Jewett City–a small rural town in southeastern Connecticut with a mere population of 4,000–is the absolute last place you would look for a rockin’ rap show. Well-hidden beside the train tracks, PJ O’Conner’s Pub is a low-key hangout for the locals. But come Friday and Saturday nights…good luck getting in. The small pub transforms into a wall-to-wall packed arena for local rap and metal artists. Week after week, the bored youth of rural Connecticut form an unlikely bond between the different genres. Shows are sure to have an electric energy full of stage-jumping, crowd-pushing, politically driven rap, face-melting metal, and fans hanging on every lyric.

How’d this almost invisible bar get on the radar? The success of these local shows was achieved by the constant planing and promoting of the headliner, none other than John “Skobie-Won” Skobrak. John manages to book artists, promote the show with his own flyer designs and rap on the bill at least 3 times a month. Working under his own label appropriately named “Work Horse” John has recorded and produced his own music as well as a number of other local bands. It all happens in his basement work shop complete with a home built vocal booth. John spends a great deal of time mixing new loops and writing new lyrics.

The regulars and the old-timers are sparse but still present on these nights. They must be wondering what overnight tour-de-force saved both their pub and that forgotten feeling of how music once saved their lives, too.