"To the majority of the musical world, most people see grunge music as dead. However, Hamilton's own Autistic Love seems to be proving that the days of the grunge-sound seem to be far from over.

Autistic Love is a Hamilton-based grunge, geek-rock band made up of three college/university guys. While their sound is on the verge of becoming more perfected, the guys have only been on the scene for the past ten months with a total of eight shows under their belts.

While Autistic Love may be only in the early stages of playing shows, the band has been together for quite some time. Guitarist Chris Kendall and Bassist Rick Gunderman met back in their days at middle school but didn't get into music together until high school.

"I started playing the drums in high school because I thought it would be fun and easy way to get into music. Chris and I then started jamming together. It was a year and a half later that we actually decided to start something. I played drums and Chris was on guitar. After awhile, we started looking for a bassist," said Gunderman.

However, they stumbled upon Chris's old baseball buddy Shane Waller.

"When Shane came into the mix, he offered to play drums because he had been playing for years. So I decided to pick up the bass from there. Then the rest is history," said Gunderman.

Even with their line up finally settled, the guys did not find a chance to play with each other very often.

"We did not officially start till three years ago and then we did not 'seriously' start until this past September. Before it was just an off and on thing. Every seven months we would decided to just get together in Rick's basement and jam," said Chris Kendall.

After quite a few practices together, the guys felt that they were ready to start playing some shows around Hamilton.

"We had a couple songs and just thought we were ready. So we bugged Brody at the Casbah, but I hadn't received word back. So I figured we'd try again another time," said Kendall.

"I was gong to see Rackula play at the Casbah for the show that we would have been playing at. I looked at the line up and I saw that we were playing. So I told Rick and Shane to drop everything because we were playing that night."

"We had about 24 hours to get ready for that show," chuckled Gunderman. "It was actually shorter than that. We had an hour to get ready for our first show," said Kendall.

While the Casbah only marks their ninth show, the guys really flow well together and it can be seen through their music. They do not have one specific genre they class their music as, and they prefer to mix it up in all their songs. "I like to call us geek rock," says drummer Shane waller. "Kind of like Weezer-grunge infusion. Mixed with Blue Man Group and Flipper," said Kendall. "Everyone tells us it sounds like Nirvana. Someone at our last show told us it was a very Nirvana feel so I think our music speaks for itself," said Gunderman.

With their grunge-like sound mix with several other genres, their August 9 show is not to be missed. For a great sound, solid set and just a good old time, Autistic Love's show is a must see for music fans. "We just want people to have fun, enjoy the set, the energy and the atmosphere," said Gunderman."

-Samantha Payne