Right now Buffalo and Western NY state has an incredible hardcore and punk scene, with lots of intelligent people and great bands like Robot Has Werewolf Hand, No Time Left, Project Grizzly, Abusing the Word, On Alert, They Live, The Young Ones, Splag, Herod, and The Troll 2.  I'm proud to be part of such an active and productive DIY community. 

Shows never need to cost more than five dollars.  Guarantees, riders and contracts are all garbage.  They drive up prices and they place unfair demands on someone who is helping a band out by giving them a show.  Any band that asks me for a set dollar amount isn't getting it!  Be sure that I won't even deal with your booking agent.  Tickets are another capitalist institution polluting the community.  I don't care at all what they've "always done," let's throw off the old customs.  Also, my vote is for smoke-free venues!  Finally, accept that there is no hierarchy permissible in hardcore.  If you have been around for a long time that is commendable, but know that my ideas are just as important as yours, in the same way that the youngest punks have the right to tell me its their scene too.  The hardcore community is a place of intense expression and radical thought.  We live as free as we let ourselves.  Think of the amazing resources we have as punks.  We can communicate easily with people from all over the world that have similar interests.  There is so much to learn.  Live now!

This is a good way to spend my days...

I'm the bass player of AWI. This whole operation is an interesting one.   Other than that what I can say is that I joined the band to help out old friends and play fast music with some sort of integrity, and that the band has been a strange but fun ride. After I stopped playing with Eric in December of 2000 (in this other band we were in together) I decided that I would take a break from playing hardcore for a year, which I did. In the band with Eric, I learned a lot about playing and had a lot of great experiences I'll never forget.

However, AWI is not a normal band you might see at a show. The songs appeal to different levels of sophistication, so you might find some useful ideas in our lyrics if today is the first you've ever heard of punk and hardcore, and you might find some useful ideas if you have been going to shows since Ryan was born (1977).  Then again, you might think we are totally full of shit.

pat

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