Walter Schreifels – An Open Letter To The Scene

Don’t forget the struggle.
Don’t forget the streets.
Don’t sell out.
And open letter to the scene.

This Sunday proved an otherwise miserable day outside made brighter by sitting inside and listening to some vinyl. I’ve been listening to “An Open Letter To The Scene” all week on my iPod. In my car. On a New Jersey Transit train. On the stree-atht. In my office. But somehow nothing compares to sitting at home on a Sunday three cups of coffee deep and dropping that needle on 180 grams of beautiful warm vinyl. And without doubt as many times as I’ve listened to the Mp3s all week, this is the real deal. People will tell you vinyl sounds better. They’ll give you all kinds of reasons and descriptive terms why. But the only way you’ll ever know why is to sit down and listen to the difference yourself. It’s staggering. But enough about my love of LPs, you get enough of that on this site anyway…let’s get to Walter.

If you’re not familiar with the name maybe you’ll know him by some of the bands he’s been in over the years. Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand, Moondog, and Rival Schools to name a few. Any hardcore collection is lacking if all or most of these bands are not in it. “An Open Letter To The Scene” isn’t a Hardcore album though. At least not on the surface. Schreifels plays the role of acoustic rock singer songwriting troubadour on this release. But that doesn’t mean it’s not chock full of Hardcore either. From his acoustic cover of Agnostic Front’s Society Sucker to his alternate take on Don’t Gotta Prove It by Civ (a song he wrote for them while producing their first album). But the coup de grace of the album is the title track. An Open Letter To The Scene is probably the best tribute anyone has done for Warzone’s Ray Beez since he passed away back in 1997 (and believe me there have been MANY tributes since then). An Open Letter to The Scene is such a beautiful song I want it played at my funeral. I’m not even kidding about this. I’m putting it in my will. Or at least I’m putting it on the FSS and ya’ll have to back me up on it one day.  Other standout tracks include Wild Pandas and Ballad of Lil’ Kim. Like Walter I also often wonder what Lil’ Kim looks like in the morning and what she’s like when her guards down. I think about these things mostly when I hear Lighters Up (one of my favorite hip hop tracks of the last ten years). I once told Brother P that I want that song played whenever I enter a club. You know… if I went to clubs.

As mentioned earlier the vinyl comes on 180 gram heavy stock. It also includes a gatefold cover and Academy Fight Song was nice enough to also send me a poster, some buttons, and a download code. It should be noted that the vinyl version comes with a bonus track you won’t get on the CD. A cover of monsters of shoegaze My Bloody Valentine’s When You Sleep. If those aren’t enough reasons this seriously is one of my favorite albums of 2010 and one I’ll be playing for a long time to come. So get it. And if you don’t know Walter get albums by every band I mentioned earlier that he’s been in too. ” Manic Compression” by Quicksand, “Start Today” by Gorilla Biscuits, “United By Fate” by Rival Schools, and the “Moondog EP” would be a great start.

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