The Witzard

Billed like an old school boxing "fight night" poster, the cover image for NOFX/Frank Turner's upcoming split album explicitly boasts, "FAT WRECK BOXING CLUB, WEST COAST VS. WESSEX, 10 ROUNDS OF MEDIO-CORE, NOFX CHAMPIONS VS. FRANK TURNER CHALLENGER." It features NOFX frontman "Fat" Mike Burkett & Frank Turner (Möngöl Hörde, Million Dead) posing in boxing gloves and gear akin to Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat's iconic black-and-white boxing photographs. Announced earlier this week, Fat Wreck Chords announced said split 10-song album; West Coast vs. Wessex will feature NOFX covering five Frank Turner songs on "Side A" and vice versa on "Side B." Along with said split's announcement, Fat Wreck Chords released NOFX's cover of Frank Turner's "Thatcher F**ked The Kids" accompanied by Turner's cover of NOFX's "Bob." Both tracks are currently featured on Bandcamp , along with pre-ord...

CHIXDIGGIT! at Edmonton Oilers/Rogers Place (SOURCE: K.J. Jansen) 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 ...

Last week, we saw an Instgram post by Scott Crawford (@saladdazed) which read, "Not sure who's doing these beautiful Blue Note-inspired Punk Rock album cover re-imaginings, but I love them," along with a blue-hued image of Hüsker Dü's Flip Your Wig. Crawford added the hashtags #bobmould, #granthart, #gregnorton, and #flipyourwig, along with the additional commentary, "looks like it's art by @stealworks." So, with a little bit of our own digital sleuthing, we learned @stealworks was, in fact, graphic designer John Yates. Stealworks: THE DESIGN PORTFOLIO OF JOHN YATES further details, "Stealworks is the nom de plume of graphic designer, trouble-maker, and tea drinker, John Yates." Yates owned and operated his very own label imprint, Allied Recordings and a sub-label, Dakota Records, between 1990-99 and served as the in-house graphic designer for one-time Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles. John Yates has designed ic...

By now, we're all gotten mildly "used to" social distancing, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE,) missing out on birthdays, anniversaries, and everyday life milestones we all take for granted, nearly everything being indefinitely cancelled, cabin fever, etc. It's all become strangely "normal" and abnormal all at once, but we're all doing our part each and every day to beat this thing... even celebrities. We're sure you've seen a number of televised remotely-recorded concerts to help raise funds for our frontline workers. Most of these have been great, but some have been pretty cringe-worthy and seem a bit phoned-in, as if they feel required to do/say something during these trying times. Case in point: back in March, Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot and he famous friends' oft-parodied rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine." Eric Slick (Dr. Dog) even recruited some Indie Rock/Hip-Hop buddies to cover a similarly-minded tongue-in-chee...

Pat Society Pictured with Bernie Parent (Flyers, Bruins, Maple Leafs, Blazers) 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 b...

Nautilus are a Funk/Jazz/Hip-Hop trio hailing from Tokyo, Japan. Their current line-up consists of drummer Toshiyuki "Toshi" Sasaki , bassist Shigeki Umezawa , and keyboardist Mariko Nakabayashi . Nakabayashi joined Nautilus earlier this year when long-time keyboardist Daisuke Takeuchi parted ways with the band. We've previously showcased Nautilus' expertly executed covers of the Beastie Boys' "Root Down," "Tears," a dual cover of both DJ Shadow's "Organ Donor" & Giorgio Moroder's "Tears," The Stylistics' "People Make The World Go Round," and De La Soul's "A Roller Skating Jam Named Saturdays" now re-titled "Rollerskating Jam Named "Sundays,'" which incorporates elements of The U.M.C.'s "One to Grow On." Primarily instrumental-based and released on limited-run 7-inches, when necessary, Nautilus have recruited additional musicians/vocalists to ...

SOURCE: Glenn "Glenno" Smith (@glennoart) "Glenn "Glenno" Smith is an art mercenary, paying the rent in Sydney with his wonderful wife Gina and the beginnings of an army of vengeful cats. He spends most of his time drawing wizards for Doom bands and spikey lettering for bands that don't care if the text is legible or not. He teaches illustration, plays in a band called CHINESE BURNS UNIT, and can be found sitting in position at his desk most hours of the day. Glenno is also making inroads into the dysfunctional world of fine art, curating, and exhibiting in a vain hope to seem legit and adult... not to mention gathering cult-sized numbers of Followers, via Instagram . Consider his refreshing Kool-Aid at #glennoart [@glennoart,]" reads the ABOUT THE ARTIST section from Bizarrism, Vol. 2: The Revised & Expanded Edition By: Chris Mikul with Illustrations By: Glenn Smith. I believe, we first heard about Glenno Smith's artwork, via a post on Chr...