In Conversation: Ray Cappo of Youth of Today & Shelter
Few people can claim to have changed hardcore culture with the same level of volume and frequency as Ray Cappo. Were it not for one man's fixation on Ratt, he says, none of this would have happened.
A long time ago, Walter Schreifels said something to me that resonated as so true that I never forgot it: “It felt like there was a time in New York City where how cool you were in the scene was determined by how many degrees from Ray Cappo you were.” That was certainly my memory of late eighties New York, at least, when it seemed like Ray’s hand was in almost everything—from being the singer for Youth of Today to being one-half of Revelation Records to being an instrumental part of bringing Saturday matinees to the Pyramid Club. Undeniably, his fingerprints were all over the place. Eventually, when I was 15, I worked up the nerve to introduce myself to Ray after running into him on St. Marks Place in the East Village. I had no reason to do that, and he had no reason to be kind to me. But he was.…