Nardwuar vs. Leftöver Crack

 

Nardwuar vs. Leftöver Crack

Nardwuar: Who are you?

Stza Crack: I’m Scott Sturgeon, aka Stza Crack.

Nardwuar: From?

Stza Crack: New York City.

Nardwuar: From?

Stza Crack: New York State.

Nardwuar: From Leftöver?

Stza Crack: United States of America.

Nardwuar: Crack.

Stza Crack: Yes.

Nardwuar: And right beside you, who do you have?

Stza Crack: This is Mr Brad Logan.

Brad Logan: My name’s Brad Logan of California. And Leftöver Crack.

Nardwuar: Welcome to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Brad Logan: Thank you.

Stza Crack: Thank you, we never thought we’d make it.

Nardwuar: And right off the bat, I have a gift for you. And it is in this towel right here, if you could open it please right now, what do we have in this towel?

[Nardwuar hands Leftöver Crack a doll]

Brad Logan: Oh my God.

Stza Crack: Wendy O. Williams.

Brad Logan: That is so amazing. A Wendy O. Williams bobble head.

Nardwuar: A Wendy O. Williams bobble head.

Stza Crack: Cool.

Nardwuar: Who you’ve had t-shirted.

Stza Crack: I did have a Wendy O. Williams t-shirt.

Nardwuar: Was there a lot of good times associated with that t-shirt and with Wendy O. Williams?

Stza Crack: Well I never met Wendy O. Williams, though I’m a fan. Yeah, that shirt, you know, a lot of those good times I was pretty blacked out drunk, and then eventually I lost the shirt blacked out drunk.

Brad Logan: But that is a good time in itself, blacked out drunk.

Stza Crack: But I have seen that shirt a lot in photos of me.

Nardwuar: What can you say about Wendy O. Williams?

Brad Logan: Vegan, animal lover, chainsaw wielder.

Stza Crack: Pioneer of vegan and healthy eating in New York City and also pioneer of chain sawing televisions and blowing up cars at clubs.

Brad Logan: And early Mohawk pioneer as well.

Stza Crack: And a pioneer of some of the first famous fake breasts that were not porn related.

Nardwuar: And Brad, I have a gift for you, somebody really important of Subhmans, the only Subhumans that matter, 7 inch.

[Nardwuar hands Leftöver Crack a Death to the Sickoids record]

Brad Logan: Is this the Canadian…this is the Canadian Subhumans.

Nardwuar: This is the Canadian…

Stza Crack: I knew…I thought I was buying a UK Subhumans tape in New York City at this place called Reconstruction Records, and I went home, and I was like god, and I was like this is pretty good, but it wasn’t…

Nardwuar: You bought the right Subhumans.

Stza Crack: It wasn’t the one that I needed at that moment in my life, but I loved it too though.

Narduwar: The Canadian Subhumans, rest in peace the lead singer Wimpy.

Brad Logan: Rest in peace Wimpy Roy.

Stza Crack: They were real activists.

Brad Logan: Those guys were the real deal.

Nardwuar: The Canadian Subhumans.

Stza Crack: Yes.

Nardwuar: Do you still have, Stza, a strawberry chocolate horse in your freezer?

Stza Crack: (laughs) Yes, it is still there.

Brad Logan: That one from the tour?

Stza Crack: Yes. I feel like…

Brad Logan: It wouldn’t die. We couldn’t get that thing to die.

Stza Crack: Brad named it because we put a picture on MySpace or something and you wrote strawberry horse and rider and then I was like, strawberry horse, but I had must been stuffing strawberries. I did a lot of stuff like this in those days when I was like, let’s say I was doing a lot of indiscriminant pill taking and perhaps you know, what do they have that stuff that is here in Vancouver that everybody loves? Heroin. And then I was like, I had been on this 8-hour van ride and I had this plastic horse with a bobble head and I stuffed strawberries down it all day.

Brad Logan: And it is also called cracking on tour, it is also called being on tour too long.

Stza Crack: No, I had fun, but that is not as fun as putting Tofu Pups in a CD player, but yeah.

Nardwuar: I was curious, Leftöver Crack, what is the importance of this record right here, Suicidal…?

[Nardwuar shows Suicidal Tendencies record]

Stza Crack: Tendencies.

Brad Logan: What is the importance? What is not the importance of this record right here.

Stza Crack: Let’s turn it upside down.

Brad Logan: Not only is this an amazing record in itself and a document of Los Angeles hardcore, but this gentleman right here is Mr Amery Smith, formerly of Suicidal Tendencies, formerly of The Beastie Boys, formerly of F Minus, which was a band that him and I had together and it was a really good time.

Stza Crack: And our first drummer in Leftöver Crack.

Brad Logan: And also the first drummer in Leftöver Crack.

Stza Crack: Yes it was supposed to be like this, but somebody, they messed it up when they were doing the negatives, and they accidentally got it upside down, and now forever everybody thinks it is like artistic and great but they actually just made a mistake.

Nardwuar: And I have a gift for you Stza, a Coup 12”.

[Nardwuar presents a Coup LP]

Stza Crack: Oh wow, cool.

Nardwuar: From ’94.

Stza Crack: This is a great song, too.

Nardwuar: What can you say about the Coup and Leftöver Crack?

Stza Crack: Well I have another band called Star Fucking Hipsters, and Boots Riley came in and did a song with us. It was kind of like, there was a few moments in my life where you’re like, holy shit, like how did I get to here where I’m getting to do this really awesome thing with somebody I really respect, and like, I’d say there’s two things that stand out, and one is working with Boots and the other is when we did this Operation Ivy song with Jesse Michaels, that was big.

Brad Logan: That was an ‘oh shit’ moment too.

Stza Crack: It was like there was nothing can really top that. Those two things are kind of untoppable in my book.

Nardwuar: Did you meet Biggie? I know you met Bushwick Bill, you were there at that time, like you were in New York.

Stza Crack: Well I met Bushwick Bill in Austin like three years ago, I didn’t meet any of these people…the only person I did meet in the 90s that I’m really glad I met, I met Ol’ Dirty Bastard in SF in like I’d say ’96 or ’97. The cool thing, well I mean it’s tragic, it is unfortunate that Ol’ Dirty Bastard is dead, he is my favourite Wu Tang rapper, and like one of my favourite rappers of all time, like unmatched as his style, there’s nobody that has done anything like that in hip hop ever and you know, it’s debatable if anybody’s done anything like that before him, including like Rudy Ray Moore and like Blowfly, you know? They have their schtick but they didn’t do what Ol’ Dirty Bastard did. So I was homeless, living in the Tenderloin, or not the Tenderloin, but south of Market, we were living under the sidewalk on Mission and Third Street, and I got to town and somebody dropped a bunch of money, let’s just say they dropped a bunch of money, they were going to drop that money again, so I didn’t give it back to them, and I bought a ticket for my friend Patrick to see Venom at this club in SF, and you know, we spent all the rest of the money on crack and pills and alcohol, and then Venom cancelled. Or maybe it was Mercyful Fate. Anyways, we will just say Venom. And we went there to get the money back for the ticket, and they were like, well you can have the money back or you can have a ticket to any of these other shows. They didn’t want to give the money back. I was like, oh, I’ll go and see Ol’ Dirty Bastard. I was like cool, and so I went to the show, it was a pretty good show, let’s put it that way, it was pretty good, he had a lot of other people rapping and rapping for him sometimes, but at the end of the show he was on stage and some people were getting stuff signed but I was like 50 people back and I was like, my New York City welfare ID, where is it, it’s his record cover, and by the time I got it in my hand he had disappeared and I was like alright. So everybody else is going, getting in cabs and taking buses and getting in their cars and driving back to wherever they lived, whereas I was leaving the theatre and going back towards the Tenderloin through the alleys and that’s where I lived. Like if I went just a few blocks up through the alleys I was under the sidewalk at my place that I was squatting, and there he was, like behind a chain link fence, I saw Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and I was like, you know, he’s got to see this welfare ID, even if whoever it is is going to say hi to the guy on welfare in New York, so I pull it out, and he is like talking to somebody and he gets a grin, just like the one on your face right now, you got to show the camera, it’s like that. And he comes up to me, he comes up to the fence and I was like, I could hardly talk, it’s the only time in my life I was tongue-tied, believe it or not I was tongue tied, and I was like but, but, uh, uh, and I was like, I said something about squatters liking Ol’ Dirty Bastard because we were all dirty. And I was filthy, I was like, you know, I was sleeping outdoors, no showers, Brad knew me at this time. And he went and found a pen, he ran around and got a pen, and he signed his name on it. I still have it to this day; it’s pretty special, he went out of his way to like sign my New York City welfare ID.

Nardwuar: I was going to ask you, Leftöver Crack, about New York punk history, the False Prophets.

[Nardwuar presents a False Prophets record]

Stza Crack: False Prophets are great. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the City and although I was not allowed to go to many shows or like go out late or stay out on the weekends until I ran away from home, False Prophets were always around, and just you know, a great political punk band. Stephan’s a friend of ours, he’s the singer, and he had all these props, he is kind of like the carrot top of Alternative Tentacles I would call it, and, you know, this record in particular is interesting because it is out of print and I did a compilation, I really wanted Destructive Engagement for my compilation, instead I got Bagdad Stomp. But nobody could get a copy of this, there’s no digital copy of Destructive Engagement, which is one of the best tracks, it is probably the best False Prophets song, somehow it’s not on their best of.

Nardwuar: Quote. I think crusties are fine, but Stza is high on the stink meter. He’s been kicked off planes.

Stza Crack: What? Who said that?

Nardwuar: From?

Stza Crack: From what?

Nardwuar: Verbicide Fanzine.

Stza Crack: Ok.

Nardwuar: Fat?

Stza Crack: Wait, have I been kicked off a plane?

Nardwuar: Fat Mike?

Stza Crack: Oh Fat Mike, yeah yeah yeah.

Nardwuar: Your label head said that.

Stza Crack: He did? Yeah, he definitely wasn’t like super happy with how I smelled for a long time. Yeah, that’s true. He’s weird too because he’ll like share a dildo with you, but he won’t, you know, and he’ll be like yeah, put on this latex thing that everyone was naked in all day, but then he’s like, oh you smell bad. I’m like fuck you man. You’re stuck up, who cares.

Brad Logan: True story.

Stza Crack: You’re hurting my feelings.

Nardwuar: I was curious, what do you guys know about the peace comp? This is an important comp, especially the booklet.

[Nardwuar  presents the Peace compilation]

Stza Crack: Yeah this is great, I love this comp. It’s got every band that I liked from the 80s. Like I would be like, is that band on there? Oh yep, they are on there, they’re all on there, every band from Reagan Youth to Zounds. I am guessing that Zounds is on there.

Nardwuar: The booklet is amazing. What do you think about 80s or 90s booklets? What do you think about booklets?

Stza Crack: I love booklets. I think that’s the first thing that after the Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death tape that I had, once I got some of these Dead Kennedys records with these giant newspaper booklets in them, and I was like these are, I would sit there for hours, get stoned and read the booklet and listen to the record, you know?

Brad Logan: Yeah.

Stza Crack: Pretty cool stuff. About this comp in particular though, I put that comp I was talking about, getting False Prophets on, which I think they’re on this too maybe. I went ahead and was trying to make my comp, it was called Against Police and Justice, and early on I had Dave Dictor involved and I started asking bands like Conflict and stuff about having songs for it and they were all like, ‘oh no, not if Dave Dictor’s involved, no way’. I was like ‘no, wait a second, like he’s not actually involved at all, he just gave me a song so they could use his name, I’m just doing it myself’. And then they were like okay, because of this comp. I think a lot of people, I don’t know what happened and I don’t think the story perhaps might never get told fully, but I think it was supposed to be a benefit or maybe…people don’t know where the money went. That’s really, at the end of the day, that is really happened with that comp. But it’s still a great comp and you know what? Fuck the money, it got people like me and a lot, a whole generation of people into political punk and good music, and you know what, if you have to like bemoan, like, losing a few thousand dollars then you’re not a political punk, you’re just a capitalist, so fuck you.

Nardwuar: Okay. What about the FBI hacking into your web cam?

Stza Crack: I have put a little, I have a little piece of tape over it (laughing) so they don’t see me masturbating. Obviously.

Nardwuar: Ba-boom.

Brad Logan: Yeah, weren’t they always able to do that, too? Who cares, you know?

Stza Crack: I mean they put up all those images of us masturbating, like…

Brad Logan: Yeah, I will be sure to masturbate in front of a large audience of people.

Stza Crack: it is a fetish of some people, yeah.

Nardwuar: Stza of Leftöver Crack, what is crack like in Los Angeles?

Stza Crack: When I was buying a lot of it, it was after I was living in Brad’s garage and it depends on how much you had, but 30 bucks would buy you way too much crack to smoke in one evening, let me tell you, so it was apt that we were recording our first Leftöver Crack record, it was really good, you know, but tastes change. I’m not that, I’m not really into crack.

Nardwuar: I thought it was like fettuccine?

Stza Crack: Oh right, well that is one, I’m thinking about this other spot, but when I would go down to MacArthur Park and buy crack, yeah, they had it, they’d like spit it out their mouths and there would be these, they obviously cured it in a little tray, there were skinny tubes of it, you ever had that, the fettuccine looking crack?

Brad Logan: I haven’t had the fettuccine crack.

Stza Crack: It does, yeah. But there’s, I got a lot more crack when I went up the Hill by the highway in the bushes in the dark at night and I was like, I gave them money and they just gave me, handed me a bunch of rocks, that wasn’t actually the fettuccine crack but there’s all flavours of crack I guess, you know?

Nardwuar: Leftöver Crack, where did you discover me?

Stza Crack: Um, I got a DVD at Alternative Tentacles and then we were just watching, Star Fucking Hipsters was watching it on tour like when we would be somewhere, hey they have a DVD player, so what have we got? We have, let’s see, we have Terminal City Ricochet, in the garbage. We have the Pansy Division documentary, that is cool, I will keep that. And then we had, I think we had NOFX Backstage Passport and we had Nardwuar the Human Serviette, the best of. So that was cool to watch, we enjoyed it, it was pretty cool. I feel like a lot of people that you interviewed have never seen you (laughs).

Nardwuar: Thank you Jello Biafra.

Stza Crack: Yeah, Jello Biafra spreading the word. Honestly, watching those, your interviews, I was like, you know, it is kind of sad, I will never be able to get back in that country and so I will probably never be able to meet Nardwuar and get interviewed, but now it is all happening.

Brad Logan: Yeah.

Stza Crack: Our whole lives have changed

Brad Logan: Yeah.

Stza Crack: And this is going to be one of the defining moments.

Brad Logan: It is unfolding in front of us right now.

Stza Crack: It has been years.

Nardwuar: How sad (laughing).

Stza Crack: (laughing) Working with the Coup, Jesse Michaels, Nardwuar, and what else is there?

Brad Logan: Where else is there to go from here? Yeah, there’s no-

Stza Crack: Yeah.

Brad Logan: Yeah, the pinnacle.

Nardwuar: Well thank you very much Leftöver Crack, keep on rocking in the free world and doot doola doot doo…

Stza Crack: Doot doo

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