Song: "Alison's Disease"
Artist: Joey Cape
Album: "Acoustic Volume Two"
Year: 2012
"Alison's Disease" is a song that appears to be about a girl who is either suffering depression or in a losing battle with drug addiction, maybe a little bit of both. Either way, the vocalist barely recognizes the girl he once knew. The disease is defeating her and there is no hope for her. At the end of the song it's hard to tell if she dies from a drug overdose or if she dies because of suicide. It's not known but the fact is, Alison is gone. This acoustic version of "Alison's Disease" comes off 2012's "Acoustic Volume Two", an album that features Joey Cape, of Lagwagon fame, and Tony Sly, of No Use For A Name, offering stripped down versions of their respective bands' songs. The original version of "Alison's Disease" was recorded by Lagwagon and could be found on the Fat Wreck Chords compilation, "Fat Music Volume 5: Live Fat, Die Young". Joey Cape has been active on the punk rock music since since 1989, hailing from California. Before I get to Cape's solo material, I'll give a brief history of Cape's musical endeavors over the years. Perhaps Joey Cape is most well known as the lead singer of Lagwagon who has been active from 1990 to the present day. With 8 full length studio albums, one EP, one live album and one compilation featuring b-sides and rarities, Lagwagon, along with NOFX and No Use For A Name, has been the face of 90's skate punk featured on the Fat Wreck Chords label. From 1995 till the present day, Cape has also been the guitarist for the punk rock cover band super group Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, which also features fellow Lagwagon member Dave Raun, NOFX's Fat Mike, Swingin' Utters' Spike Slawson and Foo Fighters' Chris Shiflett. Me First has released 8 studio albums to go along with numerous singles. From 2000 till 2006, Cape fronted the band Bad Astronaut. This band released three full length albums plus a split EP with Armchair Martian. Bad Astronaut disbanded when drummer Derrick Plourde committed suicide in 2005. Bad Astronaut did play a few live shows in 2010 but have not created any new music. In 2007, Cape was in another side band called The Playing Favorites, who released one full length album. In 2011, Cape, Tony Sly, Jon Snodgrass, of Drag The River, and Brian Wahlstrom released an acoustic album under the moniker Scorpios. Cape and Snodgrass also released an album together called "Liverbirds", featuring stripped down versions of Lagwagon and Drag The River tunes. Cape got his first taste of the stripped down acoustic sound with his very first album with Tony Sly, 2004's "Acoustic". Much like 2012's "Acoustic Volume Two" with Sly, the first installment of "Acoustic" featured Lagwagon and No Use For A Name songs stripped down. "Acoustic Volume Two" would be the last release by Tony Sly before his untimely death on July 31, 2012. Now for Cape's true solo records. First, there was 2008's "Bridge". Released on Suburban Home Records, this album features 7 original songs as well as five stripped down versions of Lagwagon songs. 2011 saw Cape's second full length release, "Doesn't Play Well With Others". This album spawned two singles, "Going For The Bronze" and "I Always Knew This Was Going To End Badly". In yet another side project, Cape released full band versions of some of the songs from "Bridge" and "Doesn't Play Well With Others" under the moniker Joey Cape's Bad Loud. Joey Cape has got to be one of the hardest working men in the music business! If he's not writing songs, he's in the recording studio. When he's not recording, he could be producing songs, especially for his own label, One Week Records. When he's not producing, you can bet he's on tour, either doing solo acoustic shows, touring with his cover band mates Me First & The Gimme Gimmes or touring with his main interest, Lagwagon, especially on the heels of Lagwagon's new album, 2014's "Hang". The well respected Joey Cape is never in one place for too long. He's constantly moving and thankfully for his fans, seems to constantly be involved in new musical projects.
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