Swing Kids emerged in the mid-1990s as a fusion of obscure punk, hardcore, and region-specific social politics. Their sound was heavily influenced by the ethos of jazz and swing-era ideals distilled through a hardcore lens, resulting in a style that defied traditional genre classifications. Although their time together was brief, the band left a lasting impact.

One of Three One G’s, the DIY record label of vocalist Justin Pearson (The Locust, Some Girls, Dead Cross, Deaf Club), earliest releases was Swing Kids’ self-titled 7” EP, featuring four original tracks along with a raw take on Joy Division’s “Warsaw.” Following this, the band released a split 10” EP with bassist John Brady’s other band, Spanakorzo (he also went on to join Chicago’s Sweep The Leg Johnny and currently plays in Tijuana-based punk band Agonista).

In their final shows of that era, the band enlisted Jimmy Lavalle—known for his work with The Locust, The Crimson Curse, The Black Heart Procession, Gogogo Airheart, and The Album Leaf—to take on second guitar duties. After only a few short tours, the band disbanded when drummer Jose Palafox (Struggle, Yaphet Kotto, Bread and Circuits, Baader Brains) relocated to the Bay Area. Then came an unexpected and tragic loss: guitarist and founding member Eric Allen, also of Unbroken, took his own life. After this, the remaining members performed two benefit shows in Southern California, raising thousands for charity. Viewed by the band as funerals rather than reunions, these performances celebrated Eric’s legacy. The band also recorded a 7” single at this time as well. In 2011, Swing Kids briefly toured in Europe under the name Blue Note, joined by guitarist Nathan Joyner (Psychic Graveyard, All Leather, Hot Nerds), who remains a part of the current lineup. These would be the last shows the band would play until 2025.

This year, the band has agreed to a handful of shows, initially planned as just a one-off performance at a San Diego-based fest for John Brady’s 50th birthday. Spending time together again for the first time in over a decade proved to be special, reigniting the spirit of a band whose music, perhaps unfortunately, seems more relevant than ever.

FATBOI SHARIF

“There are plenty of rappers who fans claim “no one else is rapping like,” but this dignification is actually true of Sharif” – Rolling Stone

“There’s something in the water in New Jersey — a close-to-deadly concentration of wormwood, perhaps, or of fresh blood drained from an inexhaustible supply of sacrificia virgins. Whatever it is, Fatboi Sharif and Roper Williams are drinking from the tap” – FADER

“If a rap posse formed from today’s up-and-comers who favor dusty loops and heady verses, Sharif could be the ODB.” – Complex

“No two songs are alike, but the fragmented verses and horror flick references from each one form a twisted mosaic of Lynchian strangeness, where nothing is too strange, sacred,
or taboo.” – SPIN

“I want to create my own genre.” – Fatboi Sharif

Sharif doesn’t look at his performances with the traditional lens that a normal rapper does, bukt treats the live show as a spiritual experience where Sharif and the crowd become married through raging and serenity. With being inspired as a child by Nine Inch Nails, White Zombie, and Parliament Funkadelic it’s hard to put Fatboi in a box. Grit over glamour is the name of his game. Production wise, once he finds the right instrumental that speaks to him in his language, he’ll sit with it for a few weeks and sleep to it on repeat. he’ll dream and see certain visions, colors, and shapes that create an image on top of the production canvas. This keeps his music everlasting.

The premiere EP “Ape Twin” was the Garden State Gargoyle’s first offering to the world showcasing his storytelling and descriptive penmanship with tracks such as “Breakin Nooze,” “Cloud Atlas,” and the foreshadowing first collaboration with producer Roper Williams (AKAI SOLO, Pink Siifu, YOUR OLD DROOG) on the deceased mermaid’s love letter “Egyptian Mermaid Lust.” After this collaboration and forming a friendship connecting through the shared interest in music, movies, and mutual hate of mediocrity, Fatboi Sharif & Roper William’s GANDHI LOVES CHILDREN was brought into the world. On Gandhi Loves Children, Roper created a different world for each song leaving room for Sharif to expand on his audio spiral soup of thought.

Coming off his breakthrough album, leaving an impression on many new listeners, Fatboi followed up with a 6 track EP Cyber City Society. Produced entirely by phenomenal stream-of-consciousness dart thrower “Lungs/Lonesword” of the Tase Grip collective. Lonesword’s production is its own sub-genre of underground music that became the perfect soundscape for Sharif’s imagination to run rampant on.

2022 brought us Fatboi Sharif & noface’s cult classic, Preaching in Havana, courtesy of boutique label Purple Tape Pedigree. An album about fear, and life, and death, and soul searching– finding God in babylon.

Fatboi Sharif teams back up with producer Roper Williams for their 2023 EP, Planet Unfaithful. His remarkable flow, something between a possession and a bad trip, matches well with the swirling samples. Bruiser Wolf and Elucid lend a hand as collaborators on this project as well. Later that year Sharif collaborated with Steel Tipped Dove for the Decay LP, released on Backwoodz Studioz. “An anomaly. In an era of microwave projects and email collaborations, the duo spent more than a year writing, recording and mixing Decay together in Dove’s Brooklyn studio. At a moment when many independent hip-hop projects are sonically predictable, easily categorized, and derivative, Decay is unapologetically experimental,” says the Backwoodz label website. To cap off the year, Sharif scratched off a bucket list accomplishment by bringing one of his idols, Bigg Jus, back outside to collaborate on the two-man mission EP that is, 2023’s Insomniac Missile Launcher. Fully produced by Bigg Jus, who also rapped some of his best verses on each track.

Accomplishing one of his life goals didn’t stop Fatboi from coming right back at the top of 2024 with Roper Williams to deliver one of his best and most unique projects to date. Billed as an album but dressed as a single on the DSPs, Fatboi & Roper’s “Something About Shirley” in a concise, dense roller coaster soundscape with a 10-minute run time. Later in the year Sharif joined teams with multi talented Duncecap for their exciting EP – Psychedelics Wrote the Bible. This trip only lasts for about 11 minutes, but like any intense psychedelic experience, your sense of time will get totally warped by it anyway. Lyrically he’s inspired to paint pictures like Stephen King, Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick, Clive Barker, David Lynch, and Ernest Dickerson. A literature titan and comic villain-like figure, Fatboi is one of the most charismatic and embracing individuals you’ll have the pleasure of meeting.

VENUS TWINS

Twin telepathy is real: “Being twins is definitely an unusual life experience; it seems the only way Venus Twins works is that the only two people in the band have this specific connection to one another.” Venus Twins was founded in Denton, TX in the summer of 2018 by Jake (drums) and Matt Derting (bass and vocals). They began writing/recording their first release, Kickass, immediately after inception, followed by a relocation to Brooklyn. Venus Twins’ first LP, Eat Your Dogs, accompanied this relocation. The next release was RAXIS, paired with nearly non-stop touring for two years averaging a show every 3.4 days, playing with bands such as Whores., Heavenly Blue, and Pons. Of upcoming release Stitching (visualized as /\/\/\/\/), vocalist/bassist Matt explains: “I love sewing and making clothes. Throughout the recording of this EP I was practicing a lot, and it started to feel like a perfect metaphor lyrically.” The band is influenced by bands such as Hella, Gilla Band, Machine Girl, JOHNNASCUS, PageNinetyNine, Melt Banana, The Locust, The Mars Volta, and Anthony Green, as well as non-musical artists like Kurt Vonnegut, Andy Kaufman, Robert Eggers, the feeling of constantly being stressed out, and living in NYC.

Stitching was recorded, produced and mixed by Hayden Ticehurst at Studio G in Brooklyn, as well as his personal studio. Mastered by Dan Millice (Hella, A$ap Rocky).

SOJI

Hardcore punk four piece SOJI produces energetic melodies paired alongside subversive lyrics reflecting on racism, womanism, police brutality, and the growing housing crisis. Aptly named “the crown revived”, SOJI comes out the gate swinging with a radically Black, Trans and Queer-led ethos and a dedication to disrupting existing punk spaces in favor of centering more Black Queer and Trans punks.