2013: A Year in Review - Alternative Control

hair092307 — The lovely and mysterious Pixie.

This year has been full of action of Alternative Control. Here’s a rundown!

Thanks to people like you, our readership continues to grow — 44,000 visits from almost 38,000 unique visitors!
Although most of our content is about music, our most viewed article was about hair: “Tips and Tricks for Dyeing Your Hair Interesting Colors” written in 2012 by Rachael Pixie Krucyznski. Old articles about how to make a watch, how to wax your eyebrows, and how to cut up a t-shirt also raked in the Google hits. Who knew we were so stylish and informative?
We put out our first compilation album this summer, Quality Control Volume 1. Featuring bands we’d reviewed and interviewed, as well as a few of our writers’ bands, 500 physical copies flooded the tri-state area in late June; according to current reports, most of those have NOT been repurposed as coasters. If you didn’t get a CD, you can download all the tracks for free at our Soundcloud page. And stay tuned… Volume 2 is in the works!

2013 was the year of the photo pass! Visit our Facebook page for some awesome shots of Cannibal Corpse, the Death to All Tour, and Cop Problem. (Okay, not that we really needed a fancy “pass” to take pictures at the Heirloom, but the pictures still came out pretty good!)
Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse -- by Steve Walter Photo.

As usual, we interviewed a bunch of bands. Most of them were local or local-ish: Alcoholica, Lightsbane, Orcumentary, Heavy Breath, Black Table… We also spoke with Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory, Dwid Hellion of Integrity, Greg Thomas of Misery Signals, and FUCKING ODERUS URUNGUS OF GWAR!!!

GWAR, Dave Brockie, Oderus Urungus — From left: Alternative Control's Jesse Styles and Johnny Pluckman with Dave Brockie (a.k.a. ODERUS URUNGUS) and New Noise Magazine's Alex Gilbert at Toad's.

At our year-end charity drive – also Pluckman’s birthday show – concert-goers donated 47 pounds of non-perishable food to the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County. Metalheads do have hearts!

What’s in store for 2014? More, more, and more of whatever shit we feel like writing about, because that’s how we roll. In the 2012 recap article, I said we might try to get some ad revenue – but a year later, I can safely say that’s never going to happen because we’re too lazy to solicit advertisers. (Really, too busy working our real jobs.)

Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Soundcloud to join the ranks…. Because without YOU, there is no “us.”