GAD! Zine

* Disclaimer: I do have a cameo on this album. But it is minimal and has no effect on the music (which is why they let me do it!)* Cleveland Ohio's Altered Paradox offers sludgey distorted metal awash in atmospheric fuzz. An abandoned waste barrel of screechy whispered commentary and yowelled what-the-fuckisms. It's like you're trapped in a dark chamber and you hear beating on the other side of the wall. Like they're trying to get out. But you're in and they're out. But your in is their out. I'm not metal-ly enough to go too deep into histrionics or genre-gazing, but I'm hardly inexperienced with such sounds. I know heavy shit when I hear it. Altered Paradox is HEAVY. And they're really damned good.  Altered Paradox is not here to reinvent the (metal) wheel, but you could hardly accuse them of patching an old tire. More like they wanna try every shape that wheel can be banged and dented into. They will ride on those obtuse angles and relish every bum

                                                                             (Flyer art by Patrick Quintanilla)     Last night's Punk Rock Art Show was super fun! It was our first time playing True Story  Brewing Company and I gotta say it was very cool. The staff were nice. The audience was that   great combination of friendly and rowdy. FUN FUN FUN. Lot's of killer art was there to look at and purchase. We missed Toxic Weasel cuz we're divas and always show up late. I'll be rockin' their sweet button and sticker like a fat spiky billboard for the next year to make up for it. We did catch The Killakee House and they were badass! Glad I finally got to experience them! They punk and they rawk. Our buddies Boss Rush sounded great from outside (we were getting our load-in straight). It's funny cuz they always sound so BIG like they gotta bunch of members and then ya just see the two of 'em wander out like "Hi, guys!" Folks love 'em. I

    Been a while since "we" posted anything here. And that was just sharing pages of an old issue of the GAD! print zine. This site has never lived up to even its meager potential. It's funny that, when I started the site, I was worried that it would render that zine obsolete. Not quite! The reviews, interviews, and articles have been sparse and most of them appeared in the zine in some form. Score 1 for physical media! Hell, at one point, we lost our address cuz the dude that was paying for it before didn't and I wasn't paying attention. Caught it too late! That's why all our old links on social media go nowhere. LAME! When I had to come up with a new one, I decided to go with punkrockalabama.com. Punk Rock, Alabama is, in theory, the name up my as yet unfinished book on punk rock in..... Alabama! I've listed too many excuses too many times for my creative output's decline in the last 2 or 3 years.     The thing is, the entire point of the

    In theory, this site was originally supposed to supplement the print version of the GAD! Zine and maybe even surpass it. With the immediacy of the INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY, how could it not?      I dunno, but it hasn't.      I still hope to one day offer crap-tons of content to this page, things that are just too of-the-moment to wait and put out in a physical zine a month or three late. IN THE FUTURE, maybe, kinda, this page will offer cool and interesting content on a regular basis. Perhaps DAILY?? We'll see. But in the meantime, I figure we can at least share the back issues of GAD! (and maybe some of our other zines) here. We also plan to make every issue available in PDF format, just not today.      Below, you will find the fifth issue of GAD!, an Alabama-based underground zine. Every issue is a raw disaster made with lots of love.       Still on a roll after the first five, GAD! Zine Issue 6 was glowing with excitement from recent local shows, two of which occurred on

    In theory, this site was originally supposed to supplement the print version of the GAD! Zine and maybe even surpass it. With the immediacy of the INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY, how could it not?      I dunno, but it hasn't.      I still hope to one day offer crap-tons of content to this page, things that are just too of-the-moment to wait and put out in a physical zine a month or three late. IN THE FUTURE, maybe, kinda, this page will offer cool and interesting content on a regular basis. Perhaps DAILY?? We'll see. But in the meantime, I figure we can at least share the back issues of GAD! (and maybe some of our other zines) here. We also plan to make every issue available in PDF format, just not today.      Below, you will find the fifth issue of GAD!, an Alabama-based underground zine. Every issue is a raw disaster made with lots of love.  Ah. GAD! 5.... I was still predominantly gluing "source pages" together and printing copies off from them. Basically, every page

     Alabamastan.... BLAM! Hard to argue with the apparent sentiment of this song. Everybody in Alabama says that Alabama sucks (unless it's the football team, UNLESS they like the other football team) until they hear somebody else say that it sucks and then they feel like they've gotta defend the state's "honor" or something. Montgomery's the Abusements tell us that we gotta get outta here. Again echoing what many of us think. I want to argue and say that, to the contrary, we need more like-minded people to come here and stay. The state really is moving  forward, but slower than frozen molasses (couldn't think of a slow-cotton metaphor, which woulda been more appropriate for the subject) and it always takes 50 years worth of steps back when we let our guards down, so I can't help but to side with yelling to everyone around me, "Get out anyway ya can!".      BUT! This is a call to arms. The Abusements think you need to fuckin' decide.