Welcome everyone to This Was The Scene, the podcast that takes a look back at the late 90s / early 2000 Nj Jersey Punk scene, I am your host, Mike Doyle.

If you grew up in Northern Jersey and needed a place to find independent music you would go to Scotti's record shop in Morristown, sound exchange on rte 23, hot topic in the Rockaway mall (yes that's where you could actually find bands) OR you could take a ride to Pompton Lakes and visit Flipside Records where you would find Alan Rappaport manning the register. He opened people's eyes to bands like Sicko, Discount, Plow United, Mineral and Jimmy Eat World before they were making videos about underwear pool parties.

My friends and I would pile into my buddy Lucc's car, drive to Flipside and use whatever money we could find to stock up on new music. I wanted to get his perspective on the scene back then, he said "totally down man" and this is what we talked about:

• Who actually kicked him out of Lanemeyer
• Disney World's effect on his punk rockness
• How he started working at Flipside
• Introducing Donuts and Glory and Steve from Right Turn Eddie
• His Lua pool party shows with Discount, My Pal Trigger and LTJ
• His relationship with Jimmy Eat World
• The Backstage rehearsal studio
• And a ton more

This week's episode sponsored by Southern Tier Distilling Company.

Building on 300+ years of western NY spirit production, Southern Tier Distilling Company puts that heritage into every bottle.

Now, expanding their market to NJ, DE and Ohio, more of us can enjoy these premium spirits such as STDC's Straight Bourbon, Silver Medal Award winning Vodka, Smoked Bourbon and their 2XHopped Whiskey (a whiskey distilled from their gold medal winning 2XIPA)

In addition to their spirits, also available are their premium canned cocktails! Soon to hit the market are the Gin & Tonic with elderflower & cucumber, the Bourbon Smash with ginger, mint and lime and the Vodka Madras with cranberry, orange and camomile. Great for camping, the beach, tailgating and the golf course.

Check out Southern Tier Distilling at www.stdcspirits.com and follow Rob at southern_tier_nj

Southern Tier, Why the hell not?

This episode is also brought to you by my new book I'll eventually like kids when they're adults. This is a collection of comics I've drawn daily on my Instagram account. You can find me on Instagram by searching for yourdailybred.

As always, thank you to the people who've donated to the podcast. If you'd like to do so just go to thiswasthescene.com and send whatever you'd like. It helps me with the $20/month to keep this thing live. You can also buy merch there.

Feel free to subscribe, leave a review and share this with anyone who would love some nostalgia.

With that said, let's get started.