About Me
A lot of shit happens in thirteen years. This is some of it...
The September, 1995, breakup of Vrkolaka-- a Baltimore-area thrash band that could empty out a club 30% faster than a drug squad raid-- left bassist/lead singer Scott Ashlin with a handful of unused songs and nobody with whom to play them. Over the first three months of 1996, Scott mercilessly annoyed everyone he knew who played a musical instrument, trying to talk them into forming a new band with him. Eventually, after switching to guitar expressly because he couldn't play it worth a damn, he succeeded in conning ex-Anal Invader Thom Yusko and John Raley, the younger brother of Vrkolaka guitarist Marc Raley, into joining him on drums and bass respectively, and the Schismatics were born. The new band spent most of the year frantically writing and not-so-frantically rehearsing, and finally played its first show late in December in a miserably cold College Park basement affectionatively known as the Meat Locker.
The original lineup didn't last long. John was an extremely busy guy, and between school, work, and the theater troupe in which he was actively involved, there just wasn't enough time to spare for a band. Early in the summer of 1997, he was replaced by Jeremy Parmentier, who had formerly played guitar in Lemon Joy, and bass in a string of suburban Maryland bands that nobody much remembers. It was during this second phase in their career that the Schismatics first developed into a band that anyone might actually want to see, and the next twelve months saw them playing with the likes of the Nobodys, Snuff, Those Unknown, and a then-obscure Boston street-punk act called the Dropkick Murphys. In January of 1998, the band went into the studio for the first time, and recorded five songs at the University of Maryland's WMUC-FM. One of these songs was featured on the American Punk Records compilation This is American Punk, Volume 1, while another appeared on the Sneezeguard records comp Dear Fred: Standby for the Next Objective; the remaining songs from the WMUC session, along with three more recorded at Phase Studios a couple of months later, became the Schismatics' first EP, Wicked City.
All the momentum that had gathered behind the Schismatics was soon lost, however, because in August of 1998, Thom moved to south to Florida for college-- those of you who live down there may have seen him playing drums for Stick Shift. Drummers are a vanishingly rare commodity in and around Baltimore, and it would be a full three years before the Schismatics would have another one to call their own. In the meantime, the band made do by borrowing drummers from other bands for a show here, a recording session there. Perversely, this period brought the Schismatics some of the best bookings they'd ever had, including shows with Oxymoron, Submachine, and even the UK Subs. It was also then-- between January and February of 2000-- that the second EP, They Won't Stay Dead, was recorded (though it wouldn't be released for more than two years).
Finally, the Schismatics got lucky again, and crossed paths with Nick Saulsbury, of Banned from the Basement and the Pro-Choice Vegans. In September, 2001, Nick's brother, Vinnie, asked the Schismatics to help his band, Cherry Chrome, salvage a show that all the other bands had cancelled out of, suggesting Nick as a fill-in drummer. To Scott and Jeremy's delighted surprise, Nick wanted to do more than just fill in. With the lineup completed at last, the Schismatics began playing regularly again, both with local acts and with touring bands like Graves and Slaughter and the Dogs. They Won't Stay Dead finally saw the light of day in June of 2002, to be followed by a full-length album, Acts of the Apostates in December 2004. Over the next four years, the Schismatics would remain one of the few constants in a city where bands and venues alike frequently have lifespans no longer than the rats in the alleys. They made forays into DC, Arlington, and Philadelphia, and after a few abortive efforts got a genuine tour of the Northeast off the ground in the Summer of 2008.
The Summer of 2008 was also when Jeremy finally decided he'd had enough. He now plays guitar for Bukkake Party Tonight. Scott took advantage of Jeremy's departure as a chance to go back to playing the instrument he actually enjoys, and the band recruited Justin Liebermann (formerly of Input 2 and Deadfinger) to take over on guitar. Justin's first show was in February of 2009, followed in rapid succession by his first venture out of town with the band. Now the Schismatics look ahead to widening the reach of their reign of auditory terror, and to getting their increasingly vast backlog of unrecorded material down on tape. But that, as the man says in the Conan movies, is another story...
