A New York City kid goes to Boston for school and discovers the burgeoning hardcore scene, before returning to NYC and forming his own production company. The son of a filmmaker himself, Drew Stone discovered his own interest in film, using what he learned in the hardcore scene to produce music videos for various punk, metal and rap groups. Later, he went on to street biker videos to feature-length documentaries, including Who the Fuck Is That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago, as well as films on the Boston and NYC hardcore scenes. Drew’s career is a great example of how one can not only apply the DIY and punk rock work ethic, but also use connections and relationships to tell some incredible stories. For Full Length Episodes And Merchandise Go To https://www.patreon.com/killedbydesk Follow: Killed By Desk Insta: @killedbydeskpodcast Twitter: @killedbydesk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/killedbydesk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/killedbydesk
Links:
Drew Stone
https://www.stonefilmsnyc.com/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0831844/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Stone
New York Hardcore Chronicles
https://www.facebook.com/TheNyhcChronicles19792015
https://www.youtube.com/user/stonefilmsnyc/videos
Yo! Baby, ‘Sup
https://www.discogs.com/Bugout-Society-Yo-Baby-Sup/release/2332298
SSD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSD_(band)
Antidote
Without Drew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2vnhKP6l24
With Drew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exDrMoXOMcE
Choke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3cJ-9wjJ0o&t=17s
Adrenalin OD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gwnmb6P-3
Drew’s Dad IMDB
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1793844/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr3
Bill Russell for Bell Telephone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY9t2WeMX1c
Not Rosey not doughnuts, not Charlie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi1_vqUSir4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWHNA_j7h5A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=petqFm94osQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgUkUjGC95s
Sam Breakstone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWuqpgM1Lzk
Drew’s Brother Evan- Expedition Unknown - The host reminds me of Dave for some reason
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X94AiFEEUa0
Tapeheads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfGv4MsaJs
November Rain Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbUC-UaAxE
Biohazard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-XnSoAneU
Onyx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ADgCeYJMN4
Collective Soul - Shine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m0bI82Rz_k
Northern Blvd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wptG3Gjmlw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BfeYxpbHu4
Agnostic Front - Gotta Go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Ef0ui74JM
Don Fury
https://youtu.be/MkMnFrfw3sI?t=32
12 O Clock Street Bike Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBzbxatTnVM
Nathan’s Yonkers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CZS-G6s_Fw
Hick Hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2hWgwTHMvw
XXX All Ages XXX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIJ6_dvZvuw
'Who the F**k Is That Guy?' Official Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgTBj2Zbr0w
Film Festivals
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/how-below-radar-film-festivals-can-prey-struggling-filmmakers-1250714
NY Hardcore Chronicles Film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvGnjFCVYSk
yeah this is bill florio yo this time c
charlie boswell hey it's dave harrison
all right today on killed by desk we
have drew
stone drew stone is a filmmaker he's
well known for doing a lot of like metal
and hardcore videos back in the day he's
from the blocks
well queen's and the bronx right he's a
queen's boy from the bronx
we had to drag that adam who lived in
boston i mean
it was it was definitely uh i know he
didn't want to go there but i definitely
i wanted to know that like how do you
hang in so many different crews how do
you go from new york and be the new york
guy in boston
how do you do hardcore hip-hop and metal
and like you know and do all the things
that he's done i mean it's it's really a
very interesting background and i liked
how he tied it all together at the end
about what he's doing now is really a
culmination of his life's experiences
yeah i mean it's with punk rock it's
like everything's about relationships i
mean if drew was a
dick i don't think he would have made it
anywhere
so i i think it's really just like this
community's sense of community
is really what it's all about and you
can use that any way you want
yeah he's definitely a likable guy and
he he must have you know to be in the
scene for that long he he's friends with
some scary dudes and the fact that he's
uh
he's okay is definitely a testament to
his charm i think yeah
i don't know if we're gonna have anyone
who's in that biohazard video on the
show
i mean not against it or the onyx maybe
some of them might have gone to great
careers we should talk to them but i'm
not sure well i was really hoping
against hope that we were going to talk
about the other onyx video where they're
all playing ice hockey but apparently he
didn't do that one
i don't know that one it's worth
watching although dave
what did you say hey baby up baby baby
suck
he said hey baby what's up
there's basically sacrilege on this
planet to my wife it's
your baby's chump
i forgot i will never be a member of the
yo club because i can't say yo 50 times
in a day and i don't worship mr t oh you
know what i i'm into mr t
i wouldn't say i worship him that's a
strong word okay you weren't gonna make
the cut anyway don't worry about it
dave just just wanted to let you know
when you did live in the bronx i was the
guy with
your car let's roll the tape
[Laughter]
all right drew so we always start this
out with having you introduce yourself
basically who are you and what do you do
for a living uh let's see
who am i today i'm uh i'm drew stone
and i like to think of myself as a film
director
uh and a musician but i wear a lot of
other hats as well but
primarily i'm a filmmaker and a musician
and
really since the pandemic the global
pandemic hit
i host a live video streaming show that
um i am blessed that has found a
worldwide audience
i guess in a way i'm sort of like i'm a
video talk show host
and you already got you already do all
the video editing you had all that so
you just
applied it is that the thought there no
i mean
my show goes live on to it's called the
new york hardcore chronicles live
and it goes out live on to
facebook and it goes out live onto
youtube and then it is goes up on
youtube and it's archived
so it's pretty much the deal i mean
there's a whole i mean there's a whole
backstory behind
how the show the reason the show's a
success isn't just by chance
it seems that everything i did
previously being a film director
tour managing for bands directing music
videos for bands
you know all the stuff that i did built
up for literally
30 years and when i launched the show
the show was really a culmination of
that in a certain way
i sort of reaped the all the hard work i
did all those years sort of i cashed in
on all that
and and it's and it's uh manifesting
itself in the success of the show
got it you've had made all these
connections right and and you've just
put them all together into one thing and
it just happened by
happenstance right you didn't plan that
before the pandemic is that right
no what what happened i mean going way
back initially you know
as a teenager and as a young man i
studied acting and i did some modeling
as a teenager and i went to
emerson college in boston to study
acting so initially
i wanted to be an actor but when i when
i went up to boston
in 1981 fell into the early boston
hardcore scene
and i uh i saw the band ssd control
uh one of their very first shows in a
place called the media workshop
and there was like 15 20 kids there it
was like i think the third show they
ever played
and and afterwards you know they they
were intrigued who i was i mean because
back then
it was a very small circle of people
especially like in boston
so i connected with them they after they
hey who are you what are you doing here
you know not in the threatening way they
were really
wow a new fresh face and i ended up
falling in with the original boston crew
and i'm thanked on the ssd control
record the kids will have their say i
was part of that crew
and i eventually ended up soon after
started a hardcore band
up there called the mighty cos and
played a bunch of shows and this is this
is late 81 early 82
and what basically happened was it it
sort of veered my focus
away from school i was part of a vibrant
exciting scene and i
ran with it and then when i left boston
you know i left school school wasn't
working i wasn't focusing
i eventually came back to new york city
where i
started a band called the high and the
mighty and
um eventually from there i joined a band
called antidote
so you basically you dropped out of
school did you have a plan then or is
like would you
did you decide you were just going to do
music like for a living
or were you just doing odd jobs and
making ends meet yeah no i was
you know 20 whatever however all it was
19 20 years old
the bottom line was that you know i was
part of this exciting vibrant
you know and and i and i do remember
i did have the consciousness that i felt
that hey this is something special and
unique
and this doesn't happen you know this
happens maybe a couple once in a
lifetime
i did feel like you know the early the
early american hardcore scene i'm
talking
19 you know let's say 80 through 83
you know was was a very exciting time
you know there was there was a lot of
there was a lot of possibilities out
there and there was a lot of
it was an exciting time and you know the
ethos
was you know the whole deal it was the
beginning of the whole diy
ethos you know there was you know before
then you were
banned yeah you had to you know you try
to get a record deal you try to do this
you try to do that
what the hardcore scene put forward
was this you know you can do it and you
can make the roadmap for yourself and
there's room for everybody on the boat
if you're not in a band then you can
start a fansy
or if you like taking photographs you
can you can be a photographer so being
part of that early american hardcore
scene
was very empowering and it was an
exciting time
i couldn't focus in school i couldn't do
it i was in a band
i was running around with other bands um
and yeah i had i had
you know jobs on the side i worked at
strawberries records
in kenmore square in boston and so yeah
that's that's what happened and i
i had like you know you know side jobs
and and yeah
i mean not to jump ahead of myself here
but you know for
you know a couple years after that i
sort of had the dream or the fantasy
of this band's gonna you know my band's
gonna make it and um this is gonna be a
lifelong you know
or a career type of thing did you
witness the whole thing in the early 80s
where
kind of like the art scene kind of
started
showing up and the graffiti people and
everything and they started doing
galleries and
like did you witness that and get
excited by that where it's kind of like
the world was watching a little bit oh
yeah for sure i mean
in those early boston days the places
that we played
were sort of like renegade art galleries
there were no clubs clubs clubs wouldn't
have us
we were underage um so you know we
played a place called gallery east
you know where we'd rent the place i
think we rent the place for 35 bucks
we'd build a stage you know and we
should we have a gig
i mean you know we had minor threat play
there you know we had
you know uh mdc a lot of band you know
come through so
early on there was definitely a horse
pollination of
kind of the hardcore scene and the arts
and all that and
and later on in new york city it was
cross-pollination
real early on a lot of people don't
recollect this or don't realize it
early on in the game new york hardcore
ran neck and neck with another
underground musical movement known
as hip-hop you know hip-hop didn't just
arrive on the scene selling millions of
records
there was there was a couple years there
where
new york hardcore was bigger than you
know hip-hop and then there was sort of
running neck and neck
and they were sort of kindred spirits
you know but but listen you know
harcourt never really
i think to a certain regard you know was
never embraced by
you know the downtown art scene to a
certain extent at least my perception of
it because
a lot of that was sort of the older
generation like you know we weren't a
part of the max's kansas city crowd
or like you know the older cbgb crowd
we were the next generation got it drew
were you into
were you into hardcore or the early part
of the new york hardcore scene before
you went up to boston or was that where
you discovered it and then
kind of got involved with new york
hardcore when you moved back that's a
good question that is
i grew up in manhattan and in the bronx
i went to jfk high school in the bronx a
little bit the music that
i listened to as a young teenager in new
york city
in the late 70s was you know led
zeppelin what did i get into early on
you know strangely enough what was
really big
where i lived in the bronx was southern
rock and
we loved the almond free bird
we love the almond brothers band and
leonard skinner
and marshall tucker band and the outlaws
and molly hatchet
we loved southern rock that that was
really big we loved the allman brothers
band and leonard skin and stuff like
that
listen i love the i mean the first
records that i had you know rolling
stones
i loved frank zappa and and i and i also
really love the grateful dead
you know um as a young teenager i really
love the grateful dead a lot and
saw them and saw them quite a bit and
traveled around to see them quite a bit
and really learned a lot about music
from the grateful dead because
the roots of the grateful dead is really
americana i
really learned a lot about you know and
also the excitement the exciting thing
about that too was
traveling from state to state with you
know a group of like-minded individuals
getting high and chasing music around
but then i went to college
then i went up to emerson and what
happened was i was in the
cafeteria of the uh dormitory at emerson
college
and there was a guy there that had his
head shaved and i was intrigued
and somebody introduced me to him and i
said well
you know like you know what's it all
what are you into he said
you know i'm into hardcore he said and i
said hardcore like like what like don't
jet like blondie like um like the beat
52s
like this was my reference point you
know what i mean like i right right
i didn't have i didn't have a reference
point and i vividly remember saying it
like the b52s joan jett
blondie like i didn't he said no like
like black flag and i was like the bug
spray
and so so i went back and forth with him
a little bit and he finally
eventually he said look i'm going to a
show this weekend why don't you just
come with me it's not too far from here
and uh and i said yeah you know listen
i'm from new york i was a gamer i was
down you know
so i went um me and him went
you know i seem to remember going on our
skateboards although he he seems to
remember different but
we went to this sort of this place
called media workshop which was in
it which was in like the old factory
district of austin
um it was like on the fourth floor and
it was just like a real sort of
raw you know space where they did like
you know art shows
and stuff like that or you know like
real and um it was an
all ages show and ssd control was
playing it was their third show ever
like i said
and it was all kids my age and it really
spoke to me it was
there was a camaraderie there and a
connection there that i didn't have
with bands like you know the home and
brothers band or the rolling stones
that was really idol worship and i
it was like you're in the audience
they're on the stage and there was a big
disconnect there
so when i saw ssd control the first time
and kids
and kids were were slam dancing although
we that's not what it was called then we
didn't really have a name for but you
know there was like
you know a couple of kids smashing
around into each other it just looked
like fun
and i just jumped right in i jumped
right in like i
i jumped right into it and people you
know people took notice and then i made
friends and
and i kind of fell into it and it was at
that point that my life
it's honest to say that was a watershed
moment in my life really changed
and you got to think in 1981 as far as
heart what was coming out you know the
minor threat
seven inch misfits walk among us you
know doa hardcore 81
i mean it was it was an exciting vibrant
time
in the early american hardcore scene but
unlike a couple other people
i never turned my back on the other
music that i love i still went to
grateful dead shows and and i still
went to allman brothers shows and i i
always you know i i didn't
turn my back on anything i i i'm a music
lover you know it's like it's well it
just it sounds like it hit a different
party i remember the first time i heard
i heard punk and hardcore i mean i
actually remember the first time i i'm
much younger i was born in 81 but i
remember the first time i heard
aod and i was like how the [ __ ] do
people play that fast you know like it
was just like it was like
it blew my mind that music like that
existed and and that doesn't mean you
don't like other stuff it's just you
know that is
that's the moment where you're like all
right there's something in my gut that
tells me this is where i'm going towards
you know i think i think a big part of
it for me
was community and culture you know what
i mean it's like
the same way that i would travel around
the country with my
clan of grateful dead people um i got
into the hardcore thing and i would
travel around the country with my
clan of hardcore kids and it's it was
the community
being a part of this community this
vibrant community
and it's just that that culture i mean
people laugh but they're both very
similar
and all these sort of things are very
similar i feel like that
summer i feel like to a certain extent i
know what it was like to be a part of
the summer of love in san francisco
and whatever that was 67. it's that same
exciting
feeling that you're a part of a musical
movement that
in some way shape or form you know you
feel in your in your
youthful naivety that it's going to
change the world
yeah i get it let's let's go back a
little bit so so
you know originally you were saying you
wanted to be an actor and
your your dad was a a video film
producer
right so what kind of influence did your
father's work have on you
and like what you originally thought you
wanted to do and where you ended up well
you know i come from a family of
filmmakers my dad my dad grew up in an
orphanage
in the lower east side of new york the
israel orphanage on houston street
israel orphanage asylum i think it was
called so my dad
made his way into the film business and
ended up you know really starting from
really humble roots
getting into the film business and
becoming a film director and producer
and in 1963 the the year that i was born
he produced a short animated film
with uh mel brooks and it actually won
um an oscar that year didn't think they
were going to win so he wasn't out there
but it was it was
it was a great accolade so i grew up
with you know kind of around film sets
and
my dad was a hollywood guy he did a lot
of commercials and uh he did a
documentary about muhammad ali
what commercials did he do he did um
well after he did this ali documentary
the word was out there that he that he
worked well he worked with sports
figures so
for a good run there he did anytime you
had a commercial with like a sports guy
my dad would get the call like there was
light beer commercials
no no no he did i don't know this is
going back before your time but
he did that commercial with bill russell
for for bell telephone
where like bill russell's like talking
about telephone and he turns and he
makes this hook shot that kind of goes
in
and like that that was a big commercial
he worked with terry bradshaw and and
joe frazier and mario andretti and brian
sipe
and what about nick bonacotti no how
about rosie grier like with the
leg stockings no no rosie cream was in
the
film that he did though oh awesome did
he have to have two heads
awesome i heard i heard that your dad
made the time to make the donuts
commercial
he didn't make that but uh he were the
act the actor
in that the actor who played what was
his name not sam the doughnut guy but
whatever the donut guy
whatever the donut guy's name was do you
know that was also he also played the
character of sam brakestone and
uh that actor's name is michael vale and
my dad
my dad probably directed michael vale in
at least
at least a hundred commercials and i met
him once yeah
i met him at the at the marriott marquis
the night before thanksgiving
nice he was sitting there and i just sat
right next to him and i introduced
myself
and the next day i saw him in the parade
that's awesome
[Laughter]
you know his his um i have a friend that
grew up with his daughter but you know
him and my dad
uh did a lot of work together through
the years like tons of my dad did humor
did like humor dialogue commercials and
uh
you know did a lot of them and not
knocked a lot of you know you say the
dunkin donuts guy
and sam brakestone were actually the
same person correct i never made that
connection
what about beef steak chocolate yeah i
don't know about that
um we got to research this i'm actually
looking it up right now
okay and here we go michael vale born
on june 28th which is my birthday me and
michael vale have the same birthday
he was known for fred the baker on the
dunkin donuts
with the catchphrase time to make the
donuts that guy had to get up early
is uh sam brakestone uh did a bunch of
tv shows
do you know what movie he was in you
ever see the movie marathon man
yes yo yeah was he the dentist no my man
that was that was a guy named lawrence
olivier
they couldn't get a good act
there's a scene in the diamond district
in the opening scene he's like one of
the diamond salesmen
that actually interacts with with with
um lawrence olivier
in there and uh he did say to my dad
that working with lawrence olivier was
one of the highlights of his life but
yeah
but getting getting back on track here
my dad directed michael vale many many
times my dad worked with a lot of people
many many times um like you still
haven't told us if he was
beef steak chocolate i don't think he
was
charlie so hold on your dad went from
coming out of an orphanage to producing
films and commercials that sounds like a
lot of hustle to me
like did he have like help there was did
someone take him under his wing like how
do you get there it seems like such a
hard business
well it certainly was a very different
business back then right it was a very
um it was like a fiefdom it was like a
medieval fiefdom back then you know
you had to know somebody you know you
didn't just nowadays it's like oh new
york school for
you know for film back then and getting
into the film business
was was you know that was damn near
impossible and
my dad got his first job working you
know back then when they had the boxing
matches
they would uh film every round and then
they'd have runners who would take the
film to the lab
each each round would be you know roll a
film and they'd give it to
a runner and he would take it to the lab
and because back then you know they
didn't show filth they didn't show
boxing matches live
you you would go into the theater like
that weekend and and you could see it in
between
a feature or whatever or they would show
it so
it was shot on film and uh his first job
was basically being a messenger
messengering film
filmed to the uh you know to the lab and
he worked his way up from there but he
did
tell me the other night actually when we
were having dinner he said at one point
he got onto a film state
and he saw a production um you know that
was happening and he saw a guy directing
and he he said to himself i can do that
i can do that and uh and he just aspired
and he worked as
he worked his way up up to that listen
it wasn't all glory of course you know
the film business has a lot of ups and
downs like the music business you know
and and you know it's not it it's rough
man the film business is rough that you
know
it's just like being a musician too it's
like it's rough you know
like my brother for instance you know my
brother's a film director also he he
works on a show called um
expedition unknown on the discovery
channel that that show that's hosted by
josh gates
and um he's on the road you know like
months and months and months out of the
year
and his frigging kids are growing up and
he ain't seeing it
and at this point it's almost like it
happens i think with guys in bands where
the the road becomes sort of their life
and their mentality and when they're off
it it just doesn't feel right
kind of uh well who's your dad who's
your dad's favorite then
as far as what is me my brother yeah
like
like is there a con is there a
competition there no probably my sister
[Laughter]
so you leave boston so you got into
hardcore you decided you weren't school
wasn't for you
what made you move back to new york why
didn't you stay in boston and you know
kind of you know stay
you had a band going all that stuff what
made you come back to new york i played
out my hand
after leaving school yeah i just
couldn't i couldn't you know waste my
dad's money anymore i i
i remember i registered for another
semester and then
thought about it and said dad you know
like that's
maybe i'll come back to it but i it was
just i was just wasting my dad's money
i couldn't it made no sense to go on
anymore it just wasn't
proper thing to do and my head wasn't my
head wasn't into it um i hung in there i
think
another like half a year working in a
record store
and kind of playing in this band but
then what happened was
you know i had to get out with my life
and and like you know living in boston
and sort of
playing in a hardcore band that sort of
and working some [ __ ] job
it seemed like it was it was time to go
back to new york that's where
that's really where my roots were you
know for me
job as a teenager job always meant
something in the film business
like as a very young teenage teenager i
worked like a summer job in a movie
equipment rental house
and i learned how to you know fix movie
lights and i learned
what the equipment was and i was loading
trucks and in a very young age i also
learned how to drive
drive trucks you know as a teenager like
i could drive
you know big vehicles and so you know i
was
there was a i had a skill set to work in
a movie equipment rental house you know
they have the big movie trucks i could
pull them out and pull them in
and and do stuff like that so i also
like for instance doing deliveries you
know back then
you know you had multiple moving
equipment rental houses
if if the place i was working it didn't
have something i'd get in the van
and go you know go to queens to pick up
some lights or whatever whatever
so job to me always meant something in
the film business
and when the hand in boston got played
out
i came back to new york you know it was
like a no-brainer i got a job
working doing deliveries or work you
know for equipment rentals
and also also another thing that i did
early on
was um i was a productionist you guys
know what that entails in the film
business
uh getting coffee and telling people to
get out of the way is that right
well that's what it seems like that's
that's part of taking up parking spaces
that's what it tells
[Laughter]
it was a little bit different back then
explain it true tell everyone what it
actually is in some regard
it's like you would go pick up the cat
you know you go pick up you know go get
the rental van go pick up the camera
gear
go pick up the props do this do that i
mean
there's a lot of there's a lot of you
know pas they call them on
on film shoots but you know i was sort
of a production assistant that's what
you do you work the day before the shoot
you're picking [ __ ] up
on the set you're running around doing
stuff you work the day after the shoot
you know dropping this stuff back off
so so i became kind of part of this
network
of pas in the business where like you
know you work on this
and then you work on the next thing and
if they say hey do you know anybody else
here i know this guy and
and this sort of like network develops
so so i was
i was always sort of like job with
something in the film business and then
i was like a boom guy you know like for
a sound man you know when you hope you
know boom guy is you hold the
gotta hold the mic up and all that and
were you ever the key grip no i mean
later on
later on and and sometimes even to this
day i mean a key grip is that's the main
man
i mean a key grip you know i'd work more
than the best part that's the other side
of things
best boys in the electric department
there's a main man and a best boy on a
film scene
pretty much there's two multiple main
men right they're running different
those guys are those guys are in charge
of something right they're not just
running around
a key grip is in charge of the grip
department and you know key grip is
that's a
high well-paid job i've worked as a grip
on
shoots i've worked as a fourth grip a
fifth grip
i've worked on you know big film shoots
have you know eight
grips on a shoot you know what i'm
saying like picking up a day
is as a fourth grip is a good gig you
know
you know back then back then there was a
lot of non-union shooting as well
so also you got to remember that and i
know we're
sort of we're sort of blurring the uh
the timeline here but
keep in mind around this time and and my
career plays into this heavily as well
is that it was the golden age of music
videos
so for a while there non-union music
videos
were being shot all over new york and it
was anything goes it was like the wild
it was like the wild west
and you know the way that that plays in
for me was eventually
i'm back in new york i start the high
and the mighty the high and the mighty
we start playing a7
and you know cbgb's and all that and i'm
hanging out and
meeting a lot of people and connecting
with a lot of bands you know i was
friends
you know i started you know with the
usual suspects in the new york hardcore
scene and then
eventually from doing shows with
antidote when antidotes
um original singer got kicked out of the
band we were i was on the road with them
at the time and
it just seemed natural that i would sort
of try out and i got the gig and i ended
up singing for antidote but
all along this time i'm working in the
film business
and then just a little bit later than
that i was working
as a stage manager on a film stage
right you know you have a film stage and
a stage manager
is the liaison between the people coming
onto the stage you know so
first i was a stage manager on a stage
in a story in queens called riverview
studio
which actually was the movie equipment
rental house that i worked as a teenager
moved to another building and built a
film stage on the premises
then i became the stage manager dealing
with you know production companies that
were coming on
now at the time you know you know who
came on well you know a danzig shop
mother on the stage um you know a jazzy
jeff and the
fresh prince that parents don't
understand on the stage and i was
you know i was there i was their contact
person are these those buildings that
are right over the
the 59th street bridge on by like 21st
street by like kind of by queen's bridge
houses close
you're taking a silver cup silver cup
yeah yeah so it's not in that general
area
do any of you guys remember what silver
cup originally was
it's a great fact silver cup was a bread
factory when we were k of course
you know when i was a kid growing up or
whatever and
it used to say silver cup bread and uh
you could use
back in the day when you would go over
the 59th street bridge in the in the
early morning hours
you could smell the bread it was it was
it was incredible um eventually that
that
um bread factory went out of business
and eventually silver cup they took it
over
and they they made a film stage out of
it that is a big
big complex of stages i worked at a
place called
riverview studio uh which was uh part of
movement mobile rental
which was in long island city along the
water down there and they just had one
stage you know one building one stage it
was a little
really sort of you know off the beaten
path it wasn't you know silver stuff
silver cup excuse me and you know
kaufman astoria that was big time that
was for
big feature films and you know big
commercials
place like riverview where i work was
for like the non-union stuff the low
budget stuff the music video stuff
uh eventually i left riverview and i
went and moved
i was a stage manager on a stage in on
the upper west side of manhattan
called three g's now three g's i was
connected with because you know when i
was a kid
my dad and a young teenager my dad would
shoot there and
they needed a guy and i got the call and
i started working there and
it was the same sort of um it was the
same sort of thing i was running the
stage
and you know some of the stuff that was
shot on three g's was like
suicidal tendencies send me your money
cindy lauber
she bob and a lot of rap stuff but
what happened there what happened at
that point was
like i said it was the it was the golden
age of music videos and
everybody was shooting [ __ ] music
videos left and right and sideways and
there was no
rules or limitations on it it was like
it was like the wild west again it was
like there was no
it was people you know we're going to
build a volcano you know
like that movie tapeheads
[Laughter]
probably i i don't know it but that
makes sense it's john cusack and uh
what's his face uh tim robbins and they
like down their luck video producers and
they do a video for
it's stiff bader's has like a has a
metal band and they do a video for him
but then like
they screw it up and they tape it over a
funeral they were taping and it's like
someone digging a grave
and it becomes like this huge video on
mtv and it's
it's it's stupid is this a movie about
drew's life
maybe you need to watch this
you know what that sounds like what's
that movie the producers yeah
it's supposed to be a bomb you know that
this script stinks you know what do you
mean
smell it it stinks you know
they do the things springtime with
hitler and for hitler
yeah it ends up being a hit you watch
those videos you know from the 80s and
because now they have mtv classics you
can watch
you know they actually still show all
those videos and the production value on
those are terrible and then you get into
like
i think when you started getting
involved based on your on your resume
you know that's when people started
actually caring they're like all right
this can't just be us
lip syncing to something stupid with
like in a empty warehouse with like you
know you know whatever going on like
there needs to be a story line for this
there needs to be
something going on there needs to be you
know there needs to be a plot to this to
this music video yeah
i mean a lot of times there needs to be
a plot but a lot of times you for the
life
have you ever figured out the plot
you've never seen the november rain
video my friend
a lot of time you just don't know you
know what a lot of times it was just
it was just like visual like you just
wouldn't you know like
it wouldn't it wouldn't stream together
it makes sense you know it was just
eye candy and and you know a lot of
stuff came through like that
but what happened with me was you know
at the same time i was doing these jobs
i still had the belief that the band
was gonna you know break through to a
big level right and at this point
i was an antidote i really enjoyed
playing music and i really
and i loved it and that's what i really
thought that i wanted to do with my life
i mean this other stuff
i didn't at this point i didn't really
take the film business seriously
it was really just i have to have a job
i got to pay the bills
i'll be a pa i'll be a stage manager i
wasn't aspiring
to be a film director or producer or or
anything like that
my real my real you know desire was was
you know playing music and and listen
looking back of course it was all very
very naive and very sort of immature i i
didn't even really know what that meant
but you know we were plugging away in
you know in the band playing a lot of
shows
also that era that we're talking about
here is sort of like
late 80s early 90s in new york it was a
very vibrant place for music i mean
i was looking at uh i sort of have a
diary of the gigs we played
and we were playing like two three times
a week i mean that's wild
for months so you know there's that part
of it but what happened to me was
from being around all these other bands
and playing music and shows with
all these other bands and then the mtv
thing comes in
and music videos becomes a focus i
started having
bands ask me like hey drew you know
about this stuff
like will you can you you do a video for
us
and that kind of thing and then at a
certain point
paris mayhew from the from the band the
cro-mags
paris was going to school to study to be
a cameraman
and he was doing a couple of things and
we were friends already uh you know we
played together
and we were in the same scene we were
friends and he knew
you know what i was doing like for work
and he approached me and said hey
this band is asking me to do a video for
them
would you you know do you think you
could produce it would you want to
produce it and the band turned out to be
a band called biohazard and we i ended
up producing
the video for the the song punishment i
don't know if you guys know
know this particular i was personally
terrified by that video
i i couldn't watch the whole thing i
just thought i'd say so it worked
whatever you're doing it definitely
worked
charlie how about you i see the one
where they had this
uh their their logo going at you in
between the
scene cuts okay right i don't know that
one so i ended up doing i ended up doing
the biohazard video
so a little bit of the back story real
quick is that i'm working on the film
stage and my boss says hey anytime
you rent the equipment outside of the
stage
i'll split it with you so i had my van
of course i had a van right i was in a
band and we had we had a van i had a van
you know
so my brother would come to town and
have a little shoot and i'd fill the van
up with equipment
or somebody else would need a couple
lights in a stand
and i started doing these little gigs
and splitting it with my boss
and i i gathered up enough money
to incorporate my company
my production company stone films nyc
the the moniker that i still use to this
day so you have to you know get a lawyer
back then it wasn't what as
what was it [ __ ] we zoom or whatever
it is
legal zoom you know you had to sort you
had to get a lawyer you had to file the
papers like
that and you know get the corporate
stamp and so i hired a guy a lawyer
and and i incorporated stone films nyc
and then i scratched together a few i
scratched together a few more bucks and
it was just one of those moments
that sort of you know lined up where
paris asked if i wanted to
produce the video and it was right at
that moment that i made the first
payment on the insurance policy that you
need
in order to be a production company you
know in new york city
to get permits and to rent cameras you
can't just walk into a camera rental
house if you're over into camera
you have to have this big you know
specific
million dollar insurance policy so even
if you work there you can't do it it's
not like you worked there and couldn't
rent it
no of course not of course camera's
worth three quarters of a million
dollars that you have to have
absolutely so what happened was that
right when he asked me about
doing this video i made that payment and
i was
up and running and we did the video and
the video
took off and it played on headbanger's
ball 14 weeks in a row on headbangers
and i don't know if you guys remember
ricky rackman from headbangers ball
who could forget yeah i know people goof
on ricky he was a hair metal guy but
he loved biohazard he loved it he loved
the video
and he personally put his weight into it
and got the [ __ ] thing played
for 14 weeks in a row and first off you
know
the video is i mean looking back on it i
know it's
it's referred to as an iconic video at
this point but it had
like all these elements of new york
hardcore and all these guys
that went on to form hardcore bands like
sub-zero
and madball and all these guys that were
in it
and it put out there in the universe
sort of like hey
this is what's going on here in new york
city and it's sort of like a johnny
appleseed thing it's seeded and inspired
a lot of people
with the success hey like [ __ ] if those
knuckleheads can do it
get in the band together does that make
sense drew what yeah what year was that
that was like 1992. okay so so
is that the video where they walk into
that sex shop by 6th avenue
no that's the video
where we're coming over coming over the
brooklyn bridge like
yeah no that's the one the one the one
that you did drew is the one i am
terrified by it
every single person who i saw break
multiple legs every week
is in that video i can't watch it it's
very well done though
that's a that's a good question because
i think you know around the same time
you did the slam video for onyx right i
was taking a pause here
i i was i was being gracious uh to
let you guys talk on your own show other
than have you
have me just ramble on this [ __ ]
honestly so
hold on for for me it sounds like not
only did you
launch your career but you also bought
the insurance policy to make sure no one
broke your leg
is that right i don't think i think i
think i said that's a different kind of
different kind of initiative
but unfortunately fortunately that
didn't happen but what did happen
was that biohazard was managed by a
company called rush
management which you may or may not know
was a guy named russell simmons
and yes it was sort of a that's right
runs runs brother
that's right russell simmons is joe
aka run from run dmc's brother correct
um russell had def jam records
but they also had a management company
called rush management
and rush management uh was handling
biohazard they had a guy scott koenig
uh that that you know that was over
there that sort of was like the rock guy
that handled a couple rock bands over
there
and so rush management was managing
biohazard
rush management was also managing a
group called
onyx and onyx had a song called slam
and somebody over there had the
perspective and the insight to say you
know what
let's get the rock and roll white boys
to do the slam video because it's about
slamming and slam dancing whatever you
know
so we got the call the very next
video i believe that we did after bio
has a punishment we did the onyx slam
video
and that thing took off and went to
number one on mtv and went double
platinum
and then after that we just went on a
run you know we we did the typo negative
video black number one we did kings x
dog man
you know blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah we went on a nice run after that
so you were safe in multiple
neighborhoods then yeah
i like this well yeah and also you know
back then i was sort of
yeah i went to public school and i was
like a white jewish kid with dreadlocks
you know
you bridged a lot of gaps i mean like
think about being a new yorker in boston
being a yankees fan you're a pretty big
yankee man right i mean you're a yankees
fan in boston which i know i'm a mets
fan i lived in the bronx and i know how
often my car got keyed so
i can only imagine what it would be like
to be a yankees fan in boston
then not only that but then maybe it's
overstated now but the
tension between the new york and the
boston hardcore scenes you know maybe
that came a little bit later
and then on top of that you're bridging
metal hardcore and hip hop so like i
mean that's
it seems like you had a special touch
for all that stuff well like first off i
know i know the whole the legendary beef
between boston and new york
it didn't exist in 19 when i first got
into hardcore in 1981
it was it didn't exist that happened a
little bit later and by then i was back
in new york already you know
when it got really ugly but you know
early on in the in the early hardcore
scene we would travel down to new york
play the a7 you know listen when ssd
control played the a7
you know we packed every vehicle and
came down from boston like 30 deep
you know it was and then also when
ssd control played the chancery in dc
with iron cross
and government issue we packed two
vehicles in boston and drove
all the way to freaking dc to get out on
the dance floor
and [ __ ] you know and represent i
mean back then you know you got to
represent
you know it's like were you one of those
guys that yelled boston and started
punching in the pit
no he's a jewish guy with dreadlocks it
wasn't going to go that far
later i mean we're talking about early
back to early 81 i had my head shaved
but
um no i wasn't one of those guys i i
don't i don't you saw that though right
what's that
you saw that right eventually
oh you know what i didn't mention that
you know who took me who that person was
that i met in the cafeteria who brought
me to my first hardcore show
we're waiting that was jack chok kelly
who sings for slap shot
jack kelly jared kelly went to emerson
college he was a communications major
he's the one that had his head shaved
that i connected with he's the one that
brought me to my first show the ssd
control show
awesome he's a hair stylist now do you
ever cut your hair uh no
he has a hairstyle or he was i'm not
sure if that's what he's what he's doing
these days
but um but yeah so so that that's that
but i always like like i said like i
said previously
i'm a lover of music you know i didn't
just go you know i went to park
everything all
sucks like so you know i
early on when we started doing these
videos we sort of we sort of had this
remember we we felt because we got off
to a really good start like
we really i think we did like you know
biohazard
hit uh onyx hit typo negative hit
um you know we over dmc we did after
that
you know then kings x we were on this
great run and we sort of had this
attitude like you know
we're only going to do videos for bands
for bands that
you know we [ __ ] that we really think
are great or that we believe in or
like we had this like ridiculous sort of
you know
pretentious like righteous attitude and
that was stupid i mean that didn't last
you know that didn't
last and i remember atlantic records
gave us
this character what do you call it a
package you know like
okay we're interested in you guys doing
a video here's the package right the
8x10
the tape the lyrics the whole bit i
remember we had it it was me and paris
mayhew we were in the car we were out
there shooting something
and we were driving down sunset
boulevard and i open up the package and
it's this band called collective soul
remember that yeah yeah okay
so it's this band collective soul and
we're looking at the picture we're going
look at these [ __ ] clowns right we're
like [ __ ] these guys
and we put the cassette in and we're
listening to it it's that song you know
that goes
you know the song's called shine right i
think that's
and i take it out of the cassette deck
and i throw it out the window onto
sunset boulevard right
and we're like [ __ ] these dudes they're
scrubs
they ain't gonna do [ __ ] right and
wouldn't you know it
somebody else does the video the song
goes to number one
and i just realized after that that like
man
that's just stupid music is music and
this is what i'm doing
and who cares if i like it or not you
who gives a [ __ ] drew when i when i was
15 i was like heavily into video
production i really wanted to do it for
a living and
i this guy vinnie trained me and what
you said before about like the union
shop
and like the brick wall to get through
he basically
talked me out of it he said if you're
not connected you will never get a job
you're going to be a pa
getting coffee for the rest of your life
and you'll be 50 years old
he's like basically he's like i want an
emmy for usfl and espn
and i haven't gotten a job in three
years because i don't have the
connections so it sounds like you were
able to get around that
just through your own connections and
just the opportunity came up right like
you didn't do a creative you didn't do
that much creative stuff before the
music videos happen that's right is that
right as
all your creative creativity was on the
music side absolutely i had no desire to
do that stuff but
but you know i wasn't thinking oh i want
to be a producer or
and and in retrospect i do have
some regrets that when my dad was very
busy working in the business
and really you know having his really
great glory run
that i didn't focus up and i didn't i
couldn't learn
so much more like my brother focused up
my brother like
my brother like learned how to light
sets and he became a cameraman
i was still busy running around and you
know with a fantasy a rock and roll
fantasy
and and and to be honest with you
[ __ ] around getting high i was
running around
playing in a band for a couple years and
living that lifestyle was that with
choke no
no no it sounds like the only thing your
dad really did for you was get you a job
at a better
rental place maybe not even that
yeah i mean it was all from sort of we
all
knew each other this and that it wasn't
like he had to put a call in to get me a
job you know i i
one thing sort of leads to another but
but what happened with me was
just the circumstances of at that time
music videos were non-union and and
everybody was doing them and there was
there was like a real
hunger for bands to shoot music do music
videos
and i was sort of in the right place at
the right time
a lot of the reason was because of the
connections i made from
being in bands and playing cbgb's in a7
and
i knew all these bands and all the
between me and paris we knew all these
bands
and then you know uh people were like
hey
uh you you know we got to do a video
well who should we get to do a video
well
[ __ ] drew from antidote in paris from
chromage are doing videos
it sounds like a window that opened
that's never going to open again is that
right yeah
oh absolutely man listen i mean that the
past
you know the past is dead long live the
past you know it's like
the film and music business is is
radically different at this point
of course you know but right it's like
that star trek episode you can't go back
and change anything either
or else the president would be radically
different but
who would have thunk it that mtv would
become
how you break your record you want to
sell records you better have a good
video you know so
it became like a big focus for
bands it was the you know you gotta have
a yeah gotta have a great video and you
know we
we went on this we went on this great
run together me and paris and then
me and paris eventually split i must
give credit where credit's due
paris was a very talented guy he was a
very focused guy
your personality wise you know we didn't
always get along
it was rough but it's part of what sort
of made it made it work
in the end we split you know we had a
nice run
but it got to the point where i was
starting to feel like you know
i could be directing stuff myself and i
started doing stuff myself you know
um because because our arrangement was
he directed i produced through my
company and
it was a good arrangement early on and
and i enjoyed it because listen
as the film production company you get
you know you get a production company
markup plus i was getting paid as a
producer
he was getting a director's fee and for
a minute there i
you know for i'd say for two years
i really enjoyed being the owner of a
successful production company you know
eventually we split and then i went on i
continued
do you think paris was that much of an
extreme personality compared to other
people in the film business
i don't i don't really want to comment
on on anybody's
kind of personality other than let's
leave it as
we worked together for a while and it
was working
and then we split you know okay not
worth it not
not worth it don't worry about drew i
got a more important question
what did you do with your bar mitzvah
money i bought that van
okay wait yes wait was it a vw bus
no no no no no it was i went down on
queens
boulevard i took my bar mitzvah money
and i bought
a ford econoline 250 van and
that was the van that i had you know up
in boston
and that was the van that you know a van
that i had you know
doing those or you know equipment runs
and stuff like that so
you know having that van uh turned out
to to be
you know incredibly uh you know helpful
at a certain point but what i was saying
is when i split from pat wait wait wait
wait was that queen's boulevard or
northern
it was no no no no no no no no no no no
no
i'm with you i'm with you charlie i'm
with you
that's a good question let me think it
through i think it might have been
northern boulevard brother yeah that's
what i thought
charlie are you a queens guy yeah
jackson heights
oh okay so you remember i'm talking this
is going back years but
you know down toward you know down
northern boulevard there used to be
numerous numerous numerous like used
calls
there was one card yet dealership after
another exactly all used
and you know i went in there which i
went i went onto the lot with some cash
and if i remember correctly i think i
paid like eighteen hundred bucks for it
fifteen hundred bucks
yeah i pulled out yeah it was it was i
believe it was northern boulevard i'm
pretty sure you're right and
yeah that's not as bad as the other guy
that claimed that uh
the r train uh went uh he's a he's a
city council member
justin knows which side of the which
yellow line goes to bay ridge he doesn't
know which side goes to astoria i'm fine
with that if he was
if he was a city council member and
historian didn't know then there would
be a problem
charlie i was i was born in forest hills
so okay
cool yeah i boarded forest fields and
then all the stuff we're talking about
you know you're a queen's guy a brooklyn
guy i'm a queens guy
i was born in forest hills you know that
film studio i was talking about
uh was in astoria and then i lived in
long island city so i i
i lived in
when i split from paris was i went on to
direct
myself the first thing i did was the
agnostic front video gotta go
and then you know i went on a very um
proficient run you know directing you
know
i started directing you know on my own
and i kind of became
inserted away that was the king of of
the hardcore videos i did
agnostic front sub-zero marauder two
madball videos
fury of five i like went on this drawing
where i was doing
just you know all these sort of like low
budget you know hardcore videos
you're like the don fury of video better
drum sound
i kind of was you're right no you were
they're not fair enough i'm not this and
don don's great yeah yeah fair enough
wait but did the europeans seek out
because they always think sought out
like oh we got we must record that don
fury studio
for sure i got a call i got a call from
warner brothers records in germany
they had a band called rikers they flew
them to new york
i did the rikers video you know those
guys are still around they're like from
castle germany they're
they're probably the biggest german you
know old school hardcore bands so yeah
i mean that that you know that that that
they're going to outlive rikers island
we'll see probably yeah so so that's
what happened with that
eventually you know things there's an
ebb and a flow
to this kind of thing you know music
videos are big and then they die out and
like my career my career has kind of
been in you know there's been four sort
of as far as this stuff goes there's
been four major cycles there was
i had a music video career but then i
had an extreme sports career
you know now i have a a documentary film
career you know so
it's sort of it cycles out every couple
years so
was the extreme sports thing something
you're into or did that just come up and
like this just pays really well oh no
just came up but as far as it paying
really well i don't know about that
but is that like the stuff you see on
like channel 11-4
or on the tvs at wendy's that kind of
thing i did i did motorcycle stuff and
you remember like
and this is we're talking here 1999
2000. i directed a film called 12
o'clock
which was a dock sort of a documentary
of the street bike scene
mostly in brooklyn um you remember like
the rough riders and all that
so not like jim haas jim haas wasn't in
it wait this is this is not like the
guidos on the
japanese motorcycles yes it is exactly
it is
okay you're so like
bingo guido so like japanese motorcycles
so like nathan's parking a lot in the
yonkers
well yeah that too but where i come from
we call them cuisines
that's right so what happened was that
somebody
came on my radar screen because my
brother also my brother
uh was out in california at this point
he was doing some sports stuff he was
he had a company he did a whole like he
had success doing a line of um
inline skating videos like like
documented like you know
vhs's you know and they put him in the
stores and he had t-bone films and he
did the whole hoax
hoax inline skate series and those were
successful
and so somebody said hey you gotta see
what's going on in brooklyn and they
showed us this videotape of these guys
in in brooklyn riding these japanese
street bikes in the streets
and you know what got me was that they
were white boys
and at the time my line of thinking was
yo rap music was cool
and it was sort of underground until
white people got involved in it and then
it blew up so my line of thinking was
well [ __ ] if white people are doing this
this is gonna this is gonna end up being
bit this is gonna be
big it's already out of the underground
it's coming out of the underground
so that was just my line of thinking
then and uh we did a documentary called
12 o'clock
and it really became sort of the uh the
go-to video
in that sport and uh if i turn keyed
that video
turn-keyed that whole sport because we
weren't
up until then you had street bike guys
that did
videos we were video guys that we went
the other way with us we could ride a
little bit
but you know we weren't what was our
lineup we're not we're not street bike
guys we're not street bike riders you do
videos we're video guys who do street
something like that and we brought our
filmmaking sensibilities
to this documentary called 12 o'clock
and we shot some of it in film
some of it was shot in video and it
really went over the top
and it was very successful and then i
went on i i started a series
of films called urban street bike
warriors and
i direct i i did originally with my
brother and then on my own i did i did
nine films in seven years wow i got i
got a question about that
so you're saying that these cuisines did
it and then it became big right
so how was it that driving your monte
carlo with your foot hanging out the
window never became big
that's a good question
i don't know well i mean it's it's not
like jersey shore big though cause like
i i don't feel like
the guidos permeated the whole world
it wasn't it wasn't listen how big can
it be it's illegal
[Laughter]
you know that inevitably in the end it's
it's what we're doing it's illegal so
how big and what it's like illegal to dr
street drag racing you know it's like
it's not going to end up on my world of
sports you know
but so that's why that's why when you're
driving your
monte carlo your foot out the window
that's illegal too so that's why that
never began
did this increase your insurance
premiums you're filming something
illegal
i should tell you i had to put a writer
on my policy for having my foot out
not you charlie um no this this was
sort of a different a different paradigm
you know i you didn't i didn't need to
have an insurance policy to kind of
run around run around the country doing
this stuff
it wasn't it was very underground stuff
you weren't getting permits you weren't
getting permits to film
yeah no no also what started in a brook
in brooklyn with these guys eventually
the second film third film
it started to spread across the country
so eventually it took me around the
world
and what what the way it worked was i'd
spend a couple months
shooting the film and editing the film
and then i'd hire
a friend of mine to design the box and
then
this is before dvds this is still the
vhs era and
the dvds the dvds would get duplicated
in the dupe house
and they would go to the distributor the
distributor puts them in the motorcycle
shops right this is the only way to get
this
this is before youtube you're embracing
the do-it-yourself thing here
including it was illegal right
absolutely
it all carries over from the original
hardcore ethos
and do it yourself i go out and shoot it
i'd go out and shoot it
pretty much by myself i got an edit
system i learned how to edit i edited it
by myself
i hired someone to do the box cover and
then the dupe house
the duke house would make it the duke
house was net 90
so they would dupe up the film make the
vhs's
and ship it to the distributor i
wouldn't have to pay them for 90 days
the distributor was net 30 so by the
time the distributor sold the first
batch
and i got paid for it i could pay the
distributor and everything else so
this became very this became very listen
i say
it was very lucrative i'm not talking
about millions of dollars here but i was
earning a good living doing it and i was
traveling
eventually i traveled the world doing it
and it was really
nice for me in a certain regard because
i was doing my own thing you know the
music video thing early on
like i talked about i was involved with
paris mayhew eventually i you know i was
doing videos about myself but this was
this was my vision my thing
and you know it turned out to be really
great and i had a really great run doing
it
and it took it really literally it took
me around the world a couple of times
and it was really fantastic that's cool
did you ever think of uh trying to jump
onto the hip hop
trend hip hop he said something about
like white people are doing it must get
big
you ever hear a hiccup yeah yeah i think
so it's like
billy's rapping i assume yeah yeah
pretty much
yeah yeah part of what i do also is like
i move
forward like i i can't repeat myself
like it's like a fake world got it got
it
worse for me find a new thing you got to
find something i mean you know
no disrespect but people bands
constantly are asking me to do
videos for them and it's just not my
passion anymore
you know once in a while i'll do a video
like i did a sick of it all video
a while back i love the song i love the
guys they were on board with it
and it was fun i know i just did a video
for you know
once in a while i'll do a video but it's
but it's not even about the money i'll
do it if i
love the band and love the song and it
like it's it and and i'm like i got the
vision to do it
and it and it's going to be a lot of fun
like that's what that's what motivates
me honestly
is the artistic the challenge and the
fun of it i'm really not
that motivated by money good so
eventually you got into long-form
documentary like how was that different
and what challenges did you find there
that you didn't find in doing the videos
and the shorter
productions well there was definitely a
learning curve there the first one that
i did
was a documentary about the boston
hardcore scene called xxx all ages
xxx the boston hardcore film and that
documented
that era that i was in boston 1981 to
1984.
i mean i left a little earlier than that
but it really documented
that early boston hardcore scene that i
was a part of
ssb control gang green jerry's kids the
fuse
and it was really there was a big
learning curve there it was the first
one i did
i learned as a way about you know how
you do it and then the second one i did
after that i really sort of i learned a
lot on that one is
you know without getting into the
particulars about your boom you gotta
own your own camera go out buy a [ __ ]
camera
go out go out and buy a [ __ ] camera
so every time you want to shoot
something
you can go out and do it and you don't
have to rely on anybody you know
so that was a valuable lesson it took me
a while to get the money up to buy
a camera that was the proper quality
that that i could shoot with
that film and also there was a learning
curve as far as
when you do a documentary film
clearances for people
clearing music clearing video footage
that's a process but what happened was
that
when the boston hardcore film premiered
at the boston international film
festival in boston
unexpectedly this guy showed up this guy
named michael alago
showed up and michael alago
is a guy i knew i had a little bit of a
history with him he's the guy
that signed metallica and and white
zombie
and i he signed the misfits to geffen
and when i was managing a band called
sub-zero i did a european tour with them
i was out on the tour and a lot was out
on the tour
and we got to know each other and he
showed up at
the premiere of the film which i thought
was very nice
and then a while after when that film
was sort of dying down i went to a
crowmag show
in new york city at the highline
ballroom and backstage i bumped into him
and i walked out of there and i thought
to myself you know
he's got that guy's got an incredible
story and i was thinking about what my
next project
was going to be so i reached out to him
and we got together and i pitched it to
him
and that was sort of how my other film
who the [ __ ] is that guy the fabulous
journey of michael alago
got started and you know that film ended
up
going to netflix and getting picked up
by a major distributor
and really really it was in the theaters
for a minute and
you know there was that film was a very
big success for me
and of course listen a lot of it has to
do with the fact that it had a lot of
star power in it i mean the metallica
guys are in it
john lydon is in it from the sex pistols
phil from pantera
eric bogosian rob zombie cindy lauper
you know and these were all people that
were connected with ilago and
so at the same time i was doing the
ilago film because
it took me a year a [ __ ] year
to clear the music and the footage for
the alago film
so in that year in that year where i was
sort of
smashing my head against the wall i
started making another film on the side
called the new york hardcore crime and
the new york hardcore chronicles film
actually
you know got done you know pretty fast
and and both films came out at the same
time
so that was like an incredible
incredible
uh moment for me um and that year when i
had two films out at the same time
it was just i was really you know living
um
you know i hate to say because it's
living the dream
but after a year there it was really it
was really something special i cherish
it what
what did what did it look like to to get
that distribution deal though that
sounds
sounds like something you hadn't done
before yeah what challenge was that for
sure
in all leads into one another things and
a lot of it goes back
to hardcore and to my life in
let's call it american hardcore it's
like being it's like being in the
trenches together you know
with someone and a lot of the guys that
i was in the trenches with back then
you know sort of went on to do other
things and
hardcore's like the portal that brought
a lot of people through the arts
so you know so in the case of how the
logo film got distributed
i i first off listen how did i mean
ilago i met a logo
because he got involved with the misfits
how do i how do i know the misfits
because i was in the high in the mighty
and we played shows with the misfits and
when i joined antidote the drummer
antidote was arthur googie who plays on
all those old misfits records
and so i've known the misfits guys
forever so they took my band sub-zero
out on tour
a lot goes out there i connect with the
lago a lot of it was you know
got him assigned to geffen then i do the
ilago film
and thinking about distribution i
thought we were gonna go do the
um the festival circuit you know you
take your film out there and you trot it
around
like a [ __ ] like a like a [ __ ]
hooker
you put it out there and hopefully
someone picks her up right
what happened was i played the film the
first rough cut i had for the film
there was a guy a guy named peter spirer
who
i worked with back in the day he do he
was a new york rock guy
you know he played in a band called z
toys in new york he was part of that
circuit
and he was an aspiring film director and
i worked with him on a couple of film
shoots i was the second
was the assistant director on a video
that he did
for a band called propane you ever hear
that being propane sure yeah
it's the guy from the chrome suckers
it's gary mexico from the crumb suckers
so so back in the day peter spiro
directed the propane video i was the ad
on it years and years later i directed
the ilago film we have the first rough
cut
like rough cut of the film already he's
out in hollywood
he's somewhat successful he's got a
bunch of films
he's already done a bunch of films he's
connected with distribution
and um i i sent him the link he watched
the film and
uh we really lucked out he said i love
the film i want to be a part of it
i can get this distributed you know
let's get down you know
and um it's circumvented and he's the
first one that told me he's the first
one that told me
[ __ ] film festivals he's like
seriously before that i had this whole
phone that's the fan oh i want to do
film festivals you know i want to be a
big show i want to do
he's the one that said [ __ ] film film
festivals are [ __ ] they mean nothing
they're a scam i'm like a scam what do
you mean scam you know
and and basically he was right like we
could start the
drew jesse bill dave and charlie film
festival
and we could solicit hey everyone you
know we're doing this film festival um
it's 50 to submit your film and we could
take submissions from all over the world
and we could pick out you know five
films and screen it on a dirty bed sheet
and and make a chunk of change and most
of these film festivals
are just businesses making people money
it's a gift yeah i mean i work in
marketing it's the same thing with
awards
you know they charge you to submit for
the awards and then they charge you to
sit at the dinner that the food sucks
and you pay a fortune for that and then
you don't know if there's any truth to
the fact that you might even you know
they might have picked the winners out
of their buddies already you know
there's no
there's no way to deal with it it's all
it's all [ __ ] right yeah it sounds
like
it sounds like you're able to you've
been able to dodge a lot of [ __ ] in
a [ __ ]
industry i have i have and i have it man
you know what i mean it's like this
i've taken a lot of lumps too man
seriously it's like
i have and i haven't you know there's
been a lot of glorious wins and a lot of
crushing defeats but
you know this is my life and this is
what i do and this is what and this is
what i
love doing and you know i figured i
figured out a long time ago that you
know i don't really play well in the
sandbox with other kids
i need to do my own thing i have to do
my own thing
if i'm going to be successful you know i
have to do my own thing you know i
realized
i had that moment one time years ago i
was working on a don
johnson video i was a pa on a don
johnson video and
one thing led to another and it was just
really super
uptight super uptight film set
we were shooting in like washington
square park and something happened and i
ended up getting fired and
and it was i got fired on some [ __ ]
like like um
no they said yo don't tell anybody what
we're doing here this and that and da da
da da da da
and you know somebody came up to me
saying what do you guys do and say i
have don johnson video and he said okay
and he walked away
somebody heard it said something to
someone and the producer fired me
and i sort of had this you know
realizing this moment like you know what
[ __ ] this i have to do my own thing you
know
i i have to i have to blaze my own path
i have to create my own way
i am not going to spend my life working
you know for [ __ ] people like this
and uh and i was fortunate you know i
caught a couple breaks and
it's interesting for me in my career is
that eventually
it got to the point after many years of
sort of soul searching and doing this
and doing that that
i became a sum of all parts like for a
minute there you know big and high and
the mighty didn't mean much
being an antidote didn't mean much doing
the music videos didn't mean much
being a tour manager didn't mean much
being a manager of bands didn't mean
much
the you know doing the street bike films
did very much
separately but there came a point that
there came a year that came like a
watershed moment
where collectively all that stuff had
began to have currency like oh wow he's
done this this
this this this and this and then it sort
of then then i
sort of i i entered a new phase in my
career
so so drew when you when you started
doing the documentaries and you started
revisiting
you know a moment in history but it's
also part of your personal story
did you find that there were a lot of
things that
you would hear from people that you were
like oh [ __ ] that's not how i remember
it you know did you
how much of it was like mythologize in
your own mind versus what
came out in the documentaries well for
instance like the boston hardcore film i
did right i was a part of that scene
right
it was really interesting because like
we discussed
i was in boston for a couple of years
and then i left
i came back to new york i started a life
here i never went back to boston it was
like
the hardcore scene sort of moved on
maybe once in a blue moon i went up
there but
it was like the kids who went to high
school it's really what it was it was
like those were the kids
that i went to like those like that i
went to high school with i was a
teenager you know
and you know life moves on you're a
young man when i started
the process of the boston hardcore film
i started reconnecting
with all these people and bringing them
into the studio to interview them
and it was really really interesting and
exciting and inspiring after a while
because people would come in
who i haven't seen in in many many years
let's see people i haven't seen in let's
say close to 30 years
right i left boston and left boston in
83
i did the film in yeah it was like 20
whatever what it was
it was 27 whatever years and people
would come in
and and sit down and i would interview
them and what i realized early on was
the last time i interacted with this
person they were a teenager and now
they're sitting in front of me they're
in their
let's say mid 40s so it was really
interesting was like so how was your
life
how was like you yeah not that you're at
the end of your life but you know tell
me about it
it was really kind of interesting to
catch up with people and what i found
was more so than not people would come
in the door and go remember that time
that we [ __ ] got in the van you know
after messenger control had the straight
edge man
and you had the no edge fan and we drove
down you know
to [ __ ] new york and you brought us
to this place and
you know this this week on the way back
we stopped on first step it was like so
bodega
and you made a bunch of us get out of
the straight edge van and you went you
brought us into this bodega into the
back
and behind this fake shelving unit there
was like a window
and they were selling weed out of this
window and used there was like i'll
never forget that
i'd never remember that so in other
words it was sort of like you know
thanks for giving me back some of my
memories because now i have all these
great
memories of of those days that if i
wouldn't have done that film
i wouldn't have had any of it you know
notice how it was the straight edge kids
that remembered that
cool that's like every memory of my high
school existence was that cinder block
in the wall that they sold pot out of
the one that pulled out absolutely
but you know also doing the new york
hardcore chronicles film
was interesting doing that whole you
know because by then i sort of got my
got my
my stride down you know and that film
brought me a lot of
personal satisfaction and joy i really
enjoy
like i'm really proud of the new york
hardcore chronicles film
i i think i really i love it it like
gave me a lot of personal satisfaction
you're probably because there were so
many people that really wanted to see
that film get done
and when i did the kickstarter campaign
they supported me because up until that
point no one did like a real
new york hardcore you know film you know
there was like a couple sort of uh but
you know i was going big and also
you know i have the accessibility to
these people i was in the trenches with
these people i'm not like some
some like foreign dude coming in and
going hey i'm from wherever i want to
make a film you know like
you know i was you know i was i was in
the pit with these guys back in the day
so that that phil brought me a lot of uh
personal satisfaction
i was going to ask you about funding so
for kickstarter did you have to like
bust your ass to get
funding for different projects or did
you always like pull enough in
to like fun the next one well what
started i mean going back way farther
than
all that would be the street bike films
right so what
what i did with this what the way the
street bike films worked was
after the first one was somewhat of a
success what i would do is i would
basically roll it into the next one you
know that that's
that's you know you know the film is
you're making a couple bucks you upgrade
your equipment
you upgrade you know you get your
editing system straight you put a few
bucks aside for the production of the
next one and as
those films did better and better you
know i would sort of put a
war chest together for the next project
because they were all self-funded
it was like you got to spend money to
make money i had to make the investment
you know in the
in the film in order to get it done and
get it out there
and then the distributor gets it out
there and i made money that's how the
street bike films worked you know for a
couple
well plus you said you floated you
floated the production of the
dvds yeah right exactly i mean i mean
but i still had to go out and shoot i
still had to travel and stay in hotels
and fly and go through all that
what it came down to in the end with
that was the duplication costs
were expensive but they were net 90 and
they didn't send them to the duke house
that was net they pay me in 30 days
and whenever i made one of these films
that the first
the first bunch that the distributor
would take they always took like a good
amount right off the bat you know what i
mean they always took a couple thousand
so that like because there was a brand
it was a new title so
the money i saw from that initial couple
thousand
really covered everything that was the
street bike films but what happened
after that
was that distributor a video distributor
or like a motorcycle
correct there was a straight up video
distributor and what they did was
they filtered the video shot the videos
the vhs's
into the motorcycle shops like they were
called
video action sports right they they
would take the videos
and they would get them because back
then that's how you would see these
things you you know kid would have to go
to a motorcycle shop and go oh let me
get that vhs
you know and this is before youtube and
then and then and then it graduated to
dvd
and then eventually you can ever think
about going to like a
motorcycle parts distributor and try to
yeah that's what the distributor did the
distributor to put it into like
motorcycle shops part distributors
anybody
they were they were keyed into that
world and then of course you know we
would go to events and set up a table
and i'd sign
movies you know sign stuff and then did
the death but
later on when it came to the first film
i did the
the boston hardcore film uh once again
you know it's a
it's a tangle web but the executive
producer of that film was this guy
dwayne lucia who had that space gallery
east
that i talked about earlier where we
used to rent for 35 bucks and play
well he was still around all these years
later and he still had the gallery east
moniker and we were kind of old friends
he's a little bit older than me
but he came aboard as the executive
producer and for that first film
basically
he put up the money to get the film done
but he also has some really good
connections
at a college so we did most of the
interviews at suffolk university
in their video department so that's why
in that film
it looks like everybody's sitting on a
news a news [ __ ] set
because they basically are like right
all the individuals in that film are
like it looks like [ __ ] eyewitness
news or something you know
can you explain the difference between a
producer and executive producer
sure now this this terminology has has
changed
even today but in my world the producer
is the guy
who throws the party he handles the nuts
and bolts he books
the people he orders the food he runs
the party
the executive producer is the guy that
handles the business
he's the one that handles all the
business relating to the film like
the distribution deal and handles the
money the producer
you know handles okay we're shooting
tomorrow what do we need we need this
camera we need this guy we need to rent
this car
now that's he's the boots on the ground
the executive producer is the guy that
like doesn't leave the office
he's the guy that that handles the
business end of things so
but but even this terminology now has
changed very much but this that's that's
sort of
the way that i see it then when we got
to the ilago film
now when we when we did the boston
hardcore film it's just as this
kickstarter thing
was sort of starting you know we really
you know looking back we probably should
have done a kickstarter campaign
but dwayne felt like yo we don't need it
we don't need nobody
you know i got the big favor with
suffolk university we don't need a lot
of money to do it
let's keep it in-house let's keep it diy
like we used to do back in the day and
listen you know it was a great he was a
great partner to have
and um you know we got it done that way
when it came time to the ilago film
you know there was nothing like that in
place we did a kickstarter campaign
now i had a belief that because alago
was so involved with these people
you know and and he's a beloved figure
that
doing a kickstarter campaign was makes
sense
and it did the kickstarter campaign you
know
uh you raised a good chunk of money that
got that ball rolling why
because people that that were indebted
to michael lago for their career
stepped up rob zombie put in five grand
cindy lauper put in five grand
this one pony data that one pony disa so
you know they all so that really made
sense
with the aligo film and it also made
sense with the new york hardcore
prodigal swim because like i said
this was a film that people wanted to
see they wanted to see
me they wanted to see me do it you know
they really people really
i'm really fortunate there was a big
contingent of people
that really wanted to see this film get
done with me directing it
and i started a kickstarter campaign and
the kickstarter campaign that i did for
the new yorker film
was no strings attached it wasn't like
hey put this amount of money up and
you'll see this you know like because
that's how kickstarter works right
the new york hardcore chronicles
kickstarter campaign was yo
i'm don't please donate to this film i'm
making this film
um your donation would be appreciated
and i [ __ ] and people stepped the
[ __ ] up
and and it was re that's why i say that
film was such a pleasure people were
just so behind me
and yo drew stone i want to see you do
this boom here's you know here's a
couple bucks
you know they gave you like a genius
grant yeah
i mean they gave me like a knucklehead
there's a knucklehead grant you know
that film was such a pleasure because it
was just me listen i love michaela but
believe me
dealing with him could be a [ __ ]
stressful
you know so let's let's talk about your
current stuff what you're working on now
what you're working on next right
so so all this stuff ties into what i'm
doing now what happened was that
from years of having my production
company stolen films nyc
when i started the new york hardcore
chronicles film i started the new york
hardcore chronicles page on facebook
right
and that thing blew up and that's what
inspired me to make the film
i was like well [ __ ] the facebook page
has 90 000 people on it maybe i should
make a film that sort of
apes what the page is about so i had the
new york hardcore chronicles page
on facebook and that inspired me to make
the new york hardcore chronicles
film at the same time i would always do
these
um new york hardcore chronicles 10
questions with
so-and-so from agnostic font or whatever
whatever i would i would do basically
original programming for the new york
hardcore chronicles
uh page you know i do it's called 10
newer parkour chronicles 10 questions
with
you know whoever and also when i was
interviewing people for the film
i would say hey let's do 10 questions so
i i did like 100 of these things
and it would all go on my youtube page
and my youtube page you know
ended up you know with a lot of
subscribers to it and you know i
i would always post up footage you know
i have always have a lot of footage and
outtakes
and i and i post stuff post stuff up on
there so
what happened was when the pandemic hit
a midway through a new film
that i'm doing and i was in the middle
east shooting it it's another music
documentary film and we were halfway
through it and the pandemic
the pandemic hit and literally i kid you
not
i woke up the day after the pandemic
officially started what was that like i
think it was like march 8th or something
march 9th
yeah that sounds right march 9th sounds
right to me march
9th i woke up and i was
thinking about what to do and what
happened was
somebody asked me to come on their show
you know similar to this it was a video
it came on the this dude shows it was
stephanie dica show he's an old friend
from from new york he's a
he's like a la rock dude and
i was on the show and it's like it was
it's like a talk show video talk show
and i was like wow
this is really cool what is this and he
told me what the platform was
similar to zoom and then he asked me he
asked me
hey man you know you got to subscribe to
my youtube page i'm trying to get you
know
youtube subscribers so i can you know
build up like my show following and i
said yeah okay sure and i go onto his
youtube page and i look
and he's got like i don't know he had
like a couple hundred
a couple hundred subscribers right if
even that
and i'm like huh wait a second i look on
my stone films nyc
and i have almost 10 000 subscribers
right and i'm thinking wow [ __ ] and he
says
well i say where else does it stream to
and he says well the show also
streams live onto my youtube channel it
streams live
onto my facebook page and i'm like okay
first one his personal facebook page
what has he got on his first
personal facebook page right [ __ ] a
couple thousand maybe
well [ __ ] the new york harper chronicles
page has 90
000 people on it so i go on a show
and i'm like wow this is pretty cool and
that was like right before
you know the pendant and then the thing
hits pandemic hits i wake up like you
know what
i should do a new york hardcore show you
know streaming out on those platforms
so i was i ended up i launched the show
and the thing just took off because [ __ ]
right off the bat
the stream the show is streaming onto
the new york arco chronicles page
90 000 and my new and my storefronts nyc
youtube page ten thousand you know and
and my personal
facebook page five thousand so right
away i start doing the show
and i remember at first i was like wait
a second these numbers can't be right
i mean tell me five sure does this
that's how many hardcore people lost
their jobs
nothing else to dwight i started the
show right off the bat and i'm like wait
a second
5 000 people just watched this thing
like what
so i just started i learned there was a
learning curve to it
and i fine-tuned it and it was it was
totally unexpected it wasn't part of my
master plan but in a certain way it all
comes around it's
alpha omega right it's like i'm back
doing what i set out to do
i bet you know i'm an actor i'm acting
again i'm performing i'm doing a show a
live streaming show and what i'm doing
what i'm doing also
is all those connections i made from all
those years
of doing music videos of managing bands
of tour managing of promoting shows of
doing the music videos
all those countless years and
connections with musicians and actors
yo they're all coming onto my show now
it's like i'm go it's like i'm in vegas
and i'm going up to the window
i'm catching and i'm very very fortunate
that the audience and this was totally
um by happenstance i didn't
plan this i started my show at three
o'clock in the afternoon it's a live
show
where the [ __ ] are all these numbers
coming from who's watching this thing
i'm wondering
it turns out three o'clock here is prime
time in europe
and the show has this um
really vibrant incredible you're you're
because
you guys know these [ __ ] europeans
are infatuated with new york hardcore
yeah they can't get enough of it you
know
it's prime time over there and people
start showing me
they're sending me pictures you know
they're piping it in in their living
room people are sitting there watching
this thing on big screen tvs and this
and that
and i'm bringing on i'm bringing on you
know roger maret from agnostic front
the guys who's sick of it all jimmy g
from murphy's law
you know on and on and on and he's
starting to it's catching on right off
the bat it was doing well
and okay so it's starting to take off
maybe it's time for me to launch a
patreon page
this show i you know is gonna need some
support so i launched a patreon page
uh do you guys know what patreon is yes
we have one okay
subscribe now for listening right now
support this
these guys patreon page will you please
so i start a patreon page with different
tiers of incentives
and then i monetize my youtube page
you know like because i never monetized
my youtube page i never had
commercials running on my hardcore
videos or whatever but you know what
exactly [ __ ] zombie apocalypse and
it's time to do it
so i monetize my youtube page
which has a couple hundred videos on it
i have a patreon page
and then sponsors start approaching me
hey you know i start
soliciting sponsors so a couple of
sponsors come aboard
and they're paying a couple of bucks to
be sponsors
and then eventually i launched a little
merch line that was connected to the
show
so all these things combined at this
point
pay my rent and bills cool it's like hey
i'm don fury come to my coney island
studio
all you germans that part of it yeah
that imitation
it'd be more like i'm don fury come to
my studio
hey i got t-shirts available i have a
patreon page
and you know it's it is i'm a sum of all
parts
at this point i'm a
i was making a joke like don was one of
your sponsors
sorry i misunderstood no that's okay i
don't do a good job impression anyway
so now that you're this deep into the to
the interviews and the and the videos
what's the percentage of people that you
you know pretty well versus people that
you're like oh [ __ ] i should have that
person on because i didn't cross past
them back in the day well i just went
well let's see the last show i did was
with moby
and you know moby's an old school
hardcore kid and
tomorrow shows with glenn matlock from
the sex pistols um
and then i got jamie jasmine from
haybreed and uh
randy blythe from lao god you know but
majority of people are people that i've
crossed past
or worked with done a video for you know
been in the trenches with
but the tie that seems to bind us all
together
is hardcore like moby who sold friggin
20 million records worldwide
started out as a hardcore kid he started
out we've made fun of him before
yeah he was in the vatican commandos
you know he he was there they played the
end of cbgb's and
you know he started out as a harvard and
he came on my show
and he was very gracious and we talked
hardcore we had a bunch of laughs and
i don't get into the also the other
thing that i did with my show
how'd you stay out of politics with that
interview well i made it my show is not
about politics i created my show
in the beginning of the pandemic as an
alternative to
the politics and the [ __ ] that's
what i right out of the box i said hey
if you want to get the [ __ ] away from
that stuff you want to turn off your tv
you're welcome here this is the hardcore
the hardcore worldwide community
we're not going to get into politics
here we're not going to get into this
and that
we're going to talk about the tie that
binds us all together
and that's music so so maybe maybe you
can answer a question for us i don't
know if you got into this with moby and
i'll certainly listen to it watch it
after we're done but uh
he came up in an earlier episode and we
were debating whether or not he actually
played with flipper did that come up at
all in your conversation
you know what it was in my notes and i
didn't get to it
okay but i did research it
and it seems like he did it's weird i
i sort of interviewed the guy from
flipper that said he sort of did for a
minute
and moby's moby said he kind of did and
it's it's on his wikipedia page
but i get a sense for moby a little bit
that
he's a hollywood guy and there's like
like the book he wrote
you know he drops a lot of names and i
did this and i did that
and i it's a lot of mythology i think
i think a little bit i think a little
bit of it is and i was a little worried
when he came on the show
and we never went to any of that stuff
never went to end
but never went to any of that stuff man
so you know
so in that regard what's happening with
me now is
all those things like i said back in the
like i said earlier
that that at a certain point all these
sort of
isolated accomplishments alone
didn't really feel like they meant
anything at a certain point collectively
my resume i crossed it and it was like a
moment i don't know one
i guess you know what or whatever it was
that a certain time
passed by where something becomes
vintage or that all of a sudden
oh yeah you know he's done this this
this and this and there was
there was some some gravity to it and
all those all those years of slogging
out in the bands and doing the music
videos and this and that it sort of
brought me here and i've arrived here
and
you know i worked very hard on the show
you know it's like you know i got glenn
matlock for the pistols coming on you
know i don't just like
you know turn the computer on five
minutes before because i also come from
a production background and i enjoy
being a producer you know that's
something i really enjoy doing and
and pre-production is big in my world
like i'm big on pre-production
i do your homework and you know do your
[ __ ] homework
and i do and so but i'm
fortunate that i'm it's what i do for a
living now yeah
i mean glenn matlock is all i mean his
career is no one ever talks about his
career after the pistols i mean the
all the stuff with that rich kids album
is great by the way i mean like
there's some really cool stuff he did
after after the pistols that everybody
kind of just
used him as the footnote for the bass
player before you know before sid
vicious and it's like you know he was
the songwriter in that band i mean
there's there's so much
in there that's that's super super
fascinating you go you go
dave [ __ ] dave man
i mean i don't want to get into glenn
matlock but yeah exactly he's had a
incredibly proficient career he played
on with hip-hop he played with the damn
he did this he did that
i mean this guy he wrote all that sex
whistle stuff
and and what's the connection how did i
connect with matlock well i've met him a
couple of times but
aside from that back in the 90s i
produced a video for a band called
monster voodoo machine
and the singer was a guy named adam
sewell and he's a canadian guy
and after like that career that that
fronting a band career ended for him he
got into band management
and you know he was working for cinema
management managing motorhead for years
and he's on his own and he manages glenn
matlock and i talked to him a lot i
talked to him
a while back i said about i actually
called him about phil campbell from
motorhead about
getting phil on the show and then you
know he told me you know who he's
working with i said what about
matlock he goes let me ask him and sure
enough glenn was up for it
that's awesome so what are you working
on now in addition to doing the youtube
i
know you were uh you were working on
another documentary as well right yeah
yeah i was in the middle east shooting
a new film called the jews and the blues
it's
uh my brother's involved in it my
brother evan b stone
my dad arnie stone is the executive
producer it's really my musical journey
like i said i'm a music lover i've
always loved blues i love
i'm a big i love americana woody guthrie
you know blues a bit you know always i
never
i always loved that stuff that stuff was
in my life way before you know hardcore
and punk was you know and like always
been a big blues fan
always you know like elmore james you
know johnny winner
so at a certain point after the ilago
film
i just i mean without getting into the
whole rigmarole how one thing left it
what but
i ended up going to israel with my
brother
and it's really my the film is about my
sort of musical journey and how we're
looking at how
for some people out there music is their
spirituality
and and their religion and it's it's
really how they communicate on that
level
and what starts is like a search oh
there's [ __ ] blues guys in israel
i gotta go check that out it becomes a
bit more there's a bigger
bigger story there the film's about
three quarters of the way through
and uh you know we're slogging we're
slogging away with it but
it's great i'm working with my dad and
my brother which is cool
yeah it's called the jews and the blues
it sounds like that bar mitzvah money
really brought you far here yeah right
you like you made the right purchase
you know like if they had given you that
money at 13
and you would have spent it on candy
where would you be now that's right
you got that right because as soon as i
was 18 i went and bought the van
absolutely listen boulevard
brought you from northern boulevard to
israel yeah look at that
your rabbi would be proud my mother
wanted to open up a kosher deli
one on ben's deli was on was that
queen's boulevard or northern boulevard
ben's deli that would that was true
that's queen's boulevard now you've got
queens that's queens before but
but yeah so i got a couple other things
cooking i have a book
a book that's nearing completion it's
called what else the new york hardcore
chronicles volume 1
1980 to 1989 it's centered on the flyers
it's all it's it's flyer driven it's
like an oral history of the
flyers where we're like you know here's
here's a flyer
and you have one guy what one voice
saying
hey i made this flyer you know then you
go hey
i wasn't i was in this band i played
this show somebody else is like hey i
promoted this
show so it's a lot of those sort of
iconic new york hardcore flyers that
you've seen through the years
and and and some you've never seen but
it's really
like like the the ground zero is the
flyers
and you know here's this show and hey i
promoted this show and blah blah blah
and hey
i was standing in the audience for the
show and yo and this happened you know
so
that's been going on for a while now
what is that that's going to be a
documentary or
no that's a book a book so so wait did
our jawbreaker bug-out society barbecue
flyer make a cut
don't pass on my barbecue don't piss on
my barbecue man i don't think so i'm
trying to remember it
you've never heard that story it's
probably probably like 93.
no no
that's it kids the gig is up the cops
are here and your mom is going jails
hospitals and all your friends houses
wondering where you've been
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