We write the songs; we need to hear. We play the music that is splintering in our ribcage. We decide on lyrics as we are pushing a mop across the bar room floor. We write them on parking tickets and pharmacy receipts. We practice our drumming technique on our knees while waiting at bus stops and party's we hate being at.

What do we do with a world so full of isolation? All this overtime, under paid, overworked hours? How do you take the power back from those who couldn’t care less if you lived or died?

Music is revenge. It is the words you didn’t get a chance to say. It’s all the feeling's you could never express to the people who were never listening. Make them listen.

Lend them your eyes, make their ears bleed, and rip out your guts. Throw them down on the table, next to the Happy Meals, cell phones and cold drink. Why not scream in the middle of the Walmart Isle that you can’t take this shit anymore? I certainly, can’t.

STGMA started with no audience or genre in mind. Dylan, Skillet, and I are just old friends who used to play in a band together 10 + years ago for maybe 6 years? We were called CRACKBOX but Myspace is dead. God is also dead but punk is not dead so if you remember that band, we still have records!

I moved away. Dylan, Skillet and John Wood started a band called MEA CULPA, R.I.P. They were a band for about 5 years. If you are looking for a garage rock, 1970's punk album at it its core, they are a good band to check out.

After six years as a street outreach, worker in San Francisco, New Orleans called me back to its swampy skyline. (The experiences I took in from that work is what influenced our band name) Just as soon as Skillet, Dylan and I were beginning to write new songs and enjoy our reunion, Dylan received a full ride scholarship to a school in N.Y city because he has always been the smart one. (Do not let this go to your head, Dylan) but good job, we are proud of you!

We recruited John Wood from MEA CULPA to join STGMA on drums and then Skillet brought Lexi on board because Skillet had been studying Jazz for years at that point and met Lexi through the Jazz world. Within a couple of months without ever playing the instrument Lexi nailed the bass. Skillet saw a jazz musician with a pink mohawk and daisy dukes and knew she was our gal. Skillets jazz band is called Bayou Manouche and they are insanely talented. New Orleans is "alright, if you like saxophones".

Once upon a time we were dumb kids playing in a punk band. We were not particularly good, but we got better. We spent months in a van with a cracked windshield covered in graffiti booking basements shows, squats and dive bars. We repeated this punishment again and again. We did it for pennies. We drove each other nuts. We drove each other’s, significant other nuts. We took our rock n roll seriously, we belonged to the church of Joey Ramone, MC5, The Kinks, The Gits, Wipers, New Model Army, PJ Harvey, The Cure, Poison Idea, The Zounds.

For some, music is the difference between life and death. It is the difference between finding meaning in this dismal existence and not just being a cog, working to live, living to work, losing value as we age, fuck ups on the assembly line.

The kind of music we like to play, post punk, punk, rock’n’roll, whatever you want to call it, can be a thankless gig. It does not pay the bills, but nevertheless we wouldn’t trade it in. It IS worth it. Anything that keeps you from becoming suicidal, homicidal, or worst yet a complacent, sack IS worth it. When weeks of depression got the best of me, getting into the studio was the one thing that got me out of bed.

Thank you for playing with me. Thank you for being my chosen family and thank YOU for listening. Music is therapy. I fucking need it. Have you read the lyrics?

As the late, great, Jimmy Hendrix once said, "Raise your freak flag, high" and I hope you do.

In love and rage,
Corrina