16 Mar 2026 15 min read

Rag Mag 37

The Clay -Middle East Combat Area - photo by creature

What's up punks? Headed towards World War 3, soldiers being deployed on the ground in Iran, threats of nuclear war, all to distract from the Epstein files. What is this, discharge lyrics? I dunno, pray for peace and fight back. Here's some Confuse lyrics to explain my thoughts on the matter:

merciless game break out
through only his call
people are driven mad by pain
he enjoy the game
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
he keep in the shelter when he tired of playing the game
he press the button and everybody die
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

In this week's issue, Velvet Deluxxx interview's Rosie from Portland, Maine punks Freak Phone, Wasteland Chick drops part 1 of a new short story - Coconut Shrimp, The Fight Report by Chessy Renee, and as always, Creature's Double Feature.

As if I don't talk about (chaos non) music(a) enough, here's the soundtrack to this week's issue, blasting out the anti-war noise (and discharge, always discharge, but I think these bands all knew that): Vaxine/Last Survivors split, Disclose/Besthoven split, Ferocious X flexi, Confuse - Spending Loud Night, Crow - Who Killed Dove?, Mie-City Hardcore 2 comp, Asebestos - s/t, War Crimes - The True Face of Bombings (underrated ripper for sure), Last Bomb - Firing, Gas - The Day After flexi, Atrocious Madness/Why? split (don't sleep on that Why? side - killer electro drum machine dbeat madness), and Gai - Extermination flexi.

Hit us up at ragmagclub@proton.me with flyers, art, feedback, column ideas, or just to say hi and let's talk about PUNK! We archived columns and music reviews on the new site (rag-mag.ghost.io), so check it out.

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Whats up Rag Mags , Hope everyone is surviving out there. I am SO OVER this fucking winter. No more snow , no more cold PLEASE! One thing I do to stay warm is play music and go to shows. ( I highly recommend it!) I know someone else that likes to jump around on stage so thats why I thought we should interview her this week. She’s a farmer , a teacher , a rock n’ roll freak - It's Rosie from Portland, Maine’s very own Freak Phone! Hope everyone enjoys the interview and stay safe out there . Also its shitty out so don’t be afraid to help or check in on your neighbors —- Velvet Deluxxx

V -When was your first performance and how did it make you feel ?

R - My first performance was a dance recital at 6 years old. My “hip-hop” class performed “man I feel like a woman” by Shania Twain, which passed for hip hop in Buxton, Maine in 2002. We got to wear pleather pants and lipstick and even though I didn’t really know the steps I was intoxicated by the glamour and the back stage swarm of energy. I have always loved attention.

V -Freak Phone is your first band right ? Was there something that made you like " I gotta sing!" or push you to start a band?

R- Freak Phone is indeed my first band, which started in winter of 2025. I had been going to shows for 10 years or so and realized that dating musicians was no longer satiating, I had to get closer to the flame of rock and roll. For me, and I think a lot of other women, desire, fandom and self-actualization can blur together. As a kid I filled notebooks with lyrics and t-shirt designs for my imaginary band but it took until I was pushing 30 to say “fuck it” and give it a shot.

V-How do you feel when you're on stage?

R -I kinda black out when I’m on stage, but there are moments when I can pop my head out of the water and see the room with a wide angle. If it’s going well, it’s thrilling and scary like riding a bucking bronco, if it’s not I can feel my cheeks go red and I start acting desperate and crazy to win the crowd over.

V - You guys have been playing a bunch of shows! Any particular moments on stage that stand out?

R -We recently plaid College of the Atlantic which is a tiny liberal arts school in Bar Harbor. The kids up there had said they were hungry for aggressive music and went absolutely ape. It was definitely one of our favorite shows to date.

V-We've all played to basically an empty room. What do you do when this happens ?

R -An empty room doesn’t really bother me. It’s a good time to try out stuff that I’ve been day dreaming about. The more awkward the room is the more determined I am to get a head bob from a bar fly that didn’t know there was live music happening that night.

V- Do you have any pre show / post show rituals?

R -I like taking a long time to do my makeup and pick out my outfit, I also like the Red Bull with monk fruit extract.

V-Do you have any artists that influenced you to get on stage?

R -As for inspirations, Patti Smith and other untamable women come to mind. Another being my grandmother Alison, a diva on and off the community theater stage. I went to school in Western Mass and looked up to a lot of the bands who were a little older than me. Valley Gals, Guerilla Toss, Hardware were around at the time. I also got to see Period Bomb perform at the legendary Cold Spring Hallow in Belchertown MA, I think seeing Cami from Period Bomb drink her period blood from her diva cup like a shot of tequila changed my brain chemistry.

V-Ok, I have to ask - have you ever stage dived?

R -It’s on my vision board for 2026.

V -Is there anything you want to tell our Rag Mag readers?

R -You gotta be willing to make bad art and humiliate yourself if you ever want to make good art! Thanks Velvet! My ego is getting dangerously big from getting to answer all these questions about myself and I apologize in advance to my bandmates.

The Fight Report by Chessy Renee

Whenever you are thinking HOW DARE THEY?!? - know I am with you, dude!! Welcome to::: the fight report.

Another week - another fight! Today I actually have got only a little to discuss - it’s gonna be a small message… but mighty.

I was speaking with a friend this week about abusive relationships - actually I think I have inadvertently had several conversations that have ended up here in the past week. Maybe the taste of warm and sunny weather since the time change has been leading me and those around me to loosen our reins a little bit and speak more freely about what weighs on our hearts. I dunno!

But anyway, something occurred to me in one of these conversations this week: One of my good friends had to learn how to refuse to accept abuse, as an adult, in her personal relationships. I discussed with her that I think I learned this at a younger age than her, and she agreed. But whenever one learns it, I think this is such an invaluable lesson - so I wanted to write about it.

I want to tell you guys what I tell this friend all the time - because I also need to hear it myself all the time; it’s easy to forget when the world wants to beat us down:

There are a lot of people who thrive on making other people feel small and weak and insignificant. Power hungry people want to push you to the point of convincing you that you have no choice but to submit to suffering. I’m here to tell you - you don’t deserve that bullshit.

I heard once (from an instagram comedian) that there is no gain to suffering - except for greedy and power hungry people. She was saying this to make the point that if a person or a system subjects you to suffering in order for you to gain something - this system is cruel and unjust.

And yeah, IT IS! what the fuck? Why? Why should you be made to suffer for anything? For whose benefit??? Learning how to submit yourself to suffering will never lead you to self

actualization or toward growth. It’s not virtuous - it’s likely just someone taking advantage of you.

I also know (from talking to friends this week) that a lot of y’all grew up Catholic! From what I understand, there is a WHOLE CAN OF WORMS to untangle around suffering, for those of you who had to deal with that. And I’ve gotta say, at least that part of catholicism… uhhhh… no. If that’s what it’s about, I’m good on all that… thanks, but no thanks.

And to everyone who has had to deal with someone taking advantage of them, making them unwillingly submit to someone with more access or power than you, or any of that : I am genuinely sorry that that has happened to you and you don’t fucking deserve that. The reality of the world is that some people are just fucking cruel. Some people are really really bad. You have to fight the urge to trust just anyone. You have to find the good people, and you have to fight to be one of the good people who other people find.

So get out there and do something good motherf***er –

Here’s some fights to support:::

Charlyne Yi has made a fun little EP on Bandcamp and (some) proceeds are going to a mutual aid fund in Chicago, seems cool!! - gay song I liked this one referencing heated rivalry

Check out the Coolidge Corner Theater Union, they just held a strike authorization vote!! So keep your eyes peeled for more action around that - CCTU on IG

Make your calls - 5calls.org

And as always, bring food to your local community fridge:

https://boston.eater.com/maps/community-fridges-boston

Alrrrighhhttt my dudes, take care. 👊👊👊👊

Coconut Shrimp part 1 - by Wasteland Chick

I sat down with my mother, pen and paper in hand, ready to record all that would come from a simple yet complex question: “What is your life story?” When I’d first asked her this question many, many years ago at age 4, my mother would only give the simplest of answers. But, as we both grew older, my mother’s trust in me seemed to grow, thus leading her to promise that the full details would come once I had come of age. At 17, with a history assignment on our relatives’ lives, my mother decided I was ready enough to hear her tale.

She slid a ceramic blue plate onto the coffee table between us piled high with her own original take on coconut shrimp. When I was a little girl and my mother had first served this timeless dish to me, I’d asked her why she had made it. She simply smiled and told me happily that it was an old family recipe her mother had made for her when she was my age. I’d asked her what made it original and an old recipe when we could purchase a tin of this at the local food truck market. She’d grinned again and told me each of the ingredients, and these same ingredients now sat steaming on the ceramic plate before us: shrimp fried in avocado oil, tails cut off and served on the side with salt, and lemon drizzled on each and every piece.

We each plucked a delicious piece of traditional seafood, and my mother began to speak: She said that she had grown up on the Mangrove Isles, a small island community sandwiched between a forest city and a bustling town, but she had grown up in a simple row home with white wood and red trim. She said it was just like every house on her twin streets, but my mother said that it had the charm of swan neck palm trees around the back and a little lemon tree adorning the front patch of lush grass. My mother smiled and said that the lemon tree in the yard was the sole reason she knew to pair coconut shrimp with lemon juice. She said that her father was a fisherman who delivered “exotic” Mangrovian Isles fish to other cities, and her mother was a housewife.

My mother said that every year, a Navy Unit would travel to the Isles to take a rest and make some repairs. It was how she met my father, she said with a wistful grin. When she was 17, a Navy unit called Unit 366, and a man had caught her eye as he was sitting on the boat deck when the ship pulled into the harbor. My mother said that it was like a movie, like a dream. His unit pulled in and she saw my father for the first time there and then: he was tall, dark-skinned, handsome, and looked to be not much older than her. The unit and him stayed in the Isles for only a week, and her family invited the whole unit over to dinner at their house. Almost everyone joined them for what they called an “authentic Mangrovian Isles” dish of coconut shrimp; Lemon drizzled on top, tails cut off and served on the side with salt. Only my father refused, my mother said, aloof as ever and wanting to eat his own ration tin of coconut shrimp; Greasy, no lemon, too much salt, and the tails still attached. My mother said that this should have been her first red flag about my father.

To be continued…

Welcome back to another creature's double feature. Winter finally seems to be ending in New England and I actually made it out to a show on a Tuesday night. Luckily providence gig time has improved over the years and I was outta there by 11:30 instead of 4am.

Local loud fast sludgy punk band A Monolithic Dome was playing, and my bandmate texted me that the The Playful Bunch was great and fronted by the Philly Rotisserie Chicken guy, so I had to come check it out. Me and Wasteland Chick usually listen to the Best Show on Tuesdays, so I missed a couple of bands and I think the lineup changed a little as well. I walked into Lost Bag and I caught the end of a band's set and missed their name (and they weren't on the flyer), and they were playing classic 77 twin guitar punk sounds, which was an unexpected surprise. I spent most of the set transfixed by the drummers glasses constantly looking like they were gonna fall off but hanging on by magic. Next up was Russian Tsarlag who played a quick set with a short film as the center. Always a good time.

Philly band The Playful Bunch was up next, fronted by none other than the Philly Rotisserie Chicken guy (who I believe used to live in PVD and I was told was a classic hard dancer ). Set started off with a one-note riff by the guitar player while he shouted What? and Wooly Bully over and over and over and I knew I was in for this one. Guitar player had that secret shredder vibe and busted out the wah pedal and I was not disappointed. Repetitive, loud, and way more punk than I thought it was gonna be, and they threw in a couple covers of old providence bands and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen which Jake went nuts for. It was already 11, and that's the music cut-off, but A Monolithic Dome set up and played a killer set of their loud fast punk sludge. They had a really great song with the drummer building up the tension pounding on the floor tom (I think they broke 2 or 3 sticks during that song) before the heavy release over and over. Just what I needed on a Tuesday night.

A Monolithic Dome - Live at Lost Bag - Photos by Creature

Now for more blatant self promotion, I just put out a new solo album under my Well Intended moniker called Notes About Natalie Wood. Alien landscape exploration, put it on loud and zone out. If you want one, just ask and it's yours.

I also realized that ghost platform's s 9 panel gallery view was actually perfect for scanning one sheeter zines. Here's a recent one I made. Enjoy

Records of the Week

While putting together this week's issue, I was blasting a bunch of dbeat and crusty anti-war records including the Mie-City Hardcore 2 (Howling Noise Crusties From Gates of Hell) comp. on MCR Company, featuring Alive, Contrast Attitude and Deceiving Society. Sick comp, but I pulled it out because long-time Mie-City hardcore punks Confront put out a sick new LP called Guilty of Not Guilty that I can't keep off the turntable. Classic japanese hardcore sound with some of that local dbeat/crust flavor thrown in. Cool introspective lyrics on this one. Total ripper and keeping the spirit of Mie-City Hardcore alive!

A couple week's back Saccharine Tryst's head honcho Joe sent me a package with his latest release, a lathe reissue of the 2025 demo by Portland, Maine's Freak Phone and then Velvet Deluxxx sent in an interview with the singer Rosie, and I knew I had to check this out. Been blasting this since, with it's quick catchy punk and righteous anger (plus an unexpected Richard and Linda Thompson cover). Can totally see why Joe put this out, it rules! Reminds me of the punker garage rockers of the late 2000's underground, replacing the sunglasses and striped shirts with punk attitude. I dunno,"I don't need you, fuck you pay me." Hope I can catch them live soon!

Soul Song of the Day

Soul song of the week is Ace of Spade by Overton Vertis (O.V.) Wright. I'm the ace of spade baby, you can't beat me. Can't beat that smokey voice and those memphis horns sound killer.

That's it for this week's Rag Mag. Here's some flyers and keep sending stuff in (ragmagclub@proton.me).