HIRED GUNS

FARRAH SKEIKY, PHOTOGRAPHER
Farrah Skeiky is a photographer, creative director, and art framer living in the D.C. suburbs. She self-published the photo book Present Tense: DC Punk and DIY, Right Now on leap day 2020. In a past life, she played bass in Homosuperior. In addition to punk and hardcore, Farrah visually documents her fellow Arab Americans, drag performers, queer gatherings, community organizers and actions, and hospitality professionals. That’s just a more sophisticated way of saying she'll make the table wait before eating so she can take photos of the food. But she swears it’ll only take a sec, promise!

See: Once More, With Feeling, page 104

JOHN LIAM POLICASTRO, WRITER
John Liam Policastro is a writer and musician, or in other words, he depends on bartending to house and feed himself. Born and raised in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, John began playing in punk bands at the infamous club The Rat when he was 15 after lying to his mother that he was actually going to play basketball in rolled-up jeans and his grandfather’s combat boots. Now in his 40s, John still answers to the nickname “P-Boy” and believes the movie Cape Fear is just What About Bob? for people who don’t feel like laughing.

See; You Still Really Got Me, page 30

SYLVIE SIMMONS, WRITER
Sylvie Simmons is the biographer of Leonard Cohen, Serge Gainsbourg, Neil Young, and Motley Crue, as well as cowriter of Debbie Harry’s memoir. She was born and raised in London but escaped to California in 1977 to write about rock. She’s been writing about it ever since for all the music mags worth writing for—CREEM, for one, and since the ’90s, MOJO. Along the way she’s won some awards and released two albums as a singer-songwriter, thereby confirming the old trope that music journalists are all wannabe music stars. She’s about to record a third.

See: I Confronted Metallica on Their Own Terms!, page 92

ZACK CARLSON, WRITER
Zack Carlson was born in a pizza and will die in a gutter, probably in Austin, Texas. He co-created and hosted the Vice TV series Outsider and produced the Western film Damsel starring Robert Pattinson, which did pretty well in Russia for some reason. He also co-created and wrote the Adult Swim shows Hun kg Bogs Go Ding-Dong and The Suplex Duplex Complex. More relevant to readers of this venerable rag, he conceived, edited, and co-wrote the morbidly obese book DESTROY ALL MOVIES!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, from Fantagraphics Books. Ladies, he’s single. For good reason.

See: Now It Can Be Told, page 74

RICHIE BUCHER, COVER ARTIST
Richie Bucher is a multidisciplinary artist, musician, and writer based in Berkeley, California.

Friend to freaks and aliens, the quiet and the kind, the last ones picked, punks and posers and underdogs alike. What is up my ninjas.

He is responsible for creating the cover artwork of Green Day’s Dookie album, as well as other East Bay punk iconography since the 1980s.

Leather of cruelty.

ROB WALTERS, PHOTOGRAPHER
Raised in a military family, Rob Walters grew up in all corners of the U.S. At age 8, with a Kodak bought for the trip, Rob documented his family’s move from California to upstate New York and has continued to point a lens at his world ever since. By the time Rob was in his 20s, Georgia, California, New York, New Hampshire, and Illinois had all been considered home. Rob has lived and worked out of Omaha for the past 20 years. Spring 2024 will mark the completion of a self-published artist’s book of Rob’s work, Prettg People Disappear.

See: Heartland Heroes, page 66