…AND IN THE WORDS OF FRANK “THE TANK” RICARD FROM OLD SCHOOL: “THAT…AND SOME OTHER STUFF.”

FIRST, A MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY AND SOME BONA FIDES, THEN THE SITE’S RAISON D’ETRE, ETHOS, AND OPERATING PRINCIPLES:

FIRST TWO TAPES: KISS-DESTROYER AND CHUMBAWAMBA-TUBTHUMPING (YES, THE LATTER BOUGHT FOR THE TITLE TRACK, BUT I LATER FOUND OUT THAT CHUMABWAMBA ACTUALLY HAD SUPER LEGIT ANARCHO-SQUAT-PUNK ROOTS, SO I’M CHOOSING TO RETCON MYSELF AS A NINE-YEAR-OLD REAL PUNK). FIRST TWO CDS: GREEN DAY-DOOKIE AND THE OFFSPRING-SMASH. MY FIRST “REAL SHOW” WOULD BE ORGY TOURING IN SUPPORT OF CANDYASS ON MAY 18TH, 1999 WITH MY DAD AT THE ASYLUM IN PORTLAND, MAINE.

AT THE TENDER AGE OF FOURTEEN, BEING A FAN OF PUNK AND REGGAE ALONGSIDE rap, NU METAL, AND 90S ROCK, I TOLD A CLASSMATE I WAS THIRSTING FOR SOMETHING MORE AGGRESSIVE. ENTER BAD BRAINS, STAGE RIGHT—and it wasn’t long before i was going down not just the punk and old-school hardcore rabbit hole, but i was getting into post-rock, post-metal, doom metal (shout out local legends conifer and ocean), underground hip-hop, and more. in short, my fetal music taste had been born into the world and was growing up OH so fast! to mix metaphors, the final piece of the puzzle was when i started to get into modern hardcore in the mid-2000s, and from there all “the cores” and adjacent heavy and alternative music.

the number of shows i’ve attended has to be well into the triple digits at this point. i sang (poorly) for a ska-punk band in high school and screamed (decently) for a kind of gallows and cancer bats meets this is hell and killing the dream hardcore band in college named after the cro-mags song “show you no mercy.” we played a few shows, usually being shoehorned into the deathcore scene that was popping off at that time, and cut a pair of demos.

i wrote for a good-sized now-defunct alternative music interview and review website in college and my first year in grad school, and took a roughly twelve-year hiatus before diving back in with my own review and interview site and youtube channel for about two years. ANOTHER HIATUS FOLLOWED THE BIRTH OF MY DAUGHTER, AND NOW HERE I AM, WITH THE THIRD TIME BEING, PERHAPS, THE CHARM.

THIS SITE IS A GLIMPSE BEHIND THE CURTAIN WITH INDUSTRY FIGURES AND MUSICIANS, COVERING TOPICS RANGING FROM GENERAL FANDOM TO INSIDE BASEBALL, FROM THE INSPIRATION FOR AND MEANING OF THE music TO THE BUSINESS SIDE OF THE INDUSTRY. all the cores and more EXISTS TO SIGNAL BOOST ARTISTS AND INDUSTRY PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING GREAT WORK, AND also as an outlet to SHARE MY INSIGHTS AND VIEWS as someone who’s been around awhile and remains as much a fan as ever. i don’t score albums because i don’t believe you can quantify art, and i only feature what i like and support. IF THAT SOUNDS GOOD TO YOU, WELCOME!

-jACOB OLIVER, OWNER/OPERATOR