ABALIENATION

When I first started touring, our favorite places to play were the places where people simply gave a shit and/or were nice to us. Maybe we were ignored by most of the cool kids in New York City and Seattle, but Kent, Ohio was like our second home for a few years. Binghamton, New York was one of the towns we loved visiting, and ABALIENATION was the main reason we kept coming back. These four dudes treated us like family from the start, and the shows we played there were always at least good, if not great. They were the kings of their small upstate New York town (seriously, how many DIY bands do you know that have inspired tribute compilations filled exclusively with other bands from their city?), and staying with them always felt like we were also royalty...whatever they had was ours, and I still regret that we never had the chance to return the favor. I doubt that ABALIENATION ever toured outside of the Northeast, and they only managed a couple of non-cassette releases (these dudes were the masters of cassettes - at least three tape only recordings that I can remember), but the tracks hold up brilliantly in the context of early '90s politically charged hardcore punk. If BROTHER INFERIOR had reinvented themselves as a street punk band, then this is what they might have sounded like. The bass shreds all over this tape, courtesy of Big Jim (who also gave us what might have been my first radio interview, however unnecessary it likely was at the time), while two freakishly tall twins (we dubbed them Massive Mike and Mega Mark, to go along with the "Big" moniker the bass player was saddled with) handle guitar and vocal duties. The drummer (a normal sized fellow presumably given the name Louis by his parents) was not surprisingly known in our van as Little Louie, and rounded out the band of misfits who took in a band of oddballs from San Francisco several times from 1994-96. I'm not sure where the dudes went or if they continued making music (I ran into one of the twins a several years ago in Toronto, and he was still a punk and still making music, and with that many years in the game, most people are approaching "lifer" status, so I imagine he's still at it), but these songs still bring a smile to my face and I am pleased at how well they have weathered the last 15 years. "Everyday" and "Punk 'Til I Die" are the standout tracks here...get some fukkn punk into your day.

SAFE 4 YOU