no idea why I wasn't paid, so I called Ben Weasel to see what the problem was. And that was when I got the truth. Ben Weasel, who produced the record, had taken all of my tracks off of the recording. I guess he had told Joe he needed to let me know that I was not on the record and would not be paid for my work. however, Joe never let me know that I was taken off the record—neither did Larry Livermore, who was at the recording session and was aware of the situation. Joe, B-Face, Dan Panic, and Larry all later called me to apologize for the situation. They all seemed to point an accusatory finger at Ben, saying that they wanted my tracks on the record, but Ben adamantly insisted that my tracks should not be used and that I should not be paid. In his 2015 memoir How to Ru(i)n a Record Label: The Story of Lookout Records, Livermore wrote that during this time "erratic and inexplicable behavior was becoming the norm with Ben", who had developed agoraphobia and refused to tour, was obsessing over money, and was determined to kick Panic out of Screeching Weasel. Though he did not go through with firing Panic, Weasel instead forced Vapid out of the band, replacing him with Green Day's Mike Dirnt for Screeching Weasel's subsequent album How to Make Enemies and Irritate People, recorded two months after the Beat Off sessions. Vapid later stated that when he returned from touring with the Queers, Weasel claimed that he had developed a drinking problem and gave him an ultimatum: stop drinking or be replaced in Screeching Weasel; Vapid chose to quit, and said that when Dirnt was brought in to replace him "that is when I knew what the 'drinking problem' malarkey was all about." "The official story was that Vapid had voluntarily left," said Livermore, "but when I saw Dan a couple days later, he could barely hold back his tears." He also noted that although Weasel complained about Panic and Vapid, he had formed a new band with both of them, the Riverdales, shortly after breaking up Screeching Weasel following the completion of How to Make Enemies and Irritate People: "Despite Ben's claims that they were 'impossible' to work with, he seemed to have no problems recording Beat Off with them. There could have been other