State your name and what bands did you play in and are in?
My name is Mike. I was in a band called Kontaminat. I tried to start some other projects before that, but nothing ever materialized. Now I’m in Amoral.
How are you doing?
I'm doing okay, thanks for asking. Trying to teach remotely, finish up academic research, and supervise my kids has been a handful, but honestly I’m just grateful to be healthy and employed. So many people are fucked. "We are living in a failed state", as George Packer put it. Covid has exposed how our society was barely hanging by a thread. My heart breaks for so many people, particularly BIPOC communities, where the pandemic has had disastrous effects.
How did you get into punk?
I got into punk just feeling different and out of place. I was a weird, awkward Jewish kid. I didn't fit in, wasn't good at sports, and got called homophobic slurs. (While I had a lot of self-pity as a teenager, I realize that what I went through is absolutely nothing compared to the actual forms of oppression that many experience through "racist ideas", as Ibram X Kendi calls them.) I had my own self-esteem issues and just didn't fit in. I became friends with a kid named Mike Wohl because we were into the same role-playing games. We both liked Green Day, and we got into Lookout and Epitaph stuff, as well as a lot of terrible ska. In 2000 we went to our first show at Fireside Bowl. While it was a pretty cringey lineup in retrospect, I immediately knew that punk, and the Fireside specially, was my solace. This went hand in hand with getting into some basic social justice stuff and basic leftist politics. At the time I thought bands like Anti-Flag and The Unseen were "political". Of course it was pretty mind-blowing to hear bands like Los Crudos, and then soon start seeing Latinx bands from the South and Southwest sides of Chicago. Here were people who were really experiencing real shit as well as working towards tangible change, not just the cliche, abstract "political" punk lyrics that I was accustomed to. Between seeing those bands and then going to anti-war protests a few years later, I was absolutely hooked.
How's the scene in Chicago?
I love the Chicago scene, and I feel fortunate to be a part of it. While it's far from perfect, I'm grateful that there are a lot of amazing people who have worked to create more equitable spaces, including the Black and Brown collective as well as many others committed to making a safe scene for women, underage girls, LGBTQIA people, etc. We have a really cool venue called Bricktown, and I hope it's here post-Covid. There's a lot of cool bands like Udusic, Dog Flashback, Primitive Teeth, Eskeletos, Robotrip, Porno Glows, Canal Irreal, Daylight Robbery, Tzar Bomba, and my favorite band, Mock Execution. That's not every band, but some bands that I like. I hope more bands start up when the pandemic ends.
How did Kontaninat start as a band? People from crudos, rat bastards, chronic seizure, sin orden etc how did you get an all star line up?
Kontaminat started with myself and our bassist, Pat, talking at a show about doing a band. I was down to play bass or sing and so was Pat. Jay had done a bunch of bands with Pat over the years, so Pat asking him just made sense. Lupe/Gordo has for a long time been my favorite drummer in Chicago. His accenting is incomparable and he hits so hard. I was thrilled when he said he was down. I'm not sure who thought to ask Jose, but he's an amazing guitarist who was clearly influenced by the best Italian HC bands that I loved. We all brought riffs and from our first practice it just clicked immediately.
What were your guys influences?
It's hard to say. We all love the best 80's hardcore punk from around the world- Italy, Japan, Brazil, Norway, etc. In the riffs I wrote, I didn't seek to emulate one band or style, and I think it was the same with everyone else. We got compared to Deathreat in one review, "Scandinavian shit" by some others, "Totalitar mixed with 86 Mentality vocals" by someone else. Jay listened to a lot of crust, and I felt like we all brought in our influences to the riffs and songs we wrote. Most of Jose's riffs were definitely influenced by Italian HC like Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers and Wretched, but he also wrote a riff that was like Asta Kask but a little less melodic. Gordo's accenting reminded me of what Todd did in Deathreat, which I thought made the songs powerful. Jay loves Totatlitar and a lot of Swedish HC and I always felt like that was a strong influence in his songs.
How long were you guys a band?
We had our first practice in March 2011 and played our last show in December 2014.
How was the last show?
We didn't have a proper last show, per se. We played a basement with a bunch of local bands. We didn't know it would be our last show. The band ended on a really ugly note but I felt so relieved when it was over. Still, it was very bittersweet. We never recorded our best songs, and I wish we could have continued.
How did you start A Wrench in the gears Label??
I started it with my friend Mike Wohl, who I mentioned earlier. In the early 2000's there were a lot of amazing bands from Chicago who weren't really known outside the city. I remember seeing Non Fiction Nois (NFN) in a backyard on the Southwest Side of Chicago. There was a turf war going on in the neighborhood between local gangs, according to our friends who lived in the neighborhood. We heard gunshots and police sirens between bands. Jr, the drummer of NFN, confided in me that his dad had kicked him out of their house after he came out the closet. It was surreal to experience real punk with real people who were going through real shit. NFN went on at midnight, under a tarp while it was raining, and went apeshit. It was the punkest thing I had ever seen, and it blew my mind that no one outside the city knew about it. It started with the idea of putting out a record.
Mike and I were talking and he wanted to do it together, and show how awesome the Chicago scene was. We decided to start with doing a distro and we thought we'd be "raising money" to release a record. We were really naive, but also militantly committed to a DIY ethic. We pragmatically planned out a giant list of records to order from Ebullition. We got stickers and wrote descriptions on records, got a notebook for inventory, and planned what records to buy. This was 2003, and Deathreat's Consider It War and Tragedy's Vengeance had just been pressed on vinyl. We ordered a bunch of copies and were thrilled that they all sold out. This alone convinced us that we would be extremely successful, and generate enough of a profit margin to press records! How naive we were! But that said, selling those records was empowering and gave us the confidence we needed to give it a go. "Wrench HQ" became Mike's bedroom. Also, we were still in high school while this was going on. We would ditch classes to send out orders. We were motivated; punk was everything to us. We were determined as hell. At one point it seemed like the label was our whole world. The first record we put out was the I-Attack LP. In the end we put out five records, my favorite being No Slogan's No Pasaran EP. The label lasted four years. In the end, while it didn't last, I'm grateful for what we did. Respect to people who are still doing DIY labels today.
Mike then you started Amoral? How did that band start?
I actually didn't start Amoral. Our guitarist and drummer, Chris and Oliver, wrote songs for six months before the rest of us practiced. Kontaminat and had played with Chris' old band, Haka, and we had become good friends. Chris asked me if I would be interested in singing. He said that their songs were influenced by shit like Knife Fight, Urban Blight, Negative Approach, Crucifix, early AF, etc. When I heard their practice tape I was blown away. We practiced and then played two shows before Covid hit. We look forward to getting back to it at some point.
Tell me about your 'zine.
I've always loved zines. I like to write, I love punk, it just makes sense. I did one as a teenager that was pretty cringey, but in an adorable way. In 2007 decided to do a zine. I was obsessed with the No Thanks song, "Fuck Everything", so those four words became the title of the zine, later shortened to just No Thanks. I was really obsessed with Frank from Atrocious Madness/Lebenden Toten's zines: R'yleh Rising and Warning. Those zines covered all the raw, blown punk I loved and had the perfect layout, really inspired by Crass Records releases, as well as american bands like Crucifix. I absolutely loved those zines, and in the beginning especially, tried to emulate that aesthetic. I honestly can't imagine laying out a 'zine or flier any other way besides cut 'n paste. The first band I ever interviewed was Barcelona's Invasión, and since then I knew I wanted to keep doing it. I interviewed bands and wrote about shit I thought was cool, whether it was Russian literature, 90's hip-hop, whatever. I did seven issues, the last which came out in 2011. I completed two interviews that year that are laid out but I had procrastinated releasing, due to teaching, academic research, personal stuff, family, etc. I've got an interview with a singer from one of my favorite 80's USHC bands coming up for the next issue. Better late than never. I want to keep doing it consistently. 'Zines like Negative Insight and General Speech are amazing and inspired me to finish this issue.
How did you get the name for your bands??
I'm not sure how we came up with Kontaminat, but we just went with it. "Amoral" came from the lyrics to one of our songs: "Amoral liberals ask you to stand but cross the street when they see a black man." This past year we have seen how a lot of liberals are completely amoral. They've stopped talking about Black lives and police brutality. Now that Biden has been elected they are going back to complicity.
Trump and the Right are obviously amoral. It's important to note this, because it's not that we simply share a difference of opinion from them. They are fascists. Fascism is not a legitimate ideology. As fascism is trying to spread, we've got to be united in opposing it. Tuesday's actions show how dangerous amoral fascist and fascit sympathizers are.
Any releases coming out?
Amoral recorded a demo and we'd like to record again when Covid is over. I'd kinda like to put out records and tapes again at some point. I'm honestly more so focused on my academic writing and education work. But punk rules, obviously, and I'd like to keep doing bands.
Any shoutout you want to give?
Shoutout to my life partner, Shana, for being my rock during Covid. I'd like to give props to Amoral, who I miss practicing with, as well as the best teacher I've ever had, Dr. Nicole Holland, who got me an assistantship to pay for graduate school and worked with me to get my thesis published. She modeled scholarship and has been committed to educational justice. Shoutout to my coworkers and the Chicago Teachers Union for fighting for safe classrooms for students and teachers. Shoutout to Anya and Club A for being an inspiration for mutual aid. Shoutout to everyone doing their part to try to combat injustice and create a more equitable world, no matter the methods. Shoutout to my grandmother, Anna Nessy Perlberg, who escaped Hitler, dedicated her life to fighting against injustice and police torture, and demanded that we never be complicit. May she Rest In Power.
Thanks for your time Mike
Thank you Tone
