Originally published on the website for
the now defunct Hardware Media & Radio in 2005. Thanks for Dave K for
letting me republish it here.
How,
why and when did this show start?
I've
always wanted to do a radio show. Well, my first semester of college
I filled in for a friend's show one time but I got thrown off the air
after playing an Agnostic
Front
song. Originally,
Signifying
Nothing
was just a weblog. I toyed with doing it as a print fanzine for a
while, but at this point in my life I don't have the time or money to
put into doing a good print fanzine. I started blogging in the
spring of 2004. I had just completed my senior thesis (on
intertextuality and the writing of Jorge
Luis Borges-Pretty
soon I will have a version of this Online) and my professor, Dr.
Scott Rettberg,
had
a weblog.
At the time I was becoming more curious about blogging and new media
in general. Dr.
Rettberg's weblog,
and
a
few
others,
inspired me to get started on my own.
By
the end of that term I, and a few other classmates, decided to start
blogging. Besides me, one
of them
still does one. I started out just doing a pretty ordinary weblog.
I would comment on personal issues, political stuff, and news related
to new media, music, video games, etc. Earlier this year I moved to
Word Press and parked it at my own domain www.wpwend.com
After
about a year of blogging, I came to the conclusion that I needed to
get back into the game when it came to hardcore. I had already seen
a few weblogs and webzines be upload, I was offered a position at a
few even, but I wanted to do something on my own. Signifying
Nothing
started as a way for me to archive all of the fanzines (see next
answer) I had done in the past plus some new material. After the
summer of 2005 I started to put up more new stuff. This mostly
consisted of record reviews and a couple interviews. I took a hiatus
because of school from November to January. At that point I came
back for a couple weeks and then took another month off to move
Signifying
Nothing
to my domain and its new address at sn.wpwend.com
I
began to podcast pretty much the same way I did blogging. I really
liked a lot of the podcasts I had been listening to and decided I
should do one. If you've listened to recent episodes you have heard
me talking about some of them. After talking to a few people who
already were podcasting I waded my feet into the water in February.
So far I have done fifteen or so podcasts. Most of them I am very
happy with. There have been a few minor technical problems along the
way. I have already changed the format around a few times and am
planning to do so again soon. As of August the weblog portion of
Signifying Nothing will have a monthly, not weekly, update. I will
upload reviews, interviews, and other stuff at that time. The
podcast will still be weekly. I really like creating the show each
week and work hard to improve it.
As
for the name, I've had it on the back burner for a few years. When I
was still considering doing a print fanzine Signifying
Nothing
was one of the names I thought about using. Another was Running
With Scissors.
I came up with Signifying
Nothing
while sitting in Professor
Tompkins'
Shakespeare
class back in the fall of 2003. After a lecture on Macbeth
where we had just passed by Macbeth's
famous speech in V.v. I said to my friend Lauren
that Signifying
Nothing
would be a cool name for a fanzine. It stuck with me after that I
guess.
Have
you been involved in anything else punk/hardcore related
(bands/fanzines/show promotion)?
Over
the years I have done a number of fanzines. In fact, before I was
really involved with the DIY hardcore scene I had worked on a half
sized fanzine the summer after eighth grade into ninth grade. I
wrote articles about animal rights and typed up my tape trading list
(even before I was into hardcore I was an avid live show collector-at
this point my list primarily consisted of Metallica,
Nirvana,
Sonic
Youth,
and stuff like that). For reasons I can't recall I never finished
it. What probably happened was that, as I got more directly involved
with punk rock in ninth grade, I became embarrassed of liking metal
and grunge.
A
year or two later I began working on a fanzine which would use the
name I had picked out a few years earlier: Assimilation
Or Oblivion.
I had read that name in a book about Native Americans when I was
younger and it stuck with me as a pretty cool and “punk” sounding
phrase. A
Or O
had some pretty horrible writing about The Straight Edge, animal
rights, and some other more trivial stuff. There were also
interviews with 25
Ta Life
and h20.
I was also supposed to interview Fastbreak
and Mouthpiece
but both interviews, sadly, feel through. I really wish they hadn't.
A
Or O
also had a piece of fiction I had written for English class which,
while pretty awful, had a few really accurate pieces of foreshadowing
that coincide to the real life events almost exactly to the time “in
the future.” I printed a few hundred of them and actually got rid
of most of them via distros. I remember Rick
Healey
took a lot and that was appreciated. I started a second issue but
over the winter break the next year I scrapped it and decided to
start over with a new name and a decidedly more cut and paste DIY
style.
Around
this time I also remember having a conversation on the phone with
you, Dave,
where you told me to keep trying and to give doing a fanzine another
shot. Thanks man.
After
spending the final half of my senior year of high school interviewing
bands and putting together content, What
Was Said Fanzine
was born. #1 came out in October of 1997 and had Hands
Tied,
Breakdown,
One
King Down,
Ten
Yard Fight,
Uprise,
and a few others. For the most part, I remember it being pretty
good. I printed four hundred (I remember because I printed two
hundred twice!) and got rid of them via distros and the Internet.
Connections in Europe, Canada, and Australia also helped. Especially
Australia.
Oh
yeah, before I forget, I also did a one pager before #1. This was
given out at a couple shows during the famed summer of 1997. Side a
featured some awkward and random observations by me on nothing really
that important. Side b featured one of our friends threatening
another friend with violence for breaking edge. Twenty-six year old
Bill
would like to chat with seventeen year old Bill
about why it wasn't a good idea to enable him by printing this.
There
was also another one pager sometime in early 1998, but that only made
it to a few shows. I sent a big package of them to friends in Europe
and Australia too.
Later
in 1998 I rechristened What
Was Said
as In
The Blink Of An Eye Fanzine.
Why I kept naming zines after NJHC records is beyond me. ITBOAE
lasted two issues. The first (listed on the cover as #2 for some
reason) had the Hands
Tied
and Uprise
interviews from What
Was Said
plus By
The Grace Of God,
Weapon
X,
Full
Speed Ahead,
and others. The personal writing in this one is quite embarrassing.
Following my established pattern, I did another one pager which had
me ranting about “metal” in hardcore, emos, and the usual
silliness from the era. I began to plan another issue which was
going to have Mainstrike,
Monster
X,
and Floorpunch.
I even did ads and probably took a couple preorders. Due to a
variety of personal problems, which included one near failing out of
college and one really nasty and rather humiliating breakup with a
girlfriend, this never really got off the ground.
Meanwhile,
over winter break 1997/1998 I began doing a one pager called Broken
Behind This Wall.
More NJHC names. What the fuck. BBTW
was in the vein of Radio
Riot,
although I wouldn't actually see an issue of Radio
Riot
until a few months later. Whoops. BBTW
had interviews with By
The Grace Of God
(same one from above), Ten
Yard Fight (why
did I interview this band twice?), and Reach
The Sky.
After issue six I started issue seven while in a bout of serious
depression. I wrote some really scathing things about various bands
and people. Well, more than usual I guess. After showing it to a
few friends I was told I should be “extremely fucking cautious”
about printing it, so to speak. Wisely, I decided to scrap it.
A
year later I decided to do another fanzine. Parade
Brigade Fanzine
was born. This time around, hoping to keep myself from saying
anything stupid, I enlisted a few friends to join in on the fun. #1
had Floorpunch,
Ensign, 97a, Spazz, DRI, Arms Reach,
and The
Judas Iscariot.
We printed approximately five hundred and got some pretty positive
reviews.
Due
to personal issues we didn't do another issue for over a year. In
between I did two issues of a new personal fanzine called This
Isn't Me.
Both are filled with my random ranting about nothing important or
interesting. I burned the originals a few years ago.
Near
the end of 2000, with John,
myself, and Justin
now all attending the same college we huddled up and got our second
issue out. We reprinted old interviews with SSD
and Minor
Threat.
We also dug up an interview with Rain
On The Parade
that John
and Justin
had done in 1997 but never released. We printed one hundred for the
first show we took them to. We sold some and gave some to friends,
including members of bands we had interviewed in the first issue. At
least two of those people were observed tossing it in the trash after
I walked away. Thanks a lot assholes. Both bands ended up being
huge disappointments anyway, so whatever.
A
few months later, while driving to campus with John,
I decided we needed to have a new issue out for a show that Friday
evening. John
agreed and I got to work. Somehow, in a span of 72 hours, we put
together a ten page fanzine and interviewed both Fit
For Abuse
and Shark
Attack.
The day of the show all we had to do was wait for John's
personal page. I remember being pissed he was taking so long that
day to send it over! Yeah, because giving him a 72 hour notice to
have a drafted, edited, and finalized page is totally fair. I was
such a jerk back then a lot of the time.
So
issue three had Shark
Attack,
Fit
For Abuse,
and reprints of interviews with The
Faith
and Siege.
There was also supposed to be a reprint of a Larm
interview but I have no idea what happened to that or the H-Street
interview I did around that time. We printed a couple hundred on the
way to the show. Interpersonal, and personal, problems kept us from
ever working officially on another issue. By that time I was really
distancing myself from my friends who were drinking and this included
the people I did Parade
Brigade
with. Right or wrong, we all barely spoke that summer.
Unofficially,
I continued working on a fourth issue. I interviewed Eric
Ozone
and Dan
O'Mahoney.
We also had leftover interviews with Kill
Your Idols,
The
Purpose,
and a couple others that we never printed we could incorporate. At
one point, I spoke to another friend about possibly having her start
working on Parade
Brigade,
but that was more about me trying to get in her pants than anything
else. I wanted to interview Out
Cold
and Voices
Forming Weapons,
but neither interview happened.
In
September 2001 multiple events (not the one you are thinking of) the
first few weeks of the month put a stake through the heart of the
fanzine. We never officially ended it, but it was done.
I've
tried to do bands over the years, but none of them ever got anywhere.
I had done guest vocals for local ragers Fists
Of Fury
in 1997. After their singer (the person who was threatened in the
fanzine above) broke edge I would always sing their covers of Bottled
Violence
and Straight
Edge.
I've
done a lot of behind the scenes stuff with booking and promoting
shows but never have officially put one on myself.
Why
a punk and hardcore music radio show?
Hardcore
Punk is who I am. If The
Dead Kennedys
had not come into my life when I was fourteen I would be long dead.
Doing things via podcasts and weblogs is just an extension of that.
Podcasting and blogging, for the most part, is a pretty DIY venture.
Of course corporations are starting to assimilate it and use “viral”
marketing to trick the masses into thinking they have an effect on
the popularity of something when it's popularity has already been
determined and they are just using viral marketing to sucker you into
thinking you have a say.
I
listen to a variety of podcasts: some are musical, some political,
some just do really neat things. I get my daily news from Democracy
Now!.
I listen to shows like Sonic
Overload,
Harmony
In My Head,
and All
Go No Slow!
to check out cool music. I also listen to a lot of academic and
literary podcasts.
How
do you decide what to play?
When
I first decided to podcast I went through my collection, record by
record, and picked out one or two songs I'd like to one day play.
Since I do everything from mp3 I simply created a separate folder for
all of these songs. I also have another folder with sub folders for
bands I am going to do features on eventually. Whenever I get a new
record or live show I go through it and pick out a song or two and
add them to the folder. Each week when I am plotting out the show I
pick some songs to play.
What
kind of set up for broadcasting do you have at your disposal?
When
I started doing the show the only thing I purchased was a USB mic.
Everything else is freeware or open source programs. I am a big
proponent of open source and so should you. I think it's a pretty
“hardcore” thing. I use a few different programs to cut the show
together into one file, equalize the volume levels, and some other
stuff. I've got the process of creating the show down pretty well
now. I can bounce between programs really quickly and get the show
together easily.
What
media do you prefer on your show (vinyl, CD, mp3, etc)?
Everything
comes from mp3. Since my music is already stored on my desktop
computer (I do all of Signifying
Nothing
on my laptop) it's easiest to just keep it there. I've never,
besides some stupid technical mistakes on my end one week, had any
problems doing this. Having everything on my computer also allows me
to mix and match out songs and keep a copy of the songs I'd like to
play, as I noted above, stored on my computer in a separate folder.
We
all know that the 1980s was the best time for punk and hardcore in
general. Now that we are more than halfway in the 00s, what time
period do you think is better: the 1990s or the 00s?
Despite
the slow start for the first few years, I have to say that the 00's
win easily. The nineties had some great bands don't get me wrong.
But for every Devoid
Of Faith, Rorschach, Crossed Out, Team Dresch,
or Floorpunch
you had fifty bands that sounded like Snapcase.
Or worse. It was a lot harder to avoid that garbage at shows too
because a lot them intermixed with the good stuff. Even into the
late nineties that still happened. These days it is so much easier
to avoid the dumb stuff. I'll stick to bands like Direct
Control
and Mind
Eraser
thank you very much. I can't even keep count of the amount of great
bands right now, and this is coming from someone with an irrational
hatred of most bands. Things are really taking a good turn. While
there are regrettably a lot of dumb bands who call themselves
“hardcore” who have no right to, these days you can avoid them
pretty easily. That's another great thing about blogging and
podcasts. I can listen to Sonic
Overload
each week and check out the bands Al is reviewing to see what is new
and good. I've found out about a lot of good bands that way. All
the emo, chugga chugga metal crap, and amazingcore trying to deceive
people is not going to win as long as there are great bands like
Direct
Control.
Seriously if you listen to a band like Direct
Control
and then still wanna listen to the bad stuff you just suck.
Whats
the scene like in your local area?
I
don't really know what is going on in Manahawkin right now. Most of
the people I went to shows with have all moved, “grown up,” or
just aren't all that involved anymore. A few people book local bands
in Waretown, which is pretty cool. Our good friend Leslie
Adam,
who runs the Fate
clothing store in town, books sometimes here in Manahawkin. She did
the Vision
show last year. Ian
Dickson
and some others are also booking in Toms River too. It's nice when
shows are twenty minutes away instead of two hours.
What
kind of reaction are you getting from broadcasting on-line? Any weird
requests?
I've
received a lot of praise from people who I admire. I've received
kind emails from people all over the world. Nothing too negative as
of yet, but I did receive some nasty comments on Signifying
Nothing
awhile back from some cronies of the idiots who were harassing the
audio trading blog a few months ago.
No
weird requests quite yet. The one thing I was worried about was
labels really trying to push their stuff at me to play or get pissed
if I didn't play something. For the most part, that hasn't happened.
I am not playing stuff on the podcast that I don't like and no one
seems to have a problem with that. I did reject and refuse to review
one label's stuff because their policy about “downloading”
sounded like Lars
Ulrich
wrote it.
Where
do you think the future of Internet radio and podcasting is heading?
Well,
with net neutrality potentially being gutted, DRM, the UN screwing
with podcasting, and bands threatening people over blogging about
their demo tapes from twenty years ago I'm sure podcasting will get
mucked up soon enough.
That
last one really burns me. It is no surprise when our wonderful
representatives in Washington screw things up, but getting threatened
by a band over a fucking weblog post really pissed me off. When will
the first “punk” band sue someone over downloading? Who will be
the first to get their head beat in for “leaking” a record to
Soulseek?
What
are your favorite internet radio shows/podcasts that you listen to
regularly?
I
listen to a ton of radio shows and podcasts. Some of my favorites
include:
Any
advice for the up and coming Internet radio DJ?
Make
an effort, show your hardware
