Alternative Rock Nostalgia Buzz

When I set out to work on my second book, Majorlabelland and Assorted Oddities , one of the strangest cases of major label interference I’ve come across was of Headstrong. An alternative metal band from Canada, the band hit the big time when they were invited to perform on the short-lived USA Network show “Farmclub.com” that ended up with them scoring a deal with RCA. The band were at loggerheads with the label over practically everything and less than five months after the release of their album, with a song on the radio and out on the road supporting Tommy Lee, the label pulled the rug out from under them and by 2003, the band was over, with a lot of bad memories left behind. I’ve talked to guitarist Joel Krass several times about the band but this was the first time we had a definitive, all-encompassing interview about the band’s history. Krass pulled no punches and the result is one of the most striking and hard-hitting interviews I’ve conducted. Enjoy and afterwards, go on YouTube

What can be said about Alice Donut? Without a doubt, one of the unique and different bands to come out of the New York punk scene, Alice Donut made their mark by being themselves. When doing covers of popular songs like Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs,’ drummer Stephen Moses broke out his trombone and made the song almost his own. The band never catered to the mainstream but they stayed definitive in their sound. True to form, the band had a ball with this interview, refusing to take even the simplest question seriously.  Alice Donut  Discography: Donut Comes Alive (Alternative Tentacles, 1988) Bucketfulls of Sickness and Horror in an Otherwise Meaningless Life (Alternative Tentacles, 1989) Revenge Fantasies of the Impotent (Alternative Tentacles, 1990) Mule (Alternative Tentacles, 1990) The Untidy Suicides of Your Degenerate Children (Alternative Tentacles, 1992) Dry Humping the Cash Cow (Alternative Tentacles, 1994) Pure Acid Park (Alternative Tentacles, 1995) Three Sisters (H