Saves the Day and indie-punks Joyce Manor are heading out on tour together this summer. Saves The Day are touring in support of their autobiographical 2018 full-length, ‘9’, which came out via Equal Vision. Joyce Manor will be supporting the album ‘Million Dollars To Kill Me’, which was released via Epitaph also in 2018.

The tour dates can be found below.

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Celtic punks Flogging Molly and rock n’ roll legends Social Distortion have announced an extensive 32-date tour across America (with one date in Canada). Having formed in 1979, Social Distortion have been a band for a staggering 40 years! The band’s last release, ‘Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes’ in 2011, was the first released via current label Epitaph Records and the band’s highest charting album to date. It has previously been confirmed that Social Distortion will be entering the studio this year to record new material. Flogging Molly will be touring to support their 2017 album ‘Life Is Good’.

Anti Flag have released a short documentary film called ‘Power To The Peaceful’. The film, directed by Bruno Fritzsche, is focused around the band’s reaction to the political environment in 2016 and the community of like-minded individuals that their music and message have helped to build. The fifteen minute film features some stunning live footage.

Anti Flag begin a European tour this week, including Punk In Drublic, ANTIfest, and Slam Dunk. A full list of dates, along with ‘Power To The Peaceful’ can be found below.

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Russian punk band Tarakany! have released a lyric video for a new song titled “What I Can Change”. This is a re-worked version of a single they released in 2015. This new version is sung in English (the previous one was in Russian) and features Millencolin singer Nikola Sarcevic. As huge fans of Millencolin, Tarakany! were excited to release this new version of the politically-charged anthem. The song is taken from their English/American release of ‘The Power of One’ that came out in 2018 via A-F Records.

Tarakany! will be touring Germany and Czech Republic over the next couple of weeks. Check out the tour dates and the video (I’m already on my third consecutive listen) below.

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Sum 41 have released a brand new single and detailed the release of their new album “Order In Decline”.

“Out For Blood” sees the band smash together thrashy riffs and pop punk in a way that they only seem to know how, and it also marks their first new music in three years.

The album will be released through Hopeless Records on July 19th, with European and North American festival appearances lined up across the summer to support the release.

Check out the video using the player below.

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Dangers Of Love are a new London based punk band fronted by Giles Bidder of Great Cynics. The band dropped a new track last night ahead of the release of their debut, self-titled EP this Friday, and we think it rips.

Check out ‘Holsten Pils Blues’ using the player below, and preorder the release direct through Bandcamp if you’re enjoying the indie/punk vibes. You’ll be able to see Dangers Of Love live at Bristol’s Booze Cruise Fest next month

I made a mistake.

It was school vacation week in my neck of the woods recently, and as such, I had the privilege of spending a lot of really awesome time with my eleven-year-old. I also knew I had a review of the upcoming Cokie The Clown album coming down the ‘pike, and assumed – rightfully – that listening to the album with my kid in the car or in the house with me would be a terrible idea, so I decided to take a solo trip to the grocery store one evening and to give You’re Welcome a preliminary listen in the process. As it turns out, there might be worse places than a grocery store amidst the suburban sprawl of the greater Boston area to fire up an album like You’re Welcome for the first time…but there aren’t many.

While Fat Mike hasn’t been shy about wearing his heart on his sleeve for the duration of his three-plus-decade career, You’re Welcome finds that concept amplified: his heart is not merely on his sleeve, but ripped out of his chest and torn to shreds on the floor for all of us to see. You’re Welcome kicks off with “Bathtub,” which finds our protagonist Cokie accompanied by only whatever substances are coursing through his clown veins as he tells the story of waking up in the middle of the night to find his significant other facedown in a bathtub after an overdose, and the resulting uncertainty and dread that came along with wondering if she’d taken her final breaths. Buckle up, my friends, because the ride only gets bumpier from there.

Over the course of the next half-hour or so, Cokie takes the listener on a ride that is at  times painfully honest, uncomfortably raw, disturbingly complicated, and is undoubtedly going to piss a lot of people off. There are songs like “Fair Leather Friends” and “Fuck You All” that take thinly-veiled shots at people in Mike’s — er, Cokie’s — personal life that he feels have cheated him, screwed him, abandoned him and otherwise taken advantage of him. “Pre-Arrainged Marriage” theoretically tackles the subject of love, but through the prism of his two previous high-profile failed marriages. Listeners who read the NOFX autobiography The Hepatitis Bathtub several years back might recognize the story that “Swing And A Miss” graphically details, involving the failed and successful suicide attempts of a previous roommate and the fallout that ensued. “Punk Rock Saved My Life” and “That Time I Killed My Mom” shed a little more light on the relationship – or, ultimately the lack thereof – with his parents that was documented on past NOFX tracks like “My Orphan Year” and “Happy Father’s Day.” There’s “The Queen Is Dead,” a heart-breaking ode to a deceased longtime friend that comes across as one of the most tender, genuine moments that Fat Mike has committed to tape. While the bulk of the subject matter is painful, it is oddly enough the themes of narcissism and unresolved anger and self-martyrdom that rear their heads in tracks like “Pre-Arrainged Marriage”and “Negative Reel” and to a lesser extent “Down With The Ship” that I found more cringe-worthy and uncomfortable than the themes of suicide and parenticide and overdosing and bondage that were more prevalent.

Sonically, You’re Welcome plays more like a sad carnival soundtrack than a traditional “punk rock” album. If you give it a listen looking forward to it being composed of two-and-a-half minute anthemic skate punk songs, A) you’ll be wildly disappointed and more importantly B) you should have known better. There’s no standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-repeat in the bunch, meaning You’re Welcome isn’t an uptempo, sing-along style album the way that the Home Street Home musical and soundtrack that Fat Mike and friends put together a few years ago was in spite of its own disturbing imagery. While the musicianship and production are stellar (containing contributions from Travis Barker and Dizzy Reed and production from the mighty Danny Lohner), the majority of the instrumentation is largely present as a means of providing a loosely-built latticework. Fat Mike’s Cokie the Clown “character” — and I’ll save the remainder of my armchair psychoanalysis for another place and time — is by all means the star of the show, and if that means that sometimes songs are going to meander and switch tones and seem a bit unfocused and chaotic and largely just be narratives rather than traditional “songs,” that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

I’m still struggling with what I ultimately think of You’re Welcome in anything resembling a larger sense, which I understand is not maybe the ideal thing to say in a review of an album. I really like the bulk of it, though I have a hard time listening to it for long stretches. While I have long-since tired of the veneration of the degenerate GG Allin or Darby Crash or Sid Vicious types as the bellwether of what it means to be “Punk,” I applaud the choice to pull in some stylistically and artistically different directions and to tackle uncomfortable, challenging topics by way of performance art. From that perspective, You’re Welcome is a resounding success. It’s not an album you’re going to keep on repeat (well…if it is, you may want to have the assistance of a professional therapist or twelve at the ready). It’s not going to launch a series of copycat albums that turn into their own genre. It will probably leave you deeply disturbed on your trip to the grocery store, as you balance images of a nineteen-year-old Fat Mike showing his recently-deceased friend’s parents the exact spot they cut his lifeless body down and a grown-up Fat Mike covering his soon-to-be-departed mother’s face with a pillow as you try to weigh your bagel flavor options. And that’s exactly the point.

Red Scare has a busy summer coming up, as they’ve announced they will be releasing new albums from both Seattle-based punk band Ramona and Scottish folk punk Billy Liar this June.  We’ll keep you updated as songs premiere, but for now, you can check out the cover art, track listings, and release dates for these upcoming albums below.
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Peter Cortner and Doug Carrion performed on Dag Nasty’s iconic recordings Wig Out at Denko’s and Field Day and played some 300 shows with the band in the late 80’s.  The guys wanted fans to be able to hear these classic songs live as much as possible, but due to scheduling and geographic conflicts, this was becoming much harder than everyone would have liked.  After a conversation with Brian Baker, it was decided that Doug and Peter would forge ahead under the name Field Day along with Mark Phillips from Down By Law.

The group has announced that they plan play a select number of East Coast and West Coast shows in late August 2019, and they will also be releasing new music in 2020.  We will be sure to keep you all updated once those dates have been announced, as well as any new music that comes from the group.

Chicago dark punk act Primitive Teeth, which features members Daylight Robbery, are streaming their new self-titled EP that was released on April 20th.

You can give it a listen below.

Primitive Teeth last released Demo: a Benefit for Planned Parenthood in February 2017. [Read more…]