New Hey Monday Video

The video for 'How You Love Me Know' from Hey Monday can be seen by clicking read more.How You Love Me Now

New Set It Off EP and Song

Set It Off have announced they will release their second EP on May 12th. The EP is called 'Calm Before The Storm' and a song called '143' can be heard on the band's myspace.

The Color of Violence Album Stream

The Color of Violence's debut album 'Youthanize' is streaming on their purevolume page.

'Youthanize' will be released through Epitaph on April 7th.

New Anti-Flag Album Details

Anti-Flag have announced their seventh album 'The People or the Gun" will be released on June 8th and will be released on SideOneDummy.

1. Sodom, Gomorrah, Washington D.C. (Sheep in Shepherds Clothing)
2. The Economy is Suffering, Let It Die
3. The Gre(A)t Depression
4. We Are The One
5. You Are Fired (Take This Job)
6. This Is The First Night
7. No War Without Warriors (How Do You Sleep?)
8. When All The Lights Go Out
9. On Independence Day
10. The Old Guard
11. Teenage Kennedy Lobotomy

Paramore Update

Paramore have given a small update on their new album.

"helloooo dear friends

welp! we're a week into tracking this record. tonight we finished the 4th song and zac tracked drums to the 5th... so things are moving really quickly. we're actually doing a song at a time, which we've never done before. i really like how it's coming together. it's nice to be able to start a song and focus on it all the way through until it's complete. or at least 95%.

without making this into some kind of unofficial press release... i'm so excited about the songs we have. i can't wait to tour with them... for you guys to hear. i was really nervous for a long time about what songs we'd write and how we'd come across this time around... but now listening back to what we've gotten done, my worries are gone. it feels great to really love what we're doing.

brandon (the genius behind the "fourth meal" videos) is coming back out this week. he'll be filming all kinda stuff and eventually posting things for you guys and specifically for fan club members. brandon rules, doesn't he?! i'm stoked for him to hang with us. what a salty fellow.

oh my goodness, i'm so tired. i can't keep my eyes open. i better get some sleep.
thanks for reading. it was good to see a few of you at the show the other night... miss seeing your faces while on tour! .... okay really, i just dozed off.... goodnight neverland!

hayley"

Gallows Sign with Warner Bros.

Gallows have signed a worldwide deal with Warner Bros. Records for the release of their new album, "Grey Britain," which will be available on May 5th.

New Blackout Album Track Listing

The Blackout have announced the track listing for their new album 'The Best In Town' which is released on June 9th through Epitaph.

1. ShutTheFuckUppercut
2. Save Our Selves (The Warning)
3. Top Of The World
4. The Fire
5. Children Of The Night
6. Said & Done
7. Silent (When We Speak)
8. I Love Myself And I Wanna Live
9. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
10. We're Going To Hell… So Bring The Sunblock

The Bled Video Update

A video update from The Bled can be seen by clicking read more.

Fin Raziel Give Away EP

Fin Raziel have made their debut 'Disaster EP' available for free download for a limted time only. The band are currently working hard on new material and have confirmed an appearence at the Secret Garden Festival in Farnham on the 23rd May.

Fin Raziel's 'Disaster EP' can be downloaded here.

Twin Atlantic Begin Recording Mini Album

Glasgow based alt-rockers Twin Atlantic are set to begin work on their forthcoming mini-album in Los Angeles, California. The as yet untitled release due out this summer will be produced by John Travis (The Answer, Kid Rock, Sugar Ray), in sessions that will see the band remain in California until the end of April.

Interview: Cancer Bats - 3/03/2009

Kristin recently caught up with Cancer Bats vocalist Liam Cormier during the US leg of the Taste of Chaos tour. Liam talked about life on the road, his guest appearence on the new records by Silverstein and Gallows, plans for a new record and twitter.

K: So, how's the tour going so far?
L: The tour has been going awesome! Obviously everyone is going to say that, but, I'll tell you why: the dudes on this tour are amazing and we've become really good friends with Thursday, which is awesome. We were told by all of our friends [Rise Against, Alexisonfire] "don'tknow the other bands, but you're totally gonna get along with Thursday!" Then Thursday was told that by our same friends, so we all rolled up and were like "hey heeeey!" Almost kind of like blind dating. And like, they're all super cute so, it works! No, but, we were just like "we're old and you're old so lets all just hang out!"

K: That's cool, so you think you'll stay friends after the tour?
L: I would cry if we didn't stay friends after this tour and we're only in, what, the first month? Kinda halfway, three weeks into it? Yeah, I feel like we're all becoming really good friends.

K: You guys had the day off yesterday/last night, did you have a sleep over?
L: We had a sleepover at a friends house in Holyoke [Massachusetts], where we've been kinda staying for the whole week so for us it was no biggie. I definitely drove from Portland, Maine to Holyoke, Massachusetts in that crazy snowstorm and I'd probably give that one
of the top 5 sketchiest drives I've ever been on.

K: I'm glad you made it!
L: I know, I'm glad I'm not dead! Totally stoked!

K: It took me like an hour to dig my car out of the snow!
L: Really? We did a pretty good job, we drove it out and then Mikey and I dusted it off and we went to Denny's. We were like "let's go eat breakfast!"

K: Excellent morning!
L: It was actually a really nice day off, we ended up being really productive and getting our photos taken by this friend of ours whose a really, really good photographer. So we went to the studio, got our photos taken, and then we went to the mall, it was awesome.

K: The mall!
L: Crush some mall time, paid some bills, sent my girlfriend a birthday present, it was all good! Went to Hot Topic, bought the new Fake Problems 7 inch, new Fake Problems record is awesome. Just came out on Side One Dummy, I just twittered about it today!

K: You Twitter?!
L: I'm getting into twittering! Being in a band, you kind of get some of that stuff forced on you. I don't have a personal Myspace or a personal Facebook or any shit like that because I don't care, like I have a girlfriend and I have a lot of friends so I'm just calm. But
yeah so I just got into twittering, that's what the kids are into so I was just like oh, I'll twitter now. People are like "you guys need to get a buzznet account" and we're like what the fuck is buzznet? So yeah, you find out about all this weird stuff and telecommunication.
But now I'm actually getting into twittering!

K: Are you an avid Twitterer?
L: Yeah! We were laughing about it [joking] that the only people who have twitters are people who don't have any friends cause normally I would turn to my friends and just be like [laughs out loud], you know? But in this case you're just like [pretends to type] "ohhh! burritos
are the best thing ever!" Twitter. More recently I've been getting into Twitter while all of my friends are asleep because they would just turn to me and be like "yeah, everyone knows you like burritos Liam! Who gives a shit?" Then I can be like "twitter cares!"

K: Twitter does care!
L: And it's kind of cute because now people will come up to me at merch and are like "I follow you on Twitter and you said that funny thing the other day!" I was talking about how I liked the fact that we were driving and it was like blue sunny skies, really nice out, and we
were listening to Fiest and I was like "my life rules!" Then this kid was like "what's Feist? I followed you on Twitter!" So yeah, Twitter is like, hardcore kids getting into Feist.

K: What do you do to pass the time on the road, aside from Twitter?
L: We hang out a lot, a lot of us will just listen to ipods [together, sharing the music] and we all hang for the most part. We're all friends so we're always goofing around and laughing. It helps too that we sometimes have different people on the tour to change the dynamic.
We have a sound guy which we normally don't tour with, we normally tour with five of us [four band members and a merch guy]. Then we bring in a new person, like now we have a sound guy and he's an awesome dude, so that kinda changed the dynamic too. Normally I find
like, you get into this routine like [the same thing] day after day after day of touring where you're just like I sit on this bench and you sit on that bench and these two sit up front and we'll kinda talk but nobody really hangs out. Then you have this new guy whose sitting
in your seat and you're like oh, that's cool, maybe I'll ride shotgun!

K: Revolver.com just released your cover of The Faints 'Agenda Suicide'; is this one of three new covers that'll be on the re-release of Hail Destroyer?
L: Yeah!

K: What are the other two?
L: Tegan and Sara's 'So Jealous' and we do 'I Want A Lot Now' by the Murder City Devils. The Faint one is probably my favorite because I like that we took someone else's song and just made it a Cancer Bats song to a certain degree though we did that with the Tegan and Sara
song.

K: It definitely sounds like you made it your own.
L: Yeah! That's what I really liked about it, people who like the Faint are like oh, this is awesome! But there are tons of people who don't know that it's a cover when we play it, it works that way. Whereas, when we play the Murder City Devils song it's just Cancer Bats playing a Murder City Devils song, which I still like, and I really like how it sounds because I love that band and even if two kids find out about it and get into the Murder City Devils then we won!

K: So! You just did a guest spot on the newest Silverstien and Gallows records, what was that like?
L: Yeah I just did the Silverstien record, which was really really cool actually. I was really stoked on it musically and I was really psyched that they asked me because they're friends of ours but we're not in the immediate same circles so we always just hungout at shows. When they asked me I was really psyched and it was really cool, I learned a lot from doing it because I'm used to going and like, you go in and someone says "we want you to sing on this" so you read the lyrics, get the mic, and they're like ok, go, and you do it and they're like ok do it again, you listen to it and you're like yeah, sounds good. The guy that was producing this record, and I've done this before, he was like "you need to sing it exactly the same way as
Shane." Not voice wise, but phrasing, so the way he said all the words I needed to say them in the exact same way and I didn't really get it until we listened to it back. It took forever to finally get it because, you pace words different even though you're both on beat, it's like the way you're saying stuff or putting it together where I breathe vs. where he breathes. So it was really cool that way, kind of dissecting how I sing and how someone else does, so we got it to where everything fit perfectly and we go and listen to it and it sounds so crazy. All of
the low in his voice was magnified by all the low parts of my voice but all the high parts of my voice sit over his so you can hear both parts exactly but because of the way that they're so in sync it sounds really clear, you can make out both people. I had never thought about
it, it makes perfect sense, I've made a bunch of records and have been on other peoples records and have never done that before, so I want to try something like that on our record. New Silverstein, I'm really impressed with it too, it sounds awesome. It's really heavy, a lot
more screaming than their last albums so I was like fucks yeah, that rules. It rules when you see a band that's at a certain level and they're just like no fuck it, I want to do this, you know? They don't play it safe.

K: I like that too, and it usually turns out for the best..
L: It pays off! I feel like that's what we did with Hail Destroyer, tons of people told were like "you can't release a record this heavy, the kids that were into your band before will not be into this band." We had people telling us that and we got really really nervous. But
the record came out and people were like oh, it's heavy, awesome, I like heavy bands! We were like pheeew! So yeah, that's how it is, stick to your guns!

K: Its been pretty successful.
L: I think it's going good, I like where we're at with this band right now, I feel like everything is really positive but it's not like, the band blew up, you know what I mean? I feel like we're working just as hard as we have been and we're getting into this mode where it's just
like, all of this work that we've been doing makes sense to the next step and then we work and it makes sense to the next step so I never feel like anything is unjustified but at the same time I don't feel out of place with where we are. I got here because...we're playing these sized rooms because we've toured this much on our own. Not to say that anyone else's situation is different, it's just for me personally I don't sit around and wonder if we're sellouts, no, I feel
awesome with what's happening.

K: Do you have any other guest appearances planned?
L: No...there's been kind of talk with the dudes from Alexis[onfire] are like oh we have this project that we want you to sing and I really want to bad. The reason why it makes it a big deal to me, and I haven't really said this to anyone, BUT when we got George to sing on
our first record he came in and they [Alexisonfire] were recording their third album at that point and had been touring forever, and this was our first record and we had not been touring, so my voice was not strong at all. George comes in and just crushes what I had done, like
just went in the booth and just crushed it to the point where the dudes in my band were like "we should just use George's vocals cause they sound awesome!" I was so bummed, I was like oh my god yeah you're voice is awesome dude. So, now that fact that those guys are psyched
on my voice is awesome, I feel like I've come such a long way to where I wish I could rerecord Birthing the Giant. So now to have that, a bunch of years later, to have those dudes say we really like your voice and we want you to sing along with George, it's awesome. Instead of George [laughs] like dominating my vocals, haha it was embarrassing, like he came in and was SO loud! I was trying to do these parts and sound really heavy and he was like "oh do you want me to do a vocal take? how 'bout I do ONE?" On the other hand I was losing my voice everyday! So yeah, I don't even care, I don't care if I like, have to go out of my way and pay money to find a studio to do it, it's just like, gotta do that!

K: How would you decide Cancer Bats sound?
L: I would say just like, punk, hardcore and metal all mixed together. Southern Hardcore is usually my easy go-to, because we do mix up a lot of stuff but it depends on who you're describing it to.

K: Do you think that the band having such diverse musical influences (such as Pantera and Led Zepplin) have helped shape your sound?
L: Yeah! I think us being all over the place and having people like Scott, our guitar player being more of a metal guy and listening to bands that I don't necessarily even like and then me being more into hardcore and punk and maybe even more metalcore than the rest of the dudes in the band, Mike being into Propaghandi more than anything else. All that, when we bring it together, it's like someone hears something different when we're writing and be like oh we should take this song and kinda push it this way. Or I'll be like "we should have a breaaak down!" So, I like the fact that it's not four guys, or three guys for the most part, who listen to the same thing. I think where we're at now, realizing that that's what's worked for our band, so we're just trying to push that even more to just be like, well, I really love Broken Social Scene so I'd like to take some of their ideas and put that in or I really like when this happens in like an M.I.A. track so I'm going to try to bring that in.

K: That's what sets you apart though.
L: I think thats where like, a lot of people like yourselves, who maybe don't listen to just hardcore, are like oh, I hear this other stuff that you you guys do and I think it's awesome. So, I always like that kinda aspect as well.

K: Has the success of Hail Destroyer changed things for you or the band in general?
L: Yeah, we're getting a lot more opportunities that we didn't have before so the fact that we're doing Taste of Chaos, we're doing bigger tours in the UK, bigger tours in Canada, we're going to be doing a bigger Australian tour. All of that stuff just makes us able to do this more, but it also makes it a little bit easier, like the fact that now we're not particularly struggling, like we have at least some money to make this a little bit more comfortable. I would say maybe even less that we're comfortable, because it's not like we have apartments, but it's more like, we don't have to worry about bills and food and stuff like that. It's just like ok we can just tour, we can be in this band, and now we can take some time off and write without having to tour the whole time. So it's like ok, we'll take three months off and we'll write a new record, that's what we're going to do this summer. Now that we've been able to make some money to do that we don't have to worry, for me personally, because I handle all of the business end of things so it's a lot of that kind of stress that's gone, which is good.

K: Because you're basically a "touring band", do you miss the road when you're not on it?
L: A ton! Because your whole life is like, that routine that you're used to and when we're not on tour our friends have a routine so beyond that first week of hanging out with everybody and doing all the stuff that you've missed everyone else gets back into the routine in their lives and we're kind of left hanging, we have band practice and that's it. That's why when we're home, if we are home and we have time off we just try to write as much as possible and still keep working as hard as we do. But not only do we miss touring [when we're not on the road] but I find that we just always end up hanging out with each other and keeping that going. We took a month off to start writing new stuff in January and by the end of that we were all just like "can't wait to be back on tour!" We had a 50 hour drive to start this tour in LA and we were like "pft! piece of cake! welcome back to the van! woo! let's sleep in the van, let's drive all night!" everyone was so
charged.

K: Do you guys take turns with different benches in the van or is it kind of a territorial "this is my bench!" kind of thing?
L: Everybody has kind of a rough area, like my bench is covered in stickers on the top and I kinda share with our merch guy [Juice]. At night it's normally like, that's who'll be sleeping in it and that's who'll be up front. Then Jay and Mikey share the middle bench and then there's kinda like Scotts area in the back, called scobe-city.

K: In your opinion, has Canada started feeling the effects of America's economic crisis?
L: I feel like everyone [in the world] is, I think it's something that's just happening to everyone. A lot of Canadian business has to do with American business so the dollar going bums so many people out so there's a lot of job insecurity. But, I think the thing is, especially right now, a lot of people are realizing that it's not as bad as they thought it was going to be. So now everyone is kind of easing out of it and realizing "okay, I do have a job, we're in March right now, I think I'm going to be fine." Everybody's kinda realizing that it wasn't as bad as they thought, or maybe it was as bad as they thought, but they're realizing that it's a lot more manageable. A lot of people are realizing that there was so much over spending that was happening and there was so much stuff that just could be managed better. So in a lot of cases it's like, business as usual but for people who were running a shady business or doing things really poorly now it's
like "oh, I gotta stop all this pointless waste and fire all these alcoholics!" You know what I mean? Like, turn back on all this stupidity, and that's everybody all across the board so I think it's like, it's bad in certain ways but it's also good in another. I mean, you see it everywhere, even in record labels, they're just cleaning house with their rosters.

K: More Canadian bands such as Alexisonfire and Comeback Kid have started gaining the recognition they deserve. Why do you think it's so hard for international bands to break into the American music scene?
L: I think because America already has enough bands that the kids don't really need to look elsewhere to find really good bands cause there are a ton of amazing bands that are from the US. So that's why you kind of have to like, force kids to get into it because, like, even our sound, there's tons of bands that sound like us that are playing, especially at our level, that are just coming up. So for a lot of kids it's like "oh, I don't really give a shit about this, my friends play in a band like this." I think that's the biggest thing, whereas if we go to England, Europe or anywhere else, there's not as many people so there's not as much stuff going on and I think they're used to looking at America and finding out about bands and looking at Canada and looking elsewhere.

K: What do you think about the metal/hardcore scene in the UK and how different is it touring there than the states?
L: I think it's awesome, we've been really embraced within that scene in England, a lot, by both metal kids and hardcore kids, which is awesome and I love touring over there. Especially because its so small so the longest drive you'll ever do is from London to Glasgow, which
is unheard of to even tour that, and that's 8 hours. So everything else is like 2-3 hours, although now, because we're known as this road dog band who will do whatever our tours now are getting booked really fucked. It's like, play in Brighton and then you play Ireland the next day and then you do three shows in Ireland and then you play Gloucester and we're just like "whooooa! those are like, 10 hours apart, we may not be able to." Then they're just like "what?! you guys said you could do anything!"

K: Who's been your all-time favorite band to tour with?
L: We have so many best friends as far as touring goes I can't really say just one. We literally become good friends with every band we tour with for the most part so I would say everybody that we've toured with! There's been maybe three bands that we haven't gotten along with or we didn't leave the tour being like "fucks yeah, we love you dudes!"

K: Who would you like to tour with that you haven't before?
L: I'd really like to tour with Mastodon, putting that out there now. I think that would be an actual tour we could do that people would actually be psyched over, especially in the US, I think people would be stoked. We've met them and they're good dudes so...let's do it Mastodon!

K: Do you have any pre-show preparations?
L: I stretch and warm up!

K: Have you started writing for the next album?
L: Yeah we're actually four songs in already, my only thing that I need to nail down is, Hail Destroyer kind had a theme about tour so I'm finding it hard to figure out what the new record is going to be all about before I can start really jumping in with lyrics for it because I don't want to write Hail Destroyer 2, but my life is still all about tour, so I'm trying to dig deeper and move beyond that.

K: Are there any plans for a new EP, etc?
L: Nah, we're gonna put out a new record sooner than later, that's the main plan. To have that out in early 2010, like January or February 2010 is our goal. Then tour a lot more on that and have two really strong records that are working because it's like, playing catch up with the whole industry side of things, we just got management and there's all this attention thats coming up so it's like we should just keep this momentum going for right now.

K: Finally, what are your plans for 2009?
L: Touring, taking the summer off to write the new record and then touring for the rest of the year. Tour the rest of our lives!
Kristen

The Prodigy to Headline Isle of Wight Festival

The Prodigy, Razorlight, The Pigeon Detectives, Stereophonics, Pendulum and Basement Jaxx have all been confirmed for the Isle of Wight Festival 2009.

Smashing Pumpkins to Audition for new Drummer

The Smashing Pumpkins will be holding auditions on Friday, April 10 in Los Angeles for a new drummer. Anyone interested should send their background info, photos and performance web links via email only to: pumpkinsdrummer@gmail.com.

New Sky Eats Airplane Video

Sky Eats Airplane have released a new video for 'Numbers'. Click read more to view.

Taking Back Sunday Announce First Single

Taking Back Sunday have announced 'Sink Into Me' as the first single from their new album 'New Again'.

New NOFX Song Download

'The Quitter' from NOFX's new album 'Coaster' can be downloaded here.

Cursive Announce UK Dates and New Video

Cursive have announced 2 UK dates to take place in May.

May 18 - Manchester Uni
May 20 - Newcastle Academy

The band's video for 'From The Hips' can be seen by clicking read more.From The Hips

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Posted by Sean Reid at 8:56 AM

Labels: cursive, new video, tour, uk

ATP Exclusive: Glassjaw Comment On Recent Re-Release

Glassjaw guitarist Justin Beck, when speaking recently to Alter The Press, commented on the recent re-release of the bands first album 'Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence' on Roadrunner Records:

"It's complete shit! We had nothing to do with it. DO NOT BUY IT! It's embarrassing."

New Sherwood Update

The latest studio blog from Sherwood can be seen by clicking read more.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I go for a morning bike ride around our block (which is a 2 mile trip that I do like 5 or 6 times). It's a good thing I don't ride out to Griffith Park because my back tire goes flat right near the end of my 5th lap. I take my bike to a repair shop, but it will take several days to complete all the work I want done (it's an old bike). I might have to go swimming for exercise, which most of my band seems to be doing nowadays. It's just so cold in the morning!

We only have a few songs left in the preproduction phase. The first one for today is called Talk, a newer song that is very beautiful but has an usually dark subject matter -- it's spoken from the perspective of a torturous interrogator. Our demo is simply a big distorted guitar, some claps and the singing. Brad spends an hour tinkering on a strange synthesizer machine we've never heard of before (it doesn't actually have a keyboard on it, only a bunch of knobs, a switchboard, and all kinds of weird buttons). He records some chords, then Dan plays some guitar, then I play some drums and tamborine, then we take a lunch break. Dan and I watch some pre-recorded music programs during lunch (Pearl Jam on VH1 Storytellers which is somewhat interesting, followed by Goo Goo Dolls on Music In High Places which is too hippie for our taste, followed by Kanye West on VH1 Storytellers which is really sweet).

The last song on our list is Blind, a splendidly gorgeous ballad that has received mixed reviews. After listening to and talking about the song for a while we decide that it probably doesn't belong on this album. I am a little bummed, as I really wanted this song to make the cut but I don't take it personally. Some of the other guys have favorite songs they want to include that I don't like, so I don't make a big deal out of it.

Since there are no songs left on our preproduction list we break for the day while Brad begins making mp3 mixdowns of our rehearsal takes. I go install some new drum heads and then chat with Brad about Sunny Day Real Estate and Foo Fighters, delaying his work a bit. The man is full of great stories.

We start recording for reals tomorrow!

Our friend from college is performing with a comedy improv group in Hollywood so we head over there, search for parking which takes way too long and costs way too much, and enjoy an evening of laughs. Free popcorn!

Upon returning home, we find Nate hanging out with our friend Ryan (from VH1's Tough Love). Ryan has all kinds of stories from the show, including the fact that everyone on the show is an actor. This makes me dislike reality television even more. I fall asleep listening to Sigur Rós.


Thursday, March 26, 2009

We wake up and have our weekly band meeting. David and his girlfriend make breakfast for all of us (very sweet of them). Then it's time to start recording!

We make sure the drums are all tuned up nicely and choose the right snare for the first song (What Are You Waiting For). This song uses two snare drums -- a big, fat down-tuned DW for the verses and Brad's nice Keplinger stainless steel for the choruses and bridge. They both sound really great; it's a pleasure to play on nice equipment. We listen through the demo and go over changes that everyone wants to make, take a quick lunch break (pizza courtesy of Brad), and start tracking around 2:30 p.m. Brad's preferred method of tracking is to have everyone in the room together playing their instruments to capture the energy of a "live" performance (even though we'll only keep the drum tracks). Nate stays in the control room to sing vocals so Dan plays bass in the room with me, David, and Mike. Because we've played this song many times over the last 8 months, it only takes 2 times through to get it all right. One drum fill in the bridge requires a few extra takes but we quickly move on to song #2, Ground Beneath My Feet.

We tune the snare drum (Keplinger) down a little bit and change the cymbals. This is the first song I've ever recorded that uses a China cymbal. Dan is skeptical but Brad loves it (and so do I; I've always been curious to try one out). After playing through a few times we decide it would be interesting to record the song without the use of a metronome. This takes a few extra tries but we're later able to splice together parts of different takes to have a final product. Things are going well! On previous recordings we would get the drums sounding good and then I would record all the songs in a day or two. Brad's methodology is more spaced out so it looks like we'll only have time for three songs today.

We end the day with Everything. We switch snare drums, change some more cymbals (but keep the China which I use for one fill in the song), and track a few takes. Done! We'll probably do an acoustic/stomps-and-claps song tomorrow to complete the drums/rhythm for our first batch of songs to work on.

We celebrate the first day of tracking by walking to a really good frozen yogurt shop a few blocks away. On the way we pass a house which, according to Brad, has a recording studio that once belonged to Bing Crosby. Niccceee! I get some mint and chocolate frozen yogurt and load it up with almonds, Oreos, Reese's peanut butter cups, and cookie dough. I regret nothing.

My friend invites me to a concert in Hollywood but I am pretty tired from drumming, and have gone out the last few nights and will be going to a concert tomorrow (Brad is in a band called Cranky George that plays every few months and he wants us all to come tomorrow night). Mike, his girlfriend, and I catch the latest episode of The Office and call it a night.


Friday, March 27, 2009

We take advantage of the fact that there are eight people at our house (five Sherwoods + three girlfriends) by recording some group stuff for Make It Through. Brad brings a portable DAT recorder/microphone over to our house where we all put on boots and record some stomps and claps. It's very fun and I'm a little out of breath (towards the end I was jumping up and down to make some sweet stomp sounds). After Brad pieces together our rhythmic meanderings on his computer, we get all the guys and gals into the tracking room to lay down some group vocals. We all sing the part a few times, then all the girls sing, then all the guys, and then the better singers (read: not me) do some harmonies. I use my free time to take some pictures (see our pictures section).

Soon after, Dan and David's girlfriends have to leave. Everyone is sad; we've enjoyed having them around. The good news is that we have drums/rhythm completed for our first batch of songs. In case you haven't been keeping track, those four songs are:

What Are You Waiting For
Ground Beneath My Feet
Everything
Make It Through

Brad has to leave early tonight to play with his band in Hollywood, so we only have time to track bass for one song (What Are You Waiting For). We will do more tomorrow, but we'll spend most of the day in Long Beach at the wedding of our former merch girl, Ciara.

The bike shop calls and tells me my bike is ready. Mike drives me to the shop and I ride it back. Feels great!

Brad puts our names on the guest list for the show, so we go down to Hollywood and watch Cranky George play some Irish-inspired tunes. The others in his band include members of The Pogues and actor brothers Kieran and Dermot Mulroney (Dermot is the guy in My Best Friend's Wedding and, I discover, quite an accomplished multi-instrumentalist). It's a fun show. Everyone is excited to see Ciara get married tomorrow.

New As Cities Burn Song

A new As Cities Burn song called 84 Sheepdog' can be heard on their myspace.

The band's new album 'Hell or High Water' is released on April 21st.

Rise Against Release New Webisode

A new webisode from Rise Against can be seen by clicking read more.

Angels and Airwaves Update

Angels and Airwaves have a posted brief update on facebook.

The update said:

"Angels and Airwaves is pleased to announce that the record is coming along stronger and more amazing than planned......the movie and album will launch together towards the end of/ beginning of the year.....and may we say....it is going to blow away our previous work....prepare....clue: "compass / ruler"

Bloc Party to release New Remix Album

Bloc Party will release a remix album of 'Intimacy' on May 11th.

New Relient K Webisode

The first of four webisodes from Relient K can be seen by clicking read more.
Studio Update Webisode #1

Brand New and Fall Out Boy for Reading/Leeds Festival

Brand New and Fall Out Boy are two of the bands who have been announced for this years Reading/Leeds Festival line up.

Green Day's 'American Idiot': The Musical confirmed

Green Day's 2004 release 'American Idiot' has been confirmed to be turned into a musical which is set to run from September 4th to October 11th at the Berkley Repertory Theatre in California.

Rancid confirm new album release date

Rancid have confirmed the release of their seventh studio album 'Let The Dominoes Fall' for June 1st on Hellcat/Epitaph Records.

Billy Talent new record/new single given release date

Billy Talent's new record 'Billy Talent III' will be released July 13th on Atlantic Records.

Lost On Campus and Eat Sleep Attack To Stark UK Tour and Look for Extra Dates

Lost On Campus and Eat Sleep Attack (Sam Little, ex-Fleeing From Finales) go out on tour from this Thursday.

However the pair have some dates that need to be filled.

Thursday 2 April 2009 - SALISBURY, Old Ale House (With Go Vegas) - FREE ENTRY
Friday 3 April 2009 - BRISTOL, Junction - FREE ENTRY
Saturday 4 April 2009 - FROME, Frome FM Studios - FREE ENTRY MATINEE SHOW (Book Us In The Evening)
Sunday 5 April 2009 - BOOK US
Monday 6 April 2009 - BOOK US
Tuesday 7 April 2009 - NEWPORT, Le Pub (With The 5150s)
Wednesday 8 April 2009 - CARDIFF, Koko Gorillaz (With The 5150s)
Thursday 9 April 2009 - SOUTHAMPTON, Hamptons (With Waiting For Sirens)
Friday 10 April 2009 - BOOK US
Saturday 11 April 2009 - BRIGHTON, House Party

If you're interested in booking Lost On Campus and Eat Sleep Attack contact Mark Orr at info@labrecords.co.uk

The Maine Tour Update

The Maine have posted a tour video update. The band are currently in the US on the AP Tour.

Click read more to view.

AP TOUR: ALT ACCESS (Episode 2) from The AP TOUR 2009 on Vimeo

Set Your Goals Video Update

A video update from Set Your Goals can be seen by clicking read more.

Death Cab For Cutie Demo Stream

A stream of a demo version of 'Talking Bird' by Death Cab For Cutie can be heard here.

Mayday Parade Begin Recording

According to their MySpace blog Mayday Parade have began recording their new album.

The blog stated:

"So I know it's been said on here a lot recently, but we're heading into the studio in a couple of days to start recording the next album. We're up in New York right now getting everything ready, and I really can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. It's like Christmas times 1,000. Thanks for being patient with us and waiting so long to hear new material, as soon as we have it, you'll have it :)

Keep on trucking everybody

-Derek "

PlayRadioPlay! Releases Live Webcam Show Audio

PlayRadioPlay! has released the audio from a recent live webcam show he did. He played ten songs including 3 new songs. The file can be found here.

1. Compliment Each Other Like Colors
2. I'm Afraid There's A Hole In My Brain
3. Elephants As Big As Whales (Electronic version)
4. A Real Clever Trick Fur a Bear (New)
5. I Need To Know (New)
6. Decipher Reflections From Reality
7. In The Style of a Tight Rope Walker (New)
8. We've Been Searching The Sky For Answers (Mellotron Version)
9. Texas (Acoustic)
10. 1989 (Acoustic, Encore)

Of Mice and Men Update

A video update by Of Mice and Men can be seen by clicking read more.
OM&M Update from California

LeATHERMOUTH to play Bamboozle Left

LeATHERMOUTH have been added to this years Bamboozle Left lineup - 5th April in Irvine, California.

Spinnerette Announce Album Release Date

Spinnerette 's self-titled album will be released June 2nd via Anthem/RED.

Album Review: The Tupolev Ghost - The Tupolev Ghost EP

The Tupolev Ghost is a name that doesn’t appeal to me, it had me expecting another bandwagon jumping screamo band that has a myspace friends list of at least five figures, well, if there’s ever an opportunity to use the phrase ’don’t judge a band by their name’ then this is it. The band are signed to arguably the best independent record label in the UK in ‘Big Scary Monsters’ and have a list of influences that covers a good 80% of my record collection, ranging from At The Drive In to Modest Mouse and most things inbetween. To say I was excited to listen to this release is an understatement. The worry was that such high hopes might leave me a bit disappointed if the band didn’t live up to my expectations, luckily, this is certainly not the case.

The EP starts with a minutes worth of eerie music that wouldn‘t sound too out of place on a black and white horror movie. Then the EP kicks off properly with second track ‘Zeroes And Noughts’ which gives a good idea of what the band are all about, it has the vocals that aren’t quite singing, aren’t quite shouting and aren’t quite talking, but a fantastic amalgamation of all three, the eccentric guitars that twist and turn all over the place, the hard pounding drums. It definitely leans towards the eraticness that bands like Fugazi and Shellac are loved for, and I guess it’s pretty similar to former label mates Meet Me In St Louis as far as modern day comparisons go.

The Honeymoon Suite Posts Studio Diary

The Honeymoon Suite have posted a studio diary from when they recently spent time in the studio recording new material.

Click read more to view.

New My Favorite Highway Re-Release Details

My Favorite Highway have released details of the re-release of 'How to Call a Bluff', which will be released on May 5th.

01) Simple Life
02) Go
03) Say So
04) Getaway Car
05) Bigger Than Love
06) Dreamer
07) Bittersweet Life
08) What Are You Waiting For?
09) The Chase
10) Entertain the Pain
11) Steel City

Thrice Studio Update

Thrice have began tracking their first song for their new album.

"We started tracking the first song today. I guess you can call it sort of a preliminary tracking. Depending on how this turns out, it can be an album keeper or not. We’ll really get into the swing of things once Bamboozle is done.

We also seemed to have brought some bad voodoo along with our revamp of the space. First off, my tape machine died (anyone know where I can get a replacement capstan motor for a Tascam 388?), one of the preamps was acting funny, then our trusty computer that has been running like a tank decided it didn’t want to start up (but that seems to have been fixed). But the biggest snag we hit was that our drum tracks mysteriously weren’t sounding as good as they were last night when we threw down a couple bars of Riley playing, just to hear the new room. Nothing changed, but the tracks today were clearly not sounding as good. Blah. Recording can be so fickle. I nearly lost my mind but we got it sounding great in the end. Looks like we’ve got the drums in the can. Onto bass and guitars tomorrow. Oh, and we’re hoping to track a lot of this live in the end. We have some ideas to make it work in our little studio.

Teppei"

New This Providence Video

The video for 'Letdown' by This Providence can be seen here.

Sonic Boom Six Announce New Album and UK Dates

Sonic Boom 6 will release their third album 'City of Thieves' on April 20th through Rebel Alliance Recordings. The band will be touring in May with support from Random Hand.

APRIL
30th BRIGHTON THE ENGINE ROOMS
MAY
01st LONDON THE SCALA (CLUB NIGHT LATE SHOW)
02nd LONDON UNDERWORLD
03rd BRISTOL CROFT
04th EXETER THE CAVERN
05th CARDIFF BARFLY
06th YEOVIL ORANGE BOX
07th READING FACE BAR
08th ALTON COMMUNITY CENTRE
09th MANCHESTER
10th YORK FIBBERS
11th DARLINGTON FORUM
12th CAMBRIDGE MAN ON THE MOON
14th PLYMOUTH WHITE RABBIT
15th KETTERING SAWYERS
16th BRIDLINGTON SPA MUTINY FEST
17th DUNDEE DOGHOUSE
18th GLASGOW IVORY BLACKS
19th NEWCASTLE TRILLIANS
21st PETERBOROUGH PARK
22nd NARBETH QUEENS HALL
23rd BARROW IN FURNESS CANTEEN
24th LEEDS UNI SLAM DUNK
26th LIVERPOOL BARFLY
27th BIRMINGHAM ASYLUM
28th BLACKPOOL WEST COAST ROCK CAFE
29th NOTTINGHAM MAZE
30th SOUTHAMPTON TALKING HEADS
31st LONDON UNDERWORLD

HORSE The Band Begin Recording New Album

HORSE The Band have begun recording for 'Desperate Living' their fourth full-length and first for Vagrant. This week the band took 12 songs into White Buffalo Studios in Los Angeles with producer Noah Shain and plans a mid-summer release.

HORSE The Band will be playing some UK dates with Blakfish in May.

Taking Back Sunday create Twitter account

Taking Back Sunday have created their own Twitter account.

You can keep up to date with the bands antics here.

Placebo reveal tracklisting for new record

Placebo have revealed the tracklisting for their new record 'Battle For The Sun'.

1. Kitty Litter
2. Ashtray Heart
3. Battle For The Sun
4. For What It's Worth
5. Devil In The Details
6. Bright Lights
7. Speak In Tongues
8. The Never - Ending Why
9. Julien
10. Happy You're Gone
11. Breathe Underwater
12. Come Undone
13. Kings Of Medicine

'Battle For The Sun' is released June 8th.

Free Harvey Danger Album

Harvey Danger are giving away their new album 'Little by Little' here.

Have Heart, Rise & Fall and Shipwreck AD UK Tour Announced

Have Heart, Rise & Fall and Shipwreck AD have announced a UK tour that will take place in July.

19.07.09 Southampton Talking Heads
20.07.09 Sheffield Corporation
21.07.09 Aberdeen Korova
22.07.09 Manchester Music Box
23.07.09 London Underwolrd

Kyoto Drive Update

Kyoto Drive have announced their debut album will be called '"This is all we ever Wanted!' and fan's can keep up to date with the recording process on the band's blog.

New Lacuna Coil Video

Lacuna Coil's new video for 'Spellbound' can be seen here.