In Defense of Ska Ep 31: Brad Logan & John Gentile (Architects of Self-Destruction: An Oral History of Leftover Crack, F-Minus, Punknews)

Leftover Crack is a band of dumpster-diving, drug-abusing, cop-hating crust punks…so begins the opening section in the book Architects of Self Destruction, an oral history of the band. The story of Leftover Crack is strange—unbelievable at times—and filled with bizarre decisions, weird characters, and as the title implies, copious self-sabotage. They were also a very unique band, formed in the ashes of Choking Victim in the late 90s that mixed ska, dissonant punk rock, and angry black metal in a unique way. 

As unbelievable as many of Leftover Cracks stories are, the fact that these stories are now documented in a book is almost more unbelievable. The author, or rather authors are Brad Logan, longtime guitarist in the group, and Punknews contributor John Gentile. The two collaborated on this project by interviewing a whole bunch of people and stringing together their stories and contradictory perspectives to give the reader an unfiltered view of what exactly happened…as told by those that were there. 

On today’s episode, we discuss some of the stories in the book, like how Choking Victim broke up 2 days into recording their one album, how Leftover Crack wanted to name their first album Shoot the Kids At School but Hellcat Records told them no, and we also discuss the polarizing leader of the band, Scott Sturgeon. 

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon! 

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music. 

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024. 

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023. 

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.