MILK MONEY

This band started in 2004, but didn't actually start playing until 2019.

Dan Fletcher joined Cherem in 2004, and one of our first tours was in August of that year. We did a lot of overnight driving back then, because we mostly toured in the summer and our van didn't have A/C. On the way to our first show in Sacramento, I was driving, Dan was riding shotgun and Bill was on the first bench. Everyone else was asleep. My main rule while I was driving was "no hardcore." It made me sleepy for some reason, so I always put on something upbeat—punk, hip-hop, whatever. Dan was looking through my CD case, and put in a mix of old grunge songs. I was happy, because I didn't think anyone else liked that stuff. I know Austin didn't. Clint was pretty indifferent. 

We listened to Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana all night, talking about how much we loved them, and how much fun it would be to play in a band like that. We decided to start one when we got back from tour. We never did.

Dan and I played in a bunch of bands together after that, but nothing like the one we planned on starting that night. 

Cut to 2017, when Dan and I started a group text with our friends Byron and Drew. We were all busy, and none of us had a practice space, but we all wanted to play music. We started trading riffs and ideas, and Dan compiled everything into a SoundCloud. Then we found Will. He wanted to sing for a band, so we told him to pick three songs from the dozen or so that Dan put together, and booked one day of studio time. We set up, ran through the songs together for the first time, and hit record. It was super fun and turned out really good. We put those songs on a 7" and played exactly one show. It was called Potential. 

Potential fizzled out after that, and we all went on with our lives. Dan was playing solo stuff. Drew and I started doing Tamerlane pretty regularly. But none of us were playing together. Then Byron resurrected the group text.

He wanted to get together for a contest that one his favorite bands was doing. Pup was releasing a new album, and as a promotional idea, they released the lyrics and chord progression to one of their new songs. They encouraged everyone with a band to use it as a template and record their own version. They wanted to post their favorites before unveiling what the song actually sounded like. It was a cool idea, so the four of us got together at Dan's practice space one night. 

Things went sideways almost immediately, and we scrapped the cover song before we even started it. Instead, we started playing around with riffs, and wrote a pretty cool song. Then we wrote another one.

"Did we just start a rock band?" asked Byron.

"Dan and I have been trying to start a 90's style grunge band since like 2004," I said.

"I guess this is it," said Dan.

Songs came together pretty quickly, and they were all really fun to play. We were only getting together about once every two weeks, but after a few months, we had 12 songs and no idea what to do with them. We tossed around the idea of releasing a couple of different EP's, but couldn't decide on anything.

"Fuck it," I said. "If this is a 90's style rock band, let's just come out the gate with a full length."

So we did.

We met up with our friend Wes Johnson for a few days last summer and recorded all twelve songs. It sat on a hard drive for a few months while we tried to come up with a marketing strategy, and figure out the best way to release an album in 2019. Then we got tired of waiting, and just put it up on Spotify in December.

Once January rolled around, we started playing shows, writing more songs, and shooting a video. It was all rolling along, and we were having tons of fun. Then Coronavirus hit and put everything on hold. That's where we are now.

The bright side is that we're still trying to keep busy. We made a quarantine video for the track "Human Spine" last month. We started recording interviews for a Milk Money podcast series. We're trying to figure out how to record some new songs while maintaining social distancing. And we started writing a weekly advice column.

The last one has been my favorite so far. It's hosted by our friends at Gold Blood Collective, and we're trying to get one up every week for the next little while. You should read it.

Here's a bunch of links. It's up on every streaming platform there is, so go to whichever one you use and add us. Listen to the album, tell me if you like it, then come see us play live—if that's ever a thing that people can do again.

Milk Money website

City Weekly Music

"Reckon" review in SLUG Magazine

Soundwaves from the Underground interview

No Echo feature

"Who the Fuck Do You Think You Are?"

Milk Money YouTube Channel

THE EPITAPH RECORDS PLAYLIST GAME

The only regular interaction I get with other people these days is through the Milk Money group text. Some days it's super active, other days not so much—but it's always fun. Lately, we've been making playlists based on record labels that we grew up listening to and posting them to the M$ Twitter account and Facebook page. The group gets pretty active when we do them, and brings back a whole bunch of great memories of when we were younger and music was literally all that mattered.

If you didn't grow up in the punk/hardcore scene—going to shows, buying records, and obsessing over bands—record labels probably have no bearing on your life. But to those that did, you know how crucial it was to have a label that you would basically go to war for.

Dischord started the obsession. SST followed suit. Sub Pop showed everyone how to be big and small at the same time. Fat Wreck Chords was a staple of early 90's punk rock, while Victory and Revelation were the mecca for anyone interested in hardcore. Thousands of discussions were based on what band should be on what label, how crazy it was that a particular band ditched one label for another, and what label's "sound" a smaller, unsigned band encompassed. I'll never forget when Sick of it All signed with Fat Wreck Chords. My friends and I were so confused, because it didn't seem like they fit in at all with the rest of the goofy, fun-loving bands on the label. Then again, we were 18 and didn't know anything anyway.

One of the most influential labels for me personally was Epitaph Records. The label was founded by Brett Gurewitz primarily as a vehicle for releasing albums for his own band—Bad Religion. There weren't a lot of punk rock labels in the early 80's, so DIY was the way to go. The first seven or eight years of the label were mostly Bad Religion albums, until he started signing other acts, most notably NOFX and Pennywise. After that, Epitaph became a huge deal—not just in the punk scene, but the world in general.

Epitaph released some of my favorite punk/hardcore albums of all time from bands like H20, The Bouncing Souls, Rancid, Descendents, and Refused. It's a murderer's row of great music. Brett Gurewitz unknowingly introduced me to bands I still listen to, admire, and play air drums to when I'm walking around my neighborhood in the midst of this global pandemic. He's long been one of my idols, and before the total collapse of the record industry, I wanted to try and follow in his footsteps. He's still someone I look up to, but starting a record label in this era of music is just a terrible idea that no one should do. I have several boxes of unopened, unsold CD's in a closet to back that up.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, it's on to the game that the title of this post alludes to. I know that was five paragraphs ago, but hopefully you're still reading. I mean, what else are you doing?

If you've suddenly found yourself with an abundance of time, and need a break from binge watching old episodes of The Office, or arguing about TIGER KING on Facebook, give this a shot. You can use pretty much any label, but Epitaph makes it easy because they have all their releases cataloged by year on their website.

Here are the only rules:

1) You can only pick one song for each year.
2) No artist can appear more than once.
*Additional Rule Edit*
3) I'm opening this up to include Epitaph's sister labels, ANTI and Hellcat. It's my game and I'll change the rules to suit my own needs if I want to.

With Epitaph, it got really, really difficult for me between 1996 and 2001. Would I love to have "Rather Be Dead" on this playlist? I sure would, but Everything Sucks by Descendents was released the same year. It's all about making the tough choices. I skipped a few years here and there (mostly between 2008-2015ish because I never listened to a lot of the bands they were releasing), so I'll be revisiting my playlist soon to add a few more.

No one is going to actually do this, because most of you are adults, quarantined with your family or a significant other. But on the off chance that you do find yourself with a little extra time, give it a shot and see what happens—especially if you do Epitaph. I would love to see where you and I differ on these songs.