Mother Ship were an early 90’s metallic hardcore crossover style Erie hardcore band featuring bassist Brian "Alfred" Oborski and guitarist Dave Quiggle who later on founded one of Erie’s most well known bands xDisciplex A.D. The 2 of them paired up with brothers Mike (drums) and Matt (vocals) Shreve and churned out a few cassette releases, “Obedience” being one of them. I never had the chance see them live as I did not relocate to Erie until 1995 but many of my friends would often talk about them. Their songs had a bit of a thrash metal sound to them as opposed to the later on stripped down beginnings of xDisciplex A.D.. However you can see where their roots started and can hear the patented Dave Quiggle chugs as well as great bass breaks that Erie bands have always been about. Mother Ship was without a doubt a Christian band and you can hear subject matter of their faith through out the songs. In the instrumental track you can even sample some of these guys weird obsessions with movies and TV as the song is peppered with Star Wars and other samples throughout. The cover art of “Obedience” is some of Dave Quiggle’s earlier published work which is pretty cool as he’s gone on to do many small and huge artists in the world of hardcore and beyond.
I had the opportunity to posthumously release 2 different Mother Ship tracks on the “Erie Scene Report” compilation CD that was released in 1996. It featured another track entitled “Vital Indecision” and a different version of “Narrow Path” also featured here on the demo. At some point the band had a vocalists change and Matt Salusky (heard here on “Vital Indecision) came into play. Matt also later went on to be a founding member of xDisciplex and played drums on their first recording “Lantern”. There’s a whole other demo tape that I used to own with the tracks that Matt sang on but lost over the years. I definitely wish that would surface so I could post it.
xDisciplex A.D. has even given homage to their predecessors Mother Ship by covering 2 of their songs on different occasions. A cover version of “Dead Wrong” appeared on the same previously mentioned Erie Scene Report compilation that I released in 1996. The band recorded it during the “Scarab” 7” sessions. They also later recorded a cover of “Vital Indecision” in 2001 and it was not released until later on on Facedown Records “Doxology” CD. Check out this video of xDisciplex in their early days playing “Dead Wrong” live. This was a show at the Erie Art Annex and P.O.D. actually opened this show up. Yes the same P.O.D. that you are thinking of.
Hopefully some other Mother Ship recordings will surface once I start bugging some of the crew. I’d love to post them for everyone as they are definitely a part of Erie Hardcore history. I’m not really sure as to what led to their demise but a lot of good things came out of their humble beginnings.
Here's a video of Mother Ship @ Cornerstone Fest with Matt Salusky on vocals doing "Vital Indecision". Check out the first few notes as Brain aka Alfred stomps a hole right through the stage.
MOTHER SHIP "Obedience" cassette
self released 1994
http://www.mediafire.com/download/xbnd8se1vw88jo5/mothership_Obedience.zip
1. It Falls
2. Not A Breath
3. Floating Yellow Feathers in the Wake of 50 Ticked Imperial Troops (Instrumental)
4. Dead Wrong
5. Narrow Path
6. Bonus
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This cassette tape was transferred using my new toy...the Ion Tape2PC deck. After a few hours of battling with my soundcards we made it happen and hopefully will continue. This will make it a lot easier to rip some of these sweet demo tapes I have laying around as my previous methods of using the mic input jacks were only coming out in mono. Get stoked.
