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Punk Rock

Vanna: “Passerby”

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Vanna, who recently parted ways with Epitaph, have posted the first song from their debut for Artery Recordings. The band’s debut for the label is titled The Honest Hearts (EP) and is due out October 12, 2010.

Find “Passerby” on their MySpace page.

The band released two albums and an EP on Epitaph Records including 2006’s The Search Party Never Came and 2007’s Curses. Their final release on the label was 2009’s A New Hope.
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Steam Powered

The healing is not as rewarding as the hurting!

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Since our recent TF2maps.net Art Pass Contest, our level designers have gone back to their default state at the TF2 offices, which is to say, doing nothing, taking naps, eating lunch, and complaining. This has become a bit of a poison pill for the rest of the TF2 team, all of whom possess strong opinions about working (against it), naps (pro), lunches (very pro) and complaining (big fans).

As part of the fallout, this morning the writing team refused to do their work for the month, which was to write today’s blog post and name some hats. At first we weren’t terribly concerned—partly because most of the team wasn’t even aware the game had writing in it, but mostly because everybody here, unlike the writers, knows how to perform a skill AND write words. (Here’s a pro-tip for you youngsters: Build your career on a skill that isn’t something five-year-olds can do.)

But then someone pointed out that, even though writing’s incredibly easy work, it’s still technically work. So we reached into our comprehensive bag of solutions, and pulled out our well-worn one-trick pony: Community Contest Time!

Fans have been mailing us for some time now, asking for a contest that didn’t involve modeling or level design. So now they get their wish. That’s right: you’ll be competing over who can describe hats the best. Introducing the first ever TF2 Hat Describing Contest. In it, you can compete with other fans to write fictional missives about the glory of your favorite TF2 hat, with the prize of getting your words right into TF2 itself. The text will show up in the item descriptions, so it should be short and fun. Check out the FAQ for the full breakdown.

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You probably thought we were done for the day too, but we’ve barely started this blog post. The fine folks over at Team 17 are about to release Worms Reloaded this week. Being massive fans of their work, all the way back to the original Alien Breed, we thought it’d be fun to do something with them. So, we approached them and politely asked if we could include an iconic element of their game in TF2. The conversation was going swimmingly until they said that the best item to use would be the Holy Hand Grenade. We shuffled our feet and nervously explained that some soon-to-be-fired idiot had removed all of TF2’s grenades.

But luckily, we were saved by our own shoddy workmanship. While we removed grenades from the game during early development, we left two of them dangling on the front of the Soldier as a teasing reminder of what once was. So, to celebrate the release, we’re going to give a nifty Soldier visual update to anyone who buys Worms Reloaded before Thursday, September 2nd, allowing him to sport two Holy Hand Grenades and a new Soldier helmet. Here’s what it looks like in-game:

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Finally, a couple of quick competitive notes:

  • At 11am PST on Thursday, September 2nd, we’re going to embarrass ourselves in front of the world by playing in an exhibition Highlander match. Six Valve TF2 members are going to join six pros and 6 pub players for a match that will be filled with triumph and heartbreak, most likely a lot of cheating, and maybe even some TF2. LaroLaro has created a nifty poster for the event, because winning the Polycount contest wasn’t enough for him.


  • The Electronic Sports League’s Season VI Signups are up. Members of their team have also helped us track down a variety of client exploits and file hacking tomfoolery over the years, so give them a hug for us.

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Punk Rock

Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney) plans new sketch comedy show with SNL member

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24-Bit is reporting that Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney will be launching a new sketch comedy show with longtime comedy partner Fred Armisen. The two have been collaborating on an online comedy series called ThunderAnt and IFC is currently looking to produce a televised version of the duo’s comedy.

Though Armisen is best known these days as a member of Saturday Night Live, he was a member of Trenchmouth and also drummed on Les Savy Fav‘s Let’s Stay Friends.

Check out some of the videos Carrie and Fred have produced on their website.
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Punk Rock

Say Anything leaves RCA, promises not to break up

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Say Anything‘s Max Bemis has posted a very lengthy blog post discussing the future of the band, their sound and more. Key points include a refutation of rumours that the band was breaking up:

[We have made a] unanimous decision to NOT break up, or go on “indefinite” hiatus, or whatever they are calling it, EVER. We understand why so many of our peers have needed this and don’t fault them AT ALL but since we’re a sort of a different kind of band, whose structure itself lends itself to a lot of freedom, we’re going to attack things in a different way.[…] We will only ever take time off with the objective of coming back to one day tour more and make more records together ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. You can depend on us in this sense; we’re not going anywhere.

He also notes that the band has left RCA after five years on the major label:

A couple of weeks ago my manager Jordan called me up and let me know we were finally out of our contract with RCA, a partnership that’s lasted about half a decade. Say Anything will be releasing our next record on a brand new label. Whether it will be an indie or major label will depend on who is most in line with our vision of the kind of band we are and want to become.

Check out the post here.
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Punk Rock

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

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We’ve posted some new reviews. You can check them out below:

You can check out any of our 9567 reviews right here.
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Punk Rock

The Weakerthans to play four shows, four albums

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The Weakerthans The Weakerthans have announced four album-themed performances in their hometown of Winnipeg. The band noted:

We are excited to announce that we are playing 4 shows here in Winnipeg this coming December! Each night, we’ll be playing at a different venue, performing a different record, plus other favourite songs. All told, we will be performing nearly all of our songs in 4 nights, don’t miss out on these special shows!”

On December 15th through 18th the band will be performing Fallow, Left and Leaving, Reconstruction Site and Reunion Tour.

Details and venue information can be found here.
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