Super excited to present this quick little interview with the newly appointed superintendent of Worcester Public Schools Rachel Monárrez. As I wrote about on the newsletter this week, Monárrez's starts in July and her appointment was the culmination of an exceptionally professional and well-executed national search led by our School Committee. Worcester is uhhh let's just say not used to seeing hiring processes this thorough. It's honestly sort of a miracle. And the results, as I think you'll hear, speak for themselves.

Music for this one courtesy of the homies Born Without Bones. Do yourself a service and check out Disappearer, the song featured in the episode, and all of their other ones while you're at it. Special band. 

We caught up with Mike Assatly, a self-professed touring tyrant, before and after a show at Ralph's Rock Diner the other day with his new band Crescent Ridge. Ignore the background hum of dumb idiot musicians loading in as we go over Assatly's long and illustrious road dog resume. Assatly's been in countless bands, chief among them Bear Trap, a personal project of his which has seen over 40 touring members. Over the past several decades, he's hit the road harder than anyone we can think of, and he's picked up his fair share of friends and enemies along the way. Tune in as we squash some old beefs and rip some new ones wide open. 

When you go on tour, you're just gunna see a lot of dicks. It's just... I don' know what to tell you. This episode is about dicks. 

After a hot and sweaty Heavy Metal Parking Lot at Ralph's Rock Diner we brought Stoughton's own Jake Murphy up to an even hotter and sweatier venue to talk about his escapades the world over in Bear Trap and Immortal War. Jake is about as active as a musician can be, and he's been in more bands than he can even remember. Check out the new Immortal War ep Voice of Misery, freshly out today, and watch for Final Gasp's new record Haunting Whisper, out July 18 on Triple B Records. 

Chris Berg (High Command, Verse) joins us for a second time as we take on the subject of Australia, a continent on which he and our host Dan have logged some solid touring hours.  You'll pick up some useful travel advice and some travel advice that's hopefully useless to you. You may also find yourself feeling bad for Trent Reznor, if only momentarily. Crikey, we're going to Australia. 

We bring on Manuel Peralez, a guy who's spent the better part of two decades touring with bands like Set Your Goals, First Blood, Alcatraz and Suffocate Faster. He's a Bay Area guy and remains an active member of the hardcore scene there in bands like Chains and Dislocation. He's toured all over the world, including places most bands would never dare go, like Southeast Asia, the Eastern Bloc, and certain parts of Mexico where law does not necessarily mean order. He's a road dog's road dog, and this interview barely scratches the surface. 

No guests this week, just the three original boys as we get into tales from the road that are actually scary. No ghosts, no aliens, but a good amount of guns. Actually... a bad amount of guns. Too many guns. We would have preferred less guns. 

Ah, the house party – an oasis in the hot desert of gas stations, motels, and quasi-public drinking outside venues. They're a treat, and a rare one at that, until they're not. Until they go horribly wrong, or you go horribly wrong, or someone else decides to go horribly wrong on your behalf. You never know what to expect when you walk into a room full of strangers in some city somewhere in the night. It's a roll of the dice, and we've rolled it many a time. 

We bring on our good friend and longtime touring musician Chris Berg to share his road dog heroics like almost dying due to McDonalds hand soap. Berg's the bassist of High Command and used to play in Verse, Cleansing Wave, Youth Attack and approximately a thousand other bands.