Sean Taggart

Sean Taggart is the guy that has drawn covers, flyers and merchandise artwork of some of my favorite, and probably yours, since you are reading this zine, bands ever! Agnostic Front, Crumbsuckers, CroMags, Murphy’s Law, Carnivore, Napalm Death or even Backtrack, Twitching Tongues, Downpresser, you name it! I was super happy when he agreed to do that intie for Soulcraft, so I tried to ask him as much as ‘not typical’ questions I could ask. Enjoy!

Interview conducted in early April 2020. Drawings provided to SF by the artist himself.

www.seantaggart.com www.instagram.com/seantaggart

meaning that I make a meager amount of money from selling my art. Sometimes, actually a lot of times, I have to take full time jobs. My most recent one was at the national grocery chain. Sol Rosenberg or Jack Tors are pretty much my favorite Jerky Boy characters. They’re a little more silly and outrageous. Honestly I’m rarely in the city these days, but whenever I’m in the E. Vill. I eat at Mamoun’s, great shwarma! People usually refer L.E.S. when really, they’re talking about the East Village. Katz’s is where I go when I’m down in the Lower East Side. I grew up down there, so it’s kind of annoying to hear people mix the two together. Dudes from Queens and Brooklyn are to blame for that! Ha!

Oh man! First off the world has been overdue for a pandemic, so it really doesn’t matter where it came from right now. If it turns out to be wet markets from Asia, so what? Dormant microorganisms in the thawing tundra are ready to emerge, who knows what kind of Pandora’s box that’s going to be! Yet another example of the enormity of the global climate crises. Or just as easily come from our shitty agricultural practices, Mad Cow Disease anyone?

I was friends with them all, it was just me making a contribution to the scene. When bands actually got signed and there was some money around, I was lucky enough to be able to do it and get paid as well. But think about it, if the NYC happened elsewhere in the country, Duluth Minnesota for instance, I doubt very much we’d be talking right now. Not to take anything away from our scene but it sure does help to be in the greatest city of the U.S.

Racism tried to invade it but I think it has failed. America is, has and always will be racist. The only way to stem the tide would be a unilateral change, i.e. reparations to African Americans, a reinstatement of the sovereignty of Native Americans + reparations, an actual eradication of poverty. Clearly that goes against the 1%’s agenda, so realistically it’s never gonna happen. Fortunately, I’ve never been a realist! As for the scene, I’m not really a part of it anymore, so it’s hard to say. But judging by the pro-Trump posts I see in social media I’d say racism is alive and well in the NYHC scene. Back in the day I had plenty of friends who used words like nigger, Jew (funny how the actual name of a group of people is used as a slur), and spick freely. Speaking for myself I turned a blind eye to it. Kind of like a racist having a black “friend”, I was non-racist with racist “friends”. Sometimes I’d challenge them, but y’know compassion is something you can’t talk someone into. I can thankfully, say that quite a few of them have flipped their stance and understand that people are people, good and bad.

For me, hardcore is for disaffected youth. A way to blow off personal, societal steam. Music for angry misfits, aggro nerds, and unloved knuckleheads. After a while, the conformity of non-conformity started to bug me. I wasn’t alone, we lost a lot of misfits and nerds. Eventually the knuckleheads were pretty much the only ones left. Modern hardcore is not made for me and it shouldn’t, it’s for now, today’s youth. I did see the Bad Brains at Afro-Punk fest in Brooklyn, 8 years ago. Great show!

I own a fair amount of art, and I have to say that living with abstract art is really cool. Abstract paintings have a way of unfolding itself to you over time. Representational art does this too, but abstract art more so. Dada is my favorite movement. No Dada, no punk rock! German Expressionism is a close second. I love all art, from Bugs Bunny to Caravaggio.

I wouldn’t steal any, because art is for the people. If I were rich enough to privately own great art, then I am an enemy of the people. Although an early Max Beckmann would be nice ;)

Yeah I’m kind of divided on that one. I grew up NYC in the 70s so I wrote graff, I sucked but it was fun! So when graff started hanging in galleries I was happy for the writers for getting some props and $$$ but it smelled of rich elites co-opting as usual. As for street artists, I was, back in the day, a big fan of Haring and Basquiat but when they broke in the art world I thought it was more co-opting. Plus, I didn’t think they merited that much success. My opinion on that has pretty much reversed now. Modern street art all looks pretty samey to me. Go to NY, Berlin, Rio, Tokyo it looks the same. There’s no sense of local voice whatsoever. Very dull.

What’s not to like? Actually it’s a treat. I get to tap into my younger self and make the sickest art I can! I turned bands down for years thinking it would be disingenuous for me to do it. After all I hadn’t been part of the scene for years and that would be breaking the rules! Ha! Now I realize kids look at my generation in the same way we looked at previous generations. Artist Big Daddy Roth comes to mind.

Don’t worry I’d never put myself on that list! Top 5 I’d pick today (definitely will be different tomorrow), in no particular order:

The Birthday Party “Junkyard”, art: Bid Daddy Roth Funkadelic “Standing on the Verge of Getting it On”, art: Pedro Bell Nazareth “No Mean City”, art: Rodney Matthews Black Flag “Damaged”, photography: Ed Colver The Velvet Underground & Nico ‘s/t’, art: Andy Warhol

Dub! Ha ha no! Right Brigade!