B, with Dave and Steve. I'm Steve And I'm Dave,

And today we're going to be looking at an EP that I got a number of years ago: 0:35

An elf penis. Yes, an elf penis, consisting of 6 tracks. I'm surprised you knew about that format. It didn't survive for very long. No, Most people didn't want to stick an elf penis in their tape cassette player, And I don't blame them. Some formats deserve to fail. Just gets glitter and everything, and you can't use it for anything else. Today we're going to be looking at a hardcore record from a band called Struggle. Dave. what do you think Struggle means? I think it means living just through everything right now, Pretty much. Initially, their band was called Proletariat Struggle- Oh nice. And then they shortened. it Looks like due to the fact that it was a bit of a stretch to say that the members were all working class at their point in their young lives. I bet they still were. I bet they still were. yeah, Americans don't know what class is. so yeah, Struggle consisted of Dylan Schwarf on vocals, Jose Palafox on drums, Justin Pearson on bass and Eric Allen, Tobias Nathaniel and Cliff Cunningham, all on guitar. Are all of those people on this? That's a lot of guitar players. it looks like Toby and Eric were on guitar for this one. So okay, Yeah, Probably not all overlapping members then, Yeah, This band, I think. uh, they came out in, uh, Oh, nice, Yeah, So, This came out after hardcore was already a well-established thing. basically, Yeah, but before, but before 19, 91, when punk broke, basically because of Nirvana. there's a lot of what a lot of what we call alternative at the time was what people saw as punk, And then punk became pop punk. And then, yeah, All right, I'm going to give this over to you to describe the artwork, and then I'm also going to have you read off what's on the On the record, And then we're also going to go through this booklet full of their lyrics and stuff and some art. All right, The cover right here is a flatbed truck, uh, with a bunch of dismembered bodies and the bed, and then a bunch of dismembered bodies on the street as well, just like gore and viscera all over the place. it's a black and white photo. I always imagined it was something that was from like the Vietnam or Korean war, or something. yeah, really fucking grody, yeah, there's. it's hard to tell where one body ends and one body begins, just because they're all just strewn about just limbs everywhere. Pretty sure whatever's happening in that picture. it was Henry Kissinger's fault, Probably. Yeah. Any picture that they would get of this quality in 19, 90 would? It's, yeah, very likely Henry Kissinger's fault.

And then on the back there is: 3:55

It's mainly just. it's mainly just a plain black background, although in the corner here's this picture takes out up about a fourth of the back cover And it looks like it's a house show where there's a bunch of people standing around and the lead singer is lying on the ground with like a down mic stand and a bunch of bunch of cables. And there's the drum set. I think it's the same picture on the insert here. Oh hey, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so yeah, just panning it up. And then on the, On the front of it, on the front of the record, you know the name of the band, what RPM to play it at and all the songs. But then you flip it over and look at the other side And here's a picture of a guy in a vest and a necktie holding a cross and a Bible,

And it says: 4:47

ask my son who's their boss And they'll point to mommy. Ask them who's mommy's boss

And they'll say: 4:54

daddy, My wife submits to me because I submit to God. Submit, submit, submit. It's a dirty word in society, but it's a holy word in the church.

Speaker. at an Operation Rescue rally before an assault on New York clinics: 5:10

Oh hey, just quoting the people who bomb abortion clinics, I wonder if the picture on the front is the results of someone bombing an abortion clinic. Oh, I wonder. Yeah, I never thought of that. That wouldn't be Kissinger's fault then. but yeah, Will, We can do some research and find out. but yeah, this is, I don't know of an abortion clinic bombing that killed this many people, though. So maybe not, Probably not Cause. looking at the insert like on the back, it looks like it's stuff from war. Yeah, yeah, that that quote, for whatever reason, reminded me of your song, the art of loving correction, or our song. I should say Yeah, Yeah, It's the same, It's the same idea, But yeah, inside it comes with a decent-sized booklet as well. It's all in black and white, but inside you have- See, it looks like it's a picture of a protest. And then we have art and some lyrics. It looks like the inside of a jail cell. You go in and we have what looks like a giant body with a TV head. The TV head is a full frontal drawing of boobs and vagina, And it looks like The robot thing, or whatever it is, has a cross. Next one is a picture of what looks like an armchair, but the head of it is like an electrical socket. And I think these all correspond to their lyrics. It's the same idea of like an Eli Valley cartoon, but it's not not as like detailed or technically proficient. it's more like straightforward line art, then, but it's like the same kind of, like absurdist data, angry political type of type of thing that eli valley does. next page, burning american flag. this one looks like some artwork that depicts some uh, some struggle like, uh, somebody being bombed in a war. yeah, um,

The next one is: 7:14

Oh, it's a dollar sign. Yeah, Is that a five Guys? I don't think these guys like capitalism. No, Which? Yeah. there's a quote in the front here.

It says: 7:30

this album is dedicated to the people's struggle all around the world. Arise, Arriba Amandala, in teeth in teeth, intifada. oh yeah, and intifada. and uh, i'm pretty sure this is german doish, doish, doish cage? i don't know. yeah, i'm barely. i could barely get people's names right, let alone other languages. intifada is the uh, palestinian liberation cry, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, I bet these guys have opinions on the current state of the world.

And then on the back there's a quote here: 8:13

Music must reflect society, world society and the way the society is moving, because musicians depend upon society to sustain them. At the same time, music and musicians must help to set things right. Dizzy Gillespie, Gillespie, Anyway, yeah, that name, that name. And, yeah, there's a number of other quotes here from other people that express the same sentiment. So, yeah, you get quite a bit of material with this package here. yeah, okay, got, uh, got an anonymous quote. um, it's a really long poem, so i won't just read the whole thing. yeah, this is, this is really cool art. there's a lot, a lot going on here and a lot, a lot of words, a lot of text. so i would just recommend looking it up and seeing it, seeing it yourself. this is, and i see that they are mentioned on like, uh, i found them on, uh, on their what i assume is their label website 3, one g. i don't think they exist anymore. it looks like they release a self-titled 7 inch, which i think is what we're, uh, reviewing today- a twelve inch and a split with seattle-based hardcore punk band undertow. um, it looks like all the guys when they, uh, recorded this, were like high school aged. so the the pictures look like they're high school aged. yeah, yeah, it does seem like something that, like, I would have come up with, uh, like right around the same time. Uh, like when I first started playing guitar and stuff like that. So, Yeah, Although they were clearly, they were clearly reading too, but yeah, But yeah, Um, I'll retell you the story of how I discovered this album, since I told you off Mike, while we were setting up. Yes, This one, I used to have a boss at my old job And I won't mention what the company was. but Was it a gas station? It was a gas station And it's the one with the, uh, with the oddly, uh, sexual name that is, I guess, going to be changed soon. Um, but, uh, my, my boss at the time, like he was really cool. Like, um, when I interviewed for the job, I was just starting Megaton and like, I gave him my availability and I told him like, oh yeah, my band tends to practice on these days and has shows on these days. And he's like, oh, you're in a band. So then the regular interview immediately ended and we just talked about music. Nice. And, for about a year, uh, he was my boss. And then eventually you just couldn't deal with the, uh, the corporate environment anymore. And I don't blame him now. And, um, I think he lives out in Chicago now. And Dustin, if you're listening, I'll probably send this to you. Uh, Hi. Hi, Dustin. Chicago is a cool city. There's a if you don't know about some of the bookstores they have there, there are there's a lot of like radical like bookstores there, too. So, yeah. but yeah eventually Dustin and I had this tradition of like whenever somebody would come in and buy just like a bag of ice like it was like an even 2 dollars and like the bigger one was an even 5 dollars so like instead of us putting it in the drawer because we were the ones that like hauled the ice and got it into the freezer and all that stuff so I guess from our point of view we were like doesn't deserve this money so no so we would just pocket it oh you said the name Oh, did I? Yeah, you can beep it. I'll censor it later. Yeah. Ejaculate and leave. But we would just pocket the money. And then once a week, we would just visit like a downtown Omaha, like record store, like Antiquarium, I think was still around at the time. I got a lot of records from them. Sometimes we would hit up Homer's and of course, Drastic Plastic, who are no longer there, but yeah. This one I think I got from Antiquarium. And it was kind of in like a mixed I think it was kind of in there like new releases, like like it wasn't a new release, but like maybe it just just got pressed on vinyl or something. Since obviously this this album came out well before that time to be to have been considered a new release. So Pilsen Community Books is the bookstore I was trying to remember earlier. They got rated by the FBI once for hosting activists. All right. Today we're looking at their self-titled EP, also called Struggle. On this first side, we have 3 songs. We have intro slash struggle, then separation. what I'm seeing on here is side one was pain, culture, and cement. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong one here. Might be. Oh, it looks like there was another band called Struggle. Makes sense. Yeah. For people listening at home, this band might be a little harder to find. So in the description, I'll probably put some links and stuff if anybody wants to listen to this. But so, yeah, we got 3 sides, 3 sides. We have 3 songs. We have pain, culture and cement. So, David, are you ready for some nineties hardcore? I am. All right. Throw this All right. And we are back from side one of Struggle by Struggle. Dave, what'd you think? That was really fucking cool. Could definitely, definitely tell that they were really young when they made it, especially with the vocals, especially in that spoken word bit at the end, which we'll talk about later. But yeah, I think that added to the fire and the passion. I hope kids are still making stuff like this today. Yeah, you know, for a bunch of For a bunch of guys that were either in high school or had just gotten out of high school, it had a pretty good array of sounds and influences, I thought. It was all based in hardcore punk, but it kind of went all over the heavier spectrum. And you can tell why more metal-obsessed me from ten years ago really liked this. Yeah, and they're clearly reading the types of books that I wasn't reading yet when I was that age, not until college, when the Iraq War became a thing, when I started reading Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein and that type of stuff. So they were definitely pay paying closer attention to the outside world than i was in high school so yeah and when when this uh this ep came out in ninety four and i wasn't old enough to be aware of anything yet when i was around their age during the the bush administration i i had a similar amount of rage uh but at that time i didn't have a band to uh put it towards uh but if i did i have to imagine it would uh manifest itself at least energy wise into something like this because uh Definitely. They were definitely very angry in their lyrics, but like they also had like a purpose in their lyrics, like all of these songs are about very important subjects. I did find a way for you to get everything they ever recorded for free completely legally if you want to hear it. Oh, yeah. What's that? So if your public library has a service called Freegal, it lets you download 4 songs. There's a catalog of songs that it has. It lets you download 4 songs a week per account, and then you can just kind of re-up it every week. So you can take 3 weeks, 4 weeks to find this 13 song anthology of their entire output. including all these songs and then songs from some of their singles before this. Oh, nice. And you can just download the whole thing over the course of a couple weeks and listen to all of it that way. Well, there you go. Everybody, you got a way to listen to these. And I haven't listened to anything beyond this, and I think they have a full link that I'd like to check out. But yeah, this band It sounds like hardcore that was very influenced by the early grunge movement, I'd say. Yeah, it was heavy in some spots. Yeah. Overall, it really reminded me of Animosity era, Corrosion of Conformity. I was reminded of this album because at the time of recording, I think our last episode was Naked Raygun. And so I actually thought about this EP while we were listening to that. Nice. But yeah, like I said, it kind of reminded me of early Corrosion of Conformity. I know I compare everything to Black Sabbath, but the first song kind of reminded me of Sabbath. Because the riffs got really kind of doomy. And then they changed it up into Sabbath would usually go into a blues shuffle. They did more of a a higher speed like punk rhythm or metal rhythm but then they got a little bluesy in the last song but yeah a little yeah and of course you know reminded of the big hardcore bands like Black Flag and whatnot but yeah song by song Pain Pain I love the dive bombing guitar feedback at the beginning that was really cool I know you'd love that I liked how then like once the rest of the band kicked in it was like the The slow circle pit type of mosh music, you know, the kind where you're just like slowly walking in a circle waiting for the song to speed up, which it did as it kept going. And then like once, you know, as it started getting faster and faster than just starting to slam into some dude. Yeah, there were 3 distinct parts to this song, and the early one was like you described, and then it was more of a faster thing to slam into people, and then it ended on How would you describe the final part of that? Just got more chaotic. Yeah. Yeah, and it started high chaos, but yeah, it was kind of Kind of like it kind of fell apart in an intentional way. Next song, Culture. This one is the one with the artwork, with the robot, with the TV, with the boobs on it. And right next to it says, A Culture of Rape. So I think this one is about the manosphere. Yeah. So again, these guys would have a lot of opinions about current society, and I assume do. I assume these guys are still alive. I assume they're still alive, and I bet that they're involved in Where were they from? san diego i bet they're involved in like their local political organizing scene or they're burnt out from that and taking a break from it but yeah i bet they're yeah i bet they're still these guys are probably around your age then i'd imagine a little older a little older yeah because Oh, okay, yeah. This one, a little more straightforward, hardcore song than the previous one. It had a really cool, discordant sound that I really liked. Whereas the first one, I compared more to Black Sabbath. This one, I would apply the Corrosion of Conformity thing to more. good song. Probably of the 3 songs I've heard so far, this is the one I'd most likely put on a mix just because it's the one that stands out on its own the most, although all 3 songs were excellent. And the last one, Cements. Had a little bit of a blues riff going at the beginning. Then there's like heavy rumble. This was the heaviest song, like a lot of low end. Yeah, At the time I was like really into sludge metal. So you could tell why I attached myself to this one. Yeah, it was a good song, although there was a high guitar part that I wish I could have heard a little better. that I wish was a little more prominent in the mix. But yeah, it was a good song. I like the artwork on the figure here. It says we will die for your convenience. Yeah. So I imagine this one is about America's relationship to the rest of the world. Yeah, That's why I am a little more blasé about the potential collapse of the economy. I don't think it's being done for good reasons. but hey, It's like I don't know. when Obama took over from Bush, I was hoping they would dismantle the entire system, and instead they just put basically the same people back in charge. Yeah, So what a waste of time that was. Yeah. And then, like before, we like wrap up, there was a little bonus track. I want to call it yeah. it was kind of a I don't know a poem, I suppose where, or, uh, yeah, or he was quoting somebody, but it was all based around, uh, like the patriot, the patriotism of the flag. yeah, I think, I think he got it from somewhere and was quoting it to make fun of it. there was, yeah, a song about how the flag feels so bad that people don't stop and salute it anymore. and then, just with all these uh, little really, you know, like intentionally stupid, cartoony background noises just to, uh, drive home, that they're being ironic. but yeah, yeah, i could definitely tell, especially in this bit though, that this is, yep, this is a high schooler. uh, the nature of the kind of joke he was doing with this. and then, just like his voice, Yeah, you could tell he was younger, based on his voice. As far as funny experimental noise tracks go. this is one that I actually really enjoyed. Yeah, better than FX. Yeah, I think most things are better than FX. Yeah, All right, we got another side of music. This time we have 4 songs. We have the untitled Brain Tourniquet- War No One and Wait a Second. Interesting that they call it War No 1. so, shortly after the first Iraq war, It's almost like it's a reference that it's going to happen again, only stupider and worse. I think these guys, I think these guys were, uh, we're onto something They might've been. Yeah, I'm curious, uh, about where these guys ended up. Uh, when we're when we're listening. I'm going to see if I can find any more info on these guys. Yeah, Track them down, See what they're up to. As far as the uh, the photograph, we said that we were going to look a bit more into it, And that was done by, uh, Kenneth, uh, Drake, I think, And he primarily covered the Gulf War. So I think the image that's on the cover was possibly from the Gulf War. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. So it was pretty recent for the time, which makes sense They would. They would be more interested, I think, in doing the most recent war than doing something from like Vietnam before they were born. Yeah, The my very first memory. I distinctly remember them covering the first Gulf War, like on the on the TV, And I don't remember any details about it, but I just remember like watching that. So I was vaguely aware that there was like a war at the time. Cause I was, let's see, go, for it was in what 91. Yeah, I would have been like 4, All right, We're going to throw this on All right, And we are back. Dave, what'd you think? That was really good. A few of the songs felt like they weren't quite finished yet, but other than that, really good. I didn't really get the not finished yet vibe from any of the songs. Can you elaborate on that? I felt like, well, not a few, because there was only 4, but I felt like the last 2 could have gone on a little longer. They could have expanded on it a little more. Oh, gotcha, Yeah, just like 30 Another 30 seconds to tie it all together, I think Like the way some of the songs on the first track kind of wrap themselves up thematically. Yeah, I can see that now that you mention it, Although hardcore songs ending earlier than you expect, I think is kind of a fine tradition. Yeah, that is a noted feature of the whole thing. Yeah, Overall, I think this side was a little heavier than the first side. Yeah, a little heavier, a little more all over the place, but that is not bad. This was consistently enjoyable. I was reminded a lot of Sepultura, especially the song War. No One had a really thrashy vibe, but the drum bit in the untitled reminded me of some of the crazy drumming that they do in Sepultura. Yeah, my favorite track on this side, I think, was the first one. It had like a billion ideas crammed into it and a relatively short song too. But yeah, it was As a whole. it was just a really solid side of music and I really enjoyed it. I wish this band had played outside of their time zone at a time i would have gotten a chance to see them, you know. yeah, back when i was more into like, going to live shows like this is the kind of shit that, like, i would fucking love. like this is definitely some like get your anger out, get into the pit kind of stuff. um, and i'm very impressed with how far ahead they were, uh, politically, um, compared to where i was around the same time like. i was pretty aware, like of, like, the atrocities of the second bush administration. um, but i also had like the assistance of the internet. but these guys really seem to have their finger on the pulse, like you mentioned. it's funny that they named war number one war number one because there was 2 gulf wars. yeah, it's like they knew. it's like like they knew there would be another one, um, 7 years later. yeah, um, but yeah, let's. uh, let's start with uh, with the untitled. uh, this one is one where, uh, they're very class conscious on this, where they don't want to like contribute to capitalism, like it says, like the lyrics are. i never felt the need to support society standards, a wasteful generation unwilling to understand their seating at all. and Yeah, yeah, Like part of me is like. I kind of hope they crash the economy because maybe it'll cure us of our stupid consumerist disease. you know, Yeah, I liked. I liked musically how it had kind of like that kind of funky thrash sound like that came out of a lot of like SoCal hardcore and then later led into like a lot of some of the bigger bands that came out of that scene a little later. but yeah, i thought i liked it that they had. that i liked, though, like how they had, like that bridge outro thing, where it was just the drums going for a while and then slowly they started fading in like guitar, uh, feedback, and then built up to, you know, like a, you know, like a big, brief blast of bringing back, you know, like more traditional hardcore music, with a nice loud scream. I thought that was. I thought that was really cool. Yeah, And I think this side made me really realize that the drummer, I think, is kind of the standout musician of this band. Yeah, To me, the drummer and the vocalist really stand out. Yeah, I really liked the vocalist too, Like. he definitely brings it all together. The next song, Brain Tourniquet. I thought this one was kind of more of a standard hardcore song. Yeah, fast and heavy at the same time, Very short, but it didn't feel half-baked. Yeah, just like a really solid, kick-ass song. I liked it quite a bit, Probably my second favorite on the No, probably like second favorite on the side, third favorite on the album, I would say, Yeah, I really liked the energy of this one, And this one is, I think it's about burning the flag based on the cover. Yeah, I think it is,

Which I support: 29:10

everybody's free speech. right to burn the flag. Yeah, And I think during that time that was a pretty big issue, wasn't it? They were really trying to ban that. Yeah, it wasn't legally settled yet. So there were, I think there were, obscenity. I don't know if they used obscenity. They tried to get it illegal somehow, which, yeah, Cause, I do remember around that time, uh, like they would talk about it even in our, like our elementary school level. And of course I'm like. well, people should be able. I don't know. I, I tend to take the uh. I tend to take the uh. who who gives a shit? side of the argument If, uh, somebody, uh, somebody wants to burn the flag like, let them, I don't give a shit. Yeah. Next one, war number one. I already mentioned that. I thought it was funny that you mentioned that it was titled war number one. Yeah, it was good. I feel like the strongest parts of it were the sample, Like the sample of like A reporter saying that civilian deaths were down in Iraq and then, like George Bush won, Saying you know, like, about how much it meant to protect civilians, while there's footage of like. well, another sample of like children crying in the background And then the same reporter, like coming back and saying, uh, and talking about, you know, like the actual numbers about how that wasn't true. Like I thought, yeah, I thought that was really good. I almost wish that that was the whole song and they just like drawn that out longer. Like I liked the brief blast of like thrashy hardcore punk afterwards. It just felt like a shit. We got to do something else almost. So like it either needed to, they either needed to develop the song part a little more or cut it was my thought. but it was good. Yeah. Yeah. This is my, this is my, uh, middle-aged dude listening to something someone put out in the nineties in high school and nitpicking a little bit. It was like a good song as a whole. I just kinda, I just kinda wish they had stuck to using it as like an experimental noise track and maybe developed the thrashy hardcore punk thing as a separate song. I can see that. i um yeah i think the the sample definitely like overshadowed it um but i also kind of respect that they like slapped a song at the end of it yeah and then uh we got wait a second which looks like that is a uh A critique of capitalism. Yeah, I think that one incorporated incorporated the sample into the rest of the song a little better. Yeah. Talk about the sample a little bit. It was a it was a talk about about class struggle, basically, and one of the people talking about was saying things that implied violence. And the guy he was talking to was like, so what are you going to put a, put a gun in my face or in people's faces? And he's like, not yet. Yeah. That was really funny. My note was a Luigi's theme song. Yeah. Yeah. And then when I got into the actual song part, I thought it had a really nice groove to it. It did. And I liked how it kind of faded it, like faded it in too. Like it was, it was really good. I, yeah, I did a really good job at incorporating the song into the sample. Yeah. I like the lyric, the system they created shall be put to death. Yeah, I love that. I wonder if they, like for this one in particular, if they had like a tape deck plugged into the soundboard and like had to argue with the sound guy, okay, hit play so we can do the song as it's intended. Because they didn't, you know, like they didn't do the kind of setups that people can do now where it's like, I'm just going to put this tiny little recording device on top of my amp and hit play myself. That wasn't really the same kind of kind of thing in a nineteen ninety four basement show. Yeah, this one. Yeah. Production wise, like overall, while it was lo-fi, I could hear everything pretty well. You'd hear everything pretty well, with the exception of that one nitpick about wanting to hear the guitar, the high guitar part higher and track 3 of side one. Yeah. It's by no means like a perfect recording, but it captures the hardcore vibe, I think, perfectly. It's well mixed. The band is mostly pretty tight playing together. Like, there's a few moments here or there that you get from a lot of hardcore bands where it's like, well, tape is expensive, so we just use the best tape we can get. But there wasn't, like, it was overall very precise just a few a few moments of the kind of thing dynamic I mentioned earlier yeah which I actually think added to the charm because this was a bunch of pissed off high school students yeah yeah It's definitely I think it's a good documentation of where all these guys were at that time in their life. And it's a very good documentation of probably what it felt like to to be a struggling proletariat in the early nineties. Yeah, they they nailed the vibe. And unfortunately, the themes of this album apply very well to our current time. Probably even more so than 19 94. Yeah. I'm not going to say 1994 was perfect because it definitely wasn't. That was when you started. That's that's when it kind of start when the dismantling of the working class became a bipartisan project. Yeah. But it has it has gotten worse since then. Yeah. And this album really anticipated how it was going to get worse. Yeah. And We'll talk a bit about where all these guys ended up. The vocalist Dylan's been in a number of other groups called Bombs of Death, Brain Tourniquets, Tarantula Hawk, Creep Zotica, and the Creepy Creeps. And I think the Creepy Creeps and Creep Zotica are kind of like versions of each other, which you hadn't heard of any of them. Yeah. Although it is interesting that one of the bands is named Brain Tourniquet since that was the name of one of the songs. I bet Brain Tourniquet's largely a continuation of this kind of stuff. Yeah, I wonder. I don't see them in his discography, so I wonder if that was just a band that played live. It could be. A lot of people who do stuff like this never get an album out yeah it's not like it's not like the 77 class where every punk band eventually got out a couple singles even if they didn't get an album out yeah hardcore had a lot just a lot of broke kids who never recorded what they made the last thing he did was in uh 2011 with creep zotica and uh Says here that's the alter ego of San Diego, California surf punk band, the Creepy Creeps. So it sounds like he's doing surf punk these days. I can I can see surf punk is something to do when you want to slow down from hardcore as you get older. Yeah, makes perfect sense to me. Well, one thing I was going to mention is the vibe on this kind of reminded me of like lo-fi black metal and surf music is just undistorted black metal. So, yeah. Undistorted with a lot of reverb. Maybe we should check out a Creepy Creeps album with Sean sometime. We should. We can track it down. Let's see. We got both their guitar players. We have Eric Allen and He was the guitarist in Swing Kids, and you said that was a reference to something. Yeah, it was a reference to the kids who refused to join the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany. They were really into swing because it was a countercultural thing because it was black music. And a lot of them got arrested and sent to camps. They even made a movie about it at 1 point. Him and their drummer Both ended up in Swing Kids. Unfortunately, Eric took his life in 19 98. Rest in peace, buddy. Yeah, that would have that wasn't that long after this. No, not really. Tobias Nathaniel, he was in a number of groups. Looks like he was active in the Red Step in 20 20. Oh, recent. Nice. Yeah. The Blackheart Procession in 20 17. The Red Step, the Young Destroyers and 3 Mile Pilot. he's still still working. Yeah. I wonder if I wonder if the covid pandemic might have killed his latest career because. You know, yeah, 2020 is where it drops off. Could have. Yeah. Jose Palafox, who I really enjoyed his drumming on this release. Oh, yeah. Very good. Yeah. He was also in Swing Kids, like I mentioned. Might have to check that group out. Yeah. He was also in Batter Brains, also in Brain Tourniquet. So I'll bet you they formed a band after after this or something that played live that picture of him makes me think he became a writer or something afterwards uh let's see it looks like he became an educator an activist dealing with uh border and immigration rights on the u.s mexico border oh fuck yeah yeah yeah because that that's a that's a professional looking photo of him in a suit in front of a bookcase yeah good for him that guy seems really cool yeah and then uh the bass player i think is what we have left Yep, and then Justin Pearson on bass. God, he was in a lot of groups after this. I mean, if you get a good bass player, you can always work. Yeah, really. Or if you are a good bass player, you can always work. He was in a lot of groups, so it doesn't look like he recorded a whole lot after this. Oh, he owns the label 31 G, and that's where I got some information about this band. Okay. Okay, I bet. Since he owns the label, I bet he mainly just Releases the stuff and then fills in for people who need it. Vocalist and bassist for various influential hardcore slash grindcore outfits. Oh, he's got a blue sky. Nice. Nice. So I'm glad to see all these guys had very productive careers after this and some projects that we might check out in later seasons. Yeah. Probably Swing kit seems the most interesting to me right now. Yeah. I'm very curious about that one. It's got the same vocalist and same drummer. Like those are my 2 favorite performances on this record. Yeah, that was a really good album. Hunt It Down, either the way I suggested or any other way you can find it. Looks like you can check out the bassist's label. He's got a website, it's at threeoneg.com. I bet you can purchase a lot of the stuff on here through that, too. Yeah. I see they have a release on here that says, One Settler, One Bullet. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Looks like he has a book called Gigi Allen and the Mystery Meat. Yeah, that sounds right. But yeah, I thought you'd really enjoy that one. Yeah, that was good. And that was a blind purchase for me. I didn't know anything about the group when I bought it, picked it up just solely based on the cover arts and the song titles. And sometimes that kind of stuff burns me. But I remember I love this the first time I listened to it. Yeah, listening to this made me want to go to a basement house show and spill some beer slam dancing with people. Yeah. Yeah. But we're old. But we're old, so I would probably stand in the back and nod. Bop my head along. All right. Well, that was Struggle. And this was Side One, Side B with Dave and Steve. Catch you on the flip side. Side one side B is a floof goof studios production. Please check out the description for more information about the guests and the album reviewed. You can find us on blue sky under the names, kill rock music. That's K I L R a V O C K and Dave under beast master general. You can find us on Instagram under kill rock music, S W S and Dave underscore diction. And you can also find our regular contributor, Sean, under the name Boozer Slug. You can find Steve and Sean on threads with the same usernames as Instagram. Check out our post-punk band, The Illiterates, our experimental group, Lucid Fugue, and Steve's solo project, Kill Rock, on most major streaming platforms. You can visit Steve's website, killrockmusic.com, for easy access. That's K-I-L-R-A-V-O-C-K music.com. And if you want to check out Dave's past band, A Gong Farmer, and their album, Pop Dada, you can do so on Bandcamp. Thanks. Ejaculate and leave.