Our friends in Smoke or Fire will be gracing the airwaves of New York City soon. You can see the band performing “The Patty Hearst Syndrome” on Fearless Music on Fox 5 at 12:30 am on Saturday January 5th.

The band is headed out on tour next month with Fake Problems in continuing support of This Sinking Ship, which was one of your favorite albums of 2007.
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Pelican have launched a trailer for their upcoming DVD. It is titled After the Ceiling Cracked and is due out January 20, 2008.

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Billy Bragg has posted a video for the track “Bed, Bath and Bullshit” from the movie Mama’s Boy. The song is one of two that he recorded for the movie, the other being “Old-Fashioned Girl.” You can see both video below.

Mr. Bragg is also offering 15 live tracks if you register for his email list. The songs are encoded as high quality MP3s for downloading and are from his concert at Salisbury City Hall in 2006, with ex-Faces and Small Faces keyboard maestro Ian McLagan. You can do that here.
Source Continue reading Billy Bragg: “Bed, Bath and Bullshit”, “Old-Fashioned Girl”, 15 free live tracks →

As promised, The Mars Volta have launched their online game titled Goliath: The Soothsayer. The game is a companion piece for the band’s upcoming album. The record is titled The Bedlam In Goliath and is due out January 29, 2008.

You can give it a shot here.
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A post from Jawbreaker‘s Adam Pfahler has some interesting updates on the long-broken up band’s current projects and mentions a recent reunion performance though does not reveal too much else about future plans:

Yes, the documentary is still on, still being made. The hold up is that Keith and Tim have yet to find a distributor who is willing to pony up the closing costs to finish this thing (flights, editing time, blowing it up to 35mm. etc.). So they are doing this as a labor of love in between their regular gigs and family time. I trust this love bodes well for the finished product.

A few months back they came to SF and we got some really great footage with all three of us and Billy Anderson (who worked on Bivouac, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and a couple one-offs as a producer/engineer). We even played together, but didn’t roll footage out of both respect for the sanctity of the moment and fear that we’d suck. Anyway, I have audio of it. Maybe I’ll post that some day.

The influential and beloved band split up in 1996 but a steady stream of releases from Adam’s Blackball Records have followed.
Source Continue reading Jawbreaker updates on documentary, recent reunion (!) →

Barack Obama has won the Iowa primary. Half of voters chose Mr. Obama, a first-term African-American senator from Illinois beating the frontrunner Hillary Clinton by a significant margin. Of particular note was the makeup of voters: 22% were under age 29, five percentage points higher than in 2004. More than half were first-time caucus-goers.

On the Republican side, was former baptist minister Mike Huckabee who won largely on the strength of late-breaking support from fellow Christian conservatives. Huckabee has come out strongly against gay rights and abortion but does play in a band named Capitol Offense.

2008’s election is perhaps the most significant American general in many years, with not just Americans, but the entire world looking at the outcome.

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U.S. Bombs and Far From Finished will be hitting the road together beginning later this month. The month long US tour will wrap up near the end of February.

Source Continue reading Tours: U.S. Bombs / Far from Finished →

Amber Pacific have released a new acoustic digital EP via iTunes. The EP contains five acoustic versions of songs from both of the band’s Hopeless Records full length releases The Possibility And The Promise and Fading Days. The EP was recorded earlier this year for the band’s Sony Connect Session

You can preview or purchase the album via iTunes.
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Former Vagrant act The Anniversary have unveiled some plans for 2008 after a long period of inactivity:

We are releasing a NEW ALBUM this year that will include our un-released songs. We are also releasing a DVD featuring “live” performances and behind-the-scenes of us just hanging out. Perhaps a re-union show, too? Who knows.

The band was signed to Vagrant though the the Get Up Kids‘ Heroes & Villains imprint and released two records: 2000’s Designing a Nervous Breakdown and 2002’s Your Majesty.
Source Continue reading The Anniversary plan rarities album, live DVD →

Transit have posted the track “For the World” from their upcoming release This Will Not Define Us. You can find the track here, on their MySpace page. The album is due out soon on Barrett Records.

from dirty tactics myspace: Dirty Tactics have posted a live video from their upcoming EP Gangster Stamina. You can see the video for “Somethings Missing” here, on MySpace. They’ll be touring Europe later this year and have canceled upcoming dates with Barlights.

Cat Party has posted two new tracks on ye olde internets. One of the tracks will be featured on an upcoming split 7″ with Cut City from Sweden on GSL Records. Cat Party features members of Everready, Killing California, and In The Flesh. They’ll touring throughout the next few months, and will be appearing at SXSW in March. Check out the tracks at this here MySpace page.
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