I made a pleasant discovery a couple of days ago — a two-dvd set from Mike Peters, the old frontman and founding member of the Alarm. Apparently recorded on the twentieth anniversary of the band?s formation, it?s Mike telling the story of the band from start to finish, with a nifty slideshow and thirty six! songs performed solo acoustic.
Yeah, I know — if you remember the Alarm at all, it?s because of their faux Bob Dylan western outfits, their forty foot hair, and the video of 68 Guns. Their music might be a little dated, it?s true, but I learned how to play guitar from their first two albums. They showed me that acoustic music can be punk as shit, say something real, and have heart, all at once.
Also, they remind me of the bond I had with an old friend, and the music we played together. That friend and I have ideological differences that I think keep us from being too close these days, but we still keep in touch, and I still credit him with shaping much of my musical creative style. We played a lot of Alarm covers those days. When I see Mike Peters waxing nostalgic about his old band, I can?t help thinking about it all!
Those were days filled with righteous idealism and fierce hope — the definition of youth, I think. It?s important to carry that through our whole lives!
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The first I remember of the Alarm was “The Stand”. I still have that first 12″ of theirs.
Oh, you bet! I still have that one, also the original EP (“The Alarm”, “Declaration,” and a bunch of 12″s… I was there when they did their free “Spirit of ’86″ concert at UCLA.
Saw them at the old Fender’s Ballroom here in LA, too — as I recall, the Cruzados opened for them (former members of the Plugz, a great LA area punk band.) I’m pretty sure that slam pit was where I caught mono — a lot of strange sweat flying around in the air!
I was down for a month, after that. Worth it, though!
“Come damn close to meeting your maker, get so ill you can barely stand…”
Sorry, I couldn’t resist!
i hang my 12″ on the wall now.
keep my letter from mike peters in a frame.
and search for any mp3 i can find of them.
with no guilt at all, i paid for each release at least once.
mike peters comes here occasionally (who doesn’t)
but i haven’t seen him
now just the opening bars of the songs make me weep
remembering that time we were all so full of ourselves and so full of naive hope . . .
gotta find those DVDs
You’ve got a letter from Mike Peters???
Funny you should say “full of ourselves.” I was wondering why I can only really listen to the Alarm every so often, and when I do, I gorge myself on them and then I’m fine for, like, a year or so.
I think it’s because of the self-righteousness. It comes across just a little on those DVDs — like Peters is taking full responsibility, in a way, for the whole band — he even intros one song by paraphrasing the freakin’ Beatles: “It was twenty years ago today / Mikey Peters taught the band to play..!”
I mean, come on…
The Christianity aspect of it gets on my nerves, too…
Man, see how fickle I am? I’m back to listening to Son Volt.
Oh yeah … go to the Borders in Vegas or Henderson… if they don’t have the Dvd, they can order it easily enough…
i remember because of that self righteousness i was allowed to listen to it. remember the years of the mormon music nazis? where i lost a human league LP because “hard times in the past” just had to be referring to a hard on . . .
i just hid the alarm behind a christian mask . . . for about a year i had nothing but them, U2 (pre-90s), and big country to listen to.
did you know that stuart adomson courted the mormon church? i met one of the missionaries who taught he and his family, ultimately he didn’t commit, but i think it affected his music, i can see a lot of the joseph smith mythos in some of the later songs.
the letter from mike was brief, but reall, and smelled like biro. lord what a hilight that was, i’d almost forgotten. but since there’s been johnette napolitano, and john doe, and henry rollins . . . easy to forget the nuances of the 80′s.
i assume you guys have all found http://www.thealarm.com by now??
or at least http://www.100welshheroes.com
if not, come on and join, it’s great.
all are welcome