Hamma: I’m here with Choke from Slapshot who just played in NY for the first time since???

Choke: 1996 at Coney Island High.

Hamma: Wow! That long? 1996 is when I first got into the scene. Speaking of when I first got into the scene, I remember hearing about more shows back then when it was only flyers and word of mouth. Nowadays, when it should be easier to access information about upcoming shows and, information in general, we seem to miss a lot. Why do you think that is?

Choke: I think the promoters have gotten lazy as well as the bands. Everyone seems to just throw up an event page for a show on Facebook and that’s it. You used to have to stand out in front of people and hand out flyers. You just don’t see that now.

Hamma: You have a new album out. Where can we find that?

Choke: Brass City Boss Sounds and they’re putting out a lot of different colored vinyl if you’re into collecting.

Hamma: What do you think of the newer bands from the current Boston scene? Great scene, we (Close to the Edge) have a lot of friends up there.

Choke: Well, I don’t get out to a lot of shows cause I live kind of far away but, Rival Mob and all of the bands associated with the guys in that band. Boston Strangler, Colin Of Arabia, Reason To Fight, For The Worse, Drop Dead (From Providence) a host of great bands who do a kind of original music. Everyone’s got their own thing.

Hamma: Penalty Kill, Neighborhood Shit.

Choke: Sean from Penalty Kill did backups on the new Slapshot album.

Hamma: A lot of us are happy to have seen Slapshot for the first time in NY. I’m sure there will be more?

Choke: We’re playing Sheer Terror’s 30th anniversary show in Brooklyn in December.

Hamma: Wow! That is a must see event. A buy tickets when they go on sale type of show.

Hamma: Hardcore punk has been around forever and it has had a lot of ups and downs. it has been in an upswing in recent years and with events like Black n Blue Bowl, TNT Fest, East Coast Tsunami Fest, This Is Hardcore and so on. It seems to be bigger than ever. What do you think of that?

Choke: Europe has a lot of fests. Everything there is close together and easy to get to but, I’d hate to see the small shows go away obviously. People could say, especially in Europe, they say, “why should I go see Agnostic Front at this (smaller) show when I can see them at a fest with 10 or more other bands. But Europe is a more festival culture. The draw backs to fests are, they don’t have the intimacy and you don’t get to see bands play a whole set.

Hamma: In NY, fortunately, I think the local scene has benefitted from the bigger shows like Black ‘N Blue productions because the younger kids who came into the scene off of the promotion of the bigger shows have made their way to other local shows. It wasn’t like that for a long time but, it has gone that way recently (BNB has also promoted smaller bands on their radio show and other events).

Choke: We don’t have anything like that (Black N Bowl) in Boston. There is the New England Hardcore and Metal Fest. We played it last April but, it’s really aimed more at metal.

Hamma: Talk about the new album.

Choke: We’re pretty happy with it, I’m pretty proud of it, a lot of people say it’s the best record Slapshot has ever done. It’s doing really well so far.

Hamma: It’s pretty impressive that you can do that after all these years.

Choke: Well, we’ve obviously had different lineups over the years and I didn’t have that same repoire with all of the guys but, playing shows with Craig (guitar) and Ryan (bass) I think it’s one of the best line ups we’ve ever had. Me and Craig write really well together.

Hamma: Craig is a pro and he’s really adapted to the Slapshot style.

Choke: Yeah, he knows what we’re after.

Hamma: Thank you for the interview.