Killed By Desk

18/08/2022

"I still listen to new bands..." - Your Uncle in the YOT hoodie

13/07/2022

So excited to be back.

29/06/2022

And why is it Bad Brains?

16/06/2022

It's the theremin, tbh.

03/06/2022

What doing this stupid podcast has done to every band conversation we have.

26/05/2022

Tough decisions this summer...

12/04/2022

We're excited to share our new episode featuring Arty Shepherd, owner of Saint Vitus in Greenpoint, Brooklyn! Check it out as we discuss growing up a metalhead, playing in hardcore bands all over the world, bartending and working service jobs and the inspiration to start a club of his own. It's fun, funny and incredibly inspiring!

Also, as you'll hear in the intro, this is it for us (at least for awhile). We've greatly enjoyed bringing you some amazing stories and conversations these last two years, but we're hanging it up. We couldn't have asked for a better final guest than Arty, and hope you all have enjoyed the last 100+ hours of Killed By Desk as much as we have. Thank you to everyone for their support, and we'll see you at a show sometime.

11/04/2022

“All these things I did – playing in a band and stuff, always when I was working. I never stopped working, and I never stopped playing in a band. I think I’ve had the best of both worlds as far as that was concerned.” - John S*x Bomb, Episode 78

Thanks to John for a great, engaging conversation. New episode tomorrow!

08/04/2022

“I was originally going to go to school for criminal justice, but I switched to accounting. And that’s what I’ve done my whole life.” - John S*x Bomb, Episode 78

Any accountant that gets to hang with Lemmy is okay with us.

07/04/2022

“I’m old school. When I first started doing accounting they didn’t have computers.” - John S*x Bomb, Episode 78

More from John on taxes, accounting and hardcore punk in this week's episode!

05/04/2022

Just in time for the tax filing deadline, we've got accountant John S*x Bomb from Seizure this week! Please note that all tax advice is for entertainment purposes only, and all music conversation should be considered especially taxing.

Check it out wherever you get your podcasts, or at killedbydesk.com!

04/04/2022

“If I’m good at what I do it’s because I’ve been through all of the stuff, and not just the stuff that I’ve been through on my own, but that I feel very much that I am a part of a community of people. And that helps me when I am working with people individually, it helps me if I have to get up in a room full of people and talk about stuff – I feel like I am a representative of a larger movement, and that makes all the difference.” - Sascha Altman DuBrul, Episode 77

Thanks so much to Sascha for speaking with us. Check out his website here: https://www.saschadubrul.com/

New Episode tomorrow!

Hi. I’m Sascha. I’m glad you found me here. Book a free 20 minute consultation call. I offer:individual and group coaching/counseling for people who want to learn how to use their mad giftsconsulting and training for folks working inside/outside the mental health systempublic speaking and worksh...

01/04/2022

“I decided I wanted to go to school, get a clinical degree and see if I could learn some stuff about how to work with people, and also how to have clearer boundaries. If I was a professional, as opposed to just this ‘guy’, maybe there were things I would be able to do that I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise – which turns out it’s totally true. I work as a therapist now, and because there are these clearer boundaries, I end up having the ability to help people more in ways that I couldn’t before.” - Sascha Altman DuBrul, Episode 77

31/03/2022

“I never took in this idea that there was something fundamentally sick about me. I got that I was sensitive, but in some ways there were things I could do that nobody else could do – because I was intense and because I felt things more strongly I could say things that other people couldn’t say and connect with people in other ways that people couldn’t connect with…I ended up making a living by being someone who was like “hey, I can relate to other people who are crazy like me.’” - Sascha Altman DuBrul, Episode 77

30/03/2022

“When I was eighteen years old, I got locked up in a psych ward and they diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. They told me I had this biological brain disease that I was going to have for the rest of my life. The thing was, I was surely crazy…I was walking on the tracks of the PATH train. I walked from 23rd Street to Christopher Street, and I thought the world was about to end. I was on some crazy trip. But the thing was, when they told me I was mentally ill I had been hanging out with the punks for all these years. And if you hang out with the punks there’s an understanding that the society that we live in is crazy, the society we live in is sick and it’s not actually us.” - Sascha Altman DuBrul, Episode 77

28/03/2022

“Once you get into the comic industry you start to see how the sausage is made, as opposed to just being a comic fan. You start to see the behind-the-scenes stuff, and somebody starts to walk you through the process and the personalities that are involved in it, and the techniques and equipment…that’s a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing.” - Steve Karp, Episode 76

25/03/2022

“Our first couple runs of shirts, because we were all art nerds and because we had access to the Pratt facilities, they were definitely more eye-catching than the standard shirts at the time. It was kind of unheard of…because we had four or five colors on each shirt, but it was all the school’s ink. So we didn’t give a sh*t.” - Steve Karp, on the early Yuppicide shirts and how they were made, Episode 76

24/03/2022

“The design side is, especially for the architect, is all about aesthetics. They want to make things beautiful, they want to win design awards. On the contracting side, we just want to make sure the toilets flush, the lights turn on and when you slam the door all the windows don’t impode.” - Steve Karp, Episode 76

23/03/2022

“If you remember watching the Brady Bunch, and Mike Brady had this table with drawings he was supposedly working on, that’s the traditional idea of how drawings get done for a construction project. Over the years, computers have come into play – first it was CAD, computer-aided drafting, and now that computers are better and faster we have BIM – building information modeling.” - Steve Karp, Episode 76

22/03/2022

This week we've got Steve Karp talking about how art and design works with construction. We think. There's tools involved. But he makes it fun and his stories are awesome.

Check it out wherever you get your podcasts, or at killedbydesk.com!

21/03/2022

“If you make a music documentary, you can just tour with it like it’s a band. You don’t need anything from anybody – there’s enough theaters…you can just take it and do shows all over the world.” - John Woods, Episode 75

We learned a lot from John about films, videos and creating and marketing films, music and otherwise. If you haven't yet listened, check it out, and if you find yourself in Brooklyn, visit Nitehawk Cinema - Williamsburg and Nitehawk Cinema - Prospect Park. New episode tomorrow!

18/03/2022

“We put a lot of thought into it. I do my Music Driven series – that’s musicians and directors, we do a Q&A after the screenings.” - John Woods, Episode 75

(Photo: John with director Penelope Spheeris after an event at Nitehawk Cinema)

17/03/2022

“What I did was I knew there was a bunch of stuff in the UK that wasn’t available in the states, so I went there and I bought about eighty or one hundred tapes that I knew you couldn’t get, because I was looking for them. When we opened we had less than a thousand tapes, but we had all this stuff that you couldn’t get elsewhere.” - John Woods, Episode 75

Before Nitehawk Cinema, John was co-owner of Reel Life, the iconic video store in Williamsburg. Although renowned for their selection, John explains how it was WHAT they had, not how many videos that made all the difference.

16/03/2022

“We try to be fun with it. We show arthouse stuff, but we also like to do kung-fu, VHS movies – any kind of format, we can accommodate it. Everything is valid, as far as we’re concerned.” - John Woods, Episode 75

Hear more about Nitehawk Cinema - Williamsburg's approach to films and John Woods' role in all of it on our latest episode, streaming wherever you find your podcasts or at killedbydesk.com.

15/03/2022

This week we're talking about cult films, slinging tapes, booking rock 'n roll films and serving booze and food with that movie! John Woods is a co-founder of Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn, and we get into what it takes to run that place, his previous gig running one of Williamsburg's favorite video stores and even a bit about his band and zine. Check it out wherever you find your podcasts, or click here: https://withkoji.com/

14/03/2022

“Unless you are sitting on a little pile of cash, or a big pile of cash, you have to adjust your lifestyle. And part of that for us is living like a Mexican. That means we aren’t going to go out for pour-over coffee in Condesa all the time, because that’s not part of budget.” - Alice Bag and Greg Velasquez, Episode 74

We learned so much from Alice and Greg in our conversation, and we hope you were as inspired as we were to look at retirement with passion and creativity. New episode tomorrow!

13/03/2022

Check out the latest video from Alice and Greg!

AliceSOCIAL CHANNELS:- Alice and Greg MX: https://www.instagram.com/aliceandgregmx/- Alice Bag https://www.instagram.com/alice_bag/- Greg https://www.instagr...

11/03/2022

“It was really just this punk rock approach to retirement. We have a little bit of knowledge, we have a little bit of money, but what they say you should…f**k it, let’s do it.” - Alice Bag and Greg Velasquez, Episode 74

10/03/2022

“We have a different connection with Mexico than perhaps some of the other expats do; we have family here, we have roots here, we have things we want to research and reconnect with that kind of sets our channel apart from the other typical expat channel.” - Alice Bag and Greg Velasquez, Episode 74

09/03/2022

“To be completely truthful, I sort of have been living the retired lifestyle for a while now, because I stopped teaching in 2011 when my book Violence Girl came out. I wanted to be able to do a book tour and I didn’t want to have to leave my students with substitutes. So I decided that I was going to dedicate myself full-time to music and art and that’s what I did.” - Alice Bag, Episode 74

08/03/2022

When we first heard about our next guests' new journey, we knew we'd have to ask them to come on Killed By Desk and talk about it with us! Alice and Greg are punk rock lifers, as well as spending their working years in professional careers, but when they decided to look into retirement, the cost of living in the U.S. made the prospect incredibly unlikely. So they did what punk rock taught them and created a DIY retirement in Mexico City, documenting it all on YouTube and their social media channels as "Alice and Greg in Mexico" which not only shows their experience, but acts as a travel guide and love letter to Mexico from their distinct POV.

In our fun conversation, we touch on Mexican history, pastries, folklore, logistics of living abroad as a US citizen, Belinda Carlisle, family and so much more. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts (some links here: https://withkoji.com/) and at killedbydesk.com!

07/03/2022

“I’m gonna do it until either no one wants to see my band anymore, or someone dies onstage, or someone has physical problems playing the music, because that’s the third possibility. And that’s kind of where we’re at. I don’t think anyone in the band is like ‘let’s just do this for a year and see how it goes’.” - Milo Aukerman, Episode 73

Thanks so much to Milo for the great conversation and laughs. It was more fun than any science class we ever took in school. If you haven't listened yet, find this episode (and all of our others) wherever you get your podcasts, or at killedbydesk.com. Love what you're hearing? Help us out by becoming a Patreon supporter, leaving us a review, subscribing or even just telling a friend. We can always use the help! New episode tomorrow!

06/03/2022

“Both things are such an adrenaline rush. You don’t hear about science being an adrenaline rush necessarily, but obviously music is, especially punk rock. I got into areas of science that were really cutting-edge and the excitement level is just through the roof.” - Milo Aukerman, Episode 73

05/03/2022

“We all still are best friends, and so we’ve all gone through the ups and downs together. I should say that they’ve gone through a lot more ups and downs than I have, I just leave.” - Milo Aukerman, Episode 73

04/03/2022

“All the times that I left the band it was because I wanted to go back to science, I wanted to further that career. Then I’d always leave science and go back to music, we always referred to that as ‘Milo rediscovered his need to rock’.” - Milo Aukerman, Episode 73

03/03/2022

Milo, on why there weren't more Descendents songs about science:

“I always felt that I was enough of a nerd already that I didn’t need to add more nerdiness to my music. That was a one of the main things: I’m a nerd. Everyone knows it. I don’t need to pound it into their brains any further.”

Hear more from our conversation wherever you get your podcasts, or at killedbydesk.com!

02/03/2022

“I got laid off in 2016, and I thought ‘well, I can continue being a scientist, get a gig somewhere’ but then I thought ‘No, this band thing, I’m loving it and why not just have that be my career at the ripe age of fifty-whatever?’ So that’s cool.” - Milo Aukerman, Episode 73

01/03/2022

This week's guest didn't become a full-time, professional musician until 2016, but you certainly know his music. This week we're sharing our great conversation with Milo Aukerman of Descendents!

We talk about music, science, juggling both, song inspiration and so much more. Check it out wherever you find your podcasts or by clicking here: https://withkoji.com/

28/02/2022

“If you are fiercely independent, and willing to take on these challenges and risks it is really interesting to see how things work, and see how you can manipulate what you want out of that. It’s another thing Mike and I have in common – it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. They make this stuff purposely scary to get into, but you can do it and it can be really eye-opening and great to be like ‘f**k it, we can do this, and do it in our own way’. Meanwhile, you see all the barriers to anything in your life that you ever wanted to see happen, and you can carve out that area – at least for you and your friends or whoever.”

Thank you SO much to Mike and Marie for sharing their time, POV, expertise and humor with us this week. They are inspiring as hell in the most fun way possible.

New episode tomorrow!

27/02/2022

Mike Lucas's publishing company, Rudos & Rubes is still active! Order your books here (and we'll see if he ships them)!

For more on this business, his beer distribution company with his wife Marie and much more on our latest episode of , available wherever podcasts are available!

"The fast-paced, gonzo stories exhibit the forthright bluntness of a Spillaine or Cain, the creepy involutedness of a Lovecraft or C.A. Smith, and sometimes the quirky skewed perceptions of a H.S. Keeler. I suppose you might dub them “postmodern,” but they possess none of the winking irony or di...