The Witzard

Just in time for this glorious Bandcamp Friday, James Kochalka Superstar has shared a brand new recording of a song he first wrote in 1985 with Eric Bradford on a couch at The University of Vermont for their college band, Jazzin' Hell. This newly-updated 2022 version of "The Mummy's On The Loose" was recorded with Kochalka's friends, ROUGH FRANCIS , with guest vocals supplied by his teenage hero, Jello Biafra (Ex-Dead Kennedys, The NO WTO Combo) and mixed by GRAMMY Award-winning producer and Jazzin' Hell keyboardist, Peter Katis. All of this was collectively wrangled, coordinated, and produced by Neil Cleary. "Whenever I get that first rumored taste of Fall, my soul starts to yearn deeply for Vermont & Burlington. So, watching a new Neil Cleary-directed video of ROUGH FRANCIS backing James Kochalka on a 40-year-old song of his about a mummy is the kind of sentence that means everything to Burlingtonians and very little to most other folks and it...

Adam "Atom" Goren pictured with Good Clean Fun in Akko, Israel (SOURCE: Adam Goren) We've Got A Flyer On You will (hopefully!) be a new recurring column here at The Witzard. It's set to feature, examine, and re-visit mixed bill/genre, once-in-a-lifetime, iconic, and otherwise noteworthy Punk/Hardcore show flyers and their corresponding line-ups. As often as possible, we plan to speak directly with the promoters, bookers, flyer artists, soundmen/women, show attendees, and, most importantly, the artists themselves. If all goes well, we're even hoping to, eventually, cover a handful of shows we attended ourselves in years past, as well. For this slightly re-vamped edition of We've Got A Flyer On You, we'll be spotlighting a noteworthy musician, rather than a singular infamous show, for each installment. Adam "Atom" Goren is an Oreland, Pennsylvania-based musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Goren is best known for his one-man...

It's been quite a while since our last proper installment of our once-recurring column, Guts of The Ice: An Exploration of "Puck" Rock/Hockey-core... but today, we're back with a spook-tacular edition of Guts of The Ice just in time for Halloween! Past installments featured interviews, artist penned-columns, playlists, etc. with the likes of players from The Boils, Dropkick Murphys, Two Man Advantage, The Hextalls, The Hanson Brothers/Nomeansno, D.O.A. OFFSIDE REIDARS, Pansy Division, Violent Society, RAMOMS, CHIXDIGGIT! Light The Lamp, Protagonist, and Divided Heaven. One of our personal favorite squads we spoke with was Connecticut-based Punk-adjacent band, THE ZAMBONIS. We interviewed "Captain" Dave Zamboni, as well as band mascot The Hockey Monkey , and even had H. Monkey himself conduct a completey B-A-N-A-N-A-S Q&A with Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's own Light The Lamp . "E.B.U.G." by The Zambonis Through our various conversations,...

For this week's installment of Guts of The Ice, we decided to do something a bit different: have THE ZAMBONIS' mascot, The Hockey Monkey, interview Eddie Crossczyk, Slewfoot Foose, Mark Wrecky, Donny Brook & Andhe Scores from Light The Lamp! Light The Lamp (LTL) recently released three music videos from their debut EP, TILLY TIME: "Bring Back The Whale" & "Playoff Beard" remotely-recorded from Quarantine and "2 Minutes." If interested, you can read our previous Guts of The Ice interviews with both The Hockey Monkey AND Light The Lamp right here . Anyways, take it away, Hockey Monkey... "I watched and enjoyed the videos! The first one, "Bring Back The Whalers," would be a perfect match for a split single with THE ZAMBONIS. We, also, have a song about losing The Whalers (and other teams.) We could do it on Whalers Green vinyl! Also, love the footage of Pucky The Whale. Hence, my inspiration for the mascot question. The secon...

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 few choice words, and still have yet to hear from a few more. We...

The Hockey Monkey with Storm & Sparky The Dragon (SOURCE: Matt Gonzalez) 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 ba...

THE ZAMBONIS & The Hanson Brothers (SOURCE: Dave Schneider) 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 fe...

PHOTO SOURCE: Spag (photographer unknown) 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 few choice words, and st...

This past Saturday night, The Carolina Hurricanes squared off against The Toronto Maple Leafs . It was a bit of a nail-biter, to say the least, and The Hurricanes ended up beating The Maple Leafs in a miraculous 6-3 victory. Although, the most astonishing attribute on the ice Saturday night might have been when, in a pinch, The Canes had to turn to 42-year-old emergency back-up goalie (or E.B.U.G.) David "Dave" Ayres to help finish out the game. Ayres was called in midway through the second period when both goalies Petr Mrazek AND James Reimer were forced to exit the game due to injury. Regularly, David Ayres is a Zamboni driver for The AHL's Toronto Marlies and on that fateful night, was the E.B.U.G. for both The Hurricanes & The Maple Leafs . A feat unto itself, Ayres, was, then, able to block eight out of the 10 shots attempted on goal, while, also, scoring a shot on goal of his own. "E.B.U.G." by The Zambonis Saturday night, Adam Gretz at NB...