FROM THE NYHC BOOK ARCHIVES: CHARLES MAGGIO (RORSCHACH)

This interview with Rorschach vocalist Charles Maggio was conducted on January 30th, 2014 for my second book NYHC: New York Hardcore 1980 -1990. Signed copies can be purchased here.

Tony Rettman: Can you remember when Hardcore shows transitioned from being at CBGB’s to ABC No Rio?
Charles Maggio: There was a Born Against/Citizens Arrest show at a bar on Houston Street called Downtown Beirut right around the time there were all the rumors of CB’s shutting down the Hardcore matinees. I think there was a C.O.C show there where someone got stabbed and that was the nail in the coffin for the matinees, so there was a push to find an alternative space. Anyway, at this show at Downtown Beirut, there were flyers being handed out for a show at ABC No Rio. That was November of ’89 if I’m not mistaken. 

There was talk of this other club that the guy from SFA (Mike “Bullshit” Bromberg) was going to be booking called ABC No Rio. The show we first went to at ABC No Rio was Citizens Arrest. At that point, Rorschach had only played two shows at the Pipeline in Newark and was still looking for shows. CB’s wasn’t calling anyone back. To get booked there, you had to know somebody. We went down to ABC No Rio with a tape in hand. Mike Bullshit was sitting at the door and we handed him the demo. I said ‘Hey Mike, I’m Charles and this is Nick and we’re in a band called Rorschach. Take a listen to this and if you have any shows coming up, we’d love to play”. Then he just said, “How about December 28th?” And we were like “Really? OK!”

When we got there to play the flyer at the front said ‘Rorschach and whoever else wants to play: Five dollars’. We played to all of Citizens Arrest, half of Born Against, Mike Bullshit, Neil Robinson maybe, and Gavin from Burn. And that cemented a friendship that still exists in some capacity to this day. 

How would you describe what the CBGB’s matinees became at that time?
When CB’s was ending, there were some distinct groups of people there. There were people there because they loved the music and this was their equivalent of the high school kegger they weren’t invited to. This was the place where they felt they belonged. I think the people that ended up at ABC No Rio were those people. Then there was a group of people who wanted to beat all those people up. Most of the people that ended up at ABC No Rio were the ones who’d stand to the side at the CB’s matinees with their arms folded and not making eye contact. 

I remember there became this constant struggle of thinking “I really want to see this band, but I really don’t want to get beat up”. I think ABC No Rio took away the second part of that statement. Mike Bullshit was the guy that bridged the gap between the two clubs. He was well known at CB’s and a guy people respected. 

Did any of the thuggy elements at the CB’s matinees find their way down to ABC No Rio?
The violent part of the scene didn’t go there because it wasn’t CB’s. They weren’t going to have the same stature there that they did at CB’s. Beating up people at ABC No Rio would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. It might have worked out a couple of their jabs, but none of us would have put up a fight at that point. We were just doing it because we needed a place to go. 

Was there a point where you stopped going to shows at ABC No Rio?
There was no line in the sand where there was a certain show that made me stop going to ABC. I didn’t stop going there, I just wasn’t going there as much. I didn’t stop going to shows there. I just went to shows at different places and saw different bands.  But there was a time in mid-’94 when I went there for a show and my car got stolen. That’s when I thought “I can’t even come here if I want to come here, my car was stolen!” Still today, it’s a great club. I’ve been there more recently and had a great time. 

Prior to forming Rorschach, what were some of your favorite NYHC bands?
I grew up on Sick of it All, Raw Deal, Breakdown, Underdog, Youth of Today; the mid to late 80s NYHC stuff. I would travel far and wide to see them play. Transitioning into the ABC No Rio late ’80s into ’90s, I like Burn, Citizens Arrest, and Born Against.  The Youth Crew scene got a little homogenized, even though that’s what I came up in. It became a parody of itself in a way. ‘Hey, we hate jocks! But we will dress just like them’. That got old fast. The mid to late 80s NYHC stuff like Sick of it All, Raw Deal, and Breakdown I could relate to more. I was a kid in high school that was getting bullied and beat up and here were a bunch of guys saying I didn’t have to put up with this shit and to fight back. 

Could you see any parallels around the country to what you were doing at ABC No Rio?
I didn’t know this was happening there at the time, but there was a club in Berkeley called Gilman Street. I saw pictures from it at the same time where they were leap-frogging and doing silly dances. I don’t remember anyone at ABC No Rio saying “I was at Gilman Street and we should do that”. I think it happened because Gilman Street came out of a violent scene. The Oakland scene was violent. It was a bunch of people who were like “Fuck that, we want a safe space where we can be ourselves and not get terrorized for it”. I think that’s what ABC No Rio was about. We don’t anyone to get hurt and we wanted it to be a safe place. We want it to be a place where you can play music and no one cared what color Doc Martens this guy was wearing or what color flight jacket that guy was wearing or if he had the right suspenders on. That all went away. 

It was almost like a fresh start for me. It was like someone hit the reset button and said “Take everything you like from CB’s and bring it here and take everything you hated about CB’s and leave it there”. It wasn’t too hard to convince everyone there that that’s what we were doing. 

Baked into ABC No Rio’s rise was an open disdain for NYHC bands releasing records on larger independent labels and the marketing of these records, which culminated in a debate between members of Sick Of It All and you and members of Born Against. What are your thoughts about it in the present day?
In retrospect, it’s the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done. I apologize to everyone completely on both sides. I was a twenty-year-old kid who did not understand the grand scope of what was happening. But, I would like to clear up a lot of misconceptions I read about it. 

The debate itself had nothing to do with Rorschach first of all. Second of all, it had nothing to do with Sick of it All being on a major label. The entire concept of that thing was about censorship. It was about the lyric sheet on the Sick of it All record being censored. We did not say Sick of it All sucked. We had no ill will towards them. It was a question of whether or not this was a dangerous precedent to set.  Here we are, punk rockers and hardcore kids telling the record label we are willing to censor our lyrics in order to ‘gain sales’. That’s what it was all about for me. 

At the time, I was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. I was just out of high school. I was the antithesis of the popular kid in high school. I never had a social circle. This was my social circle. Hardcore music was my social circle. I saw the censorship of lyric sheets and the co-opting of the music into popular culture and Hot Topic as a threat to my social scene. I thought it was a threat to everything that meant everything to me at the time. In retrospect, it meant nothing. I regret it, but that’s what was in my mind right then. This music saved my life on many levels. Both literally and figuratively. I felt like if you send the message to a corporate entity that we are willing to bend our belief system to get more popular, that was a threat to me and everything I was living for at the time. Again, I saw Sick of it All more than any other band besides Born Against. I loved all the records. I have no ill will and I apologize profusely. But it was all about a twenty-year-old kid watching his world potentially going to shit. I don’t remember what I said. I probably said some stupid shit. In that room were the three of us and I was a fat fuck. Adam and Sam were the combined weight of me at the time and we were in a room with three guys who we watched on stage and we knew were physically bigger and stronger than us and they had other people around that were physically stronger than us. We felt threatened, so anything we said, we said under direst. We meant not to offend them, but to have an open conversation about it. ”Why did you do this?” “Why were your lyrics censored?” We wanted to hear their side of it, but it ended up being a fuckin’ shit show. 

I know other people have misconstrued it as that we didn’t want them to be on In-Effect and a major label, but that was not it at all. It might have turned into that with some of the other criticism going on from other people. But for the three of us, the debate had nothing to do with a major label. It didn’t start about that, it started about censorship. I now understand their side of it. Their side of it was “Fuck you for criticizing us. We’ve been doing this for years”. I totally get it and I appreciate it and respect it.