105 : I Got In The Van With Michael Imperioli From The Sopranos, Vinnie Stigma from Agnostic Front and Eugene Hutz From Gogol Bordello
What I learned hanging tough with a true crew of lifers.
What does it really mean to be a lifer?
I think it’s less to do with the amount of time you spend doing something and more why you do it.
The best ones, the real lifers, aren’t here for the props or the recognition. They are romanced by the process. In love with the risk. They are not here to optimize. They are here to, well, live.
My good friend Eugene Hutz is a lifer.
Since meeting in 2004 for an 8 page article I was doing for my former employers The FADER about “balkan beat” music (Issue 29 with the Bloc Party/Kano cover), Hutz and I have maintained a very close psychic and creative connection.
He’s helped me out in a few very tight pinches (marriage takes work, my friends) and I’ve done the same. If you check the small print on the credits section of the documentary film that came out last year about him and his band Gogol Bordello called Scream Of My Blood, you’ll see my name. I didn’t edit or produce the movie but I had a hand in helping it get made and sold. Hutz hired me for the gig because he thought I was the one person who could speak Hutzian and translate his universe for the beancounters.
Since Eugene and I are homies I didn’t feel bad about basically inviting myself to hop in the van and tag along with him and a few other notable lifers for a gig at the semi-legendary venue the Ottobar in Baltimore.
I dig Ottobar and had been there a few times, the most memorable being a 1999-ish east coast tour stop with “brutal prog” fashion and music icons the Locust, another group who took me under their wing and let me hop in the van just on GP. Nice people. I think the Strokes may have ripped off their fashion sense. They invented tight pants. No lie. RIP Gabe Serbian.
The Econoline seating chart for this trip to B-More was as follows:
Row 1: Driver + Sergey Ryabtsev, the virtuoso violinist from Gogol, who is Keith to his Mick. He said about four words the entire 9 hours we spent in the van.
Row 2: Micheal Imperioli, actor from the Sopranos and White Lotus, author, and singer/guitarist for the band ZOPA + the aforementioned Eugene Hutz.
Row 3: Me + ZOPA bassist Elijah Amitin.
Row 4: Little Italy-born NY hardcore legend Vinnie Stigma, the founding godfather of Agnostic Front, who was promoting his new country album The Outlaw released on Hutz’s label CasaGogol Records + ZOPA drummer Olmo Tighe.
Hutz and Sergey backing up Vinnie singing country with Michael’s alternative band opening? Get me there!
I arrived at the pick up location in the LES a few ticks after 12 noon to spot Michael and Elijah standing under an awning of a co-op, both looking vaguely unhappy in the way that anyone who knows they are going to spend 4.5 hours in a van to play a gig in rainy Baltimore would be.
I wasn’t really nervous to meet Michael, as I'm a seasoned show biz veteran, but I was nervous that he was going to think I was nervous, which made me a little nervous.
I wanted him to know that I knew that he wasn’t Christopher, even though he looks just like him. He was very polite and pretty quiet at first. I imagined this was half to do with him being a hardcore practicing Buddhist and half to do with the energy management that is required when you are a very recognizable celebrity attached to a generation-defining TV and film franchise. You gotta protect your energy even if you don’t believe in the idea of a “core self.”
In true rockstar fashion, Hutz and the rest of the guys were late, but we ended up leaving the city at 1.
Since I was the only one not contributing to the transportational or musical end of things, I brought a pound and a half of butter cookies from Veniero's to be a good guest. This might be seen as a bit of a poser move to ingratiate myself to the two very iconic Italian-American artists I was riding with, but I was born in Staten Island and know my way around Rainbow cookies and Florentine biscuits so I give myself a full pass. The cookies were a big hit. Never arrive at a group gathering empty handed.
One of the best parts of being thrown into tight quarters with strangers is seeing rapport develop in real time. Once we hit exit 9 on the Jersey Turnpike and rode past my alma mater Rutgers, we were fully in the zone.
We all talked a lot about music, which was a real treat for me. Total nerdery.
Hutz was prophesying that psych rock is going to be the next big thing and played us deep cuts from UK spacerockers Loop and Stooges-cosplayers Thee Hypnotics, two bands who put out their first albums in the mid 80s.
“Any assholes can try to copy Iggy and the Ashtons but good luck actually doing it. These guys are it, man!”
To kill some time in Delaware we played a game where you had to name bands who went on to much greater success after losing their original singer. Elijah cleaned up on this one, naming AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Black Flag, and Iron Maiden in one pass. Hutz and I argued about whether New Order counted because Joy Division was technically a different band.
Being a Spiritual Creative Director™ I asked Michael a few basic questions about Buddhism, like who gets to decide who the next Dalai Lama will be and if it’s hereditary. It’s not.
Stigma was pretty quiet but did share that he was texting “Ian” aka MacKaye aka the dude from Fugazi and Dischord and Minor Threat about coming to the DC show in a few days. In his world, everyone is in a band you love and still represents for the old school. He’s the best.
A few other random gems I managed to jot down in my Notes app.
Michael re: having PMA: “Positive Mental Attitude, big deal. Who are you, L. Ron Hubbard?”
Stigma re: his last day job before AF was his full time thing. “It was a no show by the Holland Tunnel. I quit and smacked my co-workers with a 2 x 4 and ran off to go on tour.”
Hutz re: gurus. “These guys, man. They are like sub-influencers.”
And for all you Sopranos superfans, Michael talked to Hutz about Kundun. He liked it. The only other Michael/Christopher life/art timeline jump occurred in northern Maryland. Michael went to check out a Christian missionary pop up (prayer up?) that was parked 150 feet from our van at a truck stop. The missionaries asked him - without seeing the rest of us - if there were any Ukrainians in his party and slipped him a cartoon about Hell in Ukrainian.
Hutz is Ukrainian.
Michael was deeply freaked out, like he just saw a black crow and felt a bad moon rising.
Strange things happen when you are in transit.
We rolled up to the venue at 5 and were promptly escorted to the Ottobar’s “green room” which in true Baltimore fashion has two bunkbeds and is covered from floor to ceiling with dick graffiti. I don’t mean dick jokes. I mean throbby, hairy Superbad-style hand drawn dicks. I took a photo so you would believe me.
I don’t want to be the romance buster here but let me say that a musician’s lifestyle is much harder and less glamorous than it looks, especially at the underground level.
Most of us grew up thinking club life is about The Clash palling up with William S. Burroughs and Andy Warhol in rooms full of beautiful and exotic bohemians. The reality is, you’re lucky if you get a bowl of Tostitos and a bottled water brand that is a few ticks nicer than Dasani.
But whatever, none of this mattered. Not to me, and certainly not to the lifers.
The gig was an OK draw, I think around 80 people showed up. My hit was that it was a mix of AF and Sopranos fans who were intrigued by the novelty of seeing their heroes wear different capes, folks who wanted something fun to do on a Saturday night in Baltimore and friends of the bands who were excited to see some old pals. Vinnie in particular has a lot of old pals. He’s 69 and has been doing music since he was 16.
What made this particular gig a minor genius story was that everyone was way out of their comfort zone creatively.
No one was trying to make the “best” music. They were working to make the music that most sounded like a version of them that they - and their fans - maybe didn’t know as well. Big difference.
Stigma, whose name is synonymous with NYHC, was rocking a black rhinestone jacket and singing traditional country songs like a nasal Glen Campbell. Michael, a world famous actor, could certainly find easier ways to make a few bucks than to step behind the mic as a singer/guitarist (the hardest position in a band to hold down by far. No disrespect, bassists.) Hutz had to switch from gypsy punk Iggy-style shaman frontman to country pickin’ rhythm guitar side man for Vinnie.
It was inspiring to watch. Full commitment without crippling perfectionism. A chance to fuck around and maybe fail a little and explore a side of yourself that still remains mysterious. Doing it in front of other people raised the stakes.
All in, a big night.
By the time everyone was done sipping beers, unloading gear, posing for photos, and breaking down merch it was well past midnight and my social battery was completely tapped.
“It’s like herding cats!” I complained to no one in particular, my inner striver kvetching that all of this “wasted time” was very inefficient and annoying.
It was at that exact moment that I became aware of what makes these dudes - these lifers - different and why they are all folk heroes to me and so many others.
They work their asses off (driving 10 hours to play for 80 people for a couple hundred bucks ain’t like flipping crypto) but there’s no addiction to “success.”
Sure, they have goals and ambitions - no art gets made unless someone decides to make it - but it’s nothing like the world of LinkedIn and “marketing.”
It’s super intentional, but not “curated.”
The goal is to exist and through their work, let other humans that know they exist and matter, too.
There’s no lifestyle, there’s just life.
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