Review: Desoto Jones – Aurora
If you are going to listen to overwrought and overarching modern emo tunes, you could do much better but also a lot worse than Desoto Jones and their debut album Aurora. With hooks and melodies galore it falls somewhere between All Time Low, The Juliana Theory, and Dashboard Confessional (wow, I make this sound terrible). (Read more…)
Win tickets for Backyard Tire Fire @ Metro this Friday
Do you want to win a pair of tickets to see roots-rockers Backyard Tire Fire @ Metro in Chicago this Friday, September 5th? Just leave a comment with your name and email address. Oh yeah, I also shaved off my beard. The winner will be chosen randomly tomorrow (Thursday) at midnight.
An incomplete history of Chicago punk rock (vol. 23)
Can you even believe that I haven’t posted anything in this series since December of last year? I’ve been seriously slacking here. I can hear all of you asking now, “What brought this out of dormancy?” Well, I (first) got an email, then a letter and two tapes. Let me explain… Back in October of (Read more…)
Review: New Found Glory – Tip Of The Iceberg EP
For full disclosure and truthfulness, Amy and I are friends with the guys in New Found Glory. But even though we have known them for years and own their albums neither of us has really been excited about anything that New Found Glory has released recently. Not that their last few albums were bad for (Read more…)
Beard today or gone tomorrow
Yeah, I’m in the midst of full-on beard growth here. It hasn’t really been that long (3 weeks at most) but it’s looking pretty solid already. I know that the wife isn’t a huge beard fan but hey, when you feel like a beard you just gotta let it grow, right? Right on. So hopefully (Read more…)
Review: Braindead – No Consequences
If you are looking for hardcore in the vein of the early Revelation Records releases, look no further than No Consequences, the debut full length from Philadelphia’s Braindead. It delivers ten songs of no-frills hardcore punk in a mere 23 heart-pounding minutes that will (most certainly) have you moving the needle back to the start. (Read more…)
Review: Mothlite – The Flax Of Reverie
On their debut album The Flax Of Reverie, Mothlite reaches for the grandiose heights of the foggy English countryside and do a pretty good job of hiding amongst the Pennines. Anyhow, Mothlite is a basically the duo of London-based instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan and Finnish engineer Antti Uusimaki. Their music is (from the get go) a (Read more…)
Alkaline Trio cover Tegan & Sara
After spending much of the day listening to live Alkaline Trio songs, I just want to say that I wish Agony & Irony wasn’t so painful to listen to. Many of those songs are really good and when played live really sound great, but just sound totally blah on the album. So I did come (Read more…)
