Jordan Swartz-The Rad Times #21

A cymbal count crash spills quickly into a drum roll and before charging power chords can even join them I am shot through a mental cannon back to 2015. The band Worriers are playing their song Yes All Cops in a second floor brick building in North Carolina, a tiny dark stage in the back of a bar in Chicago, a community art space in Ithaca, a bar in the swamps of Gainesville; I’ve seen them perform this song in a variety of venues. But tonight they’re playing it at their penultimate show at a venue in Portland.

I toured with a lot of bands to a lot of places and the dates I did with Worriers are the ones that always stand out, Worriers showed me the punk I had bought in on. I found punk through The Clash and they set a high bar of what this whole thing can and should be and I drank deep on their anti-fascist, anti-violence, anti-racist messages. I was sold on the idea of an open minded welcoming community and more often than not over these 20 plus years I’ve been in this scene, it’s been aggro white dudes who feel they have something to prove. These songs and ideas gave me a way out of the Conservative Christian town I grew up in, and while other bands along the way espoused some of these philosophies and ideas, no band fully did that for me til I saw my first Worriers show. Lauren (singer and songwriter) created an ecosystem that echoed the words I had traced a thousand times in Clash lyric sheets. They had values and stuck to them, they sung about what mattered to them and spoke up for those in the back and on the sides, and they helped foster a welcoming environment in a scene that still in 2025 is not very accessible if you’re not a cis straight white dude.

A large pocket of the crowd was up front singing lyrics back at the band; arms thrown in the air, rain soaked boots dancing, beers sloshing, and not a single one of them was a white dude and this was the way it was almost every time I saw them play. At their shows, I was more often than not, the minority in the room and I loved that. I’m glad a band like Worriers existed and I hope they’re proud of their place in all of this (gestures broadly), I think it’s easy to fall inline now more so than ever and to stand by your values and build such a welcoming and open environment is not an easy task.

Thanks for hanging!
Be good to each other.

Every time I look at Frances Scott’s Undertow I think about the Coastline Paradox, Scott is doing her best to fight this paradox. First walking the island of Orkney over the span of two years, and now walking other islands in the archipelago, she documents her walks through a mix of GPS, photos, and hand-written notes on maps. This process allows her to document every part of the experience and staying as close as possible to the coastline allows her to document the ever changing landscape with considerable depth. I particularly love the mix of subject matter in the photos; lush natural oceanscapes, remnants of human creations, and a wide range of natural elements living side by side like how she found them.

Grand Designs is my new favorite home show and the house featured in this episode is one of my favorite homes I’ve ever seen, on a tv show or not. It lives with the land as much as a modern home can. It was built to be personal, keeping in mind the environment, lifestyles, and our impact as humans. It even has an outdoor tub! It can take research, energy, and funds but we can all make more conscious decisions on what we buy and make.

Christina Riley is a photographer and writer whose work often focuses on coastal areas. Her first book of essays, Looking Down at the Stars, is out this week. She writes about her time as an underwater artist in residence at the Argyll Coast Hope Spot and the world she found beneath the waves. Her writing is alliterative and lyrical, and her descriptions are visceral and flow from her with a sense of ease. I love the visual connections she makes and the world she opens up that most of us have never explored. She probes her own wonder and curiosities and brings us along for the ride.

I’ve spent endless hours over endless years listening to Terry Gross interview people on her program Fresh Air, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Talk Easy’s Sam Fragoso is admittedly a student of the Fresh Air school of radio and does a wonderful job flipping the script on one of the greatest interviewers of our generation. Gross was as open, honest, and forthright as she has often expected from her own subjects over the years.

Susan Hiller is the type of artist that I love discovering, her body of work is vast and eclectic, spanning over five decades and a variety of mediums. In her own words “I am committed to working with what I call ghosts, that is, with cultural debris, fragments and things that are invisible to most people but intensely important to a few.” I found her work through Dedicated to the Unknown Artists but have loved seeing the consistent threads she pulls through a variety of mediums and presentations, all with a certain clash of archive and cultural anthropology.

For the month of November I will be in Westport, WA. for a residency at LOGE. I have an on going project that is a mix of photography and found objects, relating to debris and our waterways, and I will be continuing this work there. This LOGE location is great for this project as it sits on a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Grays Harbor, I’m excited to see what comes of my time there.

American Something, my series from driving across the country solo will be available as a zine shortly. I’m finishing up the the essay/ ramblings and the design in the next few weeks. As well as a couple other zines coming down the line.