Interview with Proof of Purchase

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Oral history with Proof of Purchase, recorded on April 17, 2024, as part of the "Uptown Rumble: Heavy Music in The Bronx" project at The Bronx County Historical Society. Two members of Proof of Purchase were present: Gigi (drums) and José (guitar). The interviewer is Steven Payne, director of The Bronx County Historical Society.
In the band's oral history, Gigi speaks about her family's Dominican and Puerto Rican background; moving around between Manhattan, New Jersey, and Dominican Republic before settling in The Bronx; the various Bronx neighborhoods she lived in and the music she heard at home and on the street, her experience attending public elementary and junior high schools in The Bronx and getting into the music program, participating in after-school and summer drum corps and the various brass instruments she played, traveling with the drum corps upstate and up and down the East Coast, getting into heavier music through her sister (who was also later in Proof of Purchase), some of the initial albums that shaped her musically, meeting other metal heads in high school (like Ramon Goatamentise and many others), her wider exposure to the hardcore and metal scene through house parties in The Bronx and at shows in Manhattan venues like CBGBs, her fascination with drums and some of her early influences (like Frankie of Goatamentise/DBH and Alex from Rights Reserved); starting her first band, a black metal band, with her friend Roach; and her musical hiatus during the later part of high school and getting back into playing after meeting her neighbor José from Burndown/Starve.
José speaks about his experience growing up in Brooklyn for the first few years of his life and then moving with his family to Puerto Rico, where he had to learn to speak, read, and write in Spanish; his early fascination with music, especially merengue, salsa, and bachata; getting into the pop music of the 1980s; his attraction to the cuatro and guitar at a young age; seeing a neighbor in a nearby building play Van Halen and getting more into hard rock; his first concert at a Kiss show in Puerto Rico, his development as a metal head and getting into bands like Celtic Frost and Slayer, his vinyl record collecting at the time, being moved back to The Bronx as a teenager and how he navigated that transition; his exposure to hardcore through the Crucial Chaos radio show, with Sick of It All being one of the first hardcore bands he heard; getting further into the hardcore scene in New York and traveling down to Manhattan and Brooklyn to various shows, meeting other people in the Bronx scene on the subways, getting his first guitar and beginning to play with some of his friends, the formation of Burndown and the various venues they played at (including CBGBs), the transition of the band into Starve and his mixed feelings about the decision, his experience recording with Burndown/Starve and the compilations they ended up on, his artistic skills and how he used them to create logos for his various bands, how he started playing with Gigi in Proof of Purchase, and his decision to leave Starve.
Gigi and José then share their memories about the formation of Proof of Purchase and the initial plan to make it an all-female band. Along these lines, Gigi shares her different experiences as a woman in the scene, with a lot of positive experiences in the scene in general but some misogyny directed towards her when she got behind the drum kit. José and Gigi speak about the unique sound of Proof of Purchase and their experiences playing shows both around The Bronx and throughout the city (including at CBGBs), recording compilation tracks, and why Proof of Purchase eventually broke up. Gigi then goes on to touch briefly on her time with Another Dying Democracy, Johnny Cage is a Fake, Dominican Day Parade, her many other projects since then, and the incredible and diverse places that her musical journey has taken her since her hardcore roots.
Gigi and José end with a reflection on what "Bronx hardcore" is, highlighting its deep groove and the close knit family the scene fostered.