By Chris Rotolo
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – How do we arrive at a particular point in time?
The breakneck pace of our day-to-day lives often fails to leave us enough precious seconds to consider the path we have traversed, all the turning points along the way, and where we want to end up. But it’s a question AncientArtifax founder Brian Gorsegner regularly examines.
Gorsegner is a punk-rock music historian and archeologist who collects and preserves items related to the genre.
“I’m not an expert by any means. I was born in 1983 when all of this was happening or had happened already. But it’s a thrill to learn about it all from those who were there, and uncover history like the treasure it is. It’s definitely a niche thing, but I’ve always loved the Indiana Jones-ness of it all,” Gorsegner told The Two River Times.
The Atlantic Highlands resident may not have to dodge poison darts in a jungle or outrun boulders in a booby-trapped cave, but for fellow enthusiasts of punk, his ventures can be just as harrowing.
During the recent excavation of a musty basement dwelling in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Gorsegner uncovered an original concert flyer from the first performance of the seminal hardcore outfit Bad Brains. The box he dug it out of was situated below a portion of water-damaged ceiling; evidence of a burst toilet pipe and ensuing flood.
“This was pre-internet promotion. Music communities were smaller back then. There might have been 25 of these printed because only 25 people really cared,” Gorsegner said. “It’s an artifact that doesn’t exist, but here it is. Here is this piece of paper, printed at some local library, torn off a wall in D.C. and stored away in a box in a flooded basement… and somehow it never got wet. How is that possible?”
This particular underground trove of punk-rock lore belonged to Nathan Strejcek, lead vocalist of the short-lived, but crucial D.C. outfits The Teen Idles and Youth Brigade. These bands and their members were at the heart of an independent movement near the nation’s capital that led to the founding of Dischord Records, the eventual home of influential acts like Minor Threat, Fugazi and Scream.
The latter of which featured a teenage powerhouse on drums by the name of Dave Grohl, who in 1990 joined the little-known Aberdeen, Washington group Nirvana and, alongside Kurt Cobain and Krist Noveselic, ignited the grunge revolution. Grohl would go on to found the Foo Fighters, who over three decades have released 10 full-length albums, five of which have gone platinum. In 2015, during a sold-out concert at Citi Field in Queens, New York, the Foo Fighters invited Bad Brains on stage to join them for a song.
In that moment, Grohl asked the capacity crowd to join him for “…the greatest moment of my life.” That statement brings us back to the start: How do we arrive at a particular point in time?
For Gorsegner, his personal journey can be traced back to a grade school cafeteria, where he found hardcore-punk music for the first time and discovered a sense of community unlike anything he had experienced before.
“Everyone in high school falls into something and I hadn’t felt it before. But this was a positive outlet that felt right. I can do this. And at this point, for multiple decades, I’ve been figuring out how to take the ideology that I adopted and apply it to my life in different ways; to start my own band; to record our own music and travel the world; to start my own business; to have a family. It’s helped me build my life in a way that I’m proud of,” Gorsegner said.
Gorsegner is the owner and operator of Wired Booking, an entity that organizes national and international touring artists like Chris Gethard, Colleen Green, Marissa Paternoster and Screaming Females, Catbite and many more.
In December, Gorsegner and his Garden State hard-core band Night Birds played their final show at a sold-out House of Independence in Asbury Park. The event marked the end of a nearly 15-year run.
Gorsegner said the break was inspired by another life moment – one of clarity – he experienced during the height of the COVID-19 health crisis.
“It was a time of forced reflection. Touring was halted. Live music wasn’t happening. It gave me time to think about the lifestyle I wanted to have; the interests I wanted to pursue; to analyze Wired and make some changes. It was an opportunity to not be full-speed-ahead because you have to pay the bills. It was a moment to actually think about where I wanted to focus my energy and who I wanted to focus it on,” said Gorsegner, alluding to his wife Amanda – an artist and grants administration manager at The Arts Institute of Middlesex County – and their 9-year-old daughter Dottie.
He also received a call from Michael Burkett, better known as “Fat Mike,” of the Los Angeles punk band NOFX, regarding the opening of the world’s first Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas. Burkett announced the project in October and the 12,000-square-foot facility is due to open its doors soon.
“I always had a passion for collecting punk arti- facts, but that call to help curate this museum was a big push to go out and try to find museum-caliber items,” Gorsegner said. “It’s also given me an opportunity to invite my family into this, to turn it into a family road trip and create a shared experi- ence with them.”
In June, the Gorsegners embarked on a Midwest mining expedition to the home of Todd Swalla, drummer of the former Detroit-based band Necros. Along the way, they made pitstops at Hershey Park and The Andy Warhol Museum, before digging through Swalla’s archive for gold.
Inside, Gorsegner said he found a letter from a teenage fan postmarked 1983.
“This kid was talking about how much he loved the band, how much they meant to him, and if they could send some free stickers. It was written by Dave Grohl,” Gorsegner said. “This is all about discovering where we’ve come from. And explaining that if you like this band, well it wouldn’t exist without X, Y and Z. I connect with that.”
In addition to museum curation, Gorsegner said he also has plans to publish a photo book of his findings and is working on television docuseries related to AncientArtifax. For now, you can follow along on Instagram @ancientartifax.
The article originally appeared in the January 26 – February 1, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
