Every Avenue has released a new video of an acoustic performance of “Only Place I Call Home” off of their latest album Bad Habits. The band, currently signed onto Fearless Records is about to embark on a nationwide tour with The Audition, We Are The In Crowd, Plug In Stereo, and Simple as Surgery. The tour kicks off in February in Cleveland, Ohio. Read More

Although the Detroit quartet hasn’t released an album since 2005, ska and hardcore punks, Suicide Machines, have come together to play Riotfest 2011′s Philadelphia and Chicago tour dates. Despite the band being officially broken up since 2006, they have performed on several compilation albums and a few random shows. Other Riotfest headliners include Weezer, Social Distortion, Descendents, Danzig Legacy, Dead Milkmen and many more.There is no current word of a reunion. For information on Riotfest click here. For ticket information for the Chicago show, click here. For ticket information for the Philadelphia show, click here.

We Are The In Crowd has announced the release of their new album, Best Intentions, which will be hitting stores on October 4th. The album is now available for pre-order on iTunes, the bundle includes three bonus tracks, the “On My Way” demo, an acoustic version of the recently released single, “Rumor Mill”, and a studio recorded cover of  the wonderfully popular “Grenade” by Bruno Mars. We Are The In Crowd is also pre-releasing a new song titled “On Your Own” which will be available on September 13th as a sneak peak of Best Intentions.

The New York natives will be hitting the road in mid October accompanied by Mayday Parade, You Me At Six, There For Tomorrow, and The Make as part of the Noise Tour, sponsored by Journeys.

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Tom Morello, lead guitarist of Rage Against the Machine, will release a third studio album for his solo project, The Nightwatchman, on August 30th entitled World Wide Rebel Songs. Shortly before this in May 2011, Morello released an EP Union Town after being inspired by his performance in Madison, Wisconsin last February during the protest of an anti-union bill. All proceeds from this EP continue to go to the America Votes Labor Unity Fund via SaveWorkers.org. Continuing to benefit worthy causes, Morello has announced a three day Midwest tour, including Madison WI, Cleveland OH, and Flint MI, along with Rise Against’s vocalist and guitarist Tim McIlrath to benefit The Nation Institute (for more information click here). Created as a non-profit media center, the goal of The Nation Institute is to promote progressive ideas as well as strengthen and allow for independent press to thrive. “This year’s Justice Tour aims to support independent media which is battling the mountain of disinformation and propaganda foisted on the public by right wing media barons,” said Morello. “We will also return to the union battlegrounds of the Midwest to help steel the backbone of workers under siege.” (source here). All profits from these performances will go to The Nation Institute. For the Madison performance ticket information click here. For the Cleveland performance ticket information click here. For the Flint performance ticket information click here.

To support their new album, Time Travel, Never Shout Never is heading out on tour starting in September, with A Rocket to the Moon, Carter Husley, and Fake Problems.  There will even be a few tour dates featuring The Plain White T’s. Christofer’s longtime friends, Caleb Denison (Guitar/Drums/Percussion/Backing Vocals), Taylor MacFee (Bass/Backing Vocals) and Hayden Kaiser (Percussion/Backing Vocals) are now permanent members of Never Shout Never, a first for the usually solo Christofer Drew.  They are due to release Time Travel on September 20^th through Warner Bros. Records/Loveway Records.  The pre-order bundle is now available for purchase and includes an instant download of the title track, Time Travel, a limited edition lithograph hand stamped by Christofer Drew, the Time Travel CD with an alternate cover, and a digital delivery of the instrumentals from the album at midnight PST on release day.

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This year marks the 20th anniversary of Chicago’s annual Lollapalooza music festival. In the heat with a surprising lack of overwhelming humidity, one would have found themselves in an ocean of hipsters and eight stages to choose from on August 5th. At around five o’clock Gold Motel failed to show up to their intimate performance at the Toyota tent, half an hour late and still not arrived, I ventured to the BMI stage to witness a set by Pete Wentz & Bebe Rexha in their new project Black Cards. Their show began with two dancers in tight black clothing donning wolf head masks. While Pete’s main position in the band is supposed to be the bass guitar, his time was spent as follows: 85% dancing on stage while Bebe sang, 10% doing synth, and 5% stage diving into an unsuspecting and unready crowd that struggled to catch the man. A highlight of the show included Bebe pulling a Superbad Fogel-looking boy from the crowd to serenade while she danced and sung “Summer Nights” and “Club Called Heaven”. Black Cards’s show eventually turned into a very crowd interactive performance. By that I mean they eventually had half the crowd on stage with them in a giant dance party. Following Black Cards was OK Go on the new Google+ stage where the members were dressed in coordinating suits in red, blue, green, and yellow. Other than the distracting bodily odored man in front, the set was decent and included a song featuring “bells created by God” that was a very soft song with traits of a lullaby. “Here It Goes” was played midset, followed by a massive departure Read More

This year’s Summerfest featured huge headliners such as Katy Perry, Kanye West, Maroon 5, Florence + the Machine, Jack’s Mannequin, Owl City, and Neon Trees. For those who didn’t attend this year’s 11-day music festival, it took its annual place in Milwaukee’s Marcus Ampitheatre, with over 700 bands performing on 11 stages. Along with seeing major artists, you could also see emerging and undiscovered bands and musicians performing on smaller stages. While the fest claims to be the “World’s Largest Music Festival”, they should also mention that along with discovering new music, there is an endless amount of shopping tents, and tons of activities for every age demographic. Next year will be the 45th Anniversary of the festival which you will not want to miss.

Former Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump has confirmed a full US tour from August 3rd to September 3rd. More details of the tour such as other performers will be released soon. Read More

We The Kings are hitting the road with The Summer Set, The Downtown Fiction, Action Item, and Hot Chelle Rae on the Friday Is Forever Tour.  The tour kicks off July 10th in Eureka Missouri, nine days before The Summer Set drops their much anticipated album Everything’s Fine on July 19th. Read More

Sub City and Hopeless Records are set to release the tenth edition of their annual compilation CD, Take Action.  This year’s comp features songs, remixes, and acoustic covers by bands such as We Are are In Crowd, The Swellers, VersaEmerge, and All Time Low.  All profits made from album sales will be donated to charities,  the primary benefiting charity being Sex etc., an organization dedicated to improving teen’s sexual health information and resources.  The Take Action tour kicks off on April 22 in Boston, and continues until the end of May.

This year’s Alternative Press Tour features Black Veil Brides, Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows, I See Stars, VersaEmerge and Conditions. Pre-sales begin at 12 p.m. local time January 10th with general tickets on sale January 15th. Each ticket comes with a free one-year subscription to AP for you or a friend (but if you’re an AP Veteran such as myself, then the free subscription doesn’t apply to you).
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