The Witzard

wattmilliams' Matt Williams (CREDIT: Rob Cella) Matt "wattmilliams" Williams a passionate musician, song-writer, bass guitar teacher, audio engineer, and real estate agent active within the thriving music scene of Philadelphia/South Jersey. Primarily playing the bass guitar, Williams has accumulated years of valuable experience through touring, session work, and collaborations with esteemed artists, such as HUXLEY, Good Look, Sigourney, Gold Coyote, Garden State Radio, and The Shimmy Shimmy's. Williams has been fortunate enough to play direct support for a wide range of acts across various genres, including Living Colour, Disturbed, The Pretty Reckless, Royal Blood, Punchline, Lit, and more. These opportunities have allowed Williams to showcase his versatility and adaptability as a musician. While "Drama Queen" exudes raw energy and unapologetic rebellion, it offers much more. Demonstrating his creative audacity, this gritty exploration delves into t...

Magnolia Park (CREDIT: Jonathan Weiner) Deeply rooted in Pop-punk sensibilities while staying true to their unique style, Orlando, Florida band Magnolia Park draw from an eclectic mix of influences to experiment with elements of Hip-Hop, Emo, and Alternative Rock. Just yesterday, they announced plans for two new companion EP's dropping next month— SoulEater & MoonEater —which, respectively, represent the lighter and darker sides of their multifaceted sound. Ahead of the releases, the band shares the MoonEater lead single and accompanying music video titled "Breathing" featuring Alt. rapper nothing,nowhere. (Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, Senses Fail.) In an impassioned performance video depicting Magnolia Park singer, Joshua Roberts, free-falling from the heavens, as he pushes his soaring vocals to the edge for a cathartic release of emotions. "Our music is always about creating empowerment out of negative feelings," the band comments. "In...

LEKTRON, L-R: Matt Skiba, Atom Willard, Hunter Burgan, and Randy Moore (SOURCE: Facebook, photographer unknown) LEKTRON was born in a torrential rainstorm in San Jose, California on a fateful winter night. What started out as an excuse for Matt Skiba (Alkaline Trio, blink-182) to make some noise in a friend's studio quickly evolved into a Garage-esque Punk Rock band thanks to the recording prowess of Ryan Perras and the Black Belt guitar musings and structural sensibilities of Randy Moore (GET MARRIED, DOKI DOKI, Dan Andriano & The Bygones.) Moore actually works at Asian Man Records with owner and founder Mike Park. The three built the foundation for the songs "Dirty Jacks" & "She's A War" to be taken up by rhythm section juggernauts Atom Willard (Social Distortion, Against Me!) on drums and Hunter Burgan (AFI, Matt Skiba & The Sekrets) on bass. What started in the vibey confines of District Recording Studios in San Jose would be taken down to...

Say Anything's SA/2023 line-up (SOURCE: Dine Alone Records) Say Anything have returned to release their first new music together as a band since 2019's would-be swansong, Oliver Appropriate. "Psyche!" reunites Say Anything's mouthpiece and mastermind, Max Bemis, with the band's original drummer, Coby Linder, former bandmates, Alexander "Alex" Kent on bass [and] Parker Case on synths and programming, and adding into the fold Brian Warren (Weatherbox) and Fred Mascherino (The Color Fred, Taking Back Sunday,) who, actually, briefly toured with Say Anything through 2014, offered additional production on the track, alongside Case. With his signature snarl, Bemis proclaims in the opening lines of the song, "we are born again. We've died and sprung to life, so wet and fresh." "Psyche!," replete with lyrical nods to the band's contemporaries in the Pop-punk scene—"I will sing the requiem" (Saves The Day,) "blink a...

Scott Sellers - "Remains" and "Now or Never" single covers (SOURCE: Bandcamp) Scott Sellers is likely best-known as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Rancho Cucamonga, California Pop-punk Rufio. Sellers has been active with Rufio in various incarnations with a cast of both primary and rotating members from 2000-07 when they broke up, but briefly reunited in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2015. Rufio has been largely inactive since 2010 when they releasded their final album, Anybody Out There, which was followed by one last world tour. Sellers has been sporadically active over the years since Rufio's initial demise with a number of musical projects, including BigCity with former Rufio guitarist C lark Domae & Aaron Fernandez and Mercy Street with one-time Rufio bassist Taylor Albaugh. BigCity was initailly active in the early 2000's, but didn't share any official musical releases until The Quest for Power EP in 2021. Mercy Street shared a self-titl...

Earlier this week, just in time for Valentine's Day, UK Pop-punk/Rock band Neck Deep shared their latest non-album single and msuic video, "Heartbreak of The Century." The track is described as "a classic-sounding Neck Deep song, catchy, angsty, pacey, powerful, and a little bit pathetic" by vocalist Ben Barlow, complete with an Academy Award-deserving music video. It's definitely akin to Neck Deep's earlier more hard-edged Pop-punk material that can be heard across 2012-13 EP's Rain In July & A History of Bad Decisions . Barlow continues, "we took the idea of "The Heartbreak of The Century" and imagined if you could, actually, win an award for that. So, there we had it—a sh*tty Oscar's, where we won The Heartbreak of The Century award. We wanted the video to feel classic/nostalgic, something that was entertaining to watch, rather than your usual. It features some of our "best" (worst) acting to date and is one of o...

blink-182 - Viking Wizard Eyes, Wizard Full of Lies (ART CREDIT: Dan Schenker) Art Inhuman is a collaborative effort between Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) artist Dan Schenker and writer Matt Horowitz. Dan takes band names, lyrics, and song names and with the help of an A.I. manipulates them into what he feels best represents them visually. If you have a suggestion for an upcoming addition to this series, Tweet Matt at @SharpChedder856 and/or Dan at @heydanschenker and Tag the band or artist you'd like us to feature next. This project spawned from Dan's decades-long love of music. Dan had been a fan of the band FOLLY since early high school—for the blend of Punk, Ska, and Hardcore they seamlessly wove, for the energy their music made him feel, and for the almost disproportionately poetic lyrics and topics they covered. So, when Dan thought to input some of his favorite lyrics, song titles, and album titles into Midjourney, the results were staggering. He posted them to Face...

blink-182 "and" Scott Sellers (SOURCE: Scott Sellers) Scott Sellers, one-time frontman of beloved Rancho Cucamonga-based Pop-Punk/Skate Punk Rufio has been recording and releasing solo music at a rapid-fire pace since 2018's The Judge. Sellers has also played with a variety of bands since Rufio's 2007 break-up and sporadic brief reunions, including Mercy Street and BigCity with former bandmate Clark Domae . Sellers is known to be an avid blink-182 fan—Scott covered "A New Hope" from their 1997 album, Dude Ranch, on his 2020 covers album, Influence —and we're sure blink were a huge influence and source of inspiration for Rufio. By now, we all know the "classic" (well, second line-up) of blink-182 has effectively re-united as of last week, now including long-time members Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker & Tom DeLonge. DeLonge was in the band from their formation in 1992 up until they broke up in 2005 and then, again from 2009-15 when he left and...

It's been previously discussed right here across these pages of The Witzard, but the various Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (THPS) in-game soundtracks were very influential on my musical tastes as a young adult. Being the oldest of two kids, my four older cousins and my close friend/musical mentor, Jason, were, luckily, alwats exposing me to interesting music I probably wouldn't have discovered on my own. However, the soundtracks for THPS 1-4, were really the first time I had "discovered" music on my own—most of which, I still listen to to this day—including, but not limited to, Dead Kennedys, Goldfinger, Primus, Bad Religion, Del The Funky Homosapien, De La Soul, NWA, and much, much more. However, of particular note were Los Angeles-based Third-wave Ska/Punk band Goldfinger, whose "Superman," essentially, became the unofficial theme song to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (1) and equally strong "Spokesman" later, appeared on THPS4. Goldfinger, like ...

For quite a while now, rapper, actor, and musician Machine Gun Kelly (MGK) has been teasing his so-called "Pop-punk album," Tickets to My Downfall , for quite a while now. It was supposed to be released earlier this year, but has been delayed for obvious reasons and now, has a street date of July 17, 2020. Tickets to My Downfall was produced by blink-182 drummer and Hip-Hop enthusiast Travis Barker , along with SlimXX, BazeXX & RookXX , according to Wikipedia. MGK provides vocals and guitar, while Barker plays drums across Tickets to My Downfall ; according to numerous interviews with Machine Gun Kelly himself, the album will, supposedly, feature contributions from blackbear , Goody Grace, MOD SUN , Chris "Fronz" Fronzak from Attila, Young Thug , YUNGBLUD, and The Used frontman Bert McCracken . Aside from the aforementioned tidbits and a viral video of Machine Gun Kelly feverishly dancing/skanking across a table backed by, seemingly, disinterested label...

ARTWORK BY: Chris Shary (@chrisshary) Here's a collection of remotely-recorded/filmed music videos and performances created by our favorite artists (and their fans!) We'll do our best to keep adding to this playlist until things get back to normal. This video playlist currently features selections from Urian Hackney (ROUGH FRANCIS,) Liberty & Justice, Goldfinger, blink-182, Two Minutes to Late Night "All-Stars," Light The Lamp, American Football, Neck Deep, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Scott Bradlee, Naeem FKA Spank Rock, Tankcrimes TV's Scotty "Karate" Heath, and Puddles Pity Party. Stay safe out there, my friends, and WASH YOUR HANDS!!!

EPIC BEARD MEN (CREDIT: Steve Mitchell) Exactly one year ago today (well, actually, this weekend,) Sage Francis & B. Dolan released their proper full-length debut together as EPIC BEARD MEN entitled This Was Supposed to Be Fun. EPIC BEARD MEN, or just EBM, put together what many, including us, considered one of the strongest and most fun albums of 2019; for the festivities, B. Dolan & Sage Francis brought along a few friends, including Slug from Atmosphere, Blue Raspberry (Wu-Tang Clan,) Vockah Redu, Eligh, and Yugen Blakrok. We were fortunate enough to speak with both Sage Francis & B. Dolan around te time of This Was Supposed to Be Fun's wide release for an exclusive interview here at The Witzard. Today, in honor of said one-year anniversary, Sage Francis' label imprint Strange Famous Records released a special Name-Your-Price remix of EPIC BEARD MEN's "Man Overboard" to help commemorate the occasion. Not exactly a blink-182 remix, as some of you...

"SUNNY & SHARY Beach Umbrella Rental" (Artist Unknown) Chris Shary is a Descendents/ALL -affiliated artist, drama teacher, father, husband, dork, and self-described "Grade "A" [Certified] smarta$$." Shary has been scribblin' pictures of mostly Punk bands ever since 1988 and had a short-lived music career himself; making records with his own bands, Evel Knievel Rice, Pilot Car , and Sizewell , as well as performing back-up vocals on 7Seconds' Leave A Light On and Down By Law 's Blue. While most well-known for his work with Descendents/ALL , Chris Shary has created album artwork, T-shirts, concert flyers, etc. for blink-182 , The Dead Milkmen, The Dickies , FIELD DAY (ex-Dag Nasty,) The Germs , Good Riddance, The Queers , Redd Kross, Rise Against , and Teenage Bottlerockets. Chris Shary designed the artwork for Descendents' Cool to Be You, Hypercaffium Spazzinate, SpazzHazard 12-inch EP, and and "Feel This" 7-inch flexi...

The Crust Brothers cover The Cars by The Crust Brothers Richard "Ric" Ocasek passed away this past Sunday, September 15, 2019. 75-year-old Ocasek was found dead Sunday at his New York City townhouse by his estranged wife, Paulina Porizkova, where he had been recovering from a recent surgery. The Chief Medical Examiner's office later reported Ric Ocasek died from natural causes; although, he suffered from both hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. Ocasek was best-known as being one of the founding members of The Cars, as well as the band's long-time lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter. The Cars emerged from the 1970's New Wave scene and were early originators of what is now commonly known as Power Pop with sonic allusions to Rock "N" Roll, Art Rock, and Rockabilly throughout. The Cars always appeared to be (to me, at least) a Punk-adjacent band, which makes complete sense because during The Cars' career, as well as a...

Brutalligators are a Post-Youth/Indie Punk band hailing from South East UK. The band consists of members Luke Murphy-Wearmouth, Paul Wade, Rhys Kirkman & Simon Lee , who readily list Dikembe, Death Cab for Cutie, Smith Street Band, The Hard Aches, The Mountain Goats, Foxing, and American Football amongst "Artists We Also Like." Brutalligators' Facebook page lists their Genres as "Punk, Alt. Indie, Indie, Pop Rock, Emo, Post-Emo, Bed Wetting, and Musicals" and somewhat eerily admit they "have a penchant for long walks on the beach and severed limbs." It appears as though Luke, Paul, Rhys & Simon formed Brutalligators around July 2017 prior to the release of their debut EP, Animals I Wish I'd Seen ; through 2018-19, they self-released covers of both Frightened Rabbit 's "My Backwards Walk" and Blink-182 's "Going Away for (to) College," as well as a 2018 holiday single, "Christmas In July." Now, Br...