Strike The Match
Hi. I Apologize for disappearing on everyone. As most of you know I was dealing with health problems for a couple of years. When I made the transition back into normal living and on my own again living in the city, my activities with the label and distro really fell apart. I have struggled for nearly a year with this. Only recently have I been really able to get a grasp on what I what I want to do in regard to my punk activities. Well I think I have made the right choice and so here I am making another attempt to try and contribute something postive to the DIY hardcore punk community.

I owe some nice people trades for a very long time. This is wrong of me and uncalled for. I apologize for this. I would very much like to mend these broken friendships and I would like to follow through with my obligations toward all the honest people that trusted me
I don't know if I will be doing a label for awhile. I would like to send all that I owe and clear my name and then perhaps I will start to be active on the the label front. I do have some things for distribution and I might put them up here in awhile.

Lately I have been working on Upheaval fanzine. It is my work with this zine, which was the crucial link for me to underground DIY hardcore punk many years ago that inspired me to become more active. Perhaps with my rediscovering of my zine and my passion for it, I will reconnect myself as the active person I strive to be

Thank You

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September 29 2004

It is nearly October and I have not made too much progress. I have sent out a couple owed trades but not enough. I still owe trades to Ipank (Indonesia), Bert (Germany), Wan (Malaysia), Luc (France), Manuel (Mexico) and there are even more that I can not remember. I think that maybe by writing about it here I will somehow find a way to care a little more about punk and follow through. But honestly I can tell you that Punk in the USA in 2004 is a complete joke and waste of time. I still care very much about my penpals and trading and my international punk friends, but for some reason I have not been able to find the motivation to do anything. I write letters and emails sometimes and when I get a response I don't write back. I am sick and tired of the trendiness of punk and how cool everything has become. When I first started listening to punk in the mid 80's punks were freaks. Freaks, losers and weirdos. Now punk is for the cool kids. Anyways, if I owe you something I really do want to send it, I will not make any promises about when you will get it but I honestly feel I will take care of it sooner or later. At some point in the next few months I might want release a tape and I feel that I can not justify doing that until I take care of the owed trades. So I hope I will take care of it soon.

December 3 2004

Greetings to all my friends out there. Things are thankfully looking up these days. Many things have happened in my life and although they were bad things, the result was that alot of good things started happening. Today I more or less found a new job. Tomorrow I expect to be hired. I will be working in a deli with several of my friends. It will be the punk rock deli. I am so pleased to be working, I am so excited for the paychecks to start coming in and for me to start living my life again. Regarding the label; I am soon going to be able to send out all my owed trades. I will be getting 40 or so Tropiezo USA tour CDs that my friend owed to me from a while ago. I will start to email all the people that I owe stuff too once I have the money to send the owed trades out with to double check on their addresses. This is the best I can do so I hope my best will be good enough. Once I have all my owed trades taken care of, then I hope to actually start up my new label, Strike The Match!. I think I will be releasing pro cassettes only. My musical tastes are getting more varied these days so maybe you can expect something a little interesting out of me. I have been going to some shows lately, not nearly as many as I used to but I have been getting out a little bit. We have been having shows in our house, "Pink Elephants" is the name of our house. IRA from Colombia, Opus Dead from Spain, NO! from Georgia, Human Order from Chicago, Hero Dishonest from Finland and Endless Nightmare from Philadelphia all played here to name a few. More good shows are coming up in the near future. I am starting a new band with some friends very soon and that is very exciting. I am glad I found my place in Punk again. I really am. Everyone take care.