The Official Site Of All Things Unruly
No Alternative was Unruly Helga's 2nd album released in 2000. Deena put herself on the map with the hit acoustic cover single "One Step Closer". This haunting version of the massively global Linkin Park hit charted on radio stations all over the United States and Canada. This is how it happened: After Deena recorded the song, with Yukihide Takiyama (AKA YT - Bass) on guitar, it she burned CD's of it in her apartment and sent it in a shity plain envelope to KROQ radio station in Los Angeles with a hand written note saying that it was an acoustic cover. After famed DJ, Tami Heidi, promptly made fun of it on air and then played a short sample of it, Deena immediately burned more CD's and sent them to every Alt Rock station in the country with a sticker on it that said "as heard on KROQ." What can you do... people are suckers... and it WAS true. Once other stations found out it was getting played in LA, well - it seems no one wanted to be left out and immediately put it into their own rotation. This created a huge buzz which led to radio interviews, end of year best of lists, fan mail (so much fan mail) hate mail (even MORE hate mail) and a bevy of record deal offers that ultimately didn't happen. Why? Deena refused to give up her right to the albums she had already made and record labels are full of greedy pimp assholes.
As far as the rest of this album goes - well the first track, You Did This, became a cult classic among Unruly fans and a few of these songs have been used in film soundtracks. UH went on to independently tour and play these songs for several years after it was released. Fun Fact: No Alternative is both Deena and Deb's (guitar) favorite album. It epitomizes the 90's rock scene and the Unruly sound and style.