The Witzard

CATBITE & Brian Fallon Are The Slacures (CREDIT: MO @phobymo) "We never got to make it to the legendary Chris Gethard Show, so we decided to create our own Goth alternate reality and create The Chris Gothard Show!," CATBITE (@catbiteband) shared within an Instagram post earlier this morning. The four-piece Philly-based Ska band had been teasing something called The Slacures for a number of days; posting "coming 6/9 😈. Subscribe to or YouTube channel for first dibs, link in bio," a number of days ago. Alright, so all of this finally materialized together earlier this morning as a CATBITE & Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem, Molly & The Zombies, The Horrible Crowes) together as The Slacures covering The Slackers' "Yes, It's True" written by vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Vic Ruggiero from their 1998 album, The Question . So, CATBITE & Fallon created The Slacures—see what they did there, The Slackers + The Cure =

NOT, L-R: Kyle Whitmore, Brendan Scholz, Davey Warsop, and Jarred Cooper (SOURCE: Earshot Media, photographer unknown) Descendents/ALL are now bands that have strongly infleunced and heavily affected generations of youthful, angsty fans. So, this si where it may get a bit confusing: Descendents & ALL are esentially the same band featuring slightly different, albeit similar line-ups. Descendents' most well-known and longest-standing line-up is singer Milo Aukerman, bassist Karl Alvarez, guitarist Stephen Egerton, and drummer Bill Stevenson. While ALL is Alvarez, Egerton & Stevenson with a rotating cast of beloved frontmen: Dave Smalley, Scott Reynolds & Chad Price and briefly functioned as TonyALL with the addition of bassist and song-writer Tony Lombardo (ex-Descendents.) For obvious reasons, Descendents, ALL & TonyALL have rarely ever ALL consistently functioned at the same time. It's safe to say Descendents' fourth and then-final 1987 album, aptly-title

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

The Fiendz's 1987-96 line-up, L-R: Joey Darone, Jerry Jones & Jimmy Joyce (ART CREDIT: Joe Darone) Now, let's just be completely honest here: in an ideal world, who (on The East and/or West Coast) wouldn't wanna be down at the shore over Memorial Day Weekend!!? I mean, I could personally do without all the related traffic, mobs of people, noisy neighbors setting of random fireworks, and hullabaloo, but being down at The Shore—well, the REAL Jersey Shore, Ocean City, NJ—is the best place to be during the summer! So, it makes complete and total sense that New Jersey-based Punk/Pop-punk band The Fiendz just recently unleashed a new song, fittingly titled "Down The Shore." It's the second single from their forthcoming album titled Dummy. Dummy will be the first proper Fiendz's full-length since 2011's Commit to Memory . "Down The Shore" was delivered to radio and released ahead of Memorial Day Weekend just in time for the unofficial "s

Rhys Langston x Pioneer 11 (CREDIT: Emily Berkey) Cutting-edge Los Angeles-based trio dubbed Rhys Langston x Pioneer 11 have announced a new collaborative effort, To Operate This System, set to drop in a couple months on Passion of The Weiss & The LAnd Magazine founder Jeff Weiss' own P.O.W. Recordings. The self=proclaimed "Poet Laureate of Your Living Room," Rhys Langston joins forces with the psychedelic cosmonauts Pioneer 11 (Bryan Gomez & Alex Hastings) to chart new terrain grounded in extraterrestrial R&B, Hip-Hop, Acid House, deep space Dance music, and cosmic Soul. Pioneer 11 & Rhys Langston are, indeed, not here to bury the computer, they're here to save it. Their sprawling eight-track debut, To Operate This System, is an attempt to become one with the wires and bytes—to fuse the most cherished qualities of humanity with the power of the matrix. Crunch the data and you might receive only computative errors. After all, it is difficult to fin

Fiona Snapple posing backstage on her last tour (SOURCE: Fiona Snapple) Fiona Snapple, the Norwegian Black Metal singer turned Nerdcore & Hyperpop collaborator, emerged from Kristianstad, Norway's dreary depths during The Pandemic. With eight years of music under her belt, Fiona Snapple's clever name is a nod to both the Snapple drink and her black cat, Fiona. She signed with Audentes Records, collaborating with Cowboy Coder & MC Lars to blend spooky and high-tech sounds. Fiona fearlessly covers Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Kate Bush, and more, fusing Black Metal with Pop music. Fiona's chaotic process involves tearing tracks apart and adding screaming guitars, synths, and Black Metal elements. She draws inspiration from Mayhem, SOPHIE, MC Lars , and Cowboy Coder. We recently got in contact with Fiona Snapple's label representatives and press agents online, who facilitated an interview with Fiona via email. Along with Fiona's interview question responses,

KOYO L-R: Harold Griffin, T.J. Rotolico, Sal Argento, Joey Chiaramonte, and Steve Spanos (CREDIT: Rebecca "Becca" Lader) Long Island Hardcore newcomers KOYO have announced their debut full-length, Would You Miss It?, due out this fall from Pure Noise Records. In just a few short years, the band has been turning heads with their unabashedly heart-on-sleeve blend of Punk, Hardcore, and Emo, and now Would You Miss It? makes good on that early promise with their most satisfying release to date. To mark the announcement, KOYO have shared the album's first single, "You're On The List (Minus One)." Driven by huge guitars and a heavyweight chorus, the track is a perfect introduction to KOYO's hyper-anthemic sound. The song's accompanying music video is a tongue-in-cheek testament to the KOYO's ability to tie together different generations of East Coast Punk & Hardcore, featuring fun-loving appearances from Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance, modern

Old Grey Horror's Jason Adams pictured with his guitars (CREDIT: David Pitcher, @pitcherpictures) We would venture to guess a musical artist has effectively "made it," achieved "mainstream" success, and/or reached "legendary" status once they've been quoted, referenced, or name-checked within a piece of digital or print media. It happened to LUSTRA (formerly known as Seventeen) when Marvel Comics issued Deadpool #41 in 2012, which, for whatever reasons, took place primarily in The Middle East. Deadpool #41 was penned by Gerry Duggan and actor/Metal musician Brian Posehn with cover art executed by Mark Brooks and artist Salvador Espin. One particularly striking panel showcases Deadpool listening to, of course, "Scotty Doesn't Know" on an MP3 player with a bubble nearby inscribed "SCOTTY DOESNT KNOW SCOTTY DOESN'T KNOW-OOh-OH!" LUSTRA's "Scotty Doesn't Know" was notoriously featured as a quasi-primary