Rick Barton of Everybody Out! (former member of the Dropkick Murphy, 80’s punk band The Outlets) has released four new songs with his Quincy, MA based four piece Continental. You can check it out at MySpace.
Source Continue reading Four songs from Rick Barton’s Continental (Everybody Out, ex-Dropkick Murphy’s, The Outlets) →

Legendary punk poet Jim Carroll has passed away at 60. The cause was a heart attack, said Rosemary Carroll, his former wife.

Carroll was well-known in the mainstream for the film, The Basketball Diaries, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and covered his youth. His poetry and music was very influential, with Patti Smith saying:

I met him in 1970, and already he was pretty much universally recognized as the best poet of his generation, The work was sophisticated and elegant. He had beauty.

His fans included Allen Ginsberg, Ted Berrigan and Jack Kerouac and he contribued dialogue for Andy Warhol’s films. Jim collaborated with musicians Lou Reed, Blue Öyster Cult, Boz Scaggs, Ray Manzarek of The Doors, Pearl Jam, and Rancid. One of his poems is the source of the phrase “… And Out Come the Wolves” which inspired the album of the same name and also featured his voice.

Our deepest condolences to his friends, family and fans.
Source Continue reading Jim Carroll (1949-2009) →

Hello everybody and welcome to Navel Gazing: your look back at the week in Punknews. I’m Adam White and I’ll be your guide through some of the most popular, notable, and otherwise attention getting stories of the past seven days. Each and every Punknews story is built from tips contributed by you fine folks, and here’s what got the community talking this week…

This week brought major news that Public Image Ltd is reforming in December. John Lydon’s influential post-Sex Pistols act hasn’t played in 17 years, but the group wil return for a series of shows to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Metal Box. The presence of Kurt Cobain as a playable character in the new Guitar Hero 5 video game has enranged the members of the Nirvana camp. Cobain’s widow Courtney Love threatened to sue the shit out of Activision, while the developer claims that Love signed agreements allowing for Cobain’s image to be used. Former Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl were also dismayed, with Grohl urging Activision to “re-lock” Kurt’s character so that it can’t be used for anything but Nirvana songs in the game. In less contentious Nirvana news, the band’s 1992 Reading Set will arrive as a CD / DVD set in November. Influential post-hardcore band Small Brown Bike has announced plans to reform and play shows in the near future. At a recent product announcement Apple unveiled the iTunes LP. The digital download will accompany music with lyrics, liner notes, video, photos and other content. Another forward thinking digital initiative has arrived from Nick Cave, who has released an enhanced ebook for the iPhone. It features the text of his second novel The Death of Bunny Munro with an audiobook read by Cave and featuring original music.

Rise Against has announced plans to work on new album for release in 2010. The Lawrence Arms are gearing up for their upcoming anniversary show by asking fans to choose the set list. Brendan Kelly was also interviewed by NME with a report on his favorite songs. Suburban Home records is giving away free albums for their 14th Anniversary. The kids from the Harry Potter movies were spotted checking out popular UK punk act Gallows at recent shows. BYO Records has unveiled Let Them Know covers by Dropkick Murphys, American Steel, and In The Red among others. Keep an eye open for upcoming tour dates from Shook Ones and Title Fight (co-headlining) as well as an upcoming trek from the Star Fucking Hipsters, Citizen Fish and Molotov Compromise. The Fest 8 has confirmed more bands, including Broadway Calls, The Swellers, and Panthro UK United 13. New video footage arrived this week of Frank Turner performing “Poetry of the Deed” live on CNN and Brian Fallon of the Gaslight Anthem acoustically performing “Casanova, Baby!”

This week we said goodbye to Jake Brockman of Echo & the Bunnymen (1956-2009).

This week we spoke with lead singer/guitarist John Gourley and bassist Zachary Carothers of Portugal The Man (interview), Nick and Nate from Minneapolis’ Banner Pilot (interview), drummer and songwriter Brad Lokkesmoe of Dear Landlord (interview), Jon Ginoli of Pansy Division (interview), and Chase Brenneman of Living With Lions (interview).

Our Dispatches series of band blogs featured another edition of Mike Hale‘s For Those Still Standing (Attica! Attica! (Episode 1). Our Video of the Week featured Against Me! live at the Fest 4. As always we brought you new streaming music from some great up and coming bands, including the new album Phoenix from Los Angeles’ Orange, and the latest from Rochester, NY’s Such Gold.

So what’s coming up this week? Look for new releases from Every Time I Die, Mock Orange, Moneen, Orange, Teenage Bottlerocket, The Bomb and Thrice with tours kicking off from Youth Brigade with Off With Their Heads (US), Poison The Well with Billy Talent (US), Streetlight Manifesto with Outernational and Broadway Calls (US / Canada), North Lincoln (Canada), Dillinger Four with Riverboat Gamblers and The Arrivals (US), Social Distortion with TAT and the Strangers (US), Thursday with the Fall Of Troy and Young Widows (US), and Face to Face with Pegboy and Polar Bear Club (US).

Click Read More to check out our ongoing contests, new streaming music, social networking links and more.
Source Continue reading September 13th, 2009 →

Virgins and Lords will share a short run of dates together later this month.

Source Continue reading Virgins / Lords →

Cub Country, the band from Jets to Brazil bassist Jeremy Chatelain, have announced some tour dates in November. The band is touring in support of their fifth album, Stretch That Skull Cover and Smile.

Source Continue reading Cub Country (ex-Jets to Brazil) →

Frank Turner visited CNN for a performance of “Poetry of the Deed.” The song is the title track from Frank’s newly released Epitaph Records debut, Poetry of the Deed. This is Frank’s second appearance on the network, with his video debuted on the channel last month.

Frank is currently touring with The Gaslight Anthem
Source Continue reading Frank Turner: “Poetry of the Deed (live on CNN)” →

Gallows recently ended up in some UK gossip rags after Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) arrived in disguise to take in the band’s set at Reading Festival last weekend. The movie stars eventually wound up backstage where they ended up snapping a photo with Gallows front man Frank Carter.

Gallows will bring their live show back to the U.S. for two stints with AFI in October and November and in between they will head to Canada with Flogging Molly. The band is touring in support of 2009’s Grey Britain.
Source Continue reading Harry Potter stars check out Gallows →

Our stream today comes from Rochester, NY-based Such Gold. We’ve got a stream of the band’s new release, the Stand Tall [EP].

You can check it out on their Punknews.org Profile
Source Continue reading Such Gold: “Stand Tall [EP]” →

Frank Turner, Walter Schreifels, Powell, Jonah Matranga, are among the participants on a new compilation titled Memoria – A Tribute To The Alternative 90s. The 17-song disc will feature covers of songs by 90s heroes like Rage Against The Machine, My Bloody Valentine, Weezer, Jawbox, Soundgarden, Quicksand, Far, Pearl Jam, Babes In Toyland, Nirvana and Deftones.

It is expected to surface in October via Yr Letter Records.
Source Continue reading Frank Turner, Walter Schreifels, Jonah Matranga, Cooper cover the 90s →

Oakland based lagomorph-core rocker Nobunny is headed out on the road to support his accliamed full length Love Visions. The act will embark in mid September to head to Gonerfest 6 in Memphis, TN. From there he’ll head out on the Shattered Records Tour through the US northeast alongside Jay Reatard, Hunx & His Punx, Box Elders, and Digital Leather. October will see a week’s tour of Europe with The Okmoniks and Rock n’ Roll Adventure Kids, before Nobunny rejoins the remainder of the Shattered Records Tour back in the States.

With the conclusion of that tour Nobunny will get to work on recording his next full length. The album is tentatively titled ONO and will see a release on Goner Records in the first half of 2010.
Source Continue reading Nobunny playing Gonerfest, touring with Jay Reatard →

AFI have posted some behind-the-scenes footage as they record the fan-submitted backing vocals for their song, “I Am Trying Very Hard To Be Here.” Originally announced in December 2008, the band recruited fans to submit videos in order to visit them in the studio and record backing vocals for the song.

The footage features the vocals being recorded and accordingly includes a significant chunk of the song.

Source Continue reading AFI: “I Am Trying Very Hard To Be Here (Preview)” →

Buffalo, NY’s Failure’s Union (members of Lemuria, The Exit Strategy and The Grail) has posted the songs “The Fall Man” and “Comb” online at MySpace. The tracks will appear on the band’s upcoming Paper and Plastick debut, titled In That Way.

The three piece is set to head out o the road soon with labelmates Cheap Girls, a tour that includes performances at the Fest 8 in Gainesville and Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, TX.
Source Continue reading Failures’ Union posts new songs, touring with Cheap Girls →

More backlash to Kurt Cobain’s appearance in Guitar Hero 5 has surfaced. Now, Kurt’s former bandmates from Nirvana have made a joint statement about it saying:

We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate – we have no control whatsoever in that area. While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in “re-locking” Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.

It’s hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists’ music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.

Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, had been angrily posting legal threads on Twitter this week. Love claimed she never approved Cobain’s digital likeness.

Love is the only person will the legal right to license Cobain’s likeness, and his former bandmates have absolutely no legal say in how it is used, despite their long-time connection to Cobain. Love has also clarified her position:

Ms. Cobain is extremely upset about Activision’s use of Mr. Cobain’s likeness to sing the songs of others in its Guitar Hero game. Activision was granted permission by Kurt’s trust solely to use his name and likeness. Activision was not given an unbridled right to use Mr. Cobain’s name and likeness. Kurt’s songs have a special and unique meaning to his fans and his image and legacy are very important to Ms. Cobain. The agreement Activision has with the trust doesn’t allow them to use his likeness in ways that denigrate his image. We would hope Activision would do the right thing on its own and prohibit game users from using Kurt’s image to sing others songs and if they don’t we expect the trust to take appropriate action to protect Mr. Cobain’s image.

A player put together an example of what Courtney, Krist and Dave are referring to.
Source Continue reading Krist and Dave of Nirvana angry about Kurt’s character in Guitar Hero 5 →