An eerie tale of time travel and (possible) mistaken identity, “is it you” is a duet by The Witch and The Burro. The duo – comprised of Vic Ruggiero and lauren napier – filmed the spooky scenes in a haunted house in Baker City, OR. In between tour dates and plague pauses, they search for ghost towns amongst desert landscapes. “Is It You?” captures that feeling in both spirit and narrative.
So join the fortune teller and the wolf man, the witch and the burro…. They will embark on a tour – yet to be formally announced – in the new year, so keep an eye out. Lauren has just released The Mourning Moon Hangs Quietly – an intimate live recording offered on cassette by This and That Tapes. Vic is on the road with his band, The Slackers, (possibly) coming to a town near you.
Zürich Rockabilly Icons THE HILLBILLY MOON EXPLOSION Reissue 3rd Album & Release Special 7” Vinyl!
Los Angeles, CA – When last we heard from Swiss rockabilly phenoms The Hillbilly Moon Explosion, they had just inked a deal with U.S.-based label Cleopatra Records to reissue their first two albums, the incredible 2002 debut album, fittingly entitled Introducing The Hillbilly Moon Explosion, as well as the sophomore effort, Bourgeois Baby. Now comes the third album, the exquisite All Grown Up, which is being released on both CD in a slick digipak as well as on a limited-edition PURPLE SPLATTER vinyl in gatefold jacket. Originally released in 2007, All Grown Up, as the title suggests, shows the band maturing in both their songwriting and arranging talents, offering a diverse palette of blues, ska, jazz and early rock stylings.
And for an extra special holiday treat, the band has prepped a rockin’ RED & WHITE splatter 7″ featuring the lead-off track “Chick Habit” from their debut album backed with a gorgeous ballad “Many Tears Ago” from Bourgeois Baby. Makes for a perfect stocking stuffer!
All Grown Up Tracklist: 1. Walk Italian 2. Need You to Stay 3. Live the Life 4. The Long Way Down 5. Putty in Your Hands 6. Brown Eyed Boy 7. Tornado 8. House of Bamboo 9. Somebody Changed the Lock 10. All Grown Up 11. Oh Oh Mojo 12. Little Lil 13. Midnight Track 14. Moonshine Song
Los Angeles-based, all-female punk band The Linda Lindas have released the riff-laden power punk single “Nino.” The track, written for vocalist and guitarist Bela’s cat, is taken from the band’s forthcoming 2022 studio release.
On the band’s 2020 self-titled EP, Bela wrote a song about her siamese cat “Monica.” However, her cat Nino wouldn’t leave her alone until he got a song too. It is finally Nino’s time to shine. According to the band, “if you listen carefully there is a real-life, remarkably talented cat named Lil Dude playing piano on it. (We have the footage!) Enjoy!”
“Nino” follows the viral smash hit “Racist, Sexist Boy,” and “Oh!” which was featured in the trailer for the Netflix series “The Chair” starring Golden Globe winning actress, Sandra Oh.
ABOUT THE LINDA LINDAS Formed in 2018, The Linda Lindas first played together when former Dum Dum Girls frontwoman Kristin Kontrol invited them to take the stage to play covers for Girlschool LA (a music and ideas festival focused on connecting and empowering women-identified artists, leaders, and voices). After forming their own band and playing DIY gigs around Los Angeles, they were asked to open for punk icon Alice Bag and for seminal riot grrrl band Bikini Kill at one of their 2019 reunion shows at the Hollywood Palladium. In time, the band began writing their own material, including a song featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Claudia Kishi Club.
The Linda Lindas released their self-titled, self-released debut EP in 2020 showcasing their high-energy and heartfelt brand of punk, naming Jawbreaker, The Go-Go’s, and The Alley Cats among their inspirations. Months later, they appeared in a key scene of Amy Poehler’s Moxie!
In May 2021, The Linda Lindas’ set at the Cypress Park branch of the L.A. Public Library was streamed as an AAPI Heritage Month event (the band members are Asian American, Latinx, or both). The bands blistering performance of “Racist, Sexist Boy,” amassed over four million views on Instagram, and earned major praise from the likes of Hayley Williams, Questlove, Flea, and members of Rage Against the Machine and Sonic Youth.
The Linda Lindas are Eloise (vocals, bass), Mila (vocals, drums), Bela (vocals, guitar), and Lucia (vocals, guitar).
Gregor Barnett, guitarist/co-vocalist for The Menzingers, announces his debut release Don’t Go Throwing Roses In My Grave due out digitally and on CD February 18 via Epitaph Records. The album will be available on vinyl March 18.
Written and recorded in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Don’t Go Throwing Roses In My Grave is a sonic departure from Barnett’s more punk-leaning work with The Menzingers, drawing on the gritty, off-kilter Americana of Tom Waits or Warren Zevon as it faces down loss and doubt in search of relief and redemption. “It was this perfect storm,” says Barnett. “The band couldn’t tour, I was going through a really difficult time, and I was stuck at home watching my family struggle with illness and death and hardship. The only thing I could do was write my way through it.”
“Writing’s always been my way of making sense of the world,” Barnett explains treating his early lockdown writing sessions as something akin to therapy, a place to process his anxiety about his family’s health and wellbeing and the grief that came with the passing of his grandfather. “I was writing because it felt good to write,” he adds. “But once I got three or four songs together, I began to realize that there was a story there and that I should be documenting how I felt as I made my way through this really challenging chapter.”
After working on demos and mapping out the project in his home studio in Philadelphia, Barnett brought the songs to longtime collaborator and producer Will Yip (Mannequin Pussy, Quicksand) for a two-and-a-half-week recording session. Barnett also enlisted Yip to play drums and brought in his Menzingers bandmates Eric Keen to play bass, Joe Godino to add percussion, and Tom May to take the record’s cover photo. The result is ten vulnerable and stripped-down tracks that serve as a reminder to cherish the ones we love and the connections we have with them in what precious little time we’ve been given.
Today, Barnett shares the title track, “Don’t Go Throwing Roses In My Grave,” in which he takes a look at the ritual of laying flowers in memory of the deceased; “It’s a beautiful way to honor the people we’ve lost, but I think a lot of times we forget to appreciate our relationships with those people while they’re still here,” he explains. “I wanted this song to be a celebration of life and what we have before it’s gone.”
CHECK OUT “DON’T GO THROWING ROSES IN MY GRAVE,” NOW WATCH | LISTEN
DON’T GO THROWING ROSES IN MY GRAVE TRACK LISTING 1. Oh Lord, What Do You Know? 2. Driving Through the Night 3. The First Dead Body I Ever Saw 4. No Peace of Mind to Rest 5. Talking to Your Tombstone 6. Don’t Go Throwing Roses In My Grave 7. Hurry Me Down to Hades 8. Anthem For the One I Love 9. At a Greyhound Station, Desperate 10. Guest In Your House
In celebration of the record, Gregor Barnett will hit the road next spring beginning February 24 in Ashbury Park, NJ. Tickets are on sale Friday, November 12. For more information, visit https://gregorbarnett.com.
GREGOR BARNETT TOUR DATES 2/24 Asbury Park, NJ House of Independents 2/25 New York, NY Mercury Lounge 2/26 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s 2/27 Boston, MA Sonia 3/1 Toronto, ON Sneaky Dee’s 3/2 Cleveland, OH Mahall’s 3/4 Chicago, IL Beat Kitchen 3/5 Detroit, MI The Sanctuary 3/8 Nashville, TN The End 3/9 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade 3/10 Chapel Hill, NC Local 506 3/11 Richmond, VA The Camel 3/12 Washington, DC Songbyrd
The Dynamite Club release their debut EP ‘Is The Dancefloor Calling?…No.’ on November 12th. Prepare for sick(s) tracks of breakneck rock and very English punk.
Everything you see and hear was done DIY by the band with a little help from their friends. The EP was produced and mixed by James Kirsch ( https://www.jameskirschmusic.com/ ), mastered by Arran Dutt, and the awesome cover art is by the very talented Bobbi Abbey.
The band extends a cordial invitation for your attendance at the EP launch gig: Saturday 20th November @The Queen’s Head, Brixton, London. Facebook event: https://bit.ly/3nM5dMX%C2%A0
“The combination of visual and emotional lyrics with a wide array of instrumentation makes this one of the year’s most enjoyable albums.” – Punknews.org
“They continue to build upon the groundwork that was laid on their previous album, this time taking it a step further with their willingness to explore new stylistic territory. At the same time, they’re able to do so while still preserving the core sound that fans have come to appreciate. Additionally, singer/guitarist Dan Vapid’s songwriting proficiencies remain in top form, while the other band members, (guitarist/singer Simon Lamb, bassist/singer Dillon Dunnagan, and drummer/singer Gabe Usery) provide significant contributions throughout, which really helps to solidify ‘Escape Velocity’ as a complete record.” – Jaded In Chicago
“A warm and richly fulfilling record.” – Jersey Beat“This is an album that will have the listener impulsively electing to hit repeat over and over again. They have given us one of the best pop-punk releases heard so far this year.” – Punktuation Magazine
1. Come Find Me 2. Burning Questions 3. Middle America 4. Cyber World 5. The Talk 6. Guilt and Relief 7. Runaway Jane 8. Robots 9. Teenage Wallflower 10. Tears are Falling 11. Bitter and Sour 12. Maybe Tomorrow 13. Midnight Blue
(FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5 2021) — Today Dan Vapid and the Cheats release their fourth full-length album Escape Velocity via Eccentric Pop Records. Featuring thirteen new tracks the album plays almost like a concept album, exploring themes of loss, sorrow, and redemption. It’s a personal, insightful record, musically rooted in Vapid’s classic punk rock style while also exploring and incorporating his wide-ranging musical influences.
The album is currently available as a CD-only title, as vinyl manufacturing delays are frequently running longer. Vinyl is expected to be released sometime in the spring of 2022 with cassette release available in spring via Memorable But Not Honorable Tapes.
Dan Vapid And The Cheats is a punk rock band featuring singer, songwriter, and guitarist Dan Vapid. A veteran of the punk scene who has played in influential bands such as Screeching Weasel, The Riverdales, Sludgeworth, The Methadones, Noise By Numbers, The Mopes, and The Queers. The current lineup features Dan Vapid (Vocals/Guitar), Simon Lamb (guitars/vocals), Dillon Dunnagan (bass/vocals), and Gabe Usery (drums/vocals).
In 2013, they released their self-titled debut (recorded by Justin Perkins), a sophomore LP titled Two, produced by Matt Allison (Alkaline Trio, The Lawrence Arms), a split 7″ with Masked Intruder, a split 7″ with The Jetty Boys, and made an appearance on Our Lips Are Sealed – A Tribute to The Go-Go’s. Three, the band’s third full-length and first in six years, was released in 2019 via Eccentric Pop Records. Escape Velocity was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Gabe Usery at Encapsulated Studios in St. Louis, MO., and produced by Dan Vapid and Gabe Usery.
LARS FREDERIKSEN TO RELEASE DEBUT SOLO EP “TO VICTORY”
STRIPPED-DOWN SIX TRACK EP
TO BE AVAILABLE ON VINYL, CD, & CASSETTE
Emeryville, CA – LARS FREDERIKSEN, from legendary punk band RANCID will be releasing his debut solo EP To Victory on November 19. It will be available for pre-order from Pirates Press Records this Friday, October 15th.
This solo venture for Frederiksen started back on March 7th, 2020 when he sold out the landmark Oakland club Eli’s Mile High Club. Frederiksen performed a Billy Bragg-esque set. The lucky fans attending the show [which was supposed to be the first of many, including an appearance alongside Dropkick Murphys on St. Patrick’s Day in Boston] had no idea that they would be the only ones to witness this unbelievable performance for quite some time… (Thanks Covid!)
The surreal performance was treasured by the lucky few who got to see it, and has given Lars even more confidence and validation to pursue this venture. Frederiksen headed into the studio to record these tracks in the vein of his live performance – simple, raw, emotionally charged, and powerful.
“So much happened in my life starting in 2018 and is just now sorta wrapping up here currently in 2021. This entire period, especially during my mom’s passing, was a great reflection point for me and a time to dive deeper than I’ve ever been into my Pagan roots,” remarks Frederiksen.
The album has six tracks, featuring a mix of covers and songs from his other bands – each song carrying personal meaning for Frederiksen, and each a standout performance in its own right.
With three videos on the way, and touring planned for 2022, this is just the beginning of a new venture for Frederiksen.
“There will be more to come ’cause I’m not done yet. I don’t think I’ll ever be. As long as I have breath I’ll unapologetically use my voice,” he remarks.
TRACK LISTING: 1. God and Guns (The Old Firm Casuals) 2. Army of Zombies (Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards) 3. Tomorrows Girls (U.K. Subs cover)
4. Motherland (The Old Firm Casuals) 5. Comin’ Home (KISS cover) 6. Skunx (Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards)
1. Come Find Me 2. Burning Questions 3. Middle America 4. Cyber World 5. The Talk 6. Guilt and Relief 7. Runaway Jane 8. Robots 9. Teenage Wallflower 10. Tears are Falling 11. Bitter and Sour 12. Maybe Tomorrow 13. Midnight Blue
(WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13 2021) — In January of 2020, Dan Vapid and the Cheats began recording their fourth full-length album at Encapsulated Studios in St. Louis, Missouri. They opted to stop the session due to the Coronavirus pandemic and it sat in limbo for over a year. Upon receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, singer Dan Vapid continued the session in the summer of 2021. Now they are ready to release their fourth full-length, Escape Velocity, due out on November 5th via Eccentric Pop Records. Listen to the single “Runaway Jane” here.
“Escape Velocity exemplifies the trials and tribulations the Coronavirus pandemic has had on all of us. But life goes on. And the year hiatus made clear that this life is too short to not do what you love. The single, ‘Runaway Jane’ is inspired by John Updike’s novel, Rabbit, Run. I thought about what it would be like if a woman from a small town in Illinois left her husband without giving him a warning. I pictured a woman who felt she lived her entire life serving the prescribed roles in our society, only for it to blow into a middle-age existential crisis.” – Dan Vapid
Dan Vapid And The Cheats is a punk rock band featuring singer, songwriter, and guitarist Dan Vapid. A veteran of the punk scene who has played in influential bands such as Screeching Weasel, The Riverdales, Sludgeworth, The Methadones, Noise By Numbers, The Mopes, and The Queers. The current lineup features Dan Vapid (Vocals/Guitar), Simon Lamb (guitars/vocals), Dillon Dunnagan (bass/vocals), and Gabe Usery (drums/vocals).
In 2013, they released their self-titled debut (recorded by Justin Perkins), a sophomore LP titled Two, produced by Matt Allison (Alkaline Trio, The Lawrence Arms), a split 7″ with Masked Intruder, a split 7″ with The Jetty Boys, and made an appearance on Our Lips Are Sealed – A Tribute to The Go-Go’s. Three, the band’s third full-length and first in six years, was released in 2019 via Eccentric Pop Records. Escape Velocity was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Gabe Usery at Encapsulated Studios in St. Louis, MO., and produced by Dan Vapid and Gabe Usery.
Multifaceted singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Dan Andriano is thrilled to announce the debut album from his new project Dan Andriano & The Bygones. The album features Bay Area musicians Randy and Dylan Moore and Nick Kenrick. The album Dear Darkness will be released February 11 via Epitaph Records.
Today, Andriano unveils the title track “Dear Darkness,” which creates tension by combining a somber message with a buoyant arrangement, with crunchy riffs and an almost poppy vocal melody. The track follows the previously released singles “Sea Level,” and “The Excess.”
The self-produced project finds Andriano venturing into deeply personal lyrical territory while also pushing the limits of just what his unclassifiable sound can be.
Andriano first began work on what would become Dear Darkness during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, writing demoes and raiding his archives of unfinished ideas, doing so more out of a deep-seated need to create than with any true end project in mind. Having spent so much of his life touring and making music, the time off forced by the pandemic was foreign to Andriano, who, at moments, struggled with how to use this newfound freedom, but also found it to be fruitful for his creative process.
In addition to writing, Andriano used his time during the pandemic to broaden his already encyclopedic musical knowledge, saying, “I spent that whole time trying to get better at music. I learned a lot about music. I sat in my garage every day and just played guitar and, you know, tinkered with basses. Which is something I try to do anyway, but I did it with a little more of an active interest in education, like time I feel like I lost learning or trying to get better at music while I was just on tour doing the same thing.”
Originally, Dan had been hopeful to wrap the session with an EP, but Andriano had finished the first week with so much material to work with — and felt such a natural rapport with the Moore brothers — that the impromptu session led to a full-length album. “It did feel sort of magical, just being that everything fell into place in such a crazy time when nothing was falling into place. That was something I haven’t felt in a long time,” says Andriano.
From the desk of Justin Courtney Pierre; My earliest memories are of a boy named Charlie. He was my best friend growing up and we used to play with Hot Wheels together. My mom was always getting mad at me for trading my brand new cars for his beat-up broken old hand-me-downs that he received from his older brothers (it seems I’ve always had a predilection for weathered things). I didn’t mind if my toys looked as if they’d been played with, as long as everything was in its place. I had a tendency to spend more time categorizing and organizing things as a child than I did actually playing with them. And anytime Charlie would come over (I never played at his house, he always came to mine) all my shit would end up out of the boxes and containers and splayed out all across my bedroom like a murder scene. It stressed me out to the point where we’d eventually get into a shouting match and my mom would have to send him home. Our relationship was tumultuous at best. I’d have these reoccurring nightmares about hearing his footsteps slowly climbing up the stairs to my bedroom. I’d count each one, all 12 steps, but he’d never appear. And yet the footsteps would continue to climb. I’d jump out of bed in the middle of the night and start organizing shit, like my sock drawer, thinking if I refolded each sock just a little better, then nothing bad would happen. I was 4 years old at the time.
As we grew older, Charlie became like a second kid to my family of 2. He always seemed to know when we were eating because he’d show up just as we were sitting down to dig in. It got to the point where my mom would just start setting an extra place at the table in anticipation of him. The two of them would go through this 1950’s black and white tv sitcom routine at every meal, with her asking “Don’t they feed you over there?” and he’d smile and reply, with his usual charm, “Yeah, but my mom’s cooking isn’t nearly as good as yours, Mrs. P.,” and then he’d turn to an imaginary camera and wink, and an imaginary crowd would burst into laughter and applause. I hated him for how easily he was able to manipulate my mother. It almost seemed to me as if she even preferred him at times.
We went to Catholic grade school together at St. Jude Of The Lake in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. I remember my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Gibson, had a nervous breakdown while reading the end of ‘Bridge To Terabithia’ to us, because (spoiler) when the kid dies at the end Charlie burst out laughing. She lost her fucking mind and screamed at us about not respecting the preciousness of God’s gift of life. Charlie said something like, “It’s just a book, Lady,” and she threw it at him. He ended up having to get stitches above his left eye and she was quietly let go. Our principal filled in for a week or so and his first act as 3rd grade substitute was to liquor us all up on milk and donuts and tell us that Mrs. Gibson had had another miscarriage, and that’s why she reacted the way she did. Fuck Catholic School. I got into so much trouble because of Charlie. He used to fart real loud in church and then dramatically scoot away from me, gasping for breath. He knew I had a tendency to faint in church, and without fail would silently reach around and kick me in the back of the knee at some point in the service, instantly toppling me over. I had so many welts and bruises all over my head from years of repeatedly hitting it on the pew in front of me on my way down. My mom even wrote the school notes excusing me from having to go to church at all, but the teachers always made me anyway. I’ll say it again: Fuck Catholic School.
I don’t know why I was friends with Charlie. He was kind of a piece of shit, now that I think about it. All we did was fight. Or rather, he pushed my buttons to the point where I’d lash out, and then I’d get in trouble, and he’d just enjoy the aftermath. The last time I saw him was in 4th grade. We were all gathered around the television watching The Challenger Shuttle take off. And then it exploded. And then it was quiet. And then there was an announcement. And then it continued to be quiet. And then the teacher turned off the tv and said we could do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day, but everybody just sat quietly at their desks and stared blankly out the window. And then Charlie screamed. He let out a wild guttural scream that ripped through us as violently as a tornado siren. He continued to scream as he stood up and flipped his desk over, spilling all the contents within. He continued to scream as he walked out of the room. I could hear his scream slowly fade as it made its way down the hall, turned the corner, and exited the school.
I never saw him again.
Shortly after the incident, my mom put me in therapy. I don’t really remember a whole lot about that particular time in my life, other than the therapist was a big woman who gave me pretzels and popcorn whenever I participated in the session. I learned to manipulate her, in order to acquire a handful of snacks, purely out of boredom, which in hindsight is what probably kept me in therapy for several more years.
I’m not sure if everyone has had a version of this experience, but a few years back my mom started cleaning out the attic and began gifting me random boxes of all the old garbage of mine she had collected over the years. Boxes containing old G.I. Joe action figures, Hot Wheels cars, report cards, shitty finger paintings, class photos, old Guitar Magazines, cassette tapes, Hardy Boys books, address books, and journals. I kept a lot of journals as a child. Or rather I had a lot of half-finished journals that all started with a similar version of the same promise, “This time I am going to write every single day…” It never happened. However, I was reminded of Charlie while reading through my journals from the early ’80s. A lot of the aforementioned scenes above, that I hadn’t thought about in 30+ years, all came flooding back. One night I was having dinner at my mom’s house and my daughter and I were playing with some of my old Hot Wheels in the middle of the living room. I told her the story of how I used to trade my brand new ones for Charlie’s old beat-up ones and how that really upset grandma Debbie. And then I felt the room go quiet.
I’ve never seen such a vacant look on another human before. It was as if my mother went away and was instead replaced by a husk of herself. She had a faraway look in her eyes. She was somewhere else. I asked her what was going on. She instantly snapped back from wherever she had gone and took a gulp from her wine glass. “Whatever happened to Charlie?” I asked. “It’s like one day he just up and vanished.” My mother instantly went faraway again and mumbled something under her breath that sounded like, “His dad got a job out of town and they had to move away.” She spoke in slow motion monotone as if reciting a poem she had been forced to memorize as a child. Then just as suddenly as she had disappeared, she snapped back into the present moment and looked over at my daughter for a good long while. Then she looked at me. She smiled, but the damaged landscape of her face, due to the emotional weathering of the past, convoluted her intended expression. Carefully, she asked, “Does Maxtalk to any friends?”
-Justin.
—-
Ghost World, produced by Joshua Cain (Motion City Soundtrack), will be released via Epitaph Records on November 12. You can listen to the first track from the EP “Horse Racing” here. Ghost World follows the previously released The Price of Salt, and An Anthropologist on Mars EPs which came out earlier this year.
GHOST WORLD TRACK LISTING 1. Horse Racing 2. Steady As She Goes 3. Somewhere A Dark Heart 4. Temporary Education 5. Gate Kicker
