On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me three French hens… and a whole bunch of Christmas MP3’s. In this case, some of the worst/most annoying/most awkward Christmas songs I’ve ever heard, and these aren’t meant to be novelty or joke [...]
I’ve been meaning to write a little something about this album for what seems like forever now. Searchlight Needles is the latest full-length from Cabinet Of Natural Curiosities, a group founded by Jasmine Dreame Wagner and based in both Missoula, [...]
How good is Strike Anywhere? I mean, seriously? Their new album Iron Front (the band’s first since 2006’s Dead FM) is full of potently blistering melodic hardcore punk. It isn’t anything you haven’t heard before from Strike Anywhere, but Iron Front is razor-sharp; [...]
I’ve been waiting for what seems like forever for a new record from Cincinnati’s 500 Miles To Memphis, and while this isn’t technically the, I was still super excited when I got this in the mail a few weeks back. This 5 [...]
On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me, two turtle doves… and a whole bunch of Christmas MP3’s. One of those songs is Low’s “Just Like Christmas.” It’s probably my favorite non-traditional Christmas song, so (over the course of these twelve [...]
Hamburg, Germany is the city where The Beatles cut their teeth in the early 1960’s and has, thus, become somewhat of a mythical place in the history of rock music. So even though that isn’t the context that it’s presented in here [...]
How does it go again? On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree and a whole bunch of Christmas MP3’s. Something like that, right? Well, the season is finally upon us so here come Christmas [...]
Writing about heavy music and not sounding (at least marginally) like an idiot is a difficult thing for me. I mean, how many times can you use words like “crushing,” “thunderous,” “dense,” and “complex” before it all starts to read the same? That being said, [...]
I can’t believe it’s almost that time of year again. Before I finalize my favorite albums of 2009 list, I thought I should revisit my 2008 list. Last December I listed my 50 favorite albums of the 2008, but (like every year) it is an inexact art/science. There are bound [...]
If you are a fan of Chicago punk rock (and punk rock in general) you are almost certainly a fan of Naked Raygun or at least appreciative of their huge influence. That fact is inescapable and impossible not to recognize on former [...]
I’ve heard the phrase, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old,” spoken many times, but I, now, might finally actually know what it means. Age Sixteen’s debut full length Open Up Finders, Please is packed full of chaotic but somewhat melodic [...]
Yet another doozy of a post in this series, but (then again) they all are. I remember the first mix tape I made for Amy (way before we were married and way back when people still made mix tapes) and one of the songs I [...]
She’s impossible to deal with when she screams in the car… every single time we put her in the car. Really, it’s a shrill-ear-piercing bombast of baby cry, but still, how could anyone not love this face?
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If you aren’t familiar with this Long Island, NY quintet I’d suggest you take notice as this four song 7” is pretty doggone good. Awake In Their World was recorded by Phil Douglas (ex-Latterman) and falls squarely in that same vein of [...]
Again I need to ask the question, why is no one giving The Sidekicks any love? Their new album Weight Of Air is simply brilliant and a huge step forward for the band. Over the course of just one full length and [...]
After a long night of heaving drinking (I know we’ve all been there) you really only have two options if you can’t sleep it off. You can either find a Waffle House and thrown down some grits, gravy, sausage, and [...]
OMGZ! For whatever reason I really love this album. I mean, like, despite my better judgment I like this a whole fucking lot! First, the album is ridiculously titled Throw Up Your Hands For One Night Stands [...]
I’ve never heard of an indie folk collective called The Wading Girl nor was I familiar with it’s frontman, Billy Wallace. I’m still not sure how that pertains to Wallace’s solo debut, The Road Spit Me Out, but it’s [...]
With Thanksgiving now less than two weeks away, I figured it was about time to repost my tried and true recipe for brined and roasted turkey. So what if I ganked the original recipe from the amazing Alton Brown a few years ago. I’ve made enough delicious [...]
Nothington’s 2007 album, All In, was good and ended up taking the #12 spot on my best of list for that year, but I wasn’t expecting the band to mature and progress as much as they have here. Every single song on [...]
We’ve had members of both New Found Glory and Good Luck crash on our floor/couch in the past. Funny how things like that work out, huh? The After School Special song and The Heartdrops song are two of my wife’s faves from way back in [...]
Okay. I just have to say that Jim from the band Kid, You’ll Move Mountains has got to be one of the nicest people ever on the face of the earth (and I’m not just saying this because his band is great even though they are). Let me explain… [...]
After reading what Will over at Sound As Language wrote (even though it seems to now be gone from his site) about these guys I knew I had to check ‘em out. Like Bats are a trio from Northwest Indiana that plays [...]
Amor y Guerra is a collection of Police & Thieves’ three EP releases up to this point along with a few previously unreleased songs. The DC band features ex-members of Worn Thin and plays straightforward hardcore that’s a little melodic [...]
Wow, it’s be quite awhile since I’ve dug into my crates of old records and posted anything in this series, but it just felt like the right time for a little Chicago punk rock. I thought I’d share a little something from [...]
On their 4-song demo, Dummy Room plays the sort of no-frills Chicago-style punk that I grew up listening to. The songs are short, fast, aggressive blasts of punk rock that are uncomplicated and raw but refreshing to hear amidst all the overproduction in [...]
Here’s the sixth in this series but first since the site’s been revamped and first is quite some time. The most obscure track here is probably Lounge’s “Danbury.” Makes me wonder what ever happened to these guys.
MP3
Rancid - Roots Radicals
from [...]
Hailing from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, Snowing is yet another star player in the current revival of that mid-90’s emo sound that we all love (well, at least I do) so much. The band has only been in existence for about a [...]
Out of the blue a few months ago I got a call from my former Allister band mate Scott Murphy about the possibility of having our oldest daughter Hailey model for the cover of his upcoming CD Guilty Pleasures Love. Scott is (for those of you who don’t know) [...]
The Gateway District is a pop-punk supergroup from Minneapolis that features current or ex-members of notable bands like (The Soviettes, The Salteens, Banner Pilot, Dear Landlord, Off With Their Heads, Rivethead, and American Monsters). Did you just shit [...]
Transit is a Boston-based quintet that, on their latest EP Stay Home, makes me want to do just that and stay home listening to these six songs all night. These songs are filled with unabashedly passionate emotional hardcore that’s got (for good measure) [...]
We’ve got two albums from The Cretins (courtesy of my wife) that I recently re-packed away somewhere in a box in my garage, but before doing that I ripped them to MP3’s and gave ‘em a few listens. Those two albums from [...]
Things move so fast around here and (for all intents and purposes) this blog has been fairly dormant for the past 3 months or so. My youngest daughter, Teagan, was born in July and in addition to being a bit of a handful, having two kids is way more exhausting [...]
