*2023 stock* Tales from the Skinny Apartment is somewhere around the 20th or so Painted Faces release...Drucker has long lost count. He runs/curates gigs (and records at) the Skinny Apartment, his dwelling place in Ridgewood Queens, which some folks have called the "realest DIY zone in NYC." He also rips in Dead River Company, Big Hiatus, Shecky, Canyon River Blues and countless other unknown subterranean improv zoner outfits. "Ripping" involves keeping it freaky and weird and ripping sets wherever/whenever, ie always being down to perform whether in a kitchen or a packed ballroom....no diva bullshit, just plugging in (or going sans electricity) and playing...always giving it your all...

Ridgewood Rippers are the crew of artists that populate Ridgewood and the loose "scene" around the Skinny Apartment...much of it is in jest, a self-inflated mythology of nonsense which is pervasive in all rock and roll "scene" histories. As a student of rock/pop history, Drucker is fascinated by the loose associations that connect folks from various zones together...i.e. Miles Davis and The Grateful Dead...it's all the same though, the labels and genre distinctions are completely arbitrary. We're all in this together, now more than ever...to be a "ripper" is simply to "rip"...no nonsense!