Lovitt Records
In the summer of 2025, I rejoined my old friend Brian Lowit as one half of Lovitt Records, the independent label where I cut my teeth in design back in the '90s, laying out countless LPs and CDs.
Lovitt played a key role in documenting the east coast punk and hardcore scene of that era, and it shaped much of my creative foundation. With over 100 releases and hundreds of thousands of streams to date, the label continues to resonate beyond its origins.
Now, decades later, I'm back, revisiting classic releases with new physical editions, organizing fresh reissues from the archives, and helping plan what's next for the label.
DIY, and rooted in community.
Live Music
From 1993 to 1999 I fronted Frodus, a post-hardcore band I started with drummer Jason Hamacher. We called our sound "spazz-core," in an attempt to create our own 'genre-meme' which worked somewhat but didn't reach zeitgeist. We toured for six years before splitting up in December 1999. The last record, ...And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea, cut in '99 and eventually released on Fueled By Ramen, is still the one people reference (note: masked cover photograph well before Covid existed).
In 2000 I moved to Los Angeles for a stint in Bluebird, recording demos with producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Foo Fighters) and opening for High On Fire and Queens Of The Stone Age while the band courted record deals. 'Twas interesting but I needed to make my own musical worlds so I came back to DC and put the energy into two projects instead: The Cassettes, which toured the US and Europe extensively with releases on Buddyhead and Lovitt, and Decahedron, a post-Frodus project with Jason Hamacher that picked up roughly where the spazz-core left off.
Nowadays I play relaxing cat-inspired instrumental 'nintendo-hop,' as my friend calls it, as Catbeats.
Frodus, Sweden 1998 (photo: Pat Graham).
Catbeats, Sweden 2026 (photo: Amanda Stiernspetz Fälth).
Swedish Columbia
Swedish Columbia (aka "District Of Swedish Columbia Autonomous Zone") is rooted in Washington, DC's DIY punk ethos and has been releasing electronic and outsider music since 2008. What began with friends from Göteborg, Sweden, and displaced DC natives has grown into a global nexus of sound, home to boundary-pushing artists across genres and continents.
With a catalog that has surpassed 20 million streams and includes releases by El Huervo, Ratvader, Catbeats, Sigh-Phy, and more, Swedish Columbia continues to serve as a living document of a community bound by creativity and collaboration.
All proceeds support ongoing physical and digital releases, as well as annual charitable contributions.
Where it started
Five years at Record Convergence, the underground music cultural hub in Fairfax, Virginia, managing inventory, supervising staff, handling closing procedures, and fielding the question "What's new and exciting?" from particular customers. During that time I turned into a super-powered, humanoid suggestion algorithm built to drive sales.
(Photo: Nathan Burke)
While still at the store in a lower capacity, I did freelance work as in-house graphic designer and pre-press QA at Furnace Record Pressing (then Furnace CD Manufacturing) in Arlington, Virginia, apprenticing under Eric Astor and applying that to what I'd picked up in college classes and through self-taught desktop publishing forays.