Vincent Capuccio (born December 3, 1955), better known as Vinnie Stigma, is an American guitarist and occasional vocalist who is a founding member of the New York hardcore band Agnostic Front, formed in 1980. In 1983, the group recorded their debut EP United Blood, followed by Victim in Pain in 1984. The band's supposed last show was at CBGB on December 20, 1992. Stigma and Miret reformed Agnostic Front in May 1996 and did a few reunion shows in December 1996 since then the

We're Building Something. It Just Takes a Little Fucking Time. October is wrapping up, and things are moving along here at Make America Punk Again. Maybe not as quickly as I'd like, but we're making progress. When I started MAPA, the idea was pretty simple: connect punks, support bands, share stories, and hopefully help get some things happening in the real world again. That hasn't changed, and we're slowly putting the pieces together. FIRST, A BIG FUCKING THANK YOU We want t

Ronnie Rock “A busted nose, a fucked-up shoulder, and a scraped-up knee. Good times.” I got out of work at 1 PM for a 2PM matinee show in Providence. It was an hour and forty-five-minute drive. I drove like a maniac, but I got to the city. I got to Amelia’s house and did a quick change from work me to Punk me. Drank a beer and we got an Uber. It was a short drive across town to Alchemy. It felt really good to be back in my home city of Providence, it always does. Unfortunatel

Ronie Rocker Let’s face it, punk was supposed to be offensive, and somewhat scary to the rest of society. We were rebelling against society, authority, religion, and the cultural norms we thought were outdated and old fashioned. Punks deliberately rejected mainstream social norms, polite middle-class values through aggressive music, shocking fashion, and anti-establishment politics. Punks wore ripped clothing, safety pins, leather jackets with controversial symbols, and brigh

Ronnie Rocker There are more things we can do as punks to build a scene and community. MAPA EVENTS I have already talked about putting on shows in my local area. That hasn’t been as easy as I had hoped. Finding bands, no problem. I have a handful of punk and hardcore bands ready to, I just need a venue. But there are a lot of other events punks can put on for punks. PUNKS IN THE PARK I want to do an event called, that’s right, PUNKS IN THE PARK. So, what is it? Basically it i

Ronnie Rocker Before you could just go out and buy decent hair spray, gels, and pastes, before Manic Panic and non-traditional hair color dyes you had to do it yourself. Let’s face it, if you want to dye your hair blue all you need to do is pop down to the drugstore or local beauty supply shop and look around. There are a lot of option from the now traditional punk option of Manic Panic or any of the other more semi temporary options. It’s easy and it’s pretty cheap. Same go

Ronnie Rocker Lisa Gourley was an armature photographer in the Providence, Rhode Island punk and underground music scene. She started out with a camera and a love for music, punk, and the club scene in the city. That was it. She showed up all the time and took pictures. From there her photography skills grew, along with her number of cameras and video equipment. She started out small, a novice, and became a professional. Local shows became a success by bands if Lisa Gourley w

Ronnie Rocker Back in the day we had this zine called Maximum Rock n Roll. It was basically a semi-professional newspaper, but you could get the scoop on the scene, the bands, and other shit. It was usually found at your local record shop. There was something else there too. On a rack, tucked in were small, photocopied zines. These were not usually professional. Most of them were crap. But they were made by kids in the scene and they were free. These homemade zines were made

by Mean Gene Cripple Fight, Kalamazoo Cripple Fight from Kalamazoo is the latest talk of the area. It features five veterans of the local punk scene (Thee Elder Gods, No Breaks, Bronson Arm, Rock and Roll Bad Guys, Terror Cell). They just dropped their first release, ON TAPE: The Black Edition, which was released on cassette tape only. Cripple Fight focuses lyrically on social and political issues, the roaring vocals laid over a music backdrop of raging, fast hardcore punk.

Websites, Zines, Shows, Merch, and the Work Behind Making America Punk Again Here's something you probably don't think about when you visit MAPA. This shit takes a lot of work. That's not a complaint. I started Make America Punk Again because I wanted to do this. I wanted to find punk again. I wanted to find bands, find shows, meet people, build a local scene, put out a zine and eventually put on affordable punk and hardcore shows. I knew that would take some work. I may have

Finding the Punk Scene Again By Ronnie Rocker This is my story. I've always said Providence was my city. I was born there. I lived there for most of my life. At one point, I knew that city like the back of my hand. Then I left. In 2014, I moved to Connecticut. I still go back whenever I can, but I'm just going to say it: Providence has changed. Of course it has. Cities change. People change. Scenes change, but when you've spent most of your life somewhere, there's a weird fee

No, Punk is not dead. People have been announcing the death of punk for almost as long as punk has existed. The Sex Pistols broke up. Punk was dead. Hardcore came along, Punk was dead. Grunge happened, Punk was dead. Green Day got huge, Punk was definitely dead. Hot Topic started selling punk clothes in the mall, really fucking dead now. Then came the internet, streaming, social media and whatever we're calling alternative music this week, and somehow punk is still here. Ther

MAPA. Make America Punk Again. So, what the hell is this all about anyway? Well, if I’m being completely honest, I started MAPA for purely selfish reasons. Ever since I moved out of Providence, going to a punk show has become a chore. I live at least an hour and a half away from most places putting on punk or hardcore shows. That means seeing a band has become a road trip. And let’s face it, I’m not a teenager anymore. Driving two hours home after a show ends at 1 or 2 in the

What If Nothing Is Happening Where You Live? I was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and lived there for a while. Gradually, my family migrated out of the city and into the suburbs. In 1977, we landed in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. I'm not going to call it rural. It was definitely the suburbs, but there were farms. A lot of them. North Kingstown is a seaside town with this quaint little village called Wickford that looks like it belongs on a postcard. When I started school

You Don't Have to Be Good. You Have to Start. Okay, so let's say you're a "musician." I'm using that word pretty loosely here. Maybe you sing. Maybe you play guitar, bass, or drums. Maybe you can't play for shit, but you know three chords. That's okay too. Maybe you don't even own an instrument yet. There have been plenty of punk bands that started out sucking like nobody had ever sucked before. Some got better. Some didn't. Some of them probably sounded better because they n

Punk of the month started in 1988 in a Zine called Crash and Burn. The article featured a local punk who was somehow involved in the Providence scene. Sometimes the person was interviewed, sometimes that punk was the subject of roasting, and sometimes a random person was chosen, and an article of satire was generated to have a bit of fun. Back then people loved it, let’s see how it goes today. Punk of the month is designed to feature some punk in a local scene who is trying t

Basement Show (Image from Times Union, The Hearst Corporation) Find a Room. Find Some Bands. Make Something Happen. So, you went to a punk rock show, or hardcore, if you like, at a nightclub. They had a wall of sound, lights, a sound guy, a pretty professional setup. They also charged you more than 25 bucks to get in. Drinks were seven or ten bucks. There was a big merch table, maybe even club merch. They had a budget, a bank account, and a team of people whose job it was to

Let me take you back to 1982. So, here we are sitting around listening to a mixed cassette tape of Black Flag songs that we got from someone. Whoever made the tape made their own cover for it, using a ballpoint pen to draw the Black Flag logo and images from their albums. As we're listening, we're thinking, Black Flag, these guys are fucking awesome. I want a T-shirt. Here's the problem. It's 1982. Where the hell are we going to get a Black Flag T-shirt? We couldn't just orde