Years ago when I worked at a angst-influence hardcore record label, I met a lot of fun friends – including some amazing transformers fans. It wasn’t long before I was introduced to Shockwave. No, not Ole One Eye as most of us are used to. Shockwave is the name of a tough-guy hardcore band from Pennsylvania. As far as I know, the band was signed to Triple Crown but there is little known about them since the only information is that they are one of their alumni artists.
I was stunned when I was allowed to actually hold both of the band’s CDs in my hands featuring heavily photoshopped images of a G1 Omega Supreme toy and skimmed the back of the package to discover song titles such as Warpath, Divide and Conquer, and The Ultimate Doom. These upon-first-glance campy character names and episode titles become classic hardcore anthems when placed in a new wrapper. I was enthralled and amazed. How could such an amazing project have gone under my radar for so many years? I still to this day have never seen any mention of Shockwave the band on any of the major Transformers sites.
According to my friend who introduced me to the band, it is a hardcore “super group” made from many members of other bands that do their best to stay anonymous. They do a Halloween show once every year in Pennsylvania and the show is complete madness. It is a full production including between-song soundbytes and video interaction on the stage. One of these days, I’m going to have to make the trip even though my hardcore music days are well behind me (in fact they were never really in front of me!).
I have since lost the tunes from my smattering of iTunes playlists over the years, but you can join in the fun by checking out the band’s myspace. You can check out their entire albums online – The Ultimate Doom – Omega Supreme
This project was obviously put together by some serious Transformers fans, but a different breed. Whether these guys collect toys or like the new movies, we may never know. The attention to minute details from the Transformers lore is incredible and these guys obviously are having a ton of fun. Considering this stuff came out in 2006 at the latest, these guys were in it from the beginning. These are definitely pre-movie fans and probably got this all going back in the early 2000’s during the Car Robots / Robots in Disguise era.
I leave you with this music video for The Ultimate Doom from Shockwave – the only hardcore Transformers band the world has ever seen!
Hey I’ve been trying to find out about where shockwave went and I was wondering if had any insight. I listened to them back in 2005+6. Haven’t been able to find anything on them.