Interview conducted with Nasty Rumours lead vocalist Juli Shock Treatment So the last time I interviewed you guys, it was October of 2015! You guys went from being the scrappy new band to elder statesmen! In those 11 years, how do you feel you guys have become wiser or grown as a band? Juli: Time flies it is crazy. As a band we definitely matured, maybe not so much as people haha. It's been 11 years of fun playing, recording and being on the road. I think we managed to become a decent live band over the years. Dilemma by NASTY RUMOURS Shock Treatment: Last year, you guys released that killer split 7” with Cyanide Pills. The two songs you guys had on there “My Final Heartbeat” and “Bury Me In My Leather Jacket” are great, some of the best Nasty Rumours tunes to date! Did you guys purposely put two songs about death on the record? Juli: It's actually a coincidence and no big concept behind it. My shrinks words not mine haha. "My final heartbeat" didn't make it on t...

Once again Lord Rutledge and I bring you the concept of what we like to call "tandem posts". This time, we bring you bands of the 2000's (2000 - 2009 to be exact). Again, it was not an easy task to narrow it down to only ten, but somehow I managed. Go check out Faster and Louder to see Josh's take on his favorites of the era. And like our previous tandem post about our essential 1990's punk bands, we have no idea what the other is selecting! To listen to some songs from these bands, plus more from this time period, check out my playlist at the end of this post.  10. The Busy Signals  The first thing that hits you when you drop the needle on The Busy Signal's debut LP is singer Analucia McGorty's vocals. It's the kind of voice that transports you to another world. The songs are so charismatic you forget you're basically listening to a scrappy underground punk record. Their LP came out in 2007 on Dirtnap Records and it's got this quality about i...

Shock Treatment: So Pete, you started out running 702 records back in 1994. You put out some amazing records by The Gain, The Atomiks, The Loudmouths, just to name a few! What got you started doing that? PM: As soon as I could afford to, I moved out of my mom’s house with some friends, and we made it a point to find a pad with a basement so we could have shows. The bands you mentioned all played in that house’s basement, along with 2-3 others, every month we lived there for around five years. One of the bands that came through played me their demo upstairs after their gig while we were sitting on the couch, and said they wanted to put out a 7inch but had no money, and I had $1,000 in my bank account for the first time in my life. That’s essentially how I started making records. Shock Treatment: You had 702 records, and now you run Slovenly Recordings, which I’m a huge fan of as well! What led you to decide to stop with 702 and start again with Slovenly? PM: 702 Records was the label I ...

Photo by Kevin Daniel Shock Treatment: Let’s begin with an introduction! Who is currently in Shop Talk and what does everyone do in the band? Jon: These days, Shop Talk is really just Tristan and me. I play guitar and sing lead, and Tristan plays bass and sings backing vocals. We’ve worked with a few different drummers. Alexander Perrelli plays on the LP, but left after we made the record. Angie Boylan (Sleater-Kinney, Lost Balloons, etc.) played drums with us for most of 2025, and she’s on the Museum of Sex 7-inch. Nathaniel Meek filled in on our recent tour, and he’ll be playing some local gigs as well. The Offering EP by Shop Talk Shock Treatment: What band or musician first made you want to pick up an instrument and start learning to play music or write songs? Tristan: This is going to sound manufactured, but for me it was the Beatles. My dad was a big fan and I grew up listening to them. After I had my first acoustic guitar, I went to Borders and bought a Beatles song book… ya kno...

Fear, rejection, heartbreak, loss, betrayal, these are some of the things that have started wars between nations. These are also some of the things that nations have inflicted upon its own people. Causing bodies and souls to tear apart from one another. Leaving only a husk of a person to carry on with daily routines without emotions like joy, excitement or anything that makes life worth living. We have become mechanized drones in a hive, made simply of flesh and gas. Our minds are driven into madness and we begin to drift into an alternate reality. A reality that runs parallel to ours only far more sinister. This is where Oslo's Stabber resides, a reality that gains more and more residents daily. In a world where billion dollar corporations have raped, pillaged, and commandeered every art form, every outlet of human expression, everything we have that reminds us that we actually still have souls. They have left us with their own, pre-approved versions of humanity that we are suppos...