Go check out another 'zine I contribute to: InReview.net is the raddest, baddest thing going. Word.
Dang, and I was just getting into them...Staple have decided this'll be their last summer as a band after six years. The usual flowery thanks-so-much statement from the band is online, as well as the CCM thing where each member's immediate future is outlined(why do we care?). The band'll do a farewell tour in July, as well as some major festival dates over the summer. 'Sound of Silence' and that song from their first album with 'Daisy' in the title are awesome songs. [JFH]
Thousand Foot Krutch side gig FM Static have a sophomore(that's "second", kiddies) album coming out soon; entitled Critically Ashamed, it drops July 18th on the Nail, who surprise me in sticking to this brand of pop-punk, since they abandoned that genre a few years ago already. Interesting. I hope there's no ballads on it.
Project 86's first video since 'Spy Hunter' has surfaced online; check out their myspace to see the lensing of 'My Will Be A Dead Man'. Awesome.
Pillar are writing their next record, due out(tentatively, at any rate) this October. Meanwhile, they're on the road with P.O.D. on the Warriors tour. Not bad company.
Former Norma Jean/current Chariot vocalist Josh Scogin is apparently up to something new. Very few and sketchy details, but we'll keep watching. Maybe back to Norma Jean! [absolutepunk]
More rumour: Jeremy Enigk(Sunny Day Real Estate) apparently guests on the new album from mewithoutYou(on more than one song!); as well, Anathallo allegedly appear through the record playing horns. I cannot wait to hear these songs!!
Longtime sweetdisaster favourites Mae mention in this interview that they're now a "major-label band" - further research has discovered their being listed on Capitol Records' website. The band is no longer with the label that launched them, Tooth & Nail. Good interview.
For those who dearly miss the departed(and superiorly-talented) Sixpence None the Richer, former frontwoman Leigh Nash will release Blue On Blue, her solo debut, on August 15th. I'll be picking it up.
Is "superiorly" a word?
I doubt it.
Anyway.
R.E.M. has joined the Net Neutrality Coalition, which begs the questions: firstly, what is the Net Neutrality Coalition(answer over here), and secondly, R.E.M. still exist??
The kids at Ferret Records(profiled, incidentally, in the new issue of Alternative Press) have something new called a FearPlayer....wait for it....okay, now that you're done laughing, one of the new things they have on this FearPlayer is a new Zao track called 'It's Hard Not To Shake With A Gun In Your Mouth', doubtless from the band's upcoming album The Fear Is What Keeps Us Here. Check it out over here.
Jon Bunch(ex-Sense Field, ex-Further Seems Forever) and Derick Cordoba(ex-Further Seems Forever) have a new project called The Fields Forever. Catchy, huh? They got themselves a myspace too.
The Black Atlantic is a new project from former Shai Hulud singer Geert Van der Velde(hooray for Dutch folks!!) - but what I didn't know is that he's also fronting The Architect, whose name I've seen around. Ah well. You can't catch it all, I guess. Check out his two bands.
Need to get pumped up? Check it out - another live video of Comeback Kid's 'Wake The Dead'. Hit the pit! [saveyourscene]
Ooooh: Life In Your Way have a new song up on their myspace called 'Worthwhile' - only for a short time! Go listen! Big ups to Jersey!!
Hey kids. Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day/Victoria Day weekend. Here's some news before I bounce out to work.
sweetdisaster favourites Thrice filmed a live video for 'The Earth Will Shake' in London, England recently, and posted it online. That's the medium-sized version, and you need QuickTime to view it. For the video treatments of 'Red Sky' and 'Image of the Invisible', check this out. And finally, frontman Dustin Kensrue(what a great dude) is trotting out some solo acoustic stuff, including a mini-tour in the near future with now ex-Hot Water Music main man Chuck Ragan out in California. [punknews]
Oldschool hardcore kids will get up for this: the reunited Gorilla Biscuits are touring the US of A, with Comeback Kid opening all the shows. The tour's itinerary, by which you of course can see if this is coming to your town, is over here. Additionally, word is that CBK are going into the studio this fall to record their third album, tentatively due in early 2007. That's awesome.
Spitfire's video for 'Life and Limb' can be seen over here. Self-Help just came out a month or so ago. I've yet to hear it.
Rumour has it that Maylene & The Sons of Disaster didn't take long to find big-label help; Ferret Records has apparently signed the Alabama sextet, meaning more touring and better production. Word.
One of the more boring acts Tooth & Nail Records has released in the last couple years, Waking Ashland, has jumped up to Immortal Records(Korn, etc). Why? Why??
The Weakerthans Impossible Distances tour has been expanded a bit; in addition to the shows with The Tragically Hip, the band will also take along Raising the Fawn, The New Amsterdams and Bad Religion frontman Greg Graffin, whose solo album Cold As The Clay was recorded with three Weakerthans in attendance. The shows so far are as such: June 18 Guelph, ON GRCA Guelph Lake Conservation Area with The Tragically Hip
June 18 Guelph, ON GRCA Guelph Lake Conservation Area with The Tragically Hip
June 19 London, ON Call The Office with TBA
June 20 Ottawa, ON The New Capital Music Hall with TBA
June 22 Hamilton, ON The Underground with TBA
June 23 Toronto, ON Fort York with The Tragically Hip
June 24 Toronto, ON Fort York with The Tragically Hip
July 9 Buffalo, NY Town Ballroom with Raising the Fawn and New Amsterdams
July 10 Cleveland, OH The Grog Shop with Raising the Fawn and New Amsterdams
July 11 Washington, DC 9:30 Club with Raising the Fawn and New Amsterdams
July 12 Philadelphia, PA TLA with Greg Graffin and New Amsterdams
July 13 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom with Greg Graffin and New Amsterdams
July 14 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club with Greg Graffin and New Amsterdams
July 15 St. Adele, PQ Bourbon St. North with The Tragically Hip
From an album review a few years ago, found just surfing around the web:
"The whole CD leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This is just another sign of the Christian community trying to take a commercially successful medium with youth and adapt it to help spread their "message." - punknews.org
Nice. This is why if you're a Christian, terrific, good call in my humble opinion, but innovate. Be new. Be better. Be impossible to peg as copycats.
Another one bites the dust: Florida legends Hot Water Music, one of the most beloved punk bands ever and after an indefinite hiatus, officially called it quits this week. New musical endeavours are in the offing though, so don't walk away just yet, you. Yeah, I see you.
Since my beloved Ottawa Senators have been summarily ousted from the NHL playoffs, it's now the Edmonton Oilers who are anointed God's Team - and way to earn it tonight, with a 6-3 win over the stupid San Jose Sharks. Stupid stupid Sharks.
Did you know there's a US Congress bill afoot that would see "social networking" sites(ie myspace and every 'zine like ours out there) banned from schools and libraries? I don't know how I feel about this. [punknews]
Wow, I've been really ignoring the mainstream: guitarist Dave 'Brownsound' Baksh quit Sum 41 this week, leaving the band's future up in the air. How 'bout that. Baksh is instead focusing on his classic-metal act Brown Brigade(awesome name - Baksh is, I believe, of Indian descent).
Frig: after fifteen years, the Suicide Machines, one of the finest ska-punk bands ever, appear to be over and out, following a meltdown last week over members leaving, shows in disarray and a general idea that it's done. Doh! From Battle Hymns through A Match And Some Gasoline - and the band's latest, last year's War Profiteering Is Killing Us All, these guys rocked it hard to the end. I, for one, shall miss them.
"I spent so much time trying to create a me that was unique and special so that others would love me that I lost the unique and special person that I never knew I was. What a waste." - Jenny Miller
Louisiana metal crew Becoming the Archetype(big favourites on my radio show, the Rock Block, Fridays from 9-11pm on CHRI 99.1 FM here in Ottawa - what a plug!) have made the big step to Europe, where they'll be on tour with Purified In Blood in July. The tour touches down in the UK and Germany; if you're over there, go to a show. Metal all the way. Whoooo. [theprp]
Cursed, one of the baddest bands from Toronto these days, have a lot of shows lined up in the next couple months, including a stop in Montreal June 2nd at Club Soda with Misery Index(I may go!). This is all to promote their latest effort III as well as a seven-inch EP they've done.
A DVD will hopefully be out in August from the mighty Isis(or, as someone here in Ottawa once called them, "Is-is"), as well as a live album and a couple collaborative efforts. They're busy guys. For all the dirt hit this up.
Between The Buried And Me have a covers album coming out soon, featuring their takes on songs by Metallica, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Queen, Pink Floyd and more. I bet some of the songs will be featured when the band hits Ottawa May 28th at Babylon, with openers August Burns Red and others. C'mon out! Word. I didn't even know about this til just now.
Tom Cowell, this one's for you: Tool are going on tour for two months to pump 10,000 Days, their new album. As well, the band is negotiating to have their material featured in the new Guitar Hero 2 video game. The first edition of Guitar Hero conquered the world, apparently. I wanna play it.
New songs from Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall and Motorhead can be sampled over here.
Ontario has produced an absolute landslide of bands in the last five years or so, and one of the best, Boys Night Out, have a DVD coming out entitled Dude, You Gotta Stop Dancing(awesome!). The beast comes out June 27th, and the cover art and stuff you can see over here.
III: In The Eyes of Fire is the very metal-sounding name of Unearth's new album, recently completed. The band will headline a mainly-Canadian tour with the likes of All That Remains, Walls of Jericho, A Life Once Lost and more that touches down in Ottawa June 17th. As IF I'll be in TORONTO that day! Here are the rest of the shows:
June 16th Quebec City, QC - Theatre Imperial
June 17th Ottawa, ON - Babylon
June 18th Sudbury, ON - Frasier Auditorium
June 20th Winnipeg, MB - Ramada
June 22nd Regina, SK - The Distrikt
June 23rd Edmonton, AB - Reds
June 24th Calgary, AB - The Ballroom
June 26th Boise, ID - Big Easy
Smoking Popes are indeed back from a long dormancy, with a new album and tour, but Josh Caterer's in-between band Duvall are still alive technically - and two killer unreleased songs that the band played at last year's Cornerstone Festival, 'Brand New' and 'Light of Christ', are up on their myspace. For those who don't know - and I'm a recently-made Popes fan here - Duvall are very much still a Caterer project, meaning all of what made the Popes awesome is carried over. Don't sleep. And the rock-your-face-off version of 'Go Tell It On The Mountain' is pure heat.
pastepunk has been given a facelift. Looks raaaaad. And the quality of writing, reviews and opinion remain topflight, as they have for years. Far better than this trashy rag you're reading.
I've heard two of the new songs, but after reading this here, I really need to own the new Sick Of It All album Death To Tyrants.
"It's hard for us to place a price tag on ourselves and Satan will try to keep us from believing we can be that valuable to God." - June M. Faulkner, deeperdevotion.com
Brandon Jones, famed for Indie Vision out in California, did a comprehensive interview with Anberlin driving force Stephen Christian; the entire uncut, unedited thing is over here. The band are here in Ottawa as part of Bluesfest July 15th, along with Story of the Year, Hawthorne Heights, Halifax and other scene-y bands who really have no business at a blues festival.
Some news from Eulogy Recordings and subsidiary Hand of Hope:
- if you're on their mailing list, there was a technical malfunction lately, which is why you didn't get the emails. They're fixing it. As well, there's a killer merch sale going on; hit it up by calling 954.489.9457 and saying the magic word, that being DOUGHNUT(I didn't make this up, this is just what they're telling me).
- New albums from Casey Jones and Society's Finest are both available for preordering.
- Texas hardcore band Will To Live have signed to Eulogy.
- Pretty much every band on both labels, being that it's summer, are touring in the next few months, so hit up the websites for shows.
- Very hot buzz band Set Your Goals' debut Mutiny hits July 7th.
East-coast rawker Matt Mays and his band El Torpedo are going out on tour with The Black Crowes this month. That's pretty awesome. And note we said 'rawker', not just 'rocker'. The 'w' implies a higher level of rock bliss.
The first of the spring thunderstorms(quasi-thunderstorms) rolled through Ottawa today - hooray for nature.
Some news and notes from Tooth & Nail, Smallman and Floodgate Records, respectively:
Run Kid Run(the new incarnation of longtime favourites Side Walk Slam - get it?)'s "debut" album This Is Who We Are comes out on the 16th of this month, but absolutepunk has six of the new songs to listen to. Run on over there, now, y'hear??
The Classic Crime's T&N debut Albatross hits a week later on the 23rd, but hit up purevolume, that bastion of bands galore, to hear four cuts in advance. As well, if you choose to preorder the album at Tower.com, you'll get a free t-shirt! Rad.
The above two bands plus Spoken will be joining A Change of Pace for a nineteen-date tour later this month; check your city's alt-newspaper to see if it's swinging through your town.
mewithoutYou have finished their third album, again with producer Brad Wood behind the boards, and are heading out on tour with Thursday, whose brand-new CD A City By The Light Divided just hit stores Tuesday, and Minus the Bear. Dates are over here.
Our Mercury have not broken up; in fact, contrary to the rumour that they themselves started, the band are touring with the likes of From Fiction, Ghosts of Modern Man and The(International) Noise Conspiracy.
Choke and Ghosts of Modern Man both have new videos in rotation at MuchMusic and MuchLoud. Watch them.
Winnipeg's own Comeback Kid are in Europe as you read this doing shows with Raised Fist(who, incidentally, finally have a new album out on the 23rd); they're coming home in a couple weeks, and in July there'll be a farewell show for departed vocalist Scott Wade, as well as a big tour at the end of the summer - no word yet on that.
Moneen, quite without my notice, have released The Red Tree to good reviews; it's snaking up the charts here in Canada with the help of Vagrant Records' support worldwide. I should buy it. HMV has it for $9.99.
We here at the D predict big things for Transition, whose Floodgate debut Get There is out very soon; Mike Herrera of MxPx produced, and I get the sense that there'll be an MxPx/Reel Big Fish/Transition tour this summer, if I'm reading signs correctly.
Forever Changed have announced their impending breakup, but their final album Chapters is done and will be available at the last shows/tour before being made available in a limited kind of way via retail in July.
Floodgate is sponsoring the new Relevant Magazine stage at Cornerstone Festival this summer. The lineup will be announced soon, but I likely will not be there. Booooooooo.
Just found out I'm going to a little rock show featuring Sproll, an up-and-coming New Brunswick-based Britrock band(citing U2, Travis and Coldplay as influences). Cafe Deckuf, 221 Rideau Street upstairs, Saturday night. C'mon out.
And tonight(busy week!) I'm hitting up the A Life Once Lost show. Metal to the core.
One of the most blatant attempts by the Christian record industry to cash in off someone else's genius is going live May 25th: Xianz.com(unbelievable!) is a myspace.com-themed promotional tool that's still in beta-version, invite-only form, but has been growing "astonishingly" in just a few weeks, according to the spin doctors. I'm appalled.
Pillar are doing a live album, recording tomorrow night's show, May 3rd, down in Knoxville, Tennessee. [phantomtollbooth]
A local show here in Ottawa we wanna get the word out on: Farewell to Freeway are coming up from southern Ontario to rock a show at Club SAW(67 Nicholas downtown). Openers are Motorcycle Drive By, In Safe Hands, Blaisedale and Arise & Ruin(not necessarily in that order). Seven pm, eight bucks at the door.
A couple dudes from Showbread(I still don't get their schtick, but that's irrelevant) have started up what they're calling a "horror-punk" band called The Living Dead. Labeled as a punk band heavily influenced by horror movies(not my bag), hence the moniker. If you're down, check out their stuff over myspace. [truthexplosion]
Toronto band The Midway State seemingly dropped out of sight the last year or two, but recently played an EMI Records showcase where the band announced their signing for a rumoured half-million dollars. That's impressive for a piano-rock band.
Norma Jean's new record, due out in August, will be called Redeemer. That's according to unverified sources, so if it's wrong, we'll find out and fix it.
Along with an unexpected visit to Ottawa where they'll play the...Bluesfest? Weird. Anyway, Anberlin will be in town July 15th for the festival slot, and have announced that on the 31st of that month will begin recording their third album for Tooth & Nail Records, again with Aaron Sprinkle producing.
A crazy metal/hardcore band outta the UK, Johnny Truant, have signed with Ontario label Dine Alone(The Fullblast, City And Colour). I caught their act a couple months ago at SAW and they're truly out of their minds. Great show.
Rise Against and Billy Talent both have new albums coming this summer.
Dashboard Confessional will be in Canada June 30th through July 9th, with the aforementioned City and Colour opening, along with Say Anything and a guy named John Ralston:
June 30 - Toronto, ON @ Molson Amphitheatre
July 1 - London, ON @ John Labatt Centre
July 3 - Thunder Bay, ON @ Community Auditorium
July 4 - Winnipeg, MB @ Winnipeg Convention Centre
July 7 - Calgary, AB @ Jack Singer Hall
July 9 - Vancouver, BC @ Plaza of Nations(City and Colour will not appear on
this date)
Hardcore kids, heads up: Terror and Death Before Dishonor are gonna be in Ottawa July 4th at Babylon. [lambgoat]
Facedown Records has signed a major distribution deal with RED, who also do US/Canada distro for Trustkill, Ferret, Metal Blade, Equal Vision, Victory, The Militia Group and a lot more. That's big for the Facedown kids.
Score one for Tooth & Nail, as they've re-signed Underoath, who elected to stay 'indie' despite the wining and dining of major labels. Sayeth the band: “Major labels, I think, as a whole, don't really get it a lot of times. They don't understand how bands like us work. They understand how Madonna works and how 50 Cent can sell 8 million records. But they don't get heavy bands. We don't really agree with a lot of the business practices major labels employ sometimes. We weren't feeling what they wanted us to do. But we got a lot of free dinners out of it. We told our manager to set up meetings with whoever asked, because we like free food. Free dinners are always a good thing." Awesome. [buzzgrinder]
...and if you're interested, here's the cover art for Underoath's newest, Define The Great Line. How very dark and forbidding.
What the...from aversion by way of buzzgrinder comes words that The Lemonheads('Mrs. Robinson', anyone?) have been lured out of a long retirement by...Vagrant Records? That's unexpected.