Hardcore has always thrived in the margins—local shows, hand-dubbed demos, and regional scenes that barely reached beyond their zip codes. That’s what makes the Redding Hardcore Archive so vital.
Spearheaded by musician and lifelong scene participant (and No Echo contributing writer) Thomas Vanderpol, the project is collecting and uploading obscure demos, EPs, and long-forgotten recordings from Redding, California’s hardcore and punk past. Through both the Bandcamp page and companion blog, Vanderpol is piecing together a sonic history that might otherwise fade away.
I caught up with Thomas to dig into what drives his archival work, the memories that resurface when uploading dusty tapes, and the hidden gems he believes deserve a second listen.
Tell a bit about your personal history within the Redding Hardcore community.
My interest in punk started in elementary school with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and then Warped Tour compilations in middle school. My youth group gave me access to a drum set at 11 and would book touring Christian punk bands, so I’d go to those shows, but I didn’t start going to local hardcore shows until I was 13 or 14 years old.
My first band around that time was a pop-punk called Liability Waiver. We had an originals, but we would also cover Green Day, blink-182, and MxPx. We practiced at the thrift store / lunch room at Redding Adventist Academy (where the other members went to school) on Cypress Street.
Eventually, we started getting into the Victory bands of the time like Silverstein, Thursday, and Hawthorne Heights, and pursued a sound in that direction. We changed our name to Cypress The Band and recorded one song that is up on the archive, but never played any shows. This group of Adventist students was really connected to the local hardcore scene for some reason and the Venn diagram between Adventists and hardcore crossed over with vegetarianism.
The other interesting intersection was hardcore and BMX. In those early days a lot of kids were straight edge, vegetarian, and rode BMX. It was an interesting confluence.
Teagan, who played bass in Cypress The Band, burned me the Minor Threat Discography on CD-R and told me that it was really important. After hearing about Set It Straight and Minor Threat, I immediately knew that I was straight edge (still am). She took me to my first show at the YMCA, which was Parker (Terror-style tough-guy band), The Lines from Chico (Three One G-style band), Social Concern (all-femme pop-punk band), The Melodramatics (ska band), and Set It Straight (straight edge hardcore).
My friend, and Cypress bandmate, Brad’s grandparents took us to the show (I was spending the night at their house that night) and we called them to pick us up (it was about a 25-30 minute drive for them) before The Melodramatics started. We thought that Set It Straight was going on, so we ended up missing them. We were devastated. I bought Strike Anywhere’s first CD from somebody out of a Vans shoe box full of CDs.
That summer, plenty of bands (I specifically remember Broadway Calls and Dangers) would come play the park, coffee shops, and backyards. Broadway Calls came here so much, people thought they were from Redding. They even filmed their music video at the Caldwell Rec Center (I wish there was a copy of it on the internet, but Matt Koenig told me that they didn't have the rights and now it's lost forever). By that time, most bands would go straight from San Francisco to Portland or Seattle.
Cypress The Band ended at some point and Brad and I started Chaos, Thus Far. That band lasted off on and until about 2010. We started during the peak of 2000s white belt fashioncore with synths, which is what we’d see at the mall or at school, but ended up being shaped more by our local scene, which was predominantly hardcore punk.
We recorded one CD that’s up on the archive that I am really proud of. We ended up sounding like Botch and Converge, which was the perfect expression of what I was getting out of (metalcore) and what I was evolving towards (more straight up hardcore).
Around that time, I was starting to go to shows at 924 Gilman in Berkeley, which is like 3.5-4 hours away from Redding. I’d make this round trip drive with friends in a day and get home at like 4 AM, and probably go to work or play drums at church the next morning. My first show there was with Redding local band The Separation (a '90s-style crusty hardcore band that was the continuation of Set It Straight) who was doing local support for From The Depths (Catharsis side project).
I used to have a camcorder video of the show that I made for a project in a community college music class. It felt like I was there every weekend after that seeing bands like Killing The Dream, Touche Amore, the React! Records showcase, to name a few. I really wanted to move to Berkeley, but it just seemed unattainable, so I settled on Sacramento.
The Separation was responsible for bringing a lot of vegan bands to Redding and would host a lot of potlucks before shows. Run With The Hunted from Arizona was the band that tabled literature that I would take home that inspired me to go vegan. I went vegan on my 18th birthday and still am 16 years later.
Before I moved away, I played drums for some other bands like Forte Emprise (amazingcore), Damaged (hardcore punk—emphasis on the punk), and bass for the first lineup of Stress Relief (power violence).
What first inspired you to start digging up all these obscure hardcore demos and releases from Redding?
I am a collector by nature. As I kid, I used to collect everything I found interesting, whether it was Star Wars toys, bottle caps, or movie stubs. When I got into hardcore, I started saving flyers, CD-R demos, stickers, buttons, patches, t-shirts (I still have a bunch of old size small and medium shirts), zines, set lists, and records. Today, I am the defacto person that people offload their old collections to.
I find joy in going through these relics and figuring out what to do with them. Lately, if I’m given a bunch of merch, my thing has been to redistribute whatever I don’t keep for myself to friends. Dennis from Internal Affairs / Berthold City gave me a shitload of shirts a few years ago and he made me promise that I wouldn’t sell any of it if I decided to get rid of it.
I also have made efforts to return it to people from the bands who have kids now that may not have saved things. I recently graduated from a size medium to a size large and I had a huge collection of shirts and hoodies from The First Step that I mailed to Stephen and Aaron. Doing stuff like that feels good.
Back in the day, I’d get a CD-R, upload it to my iTunes library, and listen to it on my iPod (the way nature intended), so a lot of these were kicking around in a primitive digital format already. I started uploading them some stuff to my Google Drive in around 2018, but forgot about the project for a while.
In 2020, I was laid up for a week after an appendectomy, and began the process of uploading more of them. At one point, I had three laptops going at once (my oldest was putting stuff onto an external drive, my middle was uploading directly to Google Drive, and my newest with the fastest internet was registering the Bandcamp, downloading stuff from old Redding Blogspots, and converting the files from MP3 to WAV).
I had a couple of the albums saved in draft mode on Bandcamp, but then I just ran out of time and didn’t go through with it. I shared what I had on Google Drive with friends and they stashed it away in their own archives.
Recently, I did an interview with Redding expatriate Azy Relph (Panic, American Nightmare 1.0) about his old band Falling Action, and it really lit a fire under my ass to get the Bandcamp going again. He had mentioned a bunch of bands that I knew weren’t on the web and it just really inspired me to get it going.
I made this mistake of cleaning up my Google Drive and accidentally deleted a bunch of the files saved for the project. I also discovered that a lot of the links from Blogspot I had previously used were now dead. I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but then I just started texting everybody I had previously sent stuff to, got numbers from people that I hadn’t connected with in years, and eventually started acquiring these files.
I bought a disk drive to USB-C off of New Egg and started ripping these discs to my laptop. Azy had also sent me this big list of Mediafire links (that were thankfully still active) back in 2021, that he had previously gotten from Duane Harris (Some Still Believe, Allegiance, Caged View, Malinformants).
One of the coolest things to come out of this is that my friends Brad and Kenny have been living right on the other side of the Willamette River from me in Vancouver, Washington for years. I haven’t seen or talked to them in about 9 years and they’re dudes I’ve known since middle school and high school, respectively. I was connected with them through this project, and now we’re picking up right where we left off in our friendships. We saw Baroness together this weekend.
How do you decide which ones make it into the archive?
This is an interesting question, because initially, I was like it has to be hardcore--no exceptions. If that was the case, I’d probably have like 20 releases from 10 bands on the page.
I realized that what I am actually doing is telling a story of a multifaceted scene that’s driven by one central component—DIY. Hardcore is not just a sound. It's also a mindset. That’s why you have bands like Fugazi or Sick of It All that are sonically all different, but at the end of the day, they are both hardcore.
At this point, I am compiling hardcore, punk, emo, and indie releases onto the archive, but the emphasis is on hardcore. I also try to think of it as being like a mixed bill show too. In a small town, you have to make do with what you have, so we would have shows that were like T.R.Y. (fast posicore band), Calvin Black (local rapper), The Hopeless Romantics (pop punk), and Living On Empty (metalcore). This is a representation of how diverse the sound of our scene was.
I also started the project with the intent of only uploading stuff that has not previously been available, as to not put duplicates out there, but in talking with people like Duane, the shared vision of this project is that it is a document that should be all encompassing.
I am working on creative ways to include stuff that’s already on Bandcamp (like his band Some Still Believe, who are linked in the “recommendations” for now), whether it is a discography, a collection, or something else—I want it to be differentiated somehow from what’s already out there.
When you rediscover a rare tape or CD-R, how do you go about getting the clearance to upload it to the Bandcamp page? Have there been instances where you can't find anyone tied to the band to get approval?
One of the things I did in 2020 was develop a project plan spreadsheet (anyone who knows me well shouldn’t be surprised by my utilization of a spreadsheet) where I listed all of the releases that I could think of, who I could possibly contact for it, when I contacted them, and their response. Everyone I reached out to said yes.
I shared this concept with my friend Leroy (also a former resident of Redding) who lives in Olympia and runs a boutique label called New Knee Records. He puts out vinyl and tapes for any bands that seem interesting to him (which is a pretty wide variety) and has implemented the project plan as a checklist of sorts for his releases.
He knew Duane back in the day, so this made inroads for him to release tapes for Duane’s band Caged View. He also released the second pressing of the Blu Blaz (one of my bands) demo tape, After the Fall (old Redding metalcore band), and a handful of other things. We discussed doing a Set It Straight tape discography, but that never materialized.
In the process of uploading old material, how much restoration or remixing do you do to preserve the original crackle, hiss, or flaws? Do you ever feel tempted to clean it up too much?
There are some releases that I’ve wanted to do that with, but it comes down to a few different things—time, money, and interest. I also not an engineer by any means, so doing this part by myself is outside of my capabilities.
The only release (so far) that I’ve actually done this for is Infinite War’s Don’t Fear the Reefer. My pal Charles Chaussinand gave it a nice mix and master. Three members of Infinite War now live in the area—Sean, the first singer, is in Beaverton, Brad, the guitarist, is in Vancouver, and Curtis (ex-Dry Socket), the second drummer, is in Portland.
You showed me some examples where you created new artwork for some of the releases.
So some of these only existed on CD or on MySpace and all you got back in the day was a burned disc or the digital files. So now, artwork and the track titles can be the two hardest things to track down.
I had to resize a lot of the older artwork, so for things that were scans of cassette j-cards, or I had found uploaded to Blogspots, they needed to be reformatted. In doing that, I realized that I could create stuff for the stuff I had that didn’t have art. I use Adobe Express (because I’m not a real graphic designer), so that has it’s limitations, but here’s been the process for some of them:
- Boys of Summer: I found an image of Don Henley’s "Boys of Summer" single and kicked some ideas around with Noah Prado (JimmiRig, The Red Robot, Young Generals, elder emo) until I got his seal of approval.
- Youth League: I don’t know if this one ever had art, so I took the crossed bats from Integrity’s “Bringing It Back” design, since they were a baseball themed band.
- Release the Hounds: I think with this one, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and just went for it. I sent it to Dylan O’Brien (also of T.R.Y., Waterproof Radio, Forte Emprise), the guitarist/songwriter, and he instantly said it was perfect.
- The Separation: This one was fun. It’s basically a rip of the Smashing Pumpkins “Everlasting Gaze” CD single.
- Infinite War: Since this one was important to me, I wanted to do it right. I was searching for images of a reaper smoking weed and I found the perfect flash of that that actually said “Don’t Fear The Reefer” (the title of the release) on Redbubble of all places. I reached out to the artist, Brynne Verbel (Lady Serpentine Tattoo in PA), and she sent over the file for me to use. I added the pot leaves and the Berthold City font. I feel like that was a good contrast to their intersection of stoner riffs into hardcore.
What has surprised you most about the Redding hardcore scene once you saw all these demos side by side—similarities, forgotten bands, or artists who sounded way ahead of their time?
I think what has stood out to me the most is the Redding emo scene. Bands like Boys of Summer, Wayside Elementary, and Still Life were just as good as their contemporaries. This doesn’t surprise me, because members of Knapsack came from Redding, and this would have been their peers or a generation older and that’s one of the best emo bands ever.
I also love seeing the through line for songwriters. Brad Jones is a good example. We have Cypress The Band (pop punk/emo), then Chaos, Thus Far (metalcore), T.R.Y. (posicore), Release The Hounds (High On Fire meets hardcore), Infinite War (old Ceremony and Trash Talk syle hardcore…with stoner riffs), and finally Iron Mountain (Propagandhi style punk) all up on the Bandcamp.
He also wrote second guitar and basslines for the first Dying For It record (my old band) in 2016. I even found a CD-R of music he wrote when he was 13 or 14 that I returned to him after digitizing.
Redding has a lineage of songwriters and if you look at the release notes, you’ll see names pop up over and over—Curt Baer, Mat Calderon, Nate Payne, Noah Prado, Chad Allen, Brad Jones, Dylan O’Brien, Joey Munoz. I think this is really cool and worth celebrating.
Of the stuff up on the page now, what is a band that most people outside of the Redding region wouldn't know/remember that you think should have been huge?
I think on the hardcore front, T.R.Y., Iron Mountain, and Infinite War were all incredibly talented and should have toured and gone onto bigger things.
As far as punk bands go, Out Of Spite, 3 Out Of 4, JimmiRig and Young Generals all did noteworthy things during their times.
Although I already mentioned some of these emo bands—Wayside Elementary, Boys of Summer, Still Mode, The Mercy Mile, and Hand Over Fist were all considered ahead of their time and are still remembered to people who know.
On the heavier tip, Release the Hounds and Call of the Wild are still mind-blowing to me.
By and large, our biggest, most noteworthy band was Set It Straight. They toured the most (multiple full US tours). Although when they did not leave the country, when they broke up in 2007 people travelled from Japan, Mexico, and Europe to be there. I was there when they got arrested for playing a permitted event in a public park:
Why didn't it happen for them?
Redding is an interesting beast. It’s super isolated and it's a black hole. Most people don't leave. It experienced rapid growth from 1960 to 2000, but all of the sudden from 2000 to 2010, the population only increased by 11%--from 80,000 to 89,000.
In the current age of the internet, booking a tour is easier now than it used to be, but if bands aren't stopping in your shithole town (or asking you to come play bigger cities), it's harder to make connections to book your own tour. For perspective:
- Redding to Seattle, WA: 600 miles
- Redding to Portland, OR: 420 miles
- Redding to Reno, NV: 200 miles
- Redding to Sacramento, CA: 160 miles
- Redding to San Francisco, CA: 215 miles (depending on which way you go it can be a lot longer)
- Redding to Los Angeles, CA: 544 miles
- Redding to San Diego, CA: 660 miles
That's really different than if you are from a place on the East Coast like Reading, Pennsylvania (they have similar populations):
- Reading to Brooklyn, NY: 150 miles
- Reading to Boston, MA: 345 miles
- Reading to Buffalo, NY: 300 miles
- Reading to Philadelphia. PA: 65 miles
- Reading to Perth Amboy, NJ: 72 miles
- Reading to Baltimore, MD: 100 miles
- Reading to Washington, DC: 140 miles
- Reading to Richmond, VA: 250 miles
Leaving Redding, a place that most people don't want to stop and make connections in, is such a monumental feat.
Looking forward, are there any formats (tape, vinyl, cassette, digital-only) or specific unreleased shows you’re still hunting for, and what would completing those finds mean to you personally?
Right now, I am working on a recovery project for Infinite War’s second release, Rage On. Nobody that I know has it, but they all kept pointing me to Joel Hackett. Joel’s mom was my second grade teacher. Joel played drums in Candescent and Call Of The Wild (both on the archive) and currently has a solo black metal project called Yevabog (anyone in the Seattle area who wants to play stuff like this should hit him up). Joel recorded Chaos, Thus Far, so he was kinda the guy people were going to at the time.
When I connected with Joel, he let me know that he recorded all of this stuff on Logic, but doesn’t have a Mac anymore and only had the project files. I opened up the sessions on Logic this weekend and exported them to him this week. He's currently working on a mix and then I'll send it off to Charles for mastering. Recovering this recording would be yet another small win for my group of friends to be able to relive their memories from a bygone era.
Special acknowledgments to Curt Baer (https://reddingmusicarchive.blogspot.com) and Miles Claibourn-Watkins (https://northstatearchive.blogspot.com) for both of their blogs and to Brad Jones for doing Outlier Radio on YouTube. Nate Corbin had quite a bit saved to Google Drive that he shared with me.
Duane Harris also got a lot of this uploaded to Mediafire years ago and I used his download link. I’m not the first to preserve this stuff and I hope I’m not the last.
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Redding Hardcore Archive is available on Bandcamp.
