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Get a New Perspective with Gabrielle Zwi in “Guns to a Playground Fight”

Someone I feel grateful to have met along my journey is Gabrielle Zwi. Zwi is an artist who has brightly embraced their identity as a Jewish Brazilian-American, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and being autistic and disabled. “My life is inherently politicized,” says Zwi. I had the honor of interviewing them earlier this year for Autism Acceptance Month in April. When I found out they were releasing a song about being a part of the “school shooting generation”, I had to listen. “Guns to a Playground Fight” serves as an anthem for the school shooting generation. 

Originally written for themselves, they wrote this the day after Uvalde and a week after graduating college. The song is a reflection of their time as a student involved in GVP (Gun Violence Prevention) efforts and as a member of Gen Z. “I decided more recently to share it, and hope that it resonates with some of you, whether it reflects your experience or shows you a perspective you’ve been missing. While school shootings and mass shootings make up such a small portion of gun violence in this country, they are all still so normalized that you never hear about most of them.”

The song starts off with “I’ve never lived a single day/ In a world without mass school shootings/ With Columbine in ninety-nine/ You’d think by now I’d be desensitized” As someone born in the time of Columbine, this song speaks volumes of truth. Members of my generation are not surprised when we see news of a mass shooting. We feel naive for believing that things will change. Next week (December 14th) marks ten years since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. As Zwi points out in the song, things are not changing. 

Growing up, we had drills for these and all people did was hope and pray it would not actually happen to them. How many times will this happen before real change is enacted? How many lives have to be lost or altered forever? 

“Guns to a Playground Fight” afforded Zwi the opportunity to highlight contributors who have their own experiences. The cover art is designed by Mollie Davis, a survivor of the Great Mills High School shooting that took the life of 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey. Great Mills is mentioned in the song, along with Magruder— two Maryland high schools which you’ve likely never heard of. “While school shootings make up such a small portion of gun violence in the US,” Gabrielle emphasized, “there are still so many that barely make headlines because of how normalized it has become”. Recorded with Kang Ewimbi at the WMUC Recording Studio, the track features guitarist Jose Ceballos and bassist Oscar Armenta, all students at the University of Maryland who relate strongly to the material. The track is mixed and mastered by Marco Delmar— who is a parent of Gen Z students himself— at Recording Arts in Arlington, VA.

“Guns to a Playground Fight” is now available on all major platforms. Proceeds from the track will be donated to Lives Robbed, an organization founded by families impacted by the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde, TX. 

Check out the lyrics here. 

Find this and more excellent music on the Alchemical Records Multigenre Mixture playlist on Spotify.

Maura Marcellino

Maura Marcellino is studying business and environmental sustainability at George Mason University. When she is not studying, Maura enjoys listening to music and spending time with friends and family.

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Foghat Sonic Mojo 2024 Tour. Fillmore Silver Spring, MD March 9
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Foghat’s Roger Earl Refuses to Slow His Ride

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“Nearly all the doctors and surgeons I know, they all play something: trumpet, sax, violin, guitar,” Earl said recently. “There’s not too many drummers that are surgeons, there’s probably a good reason for that!”

Earl half-jokingly invites his surgeon-rockers to join him and the other members of Foghat onstage at the Fillmore in Silver Spring March 9, where they will be headlining the Rock and Roll for Children Foundation benefit for the Children’s Inn at NIH. Earl, the only original member of Foghat still in the band, will be banging the skins behind guitarist Bryan Bassett and other members Scott Holt and Rodney O’Quinn. “Slow Ride,” the band’s 1975 megahit, is all but assured to be on the setlist, along with tunes from Foghat’s most recent record, “Sonic Mojo.”

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