OKStupid (Scratch Vox)

In the Spring of 2015, Johnny Mineo spent days upon days at Guitar Center in the Platinum Room playing vintage guitars through some of the World's loudest stacks in hopes of starting a hard rock band to offend the ears of any listener. Within minutes, he was shocking tourists who'd walk in causing spectacle and pissing off employees. Still, he continued to show up for weeks cranking the volume and pushing those pickups to where they forgot they could go.

One day, while looking for cymbals in the drum room, a chance meeting happened with Kiyoshi Chinzei who asked if Johnny was the guy who was always rocking out in the back room. He conceded and the two jammed the very next day. They immediately connected with their degrees in punk/hardcore/even reggae coming together on a couple of Sublime and Nirvana covers.

Experiencing drummer issues with his other band, Holy Smokes, where he holds bass duties, Johnny asked Kiyoshi if he'd like to join that band and through the summer, they played with Holy Smokes at some of NYC's most notable venues including The Bitter End, Arlene's Grocery, Otto's Shrunken Head and Brooklyn's favorite little ditty Pete's Candy Store but still somehow their kindred spirit for loud hard rock felt stifled.

So, in July, they set out to quickly put together an impromptu show at Williamsburg's humble little bar/venue Legion to display their harder efforts with another Guitar Center acquaintance, Marlon Bingen Santistevan and one of his friends under the handle Meat The Freaks but nothing came of it except the departure from Holy Smokes.

Schwick played its first show on September 26, 2015 at The Paper Box as an opening act for The Honey Trap's album release party. The response was very positive and resulted in Slow Suck front-woman, Kik Sab, connecting them with a promoter for The Paper Box's Rock n' Shop weekend fest. Being at an album release party and hearing the positve response, the two of them agreed they ought to have their own material to release and hit the studio in October with engineer whiz kid Matthias Van Ente.

After their second show, an erratic display of angst and energy at Rock n' Shop, they were immediately asked to return and were also given an opportunity to open for Crown Colony and Love Died Laughing at Fat Baby in the Lower East Side.  Johnny called in Marlon from their last project to play bass. He agreed and Schwick played its first show as a trio on January 10, 2016 at Rock n' Shop followed by a well-received crowd at Fat Baby.

They are currently in the studio at NYU finishing up an EP slated for a release in Spring 2016 with a string of shows lined up till then. Guitar Center now has all their vintage guitars in the Platinum Room locked up.

OKStupid (Scratch Vox)

SCHWICK