The Alarm
Counter Attack Collective

EP series at www.thealarm.com

There are very few music aficionados in Western New York who hold a candle to Gary Zoldos. A regular on local music scene for three decades, Zoldos has been in bands, spun records as a club DJ and rarely missed a good concert that has come within spiting distance. He eats, sleeps and breaths rock music: He’s the first to email me with news of a possible Bob Dylan tour heading to this part of the world or to send over a rare DVD of some long-lost concert performance by the Stones.

Zoldos has been friends with Welsh rocker Mike Peters—leader of the Alarm—since his band’s salad days. Back then, the Alarm were giving the Clash and U2 a run for the money with their anthemic brand of punk-fueled, populist rock and roll. So it wasn’t a total surprise when Zoldos was the one to tell me that Peters and the Alarm had released a series of EPs via the band’s Web site and that was some of the best stuff they’d ever done. Of course, I was a little doubtful—here was a band I hadn’t really thought too much of since “68 Guns” and “Blaze of Glory”—but Gary was right on, and the proof was there in the music. There’s noticeably more spirit and power in in Peters across the Counter Attack Collective EPs than ever before. After beating cancer once in the 1990s, Peters was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia just when he should have been celebrating—around the time of 2006’s dual blast of the studio album Under Attack and the Best of the Alarm collection.

He has beaten the odds—not only by going into remission twice but also by proving old punks can grow up gracefully and maybe even get better with years. A sort of celebration of 30 years of punk, “Three Sevens” from the EP of the same title is as infectious and perfect as rock and roll gets. On Call to Action, songs like “Higher Call” and “Dub Police” show Peters’ ability to turn simple songs into tuneful manifestos and rallying cries. And if there’s any question that the spirit of ’77 and all of the ethos of punk lives on in the Alarm’s latest works, check the Punk Rock Medley EP, which collects a firebrand live set from Peters and company. Tearing from their buoyant but jagged power pop original “45 RPM,” they rip through favorites from the Ramones, Sex Pistols, the Clash, Stiff Little Fingers and Sham 69. It is more than nostalgia—these songs are still living and breathing. The Alarm have proven that punk rock can grown old without getting tired.

These EPs are available at thealarm.com. For more on Mike Peters’ inspiring story, you can go to the online home of his Love Hope Strength Foundation at lovehopestrength.com.

—donny kutzbach