THE SKABS, New York Punk Legends: 1993 - 2001 R.I.P.
Liberty spikes and studded leather jackets, dreadlocks and ferrets were all the rage in New York City's Punk scene from the late '80s to the early '90s. Some cried, "Where is the Liberty?" It took a band like The Skabs to defy the imposition, by doing something as trivial as adding keyboards to their Punk sound. While English was the accepted norm in vocalization, the foreign sounds of Greek, Polish and Spanish were unusual at the time, mainly because the combination of these languages were never applicative to this kind of musical arrangement. The Skabs didn't see why they should have to limit their artistic expression, or ignore their diverse cultural backgrounds.

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ALBUMS

EYE16

the Skabs- Content

Years after this recording saw its original release as a hard-to-come by split 12" by a Philadelphia based label, it is finally made available again as a digital release for today's audiences with the audio cleaned up and numerous bonus tracks not found on the original record. Considered by many of the band's fans to include some of their finest recorded moments, Content showcases the Skabs at the time they packed in the crowds at New York clubs like ABC No Rio, Coney Island High, or CBGB's, and a number of Lower East Side squats. A punk anomaly in New York's mid 90's punk scene, the Skabs dared to stray from the glue-n-spikes vision shared by the majority of the punk scene at the time, added a synthesizer that became more prominent as the band progressed, and adopted heavily post-punk inflected songs, as influences like the Poison Girls, Metal Urbain, and polish punk like Post Regiment and Dezerter came to the fore. Truly a multi-cultural band, the mix of which defined the boroughs of New York City, the band sang songs in a English, Polish, Greek, and Spanish. Hungry Eye is proud to make this record available again for the people who unfortunately missed out on this truly unique and original band, whose uncompromising and unrelenting attitude helped influence us to start Hungry Eye.

EYE00

the Skabs- Aged to Perfection

Years before electroclash, long before anything like a post-punk revival hit, in a time when the Lower East Side could hardly have been imagined as SoHo re-dux, the Skabs routinely held court in that skeleton of a building known as ABC No Rio and became one of the most original punk bands of that era in New York. This CD is their first proper album, coming to fruition almost 8 years after their formation, and comprised of nothing short of their whole repertoire at the time they injected more synth and drum machine sounds into their dark punk sound. Originally released on Mad at the World Records in 2001 (Hungry Eye's pre-existing punk sister label) as an attempt to help out our great friends, Aged to Perfection is a bit rough around the edges, and hardly easy listening, but bears witness to a truly significant and underappreciated band. Unafraid to step painfully outside the mould, and noisily prowl the margins. The Skabs proved too dark for the punk crowd, too rowdy and boisterous for the goth crowd, and much too belligerent for any indie crowd, and ultimately self-destructed, but not before leaving their mark on a number of audiences in New York and throughout the US and recording a few sought after recordings, making them something of a cult-classic.

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