In Defense of Ska Ep 46: Uncle Peckerhead (Matthew John Lawrence, Jeff Riddle)

In Defense of Ska

It’s movie night here at “In Defense of Ska.” Grab some popcorn and go watch the 2020 horror-comedy film “Uncle Peckerhead.” Watch it before you listen to our latest episode because spoilers are discussed. “Uncle Peckerhead” is a great movie about fake DIY punk band DUH. Like “Green Room,” this punk-on-the-road film turns horror. But it’s quite different and involves a people-eating roadie. Fun!

You’ve probably heard us talk about this movie in prior episodes. When we chatted with Slapstick, we asked them if they were aware that this movie had an entire scene built around their song “There's a Metalhead in the Parking Lot.” (They were not). And after we interviewed Augusta Koch (Cayetana, Gladie), she told us that she did all the vocals for the female character in the band, which we mentioned in that episode’s intro. So it was inevitable that we would eventually do an entire episode on the film.

For this episode, we talk to Matthew John Lawrence (writer/director) and Jeff Riddle (Actor, songwriter, Five Hundred Bucks) and we dig in deep. We learn how their history as touring punk musicians informed the film. (Spoiler: Matthew played in a ska band at one point.) We discuss how the writing of the film and the music happened alongside one another. And we also discuss how difficult it was to clean up some of the gore scenes. It even soured a few familial relationships. Check it out and be on the lookout for a DUH album in the near future.

If you’d like to support us and listen to early access, ad-free episodes with bonus content, check out our Patreon!

If you like our theme song, go download the EP Lives by Slow Gherkin. They wrote the opening and closing songs for our podcast. You can get both tunes from their Lives EP. Also, check out Dan P and the Bricks two LPs. They provided the mid-roll ad transition music.

Support the In Defense host Aaron Carnes by purchasing a copy of his book, In Defense of Ska. The 2nd, expanded edition of In Defense of Ska will release in Oct 2024.

Co-host Adam Davis has a band called Omnigone. Their latest record, Against The Rest released on March 31, 2023.

The In Defense of Ska editor Chris Reeves runs a record label called Ska Punk International. They have new releases coming out all the time.

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