Revision: CLEVINGER

By Paul Campagna Created 10/9/2026, 6:59:57 PM

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clevinger

clevinger was a short-lived band, but weren't so many of the era? Aaron Watkins had been in Harbingers Platoon and Nine. Rob Avery had been in Brill and Swivel. This was Courtney Miller's first band, and Tim Nichols was in the front half of his high school years. Delaware is a tiny state, and Newark is a small town in a tiny state, and the Newark punk/hardcore/emo/whatever you want to call it scene was a small but active scene with a tiny cast of characters filling out numerous bands' lineups. The Newark High School student paper "The Yellowjacket Buzz" ran interviews with both Nine and Swivel on the same page in March 1994. Members of these bands would go on to form not just clevinger, but also Eldritch Anisette, Boy Sets Fire, and many more bands in a hyper-localized and thriving scene.

clevinger played their first show in January 1995 with Boy Sets Fire in Newport, Delaware. At the time, Newark would have had a population of about 27,000, with over half of that being students. Newport - more known for the police speed traps (and a few years later, the Newport Skatepark) than bands or shows - had a population of just 1,200 at the time.

A few months later, in April, they recorded their demo with their friend and local legend Nick Rotundo. Also during that same April, the Enoch Collective booked them to open for Fugazi in a University of Delaware gymnasium. Two members of clevinger are interviewed in the short documentary Delaware Music History Archive made about our quest to find any artifacts from this seemingly forgotten show.

The band eventually added John Riffenberg on 2nd guitar. Quickly a local mainstay, clevinger played Newark regularly for the next few months, including with one of Tim's other bands Network 34, which also included Marc Krupanski, who would later become a member of Eldritch Anisette. That show with Network 34 would be clevinger's final gig.

Rob's next project would be Bessemer Process. Tim played in Network 34, Eldritch Anisette, and then Fields Lay Fallow. Courtney sang for Eldritch Anisette. The next year, Aaron and John would be playing shows with Good Luck Mr. Burkowitz and later Bureau Brats. For what it's worth, Network 34 was short-lived as well, and Tim and Rob (and Marc) next did the (also short-lived) Dorian Grey.

In October 2026, 31 years after their disbandment, Numero Group widely released clevinger's demo for the ears of a brand new generation of listeners, as well as anyone else besides DMHA, Numero Group, and the third person who cataloged owning the physical demo tape on Discogs.

Members: Courtney Miller (vocals), Aaron Watkins (bass), Timothy Nichols (drums), Rob Avery (guitar), John Riffenberg (joined later as 2nd guitar)

List of releases: Discogs