Rival Schools Re United By Fate

United By Fate ? Maybe hardcore. This post we go back at least 20 years. Rival Schools is pretty much for lack of better terms hardcore supergroup. Fronting the group is one of my all-time favorites, Walter Schreifels.

Rather than go through the list of all the bands and projects.. fuck it. I’ll give you an incomplete but long list.

Known for Quicksand, Walter’s played with Gorilla Biscuits Youth of Today, Warzone plus more. Additionally a founding member of Walking Concert, Worlds Fastest Car, and Moondog. I believe it has been confirmed recently on Axe to Grind https://www.stitcher.com/show/axe-to-grind and / or Where It Went https://podbay.fm/p/where-it-went-podcast Podcasts that Walter wrote a lot of the material for Civ’s Set Your Goals album. 

Secondly, on to Sammy Siegler. One of the best drummers in hardcore and has been in many of the crucial hardcore bands. Most notoriously Youth of Today, Judge, and Side by Side. Cache Tolman played in Iceburn. Between Rival Schools Cache works with Gavin Rossdale in a band called Institute. Ian Love played in some New York hardcore bands. I want to say some facet of Burn or Die 116 but I don’t want to give false information. Someone confirm?

Aside from Rival Schools, Ian had his own project called Cardia. Cardia were fucking great. I dug them so much I bothered them and interviewed them. I still have the interview and I will release it at some point. It was going to be part of Meatsheet 7 before my hard drive crashed and I went into hiding. If you like Rival Schools, and you can track it down you’d be doing yourself an injustice by not listening to Cardia. Ian sings his ass off. The arrangements and songwriting is less riff driven but there is top notch craftsmanship none the less. It’s not super far off from Pedals and United By Fate. More effect and feedback driven.

Sorry for the history lesson sidebar, let’s focus on the photos at hand. It’s just turn the year 2000 and Y2K has not shut us down as the media knuckleheads predicted. (Or maybe not?!?) For employment I am honing my silkscreen skills for my friend Geoff in New Jersey.

In my spare time in which I’m not printing black hoodies with skulls and flowers I am looking for the camaraderie you get from going to see live bands.

Don’t know how I got wind of Rivals School show. It’s that time where we are between digital advertisements on the internet and yet paper flyers are still heavily used to promote shows. Also both Geoff and I, mostly Geoff, stay up on whatever’s going on at that time. We’re one or two people away from a lot of the people in the hardcore scene that are still playing since ’88 ish. So I go up to Brownies in the East Village of New York City to check out Walters new band. 

This is where it gets a little fuzzy but I know I took pictures this night and I asked for an interview and got it. The interview was more than likely mediocre at best and when I got home I realized no audio had been recorded. Never fucked with drugs but it was as if I was on drugs and forgot to hit record. So the Rival Schools interview quickly became a feature in Meat Sheet 4. I was a bit upset with myself but you can pick up this with Rival Schools in it https://meatsheetfanzine.com/product/meat-sheet-fanzine-issue-4-back-issue-rival-schools/

The band? If you know Sammy’s drumming there’s that. Groovy, tight percussion. Crisp snare. Pretty sure they open with Travel By Telephone. It was so good that I was befuddled. That minor chorded? intro into the first verse ?

Travel By Telephone hits you over the head with melodiousness.

If I remember correctly, Walter might not have had the chorus lyrics dialed in. He had the melody, though. Much like Rerun from What’s Happening I had an analog mini tape recorder and I recorded a few seconds. As you can imagine it sounded awful quality-wise but I didn’t know when I get to see them again. Luckily they were playing a few days later or weeks later I can’t remember at the Melody Bar in New Brunswick ?

It is very possible the Melody Bar happened first and then Brownies in August 2000. Two Rival Schools shows happened in one weekend, the first was so good I made sure to attend the 2nd. I don’t know if it really matters I don’t know if anybody can corroborate such small details. It’s possible Melody rocked so hard I went into the city to see them. I had to see if the quality was there. It most definitely was.

Back to the set somewhere in there Everything Has Its Point is in the set. I was super stoked because that’s a song that was from pre Rival Schools – World’s Fastest Car. Also Used For Glue (The Sound That Can’t Be Still) also from WFC is in the set .

In a live professional gig setting, they were nothing short of incredible. Ian and Walter complimenting and playing off each other. Cache is a beast. Heavy sounding tone. Effortless looking but anything but easy. He can also play with bass behind his head. Seems like a cheap trick but if you can pull off such things and not miss a beat, why not do it?

If you play a string instrument go to hardcore shows a lot this is not your one-trick all down stroke player. Cache has power and complex rhythm skills.

Another song.. instrumental, called Grunge Model.. for some reason reminded me of a Johnny Marr type of tone. It’s a simple structure but it sounded really good played with two people. Walter playing heavy ass Les Paul and Ian Love with a triple Sunburst hollow body. You get all the thickness of the Les Paul complemented by the reverb heavy hollow body. Quite certain Daydream, Good Things, Accept The Compliment, and Get Center are in the set. Walter turned reddish purple during Daydream‘s focused scream.

For such a small club Brownie’s sounded great. That club was a special downtown small room. Will cover more stuff that happened there another time, lest you think I was a local there I was not. Pure elation to see Rival Schools there. Your guy here followed them around like a lackey.. I simply just don’t care. To me they were that good. I reckon I’ve seen them probably three or four times(maybe more).

The New York City gigs and Maxwell’s did not disappoint. I probably rolled up there by myself but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. I was not going to miss them. The potential for them to get super popular was and is there, even today. Hope you enjoy these ramblings and photos. Are we United By Fate? Chance? I don’t know.

Stay tuned for more. Thank you Walter for the interview that never was. I’m still kicking myself for not pushing play.