Appleseed Cast will be offering their debut album, The End of the Ring Wars, on vinyl for the first time. Not only that, but it’s a two-fer (in more ways than one)! The album is a 2xLP and all the proceeds from the sale will be going to charity. Plus, there’s a limited run to the 1,000 of them that were pressed on gold translucent vinyl. Bonus! The record will be available July 31st.

The two charities are Save the Music and Save Darfur, which help fund instrumental classes in public schools and provide relief for refugees in the war torn region of Darfur, respectively.

The group last released Peregrine in 2006.
Source Continue reading All Proceeds from Appleseed Cast Rings Wars 2xLP To Go Toward Charities →

New York, NY’s Sonic Youth are gearing up to write a new album that will hopefully be due out in early 2009. The band was recently seen playing songs for the Marc Jacobs runway show during Fashion Week. Band leader Thurston Moore had this to say afterwards:

“We haven’t gotten together in about four months, we’ve been taking a nice sort of break, which is good. I’ve been actually able to escape into the basement. We’re going to Australia next week for about two weeks then we’ll come back and start writing.”

Moore will also appear at SXSW along with a showcase for his label, Ecstatic Peace. The new album will be a follow up to 2006’s Rather Ripped.
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Mukilteo, Washington’s The Fall Of Troy will head out on a North American headlining tour this April, their first since the release of their latest record Manipulator last May. The band will be joined on the tour by the Dear Hunter, Foxy Shazam, and Tera Melos (check your local listings to confirm the openers).

Following the tour the band will take some time off the road to work on their next full length.
Source Continue reading Tours: The Fall of Troy (with the Dear Hunter, Foxy Shazam, Tera Melos) →

Irvine, California’s Thrice and Los Angeles’ Say Anything will be performing live on PunkRadioCast today. Say Anything will be performing at 3:30pm EST, while Thrice will start at 5:00pm EST. Both will be playing acoustic sets.

Say Anything released In Defense of the Genre last year, while Thrice is preparing to release The Alchemy Index: Volumes III & IV: Earth & Air, due out April 15th.
Source Continue reading Thrice and Say Anything Perform live on PunkRadioCast today →

Oakland’s Phenomenauts will release their new full length on April 8th, the album is titled For All Mankind. The “science-fiction rocket-rollers” will have the CD available at a release show on March 29th at Slims in San Francisco as well. The record follows up 2005’s Re-Entry.

You can check out the cover art by clicking Read More.
Source Continue reading The Phenomenauts to release “For All Mankind” in April →

Sunderland’s The Futureheads have posted tour dates for the UK in the coming weeks.

Also available are two songs from their upcoming full length This Is Not the World, one which was announced previously, while “The Beginning of the Twist” is another preview of the new material. The band also details a single for “The Beginning of the Twist” due out March 10th in digital, CD, and 7inch formats.

In a somewhat surprise announcement, The Futureheads have eschewed any label support whatsoever and have formed their own label, Nul Recordings, to release material solely from the band in the future. In a recent interview with the Lancashire Evening Post frontman Barry Hyde commented:

There was a certain day where [the band’s former label Warner Bros] had to let us know whether or not they were going to keep us on. So I was sitting at home in Glasgow, fingers crossed, please drop us, please God, for God’s sake, drop us. I’m really nervous, really anxious all day. No phone call from anyone, no phone call from management, no phone call from anyone at the label. So I’m like, ‘Hang on a sec, I’m sure that by law we should have found out by now’. So next day, our management gets a phone call and the label go, ‘Oh sorry, we forgot the deadline, can we have another two weeks to think about it?’ Our management was, like, ‘No way, you’ve missed your chance, you’ve broken the contract, you’ve lost the band’. And since then, everything’s just been getting better and better…

It’s amazing not to be basically on the downtrodden side of it. I mean, it’s going to be a lot more stressful for us but at the same time, every decision is going to be made with our intentions kept in mind.

Source Continue reading The Futureheads announce new label, detail releases, tour dates →

Ben Weasel (of the legendary Screeching Weasel, of course) has announced plans to follow up his recent solo album These Ones Are Bitter. Ben commented:

I have a pretty small window of opportunity to record my next album, which is meant to be the second half of These Ones Are Bitter. But not all the tunes made the cut (some didn’t fit and others just weren’t good enough). So I have to come up with 6 more. Step 1: Go through years and years of old tapes of myself working on songs and putting ideas down to see if I might come up with some good songs that slipped through the cracks or, more likely, a good verse or bridge here or there.

So a week ago Monday I got up bright and early and moved my amp, tuner, guitar, boombox, cassette recorder and four track down to the basement (I work better underground). My, I was efficient! Then other work started nagging at me. There was domestic stuff – laundry and grocery shopping being the most pressing. Annoying business stuff. E-mail. Etc. A blizzard and a head cold later and I’m sitting down for only the second time. There are 33 tapes to go through and I’ve made my way through a grand total of one.

No more! Shirtsleeves are rolled up! Elbow grease has been applied! I will get through the tapes. I will assemble songs from parts old and new! (Step 2 will be to write new songs, sling ’em all at my producer and let him pick and choose).”

Source Continue reading Ben Weasel working on new album →

The partially Cleveland, OH based Aloha has announced the addition of a new member, Nick Anderson, who’ll be playing bass in their upcoming tour. Bassist Matthew Gengler is still with the band, but will have a less active role in touring. The band will be joined by Anathallo or The Velvet Teen for most dates. They also hope to finish recording a new full length to be due out the fall of this year.

The band previously released Light Works, an extended length EP last December.
Source Continue reading Aloha to add member, tour, finish recording full length →

Little Rock, Arkansas metal act Living Sacrifice has reunited with founding members Bruce Fitzhugh (vocals / guitar) and Lance Garvin (drums) along with Rocky Gray (lead guitar) and Arthur Green (bass). The band has plans to tour this summer and writer material for a new album to be released laster this year.

The band, who released a total of six records, broke up in 2003. A compilation titled In Memoriam was released in 2005 via Solid State.
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Louisville, Kentucky’s Hark the Herald is streaming their entire new record at the band’s PureVolume site. The band will digitally release the album, titled Aurora, on February 26th via a “pay what you want” system at their website.

San Francisco’s Who Calls So Loud have released their first song online at MySpace. The band is made up of 2/5ths of Funeral Diner, who declared a hiatus soon before the vinyl release of their Doors Open EP.

Hungarian hardcore / metal outfit Fallenintoashes will release a new split album with the band Penalty Kick at the end of February. The band recently signed to Edge Records, a side project of by the Hungarian Metal Hammer magazine. You can stream “Wight of the Snow” at MySpace.
Source Continue reading Hark the Herald, Who Calls So Loud, Fallenintoashes →

Boston’s Street Dogs have signed to Hellcat Records. The Mike McColgan lead act will release their fourth album this year on the Epitaph-imprint. Earlier this month the band entered a Los Angeles studio with producer Ted Hutt (Bouncing Souls, Flogging Molly) to record the follow up to 2006’s Fading American Dream. McColgan commented:

I feel like this new release will sound like a battle royal wrestling match, with bands like U2, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, The Ramones, TV On The Radio, Stiff Little Fingers, Bloc Party, Michael Franti and The Clancy Brothers being the contestants/influences… I think fans can expect a release that is powerful, at times mean, and one that shows growth musically as well… We have always said that we work for the freedom to say and play whatever we want, and on this upcoming release that ethos has never been or sounded stronger.

The band has a number of tour dates scheduled for the coming months.
Source Continue reading Street Dogs sign to Hellcat →