Turn On The Shuffle, It’s Friday

Bowling For Soup – “Running Away From Your Dad” from the album Drunk Enough To Dance
I have a decent amount of Bowling for Soup in my collection, and I think they can be quite catchy when it comes down to it.  This song though, is not one of those times.

Black Flag – “Rise Above” from the album Damaged
I mean, what can I say about this song that hasn’t already been said; it’s a classic for a reason.  Raw, powerful and pure Black Flag.  Sidenote about this one, I saw the Street Dogs perform this live one time and it was completely awesome.  True story.

Paramore – “Brighter” from the album All We Know Is Falling
I’ll just throw it right out there, I really like Paramore.  They’re a good pop-rock band and that’s all there is to it.  This isn’t their best song, but it still has a decent hook and Hayley’s  voice is still amazingly powerful for being such a little girl (she was around 16/17 when recording this record).

Jack Johnson – “Breakdown” from the album In Between Dreams
I went through a pretty big Jack Johnson phase my senior year of high school while trying to impress this girl who was into him.  He’s a solid listen sometimes, but is far from my favorite — especially in February in the North East.

Strike Anywhere – “Antidote” from the Fat Wrecktrospective
These dudes are great and I love when any of their material comes on at any time.  Sure a lot of their songs sound like a lot of their other songs, but they’re all great so who cares?  On a separate note, the Wrecktrospecive was an absolutely awesome release and was well worth the money.

Interview with Less Than Jake’s JR

Last Thursday, Less Than Jake came through Baltimore, and last Wednesday, because their show in Poughkeepsie had been snowed out, JR [far right] from Less Than Jake took some time out to talk to me.  Except he ended up taking a lot of time out to talk to me.  A lot.  So what follows is not just the normal ‘I’m on tour’ stuff, but instead a look inside an experienced band’s member and his views of the road, the [now] defunct Strike Gently, and why he think Justin Bieber is punk.  Seriously.

 

It’s early in the tour, but there’s no name for the tour, is there?

Yea, it’s a no name tour.  We’ve been calling it the no-name tour.  That doesn’t happen anymore; nobody gives a carp about these tours with 15 bands on it.  We’re Less Than Jake, we’re going on tour, come find us.

Pop Punk Is Back

Over the past year or so, clearly, pop-punk has made a comeback.  Not in a huge way, mind you, but it still has.  I’m going to have a full article on this soon, but I’m listening to one of Fuck Yea Pop Punk’s awesome mixtapes right now and I just felt I had to share that.  Seriously, though long rant coming soon, along with a very fun new interview which should be up later tonight/tomorrow morning.

Also, I started a Tumblr, check it out if you’re bored. Into This Ashtray Life

 

Larry And His Flask Sign

Sorry it’s been sparse around here lately, but I’ve had a lot of turmoil in my personal life that is finally resolved, so we’re good to go now.

Which brings me to Larry And His Flask.  I saw these dudes perform about a year and a half ago (roughly) before Dropkick Murphys and Strung Out, ad I have to say, they are just a BLAST.  They’re big dudes, who play big instruments and are just packed with energy.  They’re a folk-punk-bluegrass hybrid who I like waaaaaaaaaaay more than new Fat signees Old Man Markley, which is why I’m stoked that Larry has signed to a real label, Silver Sprocket.
Now I don’t know a thing about that label, but Punknews says that they will release Larry’s old EP and this is a very good thing.  When I saw them on the aforementioned tour, they had no recorded material and were asking people to buy shirts to fund them buying studio time.  Well now they have a home and hopefully we’ll get much more out of these guys very soon.  Until a release date is settled on however, they will be hitting the road on the awesome-sounding Streetlight Manifesto/A Loss For Words Tour.  Check the dates for that, as well as the original Punknews story here.

Turn On The Shuffle, It’s Friday

Every Friday I’ll simply hit the shuffle button on my iTunes and post the first 5 songs that play up here with a little commentary on each song.  Just something extra for the waning hours before the weekend.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes – “One Tin Soldier” from the album Have A Ball
It’s always fun to put on a Gimmes record and have a quick listen so I love getting them in my shuffle.  Although, Have A Ball is probably my least favorite of their records, after Blow In The Wind, but still this is a solid track and again, there’s really never a bad time to listen to the Gimmes.

Flogging Molly – “The Wrong Company” from the album Within A Mile of Home
This is a bad example of a Flogging Molly song as it’s only 37 seconds long.  It showcases his voice nicely, and reaffirms the notion that Molly, like their counterparts in Dropkick Murphys (my personal choice), can dip into traditional waters as well as original punk tunes.

We Are The Union – “What We Have Here is A Failure To Communicate” from the album Great Leaps Forward
I absolutely love WATU, and you’ll find that out very quickly by either listening to the show or poking around this site.  Just a great combination of ska, punk and hardcore, these guys have a huge potential to break out soon.  Great Leaps is also a phenomenal record that should be picked up by any fan of ska or punk.

The Casualties – “Under Attack” from the Warped Tour 2006 Compilation
When I was in my super “punk” phase (i.e. wearing studs and judging the shit out of other genres) I was really into these guys.  Now, I take them for what they are: a nice throwback to simpler hardcore punk bands and records.  They never make any mindblowing music, but are good for a scream or two on a long drive.  They’re also super-intense live.

The Soviettes – “¡Paranoia! Cha-Cha-Cha” from the compilation Rock Against Bush Vol. 1
There was a time, right around the early 00’s where I really thought The Soviettes were going to be pretty big after the release ofLPIII on Fat, yet nothing came of it.  This song appears on LPIII, as well as this comp and that’s why I mentioned it.  They’re a band that should have gained popularity, but never really took off; a shame really.

Like Waves Head Out On Tour

The ever-ready-to-party/District Kills records act Like Waves will be heading out on a short tour of the East Coast beginning  today. The band is notable to the radio show, and me, not only for being signed to District Kills, but two of the members on this tour are Maryland alums and it’s cool to see them out on the road.  Check them out if you’re in the area.

1/11 – Philadelphia, PA – The Nail
1/14 – College Park, MD – Vito’s Pizzeria
1/15 – Pennington Gap, VA – Ground Zero
1/16 – Wilmington, DE – Mojo 13
1/17 – Wilmington, NC – Jugglin Gypsy
1/18 – Wilmington, NC – Bottega Art Bar
1/19 – Gainesville, FL – Backstage Lounge
1/20 – Columbus, GA – Soho Bar and Grill
1/21 – Bluefield, WV – Rock it club
1/22 – Pittsburgh, Pa – The Rock Room

A Day To Remember’s “All I Want” Video Is Awesome, Has Amazing Cameos

Firstly, you can’t embed the video and it’s only available at MTV.com so click HERE to see it if you haven’t already.

But here’s the important part: it’s a really good video.  I look at music videos now as mostly useless.  No one really watches them and they really aren’t shown on TV anymore, and punk bands are never shown on TV so it matters even less to me because of that.  But honestly, I bet I’ve seen this video  six or seven times in the past three days.  It’s good, it’s creative, and has an amazingly impressive list of cameos. After some digging around on the interwebs, and watching the video, I’m pretty sure this is a complete list of the cameos, in order of their appearance:

Turn On The Shuffle, It’s Friday

So this is a new feature I’m going to try out.  Every Friday I’ll simply hit the shuffle button on my iTunes and post the first 5 songs that play up here with a little commentary on each song.  Just something extra for the waning hours before the weekend.

New Found Glory – “Singled Out” from the album Sticks And Stones
This is actually one of my favorite songs off of my favorite NFG album.  I really like the electronic intro and find the hook to be above-average for the always catchy New Found.  This was also an early example of Chad screaming in a NFG song, which appealed to me when it came out, and still does.

The Loved Ones – “Distracted” from the EP Distractions
I love the Loved Ones and this is an excellent little EP.  As for the song itself, it’s pretty solid and would be the highlight of the release if it weren’t for the Strummer cover that was thrown in there.  But “Distracted” is a pretty average Loved Ones song, which also means it’s very good.  I’m not sure how popular the EP is so head out and pick it up if you don’t already own it.

Agnostic Front – “Traitor” from the Fat Wreck compilation Short Music for Short People
The Short Music comp is, for those who don’t know, a little compilation thrown together by Fat Mike where each song is supposed to be 30 seconds long, or less. Some are a bit longer, some shorter.  As such, it’s a nice novelty but you can’t get into any of the songs too much.  This Agnostic Front song is a good one, but again, at 31 seconds long, there’s not much there.

No Roses – “Snapshots” from the State of Mind Recordings Hectic Thinking Sampler
One of the things about this feature is that there will be bands coming up who I have no information about, and have never heard before.  This is one of them.  It’s a pretty good melodic-hardcore song, but I don’t even know where I got this sampler from. Punknews, maybe?

Backstreet Boys – “I Want It That Way”
I was considering skipping this for the next song (which was a Gaslight track, by the way) but part of this is to show an honest picture of the mess that is my iTunes, so here it is.  Don’t know when I downloaded it, but it is one of (*cringe*) three BSB songs I have.  Why, I’m not sure, but I have a soft spot for 90’s and early 00’s pop so this will happen.

New Wolves Blog Post

So my friends over at District Kills Records are gearing up for the new release by Wolves, and Paul (Wolves’ architect of sorts/above left) is keeping a blog about the recording of the record.  As a good friend of mine, I’m doing all I can to help the dude out, so check out his latest update, in which he goes into extreme detail about each of the album’s planned tracks HERE .

My Top 10 Records of 2010

This year, while being the year I was probably the most disconnected from the American music scene that I have ever been, was still the best year for music that I can remember.  There were some great tours (that I missed most of), and even better records.  I can honestly say that any of my top four records this year could have topped last year’s list.  It was just an amazing ride of a year, and while there were plenty of lows personally, there were even more highs — including the day that AP.net linked my site and I almost hit 1000 pageviews — and the music never has been better. But before we start, remember, these are my favorite records of the year, and are not necessarily the “best.” So now, without further aduei, I give you my top 10 records of 2010, starting with…

10.  The National – High Violet [4AD]

It’s a record that I came upon very late in the year –only about a month ago did I listen the whole way through — but it turns out everyone was right about it.  The National are a band that I am painfully unfamiliar with, so I really can’t write much about them as a band, but I can say that this little melancholy record hit home for me.  It’s simple, elegant and uplifting all at the same time, and it was a terrific find for me personally.