Evening, kiddies. It's pretty miserable here in the greater Ottawa area, but what the hell, that's spring for you - May will be fantastic I bet.
Says here on MyShpace.com that the Smoking Popes will have their new album Stay Down out on June 17th - and they've done wrangled themselves a new drummer to boot; former Lawrence Arms skinsman Neil Hennessey is onboard the Good Ship Popes. Get excited!
In some personal news, thanks to some early-season slumps throughout my lineup, my fantasy baseball team is now tied with that of my brother Dan's for second-last in our league, with a mediocre winning percentage of .458. Manny Ramirez, Justin Morneau - y'all need to step it up some, sons! Geez!
Weirdly enough, I was actually thinking about Ensign over the weekend - and now word has arisen that the band, long on hiatus(their last album, The Price of Progression, was released in 2001) have convened for their fourth album, Lost Message On A Fading Frequency! I'm super excited over this. Vocalist Tim Shaw has spent the last two years guitar teching for Rancid while Nathan Gluck has been busy managing tours for Sick Of It All, Unearth and others. No release date has been announced as yet, but shows have been confirmed for this fall. Welcome back, Ensign!
Metallica may go the route of Radiohead, Trent Reznor and others and handle their future work on their own - as opposed to, say, signing a monster 360-type deal with the likes of LiveNation. Drummer Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone that the band would like to keep things in their own hands. [punkbands]
Pennywise are going on tour next month with Strung Out and Authority Zero. Check the bands' various Myspace pages for the routing if you like your punk like I like my sitcoms: '90s style.
They're as Boston as it gets: the Dropkick Murphys have taken it upon themselves to reopen a Beantown bar that closed its doors in the '20s due to Prohibition in the US. McGreevey's 3rd-Base Saloon(911 Boylston, if you're in the Boston area) is considered the Birthplace of Red Sox Nation, according to most. Now, I'm a lifelong fan of another team, but this is pretty cool for DKM.
North Carolina's He Is Legend, building on the success of their second album Suck Out the Poison(2006), have posted four new demo songs online. Evaluate! Talk crap! Tell everyone how you only like the old stuff!
Offspring are gonna have a busy day June 17th: on that day, Epitaph will reissue 1992's Ignition and their '94 breakout album Smash, the biggest-selling independent record of all time. Both albums will be remastered - and that same day, the band will release their new album, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. Big doings!
Stop the presses - new music from Misery Signals online! [lambgoat]
The noble state of New Hampshire's law-enforcement types are treating The Breathing Process(good band!) pretty badly; the band lost everything they had with them during a roadside fire that engulfed van and trailer - and the state has informed them that due to extensive "damage" to the roadway, they owe New Hampshire ten thousand dollars. Complete bullshit on the part of one of New England's components - full story over here, along with details of how you can help TBP out financially if you feel so led. [buzzgrinder]
Looks like Starbucks has already tired of the music business, despite a number of Grammys won by artists involved with their Hear Music label; the company is passing off "all control" of music operations to partner Concord Music. CEO Howard Schultz says, "Now is the appropriate time to restructure our entertainment business to better align our efforts with our overall business strategies." Less rock, more java.
Posted by mike at April 28, 2008 11:48 PM