10/6/26
Well, here we are. We're not on Substack, and I'm not a writer, so instead of calling this anything proper, let's just say it's an ongoing spiel.
First things first - we unfortunately lost Joe Rivas in August, after a courageous battle with cancer.
Joe was a friend and a catalyst to this entire FIND A WAY RECORDS thing becoming a reality. My first two releases were with his bands - Out of Trust (FAW1) and the reissue I did for Burning Dog (FAW2). If it wasn't for Joe's support, I probably wouldn't have had the confidence to do this whole deal in the first place.
Joe loved his friends and music scene deeply. He was proud of where he was from and always rode hard for the Nard Core (that’s how he spelled it) scene he was a part of. His band, Burning Dog, was a stalwart Nard Core band in the '90s. Later, he would end up playing guitar in the late-'90s iteration of Ill Repute then Out of Trust in the 2010s.
Joe's contributions to his scene went well beyond his bands though. He was a big supporter of others coming up. He let Roger Camero and Armand John Anthony record bands at his studio, The Ghost Chamber. Joe also recorded the In Control demo at the same place and later, at a different location, was a producer for The Missing 23rd album, The Powers That Be. It didn’t matter if you were an established band or kids just starting; Joe made sure you felt welcomed. It sounds generic, but he really was the “give the shirt off his back for you” kind of guy.
Joe has a memorial concert coming up on Saturday, October 10th, at the Ventura Theatre. It's a stacked lineup of Joe's friends and former bandmates, including Good Riddance (who he was a roadie for), The Missing 23rd, No Motiv, Retaliate, In Control, Out of Trust, Burning Dog, and more. All net proceeds from the show will establish The Joe Rivas Memorial Fund, which will grant annual awards to local Ventura County youth seeking financial support to further their passion in technology or the musical arts. I hope everyone can come out, support, and celebrate a fantastic person.
You can buy tickets to Joe's Memorial show here, or get them in person at Salzer's Records.
I also want to mention that from here on out, any sales of the Out of Trust or Burning Dog releases will also go towards Joe's fund.
We love you, Joe!
FIND A WAY news
D.R.L.N. released Old Ways, New Language in August. This is a band that I absolutely love. The music feels chaotic and unpinnable, but it still teeters right on the edge of punk, no wave, and fusion. The musicianship is incredible and at times unpredictable, while the lyrics are thought-provoking in a way that I feel very few modern bands offer.
It’s funny, between the preorder photo I posted with the religious mural behind the band and the album showing a statue of Jesus and an American flag, I have a feeling that a lot of people quickly scrolled, stopped for a half-second, and disregarded the release right away. If you actually take a look and read the title, “Old Ways, New Language”, it shouldn’t be difficult to piece together that the band has a political stance that is far from some right-wing, "christcore" take. Regardless, I got a chuckle out of the band sarcastically leaning into the imagery in the comments.
I know I’m biased because I put the record out but I do think this is one of the best releases of the year for any genre.
You can listen to the record here and buy the record here.
Out of Line dropped their 7-song LP, Rec Center in May. It's refreshing to hear hardcore with some punk and oi influence, without overdoing it. There's an earnest approach to their music and a certain style of storytelling that made me instantly want to do this album. Thanks Andy Diehard for putting OOL on my radar. At this point, Andy may need some kind of "finders fee" for the great bands he's sent my way.
You can listen to Rec Center here and order the vinyl here.
Speaking of Andy, BDR released a new EP called Reaper Syndrome on Indecision. It's been on loop for me since it came out. I think Andy is one of the best frontmen in hardcore, so if they play, you should do yourself a favor and check them out.
Lastly, I'm planning to release CDs and vinyl for Visalia's staydown. This band rules. To me, they pull from bands like No Warning and Down to Nothing, where the riffs have some groove but the songs still crush with proper fast parts. Man, this band gets me hyped. That opening intro riff to the record loops in my brain all day, every day.
Details on physical copies of the release come out soon, but for now, you can listen to the album here.
Cult Skate Parts
Joe Valdez – Thrasher Timebomb (2001)
I was recently skating with a friend, where out of the blue, he asked if I knew about Natural Koncept. I hadn’t thought about that brand in a long time, which, for those who don’t know, was an oddball skate company in the early 2000s that had a bunch of “out there” hippie dudes who somehow got fucking gnar. I never saw one person skate their boards in person, and it almost felt like the company only existed in the pages of Thrasher and not in real life. Natural Koncept went on to make skate videos, but circulation was limited, so even a video collector like me didn’t get to see them until the YouTube era was in full swing.
All of this got me thinking about all the other “weirdo” skate parts out there that felt like a glitch in the matrix. Some of those parts aged well (think Anthony Pappalardo in Fully Flared), while others were just plain left in its era and forgotten. This entire conversation about Natural Koncept inspired me to start a little series, highlighting some of my favorite cult skate parts.
During the early 2000s, Thrasher was clearly the secondary magazine in skating, while Transworld was on top. Transworld had the thickest magazine (albeit it mostly ads) and an all-time run of skate videos that are now considered undeniable classics in the skate world. Despite the growing success of Transworld, Thrasher was still doing their own version of a skate mag, which was less chaotic as a Big Brother, but still had way more grit than anything Transworld offered.
In 2001, Transworld released arguably the greatest video of the era with Sight Unseen. It had all-time parts from future legends like John Cardiel and Heath Kirchart, with one of the most memorable soundtracks to go with it. These are parts that are still remembered fondly and get reposted 25 years later. Conversely, in 2001, Thrasher released Timebomb: a less-remembered, shaky-cam video that didn’t leave the mark that Sight Unseen did but still had exceptional skating in it.
Of all parts to start with in Timebomb, Thrasher chose Joe Valdez, an unknown to most, who didn’t skate like anyone I’d seen up to that point. With that said, my first impressions of Joe Valdez are him mocking a security guard, jokingly (or maybe unjokingly?) saying he’s smoking crack, followed by him climbing the roof of a parked bus and ollieing from section to section of the roof. Right after that, he ollies off a roof onto some sketchy-ass scaffolding and later does a life-or-death corner-to-corner ollie at China Banks (RIP). The entire part was thread-the-needle, high-risk, low-reward skating and it was pretty clear that his part in Timebomb was far from anything standard of the era.
To this day, I still don’t know of another Joe Valdez part or what company he rode for. He seemingly disappeared from the skate industry until popping up as a special guest in a Dime contest in 2017. Before that Dime contest, he was never really spoken of in skate media. I guess, just like music, if you release something that is completely different than anything your contemporaries are doing, it’s going to take a while for the rest of the world to catch up.
Watch the part and trip out. The song is really cool too.
Something Old, Something New, Something Blue
Something Old - Sonny Sharrock - Guitar (1986)
Sonny Sharrock was one of the early avant-garde guitarists in jazz and was sick as hell. He played with Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis, but if you’re of my generation, you probably first heard him via the theme song for Space Ghost Coast to Coast in the ‘90s. His Guitar album is about as strange and soulful as it gets, with literally just dubbed guitar tracks and nothing else. On paper, that sounds like a nightmare, and if you don’t like avant-garde, it probably is, but this album gives me the feels like very few do. There’s something about his style of playing that takes me to a listening space that no punk or hardcore album ever has. It’s droning but not boring. There’s noise, there’s blues, there’s beauty – and it’s all in this 40-minute blender that is one of the most expressive albums I've ever heard in my life.
Something New – Hazing Process – Burn (Demo)
This demo rips. I don’t know much about this band, and I kind of don't want to. I also don’t think there’s another CA band north of LA playing this Nails/Scarab style of hardcore as good as this demo. I back it.
Something Blue – Saint Vitus – Mournful Cries (1988)
Saint Vitus was one of the cooler bands from the classic SST roster. Although Born Too Late gets most of the shine in the Vitus catalog, I think Mournful Cries is the band’s greatest output. Every song is a ripper, with Bitter Truth as a highlight track. That melodic intro going into the heavy-ass riffage is peak heavy music to me. The guitar solo around the 3:10 mark is a fucking shredder too. As much as I loved SST’s early in-house producer, Spot, he never really got a good recording out of Saint Vitus. Mournful Cries was not recorded with Spot, and it was probably for the better. Either way, this album is one of the lesser-known gems in the SST catalog and deserves a listen.
If you read this far, you're probably just as psycho as me writing all this. I’ll leave you with a quote to finish this thing with:
Start your own band. Paint your own picture. Write your own book. - Mike Watt