Tag Archives: Punk

Akron, Festival, Kent, Live Shows, Music, Music News

North By North What?

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So did you happen to miss SXSW and can’t make it to Bonnaroo this year?

Are you looking for a festival to hit up this year like none other?  Would you prefer not to melt at said festival?  Well check out the line-up for North By Northeast (NXNE) coming up in June.  It is one hell of a offering of bands of multiple genres in good ol’ Toronto, Canada and I am highly considering jumping the border to check it out.

This bill is IMPRESSIVE!!!  Descendants, The Pharcyde, Digable Planets, Hot Water Music, Bouncing Souls,  OFF!, Joey Cape and Kevin Seconds alone make it amazing. (DEVO too – Kent/Akron love y’all) 

There are a ton of other sweet acts joining them making for one of the better festivals I have heard about this year.

If you are looking for a summer festival you should consider this one, not because I say so…  Well maybe you should if you know what is good for you.

Here is a press release in regards to NXNE:

NORTH BY NORTHEAST (NXNE) announces the second wave of bands for the 17th edition of the festival, taking over Toronto June 13-19, 2011. Tickets are now available online at www.nxne.com.

NXNE has just confirmed that Devo, Descendents, Stars, The Pharcyde, Men Without Hats, Digable Planets, Twin Shadow, OFF!, Art Brut, Shad, Land of Talk, Chad VanGaalen, and Cults will join a festival line-up that also includes performances by The Dodos, Deerhoof, Hot Water Music, The Bouncing Souls, and Anti-Flag (previously announced), plus Dum Dum Girls, Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield, Braids, Ty Segall, Suuns, PS I Love You, Crocodiles, Wild Nothing, The Pack A.D., Metz, Dirty Beaches, Forest City Lovers, The Luyas, Lower Dens, Gentlemen Husbands, Rusty, Royal Bangs, Julianna Barwick, No Joy, Prince Rama, Doldrums, Secret Cities, Evening Hymns, Snowblink, Parlovr, Talk Normal, PUJOL, Woodsman, Gauntlet Hair, Joey Cape, Tape Deck Mountain, AIDS Wolf, Houses, CJ Ramone, and Kevin Seconds.

Presented by AOL, New Wave legends Devo headline the summer’s biggest day-and-night party on Saturday, June 18 at Yonge-Dundas Square. Toronto’s Yonge Street will close to traffic and open to a massive crowd of NXNE fans as Devo – complete with signature uniforms and flower pot hats – whip into the downtown core with classics from cult fave albums Freedom of Choice and Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! Also rocking the Square will be Canada’s Men Without Hats, fresh off a sold-out return to the stage at SXSW 2011.

“We’re excited to have such legendary artists play the busiest hub in Toronto for the largest music festival in Canada,” says Joshua Ostroff, music editor, AOL Canada. “It will be a great time, with amazing music and we’re looking forward to being right in the centre of the party”

SoCal pop-punk hits NXNE on Thursday, June 16, with Descendents. It’s a rare chance to see one of the genre’s most influential bands, touring with their classic late-80s lineup for the first time in a decade. They’ll share the Yonge-Dundas Square stage with Vice Records’ L.A. hardcore supergroup OFF! featuring Keith Morris (Circle Jerks & Black Flag), Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides), Steven Shane McDonald (Redd Kross) and Mario Rubacaba (Hot Snakes & Rocket From The Crypt).

Sirius Satellite Radio touches down at Yonge-Dundas Square on Friday, June 17, for a live-to-air North American broadcast featuring Juno-nominated Stars. The band recently sold out consecutive nights at Massey Hall and opened for Coldplay in Ottawa, and their NXNE set will be a highlight of the festival. Also on the bill is Montreal trio Land of Talk, generating great reviews in Pitchfork and Stereogum.

“A live show and broadcast from Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square is a great way to share the excitement with our listeners across Canada and the U.S. while marking SIRIUS’ 6th year of support for NXNE,” said Andreanne Sasseville, Director, Canadian Content Development and Industry Relations, SIRIUS Canada Inc.

NXNE ’s final festival night rolls out Sunday, June 19, as a second colossal evening party takes hold of Yonge-Dundas Square and Yonge Street, fuelled by performances by alternative hip-hop legends The Pharcyde, whose 90s release Bizarre Ride II was named by Kanye West as his favourite album ever. The night also features Grammy Award winners Digable Planets, tagged in Rolling Stone as “everything hip-hop should be: artistically sound, unabashedly conscious and downright cool.”

Funding supporting all NXNE’s free public concerts at Yonge-Dundas Square is provided by the Government of Ontario.

There’s even more for fans at NXNE this June: California’s Dum Dum Girls, coming off a 2010 tour with MGMT and Vampire Weekend; Chad van Gaalen, playing new songs from his upcoming release, Diaper Island; and Twin Shadow, hitting the festival on the heels of shows at SXSW, Coachella, and Bonnaroo.

All NXNE Festival passes and wristbands are now on sale, available at www.nxne.com. Early-bird pricing for NXNE Priority Passes is available through April 25.

The complete NXNE Music line-up and schedule, NXNE Film schedule and additional NXNE Interactive programming will be announced over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

17 Years, 650 Bands, 50 Stages, 40 Films, 75 Interactive Conference Sessions, 7 Days.

www.nxne.com

Music, Music News, Music Video, Punk, Rock, The Awesome

Bad Religion Celebrates Fans & Band History w/ New Video

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Just caught this amazing video for “Wrong Way Kids” that dropped a couple days ago by one of my all-time favorite punk rock bands.  Bad Religion never ceases to amaze me…

A little bit about the video from Epitaph:

Influential punk rockers Bad Religion have released a moving video for the new single, “Wrong Way Kids” from the group’s critically heralded album, The Dissent of Man. The song is an up-tempo, powerfully melodic tribute to the band and their fan’s shared histories as rebellious yet durable outsiders.

The footage begins in present day with lead singer Greg Graffin offering a knowing message of hope for Bad Religion’s many fans: “Even though they’re misfits,” he states, “There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” A subsequent shot reveals a defiantly unconventional Graffin on stage with the band back in 1984 counting down the song intro. From there it’s a surging beat, powerful guitars and signature sing-along chorus set against a stirring non stop montage of found footage showing the band’s remarkable rise from teen rebels to international punk luminaries.

Seriously, how cool is that video?  Young and old Bad Religion footage really shows how far 30-years can go.

The grandfathers of punk will actually be playing a show in Cleveland on May 7th.  Sadly they are opening for Rise Against.  If you ask me, Rise Against should be opening for them.

Sadly I will not be attending the show.  I want to, I really want to.  This will be the first Bad Religion show I have missed since they played the Rock Hall a couple years ago as a suprise guest.  This is one of those bands I make sure I am present at every show, but sometimes I can’t make them all.

Download This!, Music, Music News, Pop, Punk

Free Fireworks!

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Detroit’s Fireworks have just posted a free track available for download in anticipation of their May 24th release of Gospel. 


CLICK HERE to check it out the track called “Summer”.

Guitarist Chris Mojan had this to say about the upcoming release:

“Gospel represents Fireworks better than anything we’ve done in the past. I think it really is the photo for the fundamentals we started this band on. The songs came so naturally and working with Brian (McTernan) pushed them and us to a level we’ve never came close to reaching in the past. Fireworks Lives.”

Gospelis now available for pre-order at: www.merchdirect.com/fireworks.

Download This!, Music, Music News, Punk, Rock, Techno, The Awesome

Atari Teenage Riot Is Baaaaaaaaaaaccccckkkkk…

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After an 11-year hiatus, Atari Teenage Riot is back. Is This Real? will be dropping in June on Dim Mak Records.

This. Is. The. Awesome.

I can not tell you how excited I am.  This is like a dream come true.  Many of my friends know of my obsession with this band.  I was lucky enough to catch them once in my lifetime.

To make this dream a reality, I have two songs from the upcoming release and I must say, wow.  These guys (and gal) have not changed a bit.

Check out “Activate”:

Atari Teenage Riot - Activate

Check out “Blood In My Eyes”:

Atari Teenage Riot - Blood In My Eyes

About the songs:

“Activate!” starts the album with Atari Teenage Riot’s most concise statement of intent yet. On a backing of explosive 1991 hardcore jungle synths, super collider bass kicks, and guitar shrapnel Alec, Nic, and Kidtronik spurn us into a campaign of equality, activation, and eradication of ignorance.

“Blood In My Eyes” features Nic Endo on lead vocal. She speaks out for the multitude of women who have become the victims of human trafficking, their sexuality exploited for financial gain right under the gaze of the ineffectual governments of the self-proclaimed civilized west. Nic, wholly in tune with her trademark Japanese face-paint depicting “Resistance,” makes her point in the inimitable Atari way.

Music, Music Video, New Release, Punk, Review, Rock

Album Review: Unwritten Law – Swan

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Southern California’s Unwritten Law once used to be a skate punk band that was a ritual in my ears.  I popped in their cassette in my trusty Walkman daily and used them as a soundtrack to my life.  As the years went by, they kept dropping albums and thier songs followed me around.

The first time I ever saw Unwritten Law was at a Warped Tour in some stone-covered parking log in Cleveland in the mid-nineties.  They were just what my young ears were looking for.  Weeks later they opened for Bad Religion at the infamous Agora.  That was all I needed, I was an instant fan.  From there on I made a point to see them live every time they came to Cleveland.

I can sit here and recall portions of my life that included an Unwritten Law song.  I remember having a first kiss to “Catlin” in my beat up Cutlas Calais and years later hearing a girl admit their love to me in some dindgey-ass Kent State apartment while “Because Of You” played in the background.  The songs pose as prompts to personal memories that will last for a lifetime thanks to a band that I have seen live easily over 12 times.

After battles with drugs and alcohol as well as with a brush with death due to a fire that claimed all of lead singer Scott Russo’s possessions (but not family), the band took all of their problems and issues and used them as fuel to write an all new album.  Recently the band, including original members Russo and bassist Pat “PK” Kim, dropped  Swan, their sixth studio album on Breaksilence Recordings/Suburban Noize Records.

“Starships and Apocalypse” started off the 11-track album with a more rock driven feel with Russo in singing about some Gucci knock-off glasses wearing woman who clearly is out of this world.  “Nevermind” followed with a more Killers synthesizer sound going on in the background.  “Dark Dayz” slightly hinted to older sounding Unwritten Law making for a good track to listen to.  I love the way how Russo can still tell a story while singing.

Out of nowhere came “Sing” an acoustic song that just put the breaks on the entire album.  For those of you that have heard Music In High Places you can agree with me that UL plays great acoustical songs.  Gentle and just beautiful to listen to, this was one of my favorite cuts on the album.

“Let You Go” was more of a ballad than a song.  The track lead up to an explosion of group vocals that laid behind Russo’s vocals.  Just by listening to it you can tell there was a lot of effort put into it.  I loved the change up when the bass took over only for it to build up again.

“Chicken (Ready To Go)” featured hip-hop god Del Tha Funkee Homosapien.  The first time I listened to this song I just shook my head and wondered why in the hell did there have to be a hip-hop/rock song on this album.  The truth is, the track is actually kind of catchy.  I loved Del’s raps (as always) and  really got a kick about half way though the song when Del steps back and lets Russo do his thing for the chorus.

“Love Love Love” was a touching track that I am positive will land on a mix for that next special someone out there that steals my heart.  It was a ballad by a punk rock back with a lot of heart and a ton of talent.

Unwritten Law leans more towards a rock act these days, but still they have not completely lost that punk rock edge I adored the first time I heard them.  A lot can happen in fifteen years and this band is proof of that.  From playing side stages to headlining their own shows, Unwritten Law has paved their way to rock-stardom their own way.  Swan is continued proof that this foursome still has what it takes to make it in the music world.