The RadioActivist

If you've ever seen Franz Nicolay perform with any of the handful of bands he’s a part of, chances are you’ve fallen in love with his delightful mustachioed smile, voluptuous sideburns, skilled musicianship, or the way his free hand flails in the air when singing backup vocals. Well, now there’s a new reason to love Franz Nicolay: his songwriting. Even whilst hopping around the globe with international superstars like the Hold Steady, cult cabaret-punk favorites World/Inferno Friendship Society, moonlighting in punk mainstays like Leftover Crack, the Living End and upstarts like Star Fucking Hipsters, Nicolay squeezed in time to write and record his 2007 demo disc The Black Rose Paladins before his debut solo full-length, Major General . Those already familiar with Nicolay’s various aforementioned contributions will not be surprised by the skillful and proficient musicianship present on Major General , as the multi-instrumentalist demonstrates a mastery of his craft upon a varied

When Cheap Sex called it quits following the death of guitarist Chris Wick in 2007, the punk community lost one of the best hardcore street punk bands in recent years. Not content to wallow in the self-indulgent matters of drinking and fighting like the sad majority of modern street punk, Cheap Sex made fighting apathy and inspiring dissidence their chief priority, kicking out three well-received full-lengths in four years. But with the closing chapter of Cheap Sex came the beginning of Evacuate, as frontman Mike Virus assembled a SoCal street punk supergroup bringing together former members of the Lab Rats, Cheap Sex and the Virus, and Evacuate was born. While not terribly different from the other bands Mike Virus has been a part of, Evacuate leans more heavily on hardcore than the street punk of Cheap Sex or the Virus. The divergence is further compounded by a lead guitar approach that’s much more technical -- even bordering on metalish at times -- than anything you’d expect from a