Skip to content
No Allegiance: Mad 12” (Destiny Records, 1986)
One of my favorite moments of 2023 so far is when Scarecrow played with Lasso in Norfolk, Virginia a few months ago. The bands all stayed at the newly opened Not for the Weak Records, and after the gig everyone hung out at the shop late into the night, sipping beers and listening to music. Eventually things degenerated (as they tend to do) into drunken OpIvy and Specials singalongs (with Greenough displaying an impressively deep command of even the densest OpIvy verses), but for most of the night Chris from Bato was spinning hardcore deep cuts from his collection. There were jams galore, including a handful of things I didn’t know… how had I never checked out the Special Forces LP? My want list definitely grew by a few items that night.
Another band Chris played for us that night that I didn’t know was Germany’s No Allegiance. Actually, after some subsequent research I realized I did know No Allegiance, at least kind of. The band’s original name was Porno Patrol, whose underrated 1984 7” I was familiar with. However, Porno Patrol (wisely?) changed their name to No Allegiance in 1985 and released two LPs, Mad and No Cash Value, on the singer’s label Destiny Records. Destiny Records has a long history, including at least a few cool records like the Porno Patrol 7”, the Combat Not Conform LP, Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers’ Live in SO.36 LP (which I still need a copy of!), and Squandered Message’s Getting Blunt LP. It appears the label’s tour booking arm also helped to bring a bunch of American bands to Europe in the 80s… I’m guessing the label’s releases from US bands like Capitol Punishment, R.K.L., M.D.C., and Verbal Abuse coincided with those bands’ tours. I bet there are a lot of stories to be told about all that.
Back to No Allegiance. I was in New York for Another Lost Weekend, and of course I hit a bunch of record stores while I was there. I hadn’t been to Generation Records in probably 15 years. The last time I went, I’m pretty sure the store sucked… if I remember correctly, the upstairs was all CDs and merch and all the vinyl was downstairs, but I don’t remember buying a single thing. This time around, it was a different story. There were lots of crazy records on the wall (for crazy prices, of course), and while I didn’t buy any of that stuff, I found a lot of cool, more reasonably priced records in the used LP bins. (Side note: every record store I went to in New York just calls their entire used section “new arrivals,” which is probably a good way to get people to look through everything.) There were a bunch of 80s German hardcore LPs, which I have to assume came from the same collection. One of them was No Allegiance’s first album, Mad, which I eagerly nabbed.
Sometimes when you hear a band at a party after a few beers, add it to your wantlist, and track down a copy weeks, months, or years later, it doesn’t hold up as well as you remember. While Chris had played No Cash Value, No Allegiance’s second album, Mad was no disappointment. In fact, I think it’s pretty killer. It reminds me of better-produced US hardcore records from the mid-80s, when bands started getting stronger recordings… I’m thinking of records like the FU’s Do We Really Want to Hurt You and DRI’s Dealing With It… bigger-budget records from bands that still played loud and fast. RKL might be another good comparison. Basically, if you like the bands that were still riding for hardcore in the mid-80s without going melodic or metal, you’re probably going to dig this.
It looks like both of No Allegiance’s records fly so far under the radar that they barely sell for anything on Discogs. (I paid the New York City premium price for my copy, but I’m OK with it.) So, if you can track down these records, they shouldn’t cost you much at all. And if you ask me, they punch way above their weight.