Looks like AFI electronica side project Blaqk Audio will be playing a show in Sacramento, CA in early June. No word yet on whether this is just a one-off show or if more dates will be announced soon.

The band will play on June 4th at Ace of Spades. Tickets are only $18 before service fees ($3.95) and will be joined by Boggan & Hamm FM.

Blaqk Audio is comprised of AFI vocalist Davey Havoc and AFI guitar player Jade Puget.  The side project’s second release will be a follow up to 2007’s debut “Sexcells” released on Interscope Records. You can stream two new songs titled “Cold War” and “Bon Voyeurs” right here.

Hot Water Music frontman Chuck Ragan recently performed an acoustic set at Illegal Pete’s in Denver and had the song “Colorado Burritos”*** filmed and, well, posted. Click here to watch.

Ragan and Dave Hause of The Loved Ones will be hitting the road together and are making their way to Eastern Canada in June. You can check out the dates for the tour here. They will also be touring as a part of the Revival Tour in Europe over the summer, with Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem and Dan Andriano of Alkaline Trio. You can check out those tour dates here.

Chuck Ragan is hard at work on his next solo album, which may see the light of day sometime this fall. Dave Hause is currently on tour supporting his solo album, “Resolutions,” which was released in March via Paper + Plastick.

***The song is called “California Burritos” but since they were in Colorado, in a restaurant that served burritos, Ragan apparently amended the song name for a day! [Read more…]

Poly Styrene, of the early British punk band X-Ray Spex, passed away yesterday from breast cancer.

Rumors started last night on Twitter that she had died, and her camp confirmed the news this morning. A press release called her “a punk amongst punks” and said:

“A groundbreaking presence that left an unrepeatable mark on the musical landscape, she made history the moment she uttered, “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard but I think oh bondage up yours!” The influence of Poly and X-ray Spex has been felt far and wide ever since. The seminal album Germ Free Adolescents is a landmark work and a primary influence on Britpop and Riot Grrrl. At the center of it was Poly Styrene, a bi-racial feminist punk with the perfect voice to soundtrack rebellion. Poly never sacrificed the intelligence or the fun in her music and style. Her trademark braces and dayglo clothes were a playful rejection of the status quo and of conformity and complacency. She dissected gender politics, consumer culture, and the obsessions of modern life in a way that made us all want sing along with her.”

Poly Styrene’s solo album, Generation Indigo, was released today. It’s available for streaming.

Pop-punk outfit Orange have posted the music video for their song “Everything I Need.”

You can check out the video here.

The song appears on their last album “Phoenix” released in September of 2009 on Hellcat Records.

[Read more…]

Good morning, punk fans.  Today we’re stoked to help you start your day with an exclusive stream of the upcoming album from New Yorke punk act The Jukebox Romantics.  “A Lion And A Guy” will be released May 3rd via Altercation Records but you can stream the entire album right now, right here.  Booyah!

The band last released a self-titled album in late 2009, and this is their second full-length for Altercation Records.

[Read more…]

Arizona’s screamo group Blessthefall is planning on heading to the studio in May to record their third full-length album. They will record with Michael “Elvis” Baskette, who also worked on Blessthefall’s last album Witness, as well as working with Story Of The Year and Escape The Fate. Does that make this “Elvis” dude the King of Record Production? I’ll let you guys be the judge of that.

Blessthefall announced on Facebook:

“Its official! May 17th we start recording album #3!!!! We are heading back to Michael “Elvis” Baskette, but this time doin it in Orlando. So stoked to get all this started! Hope you are too. See you all very soon!”

Blessthefall’s previous album, Witness, was released in 2009 on Fearless Records.

You can stream the entire Take Action Vol. 10 comp right here.  It features rare, remixed and new versions of songs by Silverstein, Bayside, Polar Bear Club, All Time Low, the Ready Set, the Wonder Years and more.

The two-disc compilation is being released April 26 via Sub City-Hopeless Records.

New Found Glory has been giving us some teasers of their upcoming album for quite a bit of time now. Looks like there is some significant progress, with the band recruiting an old friend to help in the production of the album. Guitarist Chad Gilbert has this to say about the recording process:

“Drum Day #1! It’s an exciting day for the world of NFG. Not only because it’s Easter Sunday and we can get away with eating as much chocolate as we want but because we started recording our new album! If you follow me on twitter then you’ve read a bunch of tweets from me about new album stuff, demos, and writing over the course of the last 6 months. Well the time has finally come and we have never been this prepared! We invited our old producer back for this record. His name is Neal Avron and he produced our Self Titled, Sticks and Stones, and Catalyst albums. It has been 7 years since we’ve made a record together. Neal had us writing and sending him song ideas all the way back to when we were on the Paramore Honda Civic tour. Going back and forth with him and having him critique our ideas for this long has really worked wonders. It forced us to write what I honestly feel are our best songs. I know every band says that about their new stuff but you will hear for yourselves soon enough!”

So there you have it. They’re tracking drums, and they’ve brought back Neal Avron. This may be a step closer to New Found Glory’s early sound, which is not a bad thing at all. And the band seems pretty confident in their material. Always a good thing.

New Found Glory’s most recent album “Not Without A Fight” was released March 2009 via Epitaph.

I’m stoked! Gainesville, Florida’s Paper + Plastick Records signed Toronto punk act Junior Battles.

They will be releasing their debut full-length album “Idle Ages” on June 28th and you can stream the song, “Seventeen” off the album here.

Here’s the official statement which is way too long for our lazy asses to read, but maybe you will:

“I started to like JUNIOR BATTLES because of the 90s melodic, pop-punk influence,” admits Paper + Plastick founder Vinnie Fiorello, “but if that was the hook that got me on board to start with, then the new songs have me becoming a true fan of the band. The 90’s pop-punk blasts are still there, but on the new record the band adds in musical twists and turns, sudden stops and starts, and melody mixed with gruff vocals. The band mixes layers of influence under a nice candy coating of pop punk nostalgia without ever being a throwback.”

Fueled by the call and response vocal duo of guitarist Aaron Zorgel and Sam Sutherland, Idle Ages is chock full of shout along verses and choruses that helped the band accrue loyal fans since forming in 2008. Recorded with Steve Rizun (The Flatliners, O Pioneers, The Snips) at his Drive Studios in Ontario, Canada, Idle Ages has been the better part of a year in the making. Idle Ages was expected to be finished by Christmas of 2010, the band’s insatiable urge to tour lead them out on the road twice while trying to wrap the record. Zorgel comments on the delay by stating “We figure, who knows how many chances we’re going to have to make a full-length record? We wanted to take our time with everything, and make sure we were going to love it 10 years later. And that meant not settling for anything, ever.”

Not settling allowed the band to explore a bit on this full-length, as opposed to their previous 7-inches and EPs. “We’ve always felt like a full-length is a great chance to make some weird choices you couldn’t on a 7″ or with an EP,” interjects Sutherland. “It’s a chance to do something a little more grandiose, and we wanted to reach out to some friends and get them to add to this monstrosity we were trying to make. It helps keep things varied, so you’re not just listening to me and Aaron drone on about our lives for half an hour.” Enlisting a diverse group of friends, Idle Ages features guest appearances from ex-Hold Steady member Franz Nicolay (piano, organ, banjo), Bomb The Music Industry’s Matt Keegan (trombone), and hardcore vocals from fellow Canuck Damian Abraham of F*cked Up.

Touching on topics nearly every 20-something fan who grew up on a healthy diet of punk rock can relate to, Idle Ages is a reflection on one’s life and how your past ideals have influenced your present state of mind, and how that will affect the course of your life. “[Aaron and I are] both a few years out of school, and had reached a point in our mid-20s where we felt kind of lost. It’s not a record about nostalgia, but there’s a lot of looking back at the way you felt when you were 15, 16, and how that affects you now that you’re 25 and you’ve kind of turned into an adult without realizing it,” says Sutherland. Album opener “Seventeen” not only sets the lyrical tone for the entire album (“We only answer to ourselves/we always stayed true to the ideals we held/ when we were sober and seventeen/ so you wake up every morning and you compromise/ it’s easy to forget the places where you tried to draw the line”), but musically, with the band’s catchy brand of pop-punk shining through, filled with sing-along choruses and hooks galore.

As Sutherland sums it up, “We ended up using a lot of ages as signposts along the way. I felt a really specific way about the way I thought the world should work when I was 17. And this record is about trying to figure out if you were right.”

Check out the cover art here. Be sure to grab their self-titled EP here.

[Read more…]

Motion City Soundtrack are no longer on Columbia Records.  Here’s the statement from the band:

“After a brief, but intense whirlwind-like love affair, Motion City Soundtrack and Columbia Records have parted ways. Even though America wanted it to work out, much like the marriage of Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon, it just was not in the stars. That being said, neither side holds any sort of ill will toward the other. We each gave it our best shot, but due to the ever changing musical climate, as well as other unforeseeable factors, we both felt that this would be in our best interests. So for now, we go it alone. We have been diligently working on Album #5, which we hope to have in your hands soon. What the future holds for us label-wise is anyone’s guess, but we can promise that there will be an onslaught of new material released and with ever increasing frequency. What we’re trying to say is: Hold on to your hats ladies and gents, for we have not even begun to unleash the true fury that is Motion City Soundtrack!”

MCS’s most recent release was 2010′s “A Dinosaur Life,” which was put out on Columbia Records. They are currently in the studio working on their fifth album.