OLD (originally an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for Old Lady Drivers) was an American heavy metal band from

Bergenfield, New Jersey Bergenfield is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 28,321, an increase of 1,557 (+5.8%) from the 2010 census count of 26,764, which in turn reflected ...

, formed in 1986 and signed to

Earache Records Earache Records is a British independent record label, music publisher and management company founded by Digby Pearson in 1985, based in Nottingham, England, with offices in London and New York. The label helped to pioneer extreme metal by r ...

. It featured

Alan Dubin Alan Dubin is an American vocalist/singer most widely known for his role in drone metal band Khanate. He is noted for his tortured and distinctive vocal approach. Other bands he has been featured in include OLD and current band Gnaw. Dubin i ...

on vocals, and

James Plotkin James Plotkin is an American guitarist and producer known for his role in bands such as Khanate and OLD but with an extensive catalogue outside these bands. He has played guitar for Phantomsmasher and Scorn and continues to remix tracks for ba ...

on guitars and programming; they later formed the experimental

doom metal Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...

band

Khanate A khanate ( ) or khaganate refers to historic polity, polities ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. Khanates were typically nomadic Mongol and Turkic peoples, Turkic or Tatars, Tatar societies located on the Eurasian Steppe, ...

History

OLD formed from the remains of Plotkin's previous band, the short-lived grindcore act "Regurgitation". OLD's first album, entitled "Old Lady Drivers", continued in the humorous style of grindcore which characterized Regurgitation's material. After releasing a split EP with

Assück Assück was an American grindcore band from Saint Petersburg, Florida, active from 1987 to 1998. History Assück was founded by vocalist Paul Pavlovich and guitarist Steve Heritage. The band went through several line-up changes, in particula ...

in 1990, Plotkin recruited former

Nirvana Nirvana, in the Indian religions (Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), is the concept of an individual's passions being extinguished as the ultimate state of salvation, release, or liberation from suffering ('' duḥkha'') and from the ...

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

Jason Everman Jason Mark Everman (born October 16, 1967) is an American musician and soldier who played guitar with Nirvana and Mind Funk, and bass in Soundgarden and OLD. He later served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Army as an Army Ran ...

for their second album, ''Lo Flux Tube'' (1991). This album featured more

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

and

industrial metal Industrial metal is the fusion of Heavy metal music, heavy metal and industrial music, typically employing repeating Heavy metal guitar, metal guitar riffs, sampling (music), sampling, synthesizer or music sequencer, sequencer lines, and Distor ...

influences in addition to grindcore, giving them a sound which was compared by some reviewers to a more uptempo

Godflesh Godflesh are an English industrial metal band from Birmingham. The group formed in 1982 under the original title O.P.D. (later Fall of Because) but did not release any complete music until 1988 when Justin Broadrick (guitar, vocals, programmi ...

. ''Lo Flux Tube'' also featured

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

work by guest musician

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conducting, conductor, saxophonist, arrangement, arranger and record producer, producer who "deliberately resists category". His Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimental music, ex ...

. OLD continued their avant-garde direction with their third album, ''The Musical Dimensions Of Sleastak'' (1993). Several tracks from that album, "A Beginning", "Two of Me (Parts One and Two)", "Freak Now", and "Peri Cynthion", appeared in the 1994 film ''

Brainscan ''Brainscan'' is a 1994 American science fiction slasher film directed by John Flynn and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The film stars Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, Amy Hargreaves, Jamie Marsh, and T. Ryder Smith. The soundtrack was co ...

''. Also in 1993, the band released ''Hold On To Your Face'', an album of

remix A remix, also sometimes called reorchestration or rework, is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, poem, or photograph ca ...

es. The band's final album, ''Formula'' (1995), delved into further experimentation with

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often ...

and industrial music. OLD broke up shortly after releasing this album.

Members

At the time of the breakup

(guitars, programming) *

(vocals)

Previous members

(bass) *Ralph Pimentel (

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

) *Herschel Gaer (bass)

Discography

All releases were on Earache Records, except where otherwise noted. *'' Old Lady Drivers'' (Full-length), 1988 *''Colostomy Grab-Bag'' (Single), 1989 *Assuck/Old Lady Drivers (Split), 1990 (No System Records) *''Demo 1990'' (self-produced) *''

Lo Flux Tube Lo Flux Tube is the second album by the band OLD. It marked a change in style for the band, abandoning their previous grindcore parody in favor of a much more industrial and experimental sound. Track listing Personnel ;O.L.D. *Alan Dubin - ...

'' (Full-length), 1991 *''Hold On To Your Face'' (remixes) (Full-length), 1993 *'' The Musical Dimensions Of Sleastak'' (Full-length), 1993 *''

Formula In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwe ...

'' (Full-length), 1995

References

External links

OLD at Earache RecordsOLD's Myspace pageInterview with James Plotkin circa 1993

Bandcamp
{{Authority control Heavy metal musical groups from New Jersey American grindcore musical groups Heavy metal duos Musical trios from New Jersey American industrial metal musical groups Earache Records artists Musical groups from Bergen County, New Jersey