Episode 014: One Cool Guy w/ Mike Struening

One Cool Guy was a ska band from New Jersey. Their members consisted of Nick, Dave, Keith, Pete, Stuart, Mark, Mike, Chris, and Dan.

They were founded in 1997 by a group of Union High School musicians. The band played a fusion of ska punk, jazz, ska-core, and what many refer to as ska-rap. OCG followed up the success of their 7 inch record “7 Inches of OCG” in early 1998, with the release “From Downtown”, both released on the Pinball Records label. Hits such as “Bill Kozby You”, “Xample”, “Be With You”, and “Skank Away” were popular with high school teenagers, often belonging to the straight edge movement.

I got extra frontman Mike Struening on the phone and this is what we talked about:

• The instant connection people from the scene have when they haven’t seen each other in decades
• How we usually didn’t know what town’s people were from
• Op Ivy
• Desmond Dekker
• The difficulty in buying music from new bands when we were all broke
• His transition from hardcore to ska
• How someone needs to find the real world video they made
• Were they all straight edge
• What happened at the last show to cause them to stop playing during the first song
• Scene points
• Why everyone besides the bands have a successful career in music
• Will there be a reunion show
• And a shit ton more

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