Manual Dexterity Music Zine June/July 2011

Direct Hit! Banquets Rocket fuel Pswingset Brian Nagan bruno guerreiro Jason Taylor Sixes

Into It. Over It.

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Cover // Here: Evan Weiss // Into It. Over It. Photos: Nicole Kibert // elawgrrl.com Rex Manning: Adam Sever Correspond: mandexzine@yahoo.com P.O. Box 1616 • Monticello, MN 55362 mandexzine.com // facebook.com/mandexzine

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Andrew Kenny What do you think are some necessities for touring?

A flat of bottled water in the van. Dehydrated people make tired sounding music. Snacks. Hungry people make each other crazy. A cell phone and a credit card. These seem obvious, but I played my first few hundred shows without either. An iPod with every Ronnie Milsap album on it. Greatest Hits is not going to get it done. Duct tape for light emergencies. Gold Bond medicated powder for medium emergencies.

And a snake bite kit for more serious situations.

Van problems seem imminent when touring, what vehicle problems have you encountered while on the road?

We’ve had four flats around the world. Threw a fan belt in Minneapolis. The fan belt also took our AC with it. Busted a windshield in Denver. Lost our alternator in Knoxville. Replaced the fuel pump twice, both in Arizona, once along with the entire gas tank. A dead battery in France. The ignition assembly stopped working in Centralia, WA. The back windows got busted out on Long Island. We got towed in Boston. Fraudulently accused of a bumper scraping, also in Boston. Threw a U-joint in Hillsboro, TX and threw another in Los Angeles. We had the van towed out of a snow bank (that it had just slid off the road into) in Idaho. Ladybug Transistor saw us and called a wrecker (thanks guys!). The van got pop locked, and all of our gear stolen, in Brooklyn. And what I hope is the grand finale: A wheel fell completely off the van in Amsterdam. Besides that we’ve been pretty lucky.

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Are there any hidden treasures, (people, places and things) that you have experienced while on tour?

I like a good cup of coffee in the Pacific NW. A slice of cheese pizza in NY is a good tradition. Atlanta is my favorite food city though. A Guiness in Dublin. A schnitzel in Vienna. A fresh croissant in Paris.

There are a few promoters around the states that have known me for a long, long time, since the early days when I was too green to know any better, and I look forward to returning their patience.

Have higher gas prices had any affect on tour planning regarding tour route or length of tour?

What are some things you do to save money or cut down on costs to survive financially while on tour?

The introduction and rise in popularity of Priceline has coincided mercifully with the rise in gas prices.

So while gas might be 33% more expensive, hotels are 33% less expensive and it just evens out. Or seems too. Of course it’s still cheaper to stay with friends, and seeing friends is a great perk of touring life. I suppose it’s cheaper still to sit at home playing video games but c’mon...

There are a lot more bands out there these days, and many venues have calendars filled on the weeknights with touring bands. So there’s just a lot more competition for the music fan’s dollar. And the same people not buying albums at record shops aren’t buying them at shows either. I’d say those two trends are a lot tougher on bands than the rise in gas prices.

What’s the secret to not strangling your band mates while on tour?

Don’t take yourself too seriously. And if that doesn’t stem the urge, then keep your hands in your pockets and remember that someone probably wants to strangle you too, friendo.

John Galm and Bean What do you think are some necessities for touring?

Beer. LOTS AND LOTS OF BEER. Van problems seem imminent when touring, what vehicle problems have you encountered while on the road?

This time around we rented a van. Not one problem yet! It smells though.

Are there any hidden treasures, (people, places and things) that you have experienced while on tour?

Carabar in Columbus, OH. Ronnie kills it.

Have higher gas prices had any affect on tour planning regarding tour route or length of tour?

No. What are some things you do to save money or cut down on costs to survive financially while on tour?

Cook food at people’s houses. Or if we’re lucky, people will cook food for us! And buy us beer!

What’s the secret to not strangling your band mates while on tour?

Not holding back and actually strangling them.

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Tony Clark What do you think are some necessities for touring?

I would have to say having enough merch and a good route is crucial.

Driving for over six hours a day is taxing on the body and the wallet.

Having enough merch is a total necessity because half the places we play can’t pay us very much from the door, so merch becomes our main source of income.

Van problems seem imminent when touring, what vehicle problems have you encountered while on the road?

We’ve actually been pretty lucky (knock on wood) with van problems on the road. We’re pretty good with making sure our van is in shape before we leave. But prior to tours, we’ve had to replace brakes, tires, batteries, remove the air conditioner. That’s one thing that really kills us out, we have no AC. We’re all in college too, so the only time we can tour is the summer, and touring without an AC in the summer is not fun.

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Are there any hidden treasures, (people, places and things) that you have experienced while on tour?

There’s always hidden treasures on tour. Every night we get to either hang out with old friends that we rarely get to see or meet new people. Meeting people and making friends is definitely something that keeps this band going. I would say the best experience we’ve had on tour is being able to see the nation and end up in places we never would’ve dreamed of being, like Little Rock.

Have higher gas prices had any affect on tour planning regarding tour route or length of tour?

No comment. We’re fucked.

What are some things you do to save money or cut down on costs to survive financially while on tour?

We’ve found that shopping at grocery stores rather than eating out saves a lot of money. You also end up eating a lot healthier too and just overall feel better.

What’s the secret to not strangling your band mates while on tour?

Usually if we start to get annoyed at each other it doesn’t really last long. I think that because we’re all really good friends that it’s easy for us to forget about little fights or disagreements. When you travel with the same people for a month or two at a time, it’s inevitable to avoid arguments, but they never really last long at all for us.

Tim Kinsella What do you think are some necessities for touring?

As we are now on our 3rd day in the UK and my guitar and luggage are still lost, I’m quickly learning if one is lucky enough to have kind and hospitable hosts and traveling companions, one needs little else on tour except for the ability to laugh at one’s self and surrender to every circumstance every day being beyond one’s control.

Van problems seem imminent when touring, what vehicle problems have you encountered while on the road?

We’ve been stranded a few times. Once in a small town in Alabama, the owner of Jade Tree was kind enough to keep prank calling us pretending to be a redneck killer and kept us so freaked out that we didn’t leave the motel room because he was waiting outside the door to torture us. Once after being stranded in Italy and missing 5 shows, we drove 35 hours straight to miss our show in Glasgow by an hour. Our flight this time, Chicago to London is usually about 7.5 hours, but ours took 18 hours and all our baggage was lost. Ho-hum.

Are there any hidden treasures, (people, places and things) that you have experienced while on tour?

Sure. Touring fucking sucks 23 hours a day, 99% of the time. If it weren’t for the occasional transcendent scenic overpass or sight-seeing trip to a castle, things one would never see without touring, it would never be worth it. Playing music is cool and all and making the same money at 37 that one made at 18 is cool and all, but sitting in a rock club for hours every night, after having sat in a van all day, you’re likely to get awfully excited about a good sandwich or a good bookstore in town.

Have higher gas prices had any affect on tour planning regarding tour route or length of tour?

Oh hell yeah. It’s no longer sustainable. It’s simply not an option for bands at our level to tour anymore.

This is currently the fizzling out of the old model, people seeing through commitments and denying the new reality that they don’t want to face up to.

But I think it’s over for bands that exist on our scale.

Our West Coast tour just killed us. I can’t imagine we’ll ever be able to tour the West Coast again. We ended up making about $300 / week each and even that was only because we deferred paying off some merch debts. Yeah, after our current commitments are done we are done touring except maybe for the occasional one-off. It sucks, but it’s kind of a relief really to know that one has done one’s best, but there’s nothing more to do if one’s species goes extinct.

What are some things you do to save money or cut down on costs to survive financially while on tour?

Well everything possible really. Priceline is actually a big help, cheaper than just showing up to an economy motel. And we all cram into one room of course. We are currently sharing a van with Hot Club de Paris, 8 of us in a van to save on gas. We eat the hummus and pita all day that we take from the band room the night before. You know it’s bad when the per diem is less than a pack of cigarettes, and that’s currently where we’re at.

What’s the secret to not strangling your band mates while on tour?

“Om mani padme hum” all day, over and over, “om mani padme hum.” And just imagine how much you are irritating all of them, right? We do a real good job of being considerate of each other as best we can. We’ve been doing it a long time, know each other well, and pretty much take turns three at a time talking the fourth guy off a ledge, “Don’t worry man, we’ll get home and you’ll find some kind of job.”

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Sam Sutherford What do you think are some necessities for touring?

A camping mattress. Anything else you could possibly need can be picked up at a gas station, but a camping mattress isn’t usually on the rack at the Flying J off I-95. It’s the difference between sleeping amazingly every night, and being a sore, angry dude every single morning. They roll up super-small, take up no space in the van, and ensure that every night on tour is the best night on tour. We always seem to end up rolling with like six for some reason. We just love being prepared.

Van problems seem imminent when touring, what vehicle problems have you encountered while on the road?

Our drive shaft ate shit after a show in Grand Rapids last year. We were touring back from Fest, and it was the second to last show. We ended up stuck in this roadside motel just outside of town for two extra nights, eating through all the money we had made on tour repairing the damn thing. It was, without hyperbole, the absolute fucking worst. The room was cramped, we were all exhausted from Fest and a few weeks of tour, and we knew we were hemorrhaging money. But so far, that’s it. Our van is a beast, and if that’s the worst of it, I’ll take it.

Oh, and our wiper fluid froze on a January tour this past year, which meant throwing cups of liquid onto windshield while driving through Manhattan in order to keep visibility, well, visible. Dangerous!

Are there any hidden treasures, (people, places and things) that you have experienced while on tour?

You encounter these every day, which is what makes the process of getting in a cramped, hot van and driving for hours to make little money and then sleep on a floor so appealing, instead of just insane.

It’s the truly incredibly part about getting to be in a touring band. The first one the comes to mind is the city of Wilmington, North Carolina. We played it on our first-ever American tour, on our way down to Fest 8 with One Win Choice. I had never even heard of it, but we drove there overnight after a disastrous Baltimore show where Justin, our bass player, had a knife pulled on him. En route, we discovered that it was a major television production hub, and

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the setting for one of the greatest TV dramas ever, Dawson’s Creek. So we figured out where the house that stood in for the Leary house was, and drove to it at five in the morning. After crashing, we spent the next day walking around the most enchanting port-side town I’ve maybe ever seen. I mean, it’s basically Capeside. The show was at a laundromat that’s also a venue, and every single bar had an incredible selection of weird local microbrews. I want to retire there.

Have higher gas prices had any affect on tour planning regarding tour route or length of tour?

I was going to say that they haven’t, but that’s actually not true. This summer we’re doing something called the Weekend Warrior Tour, which basically consists of us doing a long weekend tour of a different province or State every weekend. We just did Ohio, then Ontario, and we have New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan coming up. Unfortunately, our New York tour currently consists of a single show. We have a date in Buffalo, which is about an hour and a half from Toronto. We could have played shows in Brooklyn and Long Island, but we couldn’t afford the gas to drive from Buffalo to New York City, knowing that we probably wouldn’t make enough at either show to cover the cost of travel. It’s disappointing when financial realities upset your best laid plans.

What are some things you do to save money or cut down on costs to survive financially while on tour?

I eat peanut butter sandwiches about three times a day. We will usually do a grocery run and stock up on some fruit, some canned ravioli, and other cheap, terrible stuff. We also eat a lot of Taco Bell, which is outrageously cheap, filling, and if you order the right thing, not terrible for you.

What’s the secret to not strangling your band mates while on tour?

Actually liking your bandmates is a great start.

We’re all really good friends, and for us, part of the fun of being on tour is having this goofy vacation all together. Gratefully, everyone in the band is also a considerate, decent human being, so the kind of things that often strain bands on tour – someone who doesn’t load gear, someone who gets too drunk, someone who refuses to take a shift driving – don’t happen. We’re good enough friends to understand each other’s foibles and eccentricities, and so far, no strangling has been necessary.

Cat Park, Greg Labold, and Jeremy Jams What do you think are some necessities for touring?

Jeremy- You need a van, or at least friends with a van.

Greg- Snacks and water. Comics and art supplies. Sun glasses and wigs.

Cat- Nachos, wigs, facepaint, and Jeremy not having pillows or blankets... Every time.

Van problems seem imminent when touring, what vehicle problems have you encountered while on the road?

C- The rearview mirror mysteriously fell off (whoops) and Greg replaced it with this wonky fun house plastic. So now whenever you look for oncoming traffic, you feel like you’re on acid and want to chop your eyes out.

Are there any hidden treasures, (people, places and things) that you have experienced while on tour?

J- The Lang Lab in South Bend, Indiana is awesome! I thought we live in a cool warehouse, this place is rad.

Kalamazoo loves rock n roll!

C- This place in Montreal called Fattal, you know that movie Little Monsters with both Savage brothers? You know the underground monster world...?

That’s where the show was.

G- Fattal in Montreal, Quebec is the most insane place we have ever been.

Think Mad Max meets Land of the Lost. A warehouse compound littered with graffiti. There were tons of lofts and studios with bands practicing and artists arting all along the side of a railroad track.

Have higher gas prices had any affect on tour planning regarding tour route or length of tour?

J- Yeah, it is expensive to travel in a van that only gets 16 miles to the gallon! I want to tour forever and play everywhere, but life is expensive too! Our tours haven’t been longer than a month, usually 2 weeks and lots of weekends. It doesn’t stop us from hearing the call of the road.

G- On tour it doesn’t matter what the cost of fuel is... I am full of free gas!

What are some things you do to save money or cut down on costs to survive financially while on tour?

J- I always try to route short drives, then you have more time to hang out and try all your new recipes on friends!

C- Don’t eat out, make your own food. People will let you use their kitchen, and you’ll learn a lot about them by cooking with them.

G- Don’t eat too much fast food.

Don’t eat at too many restaurants you cant afford. Spend money on groceries. Make food with friends at their houses before and after shows. Try to get the band to pay for all your meals! You deserve it!

What’s the secret to not strangling your band mates while on tour?

C- iPod, and those huge noise canceling head phones for sleepy time.

G- Take time to go on your own secret missions without the rest of the band.

J- Strangling yourself.

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Interview with Nick Woods Live Photos: Joanna Moreno

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You started writing Direct Hit! songs while still with your much different sounding previous band, The Box Social. What influenced you into wanting to write easy and fast two minute songs?

Man, there’s a lot of places I could start with that one. The short answer is that I’ve always written those kinds of songs. I played in a now-embarrassing pop punk band in high school, and I wrote a bunch of stuff for that over a few years. But I felt like it got to a point, at least for a while, where every group on the planet wanted to sound like they were on Fat Wreck or Epitaph – All of my friends kept telling me about all these bands that were just like, blatant Lagwagon and Rancid rip-offs. So I got bored, and started playing with The Box Social, and didn’t really listen to pop punk for a few years.

I started paying attention again when my friend Brian, The Box Social’s drummer and Direct Hit’s first drummer, played me Situationist Comedy for the first time right around when I was finishing up college. I couldn’t believe that it had come out on Fat, because I hadn’t heard D4 before then – it

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was 2006, and that album came out in 2002 – and thought they sounded so different from all of the other stuff I’d heard in high school. So I started looking around for cool pop punk bands again, because I realized how much I’d missed. Right around then The Thermals started getting popular, so I went and saw them a couple of times. And The Box Social’s singer, Nick, had us cover a few Ramones songs, which made me go back and listen to those records for the first time ever. I felt like a total loser because it seemed like I had just skipped over the coolest parts of the genre. So I sort of fell back on the kind of stuff I had been writing in high school, because I figured out it didn’t have to be a total joke… I could write short, catchy songs, and they didn’t all have to have a gallop beat and fart jokes in the lyrics.

Early on there was a rotating cast of players in the band. Did the constant line up changes slow the momentum of the band? Had there been fewer to no line up changes, would more have been

achieved at this point and would the band sound the same?

Yeah, I definitely think it slowed momentum, if you want to call it that. In my experience, a good, simple song becomes an awesome, nuanced song when a band spends months jamming the shit out of it. You learn each other’s quirks, and you pick up on every subtlety that everyone plays, and learn to react in a way that makes the song sound better. I don’t think that’s news to anyone who’s ever played in a band before. So having three different bass players and four different drummers really fucked with that process. It was almost like starting at square one every time someone new jumped on. We spent as much time teaching old material to new members as we did working on making those songs better, or writing new stuff.

That being said, if Direct Hit still had the same lineup we did when we started, I don’t think we’d be as good a band as we are now. And I think we’re getting better all the time. Danny and Robbie and Devon are without question the best drummer, bassist, and guitarist I’ve ever gotten to play with.

They contribute a lot to the songs that I can’t.

Since Direct Hit! started, you’ve released all the material online for free. How did it feel when people started taking notice of the band and how does it feel now to be working with Kind of Like Records on Domesplitter?

DH has been an awesome surprise. It’s still kind of hard for me to believe that I’ve met so many of my best friends today as a result of this band, and that some people care about us as much as they seem to. I never got to put out a vinyl record before, and KOL is helping us with that… There’s just a lot happening with this group that I never thought would.

We’re really lucky.

To help fund the recording of Domesplitter, you made a limited cassette tape box set and had a successful Kickstarter campaign. How many of the box sets did you eventually sell and how was the overall Kickstarter experience?

We made a hundred box sets, and sold out of them in less than ten days. To be honest, we didn’t think people would go for it as much as they did, because we were selling them at a high price, and we had made them ourselves. So in retrospect, I really wish we had made more, because there were a bunch of people that got left out. If we had done that, we

wouldn’t have had to do the Kickstarter thing, and I wouldn’t feel like a total asshole right now for not shipping out the prizes yet.

Did anyone take your guy’s offer of having a video of Robbie and Mike dressed in baby bonnets and diapers?

Oh yeah. About 40. Mike isn’t in our band anymore though, so people are gonna have to deal with just Robbie doing it. Maybe we’ll get Devon in on it or something. We’ll see.

It would seem that creating a box set of 3 cassettes would be kind of costly. Why did you choose cassettes over CDs or vinyl and was the money spent on the cassettes and packaging worth it?

There were a lot of reasons why we didn’t go with CD or vinyl. First, I didn’t want a run of a thousand CDs. I would have felt like an asshole trying to shill the same songs, released on the same format nine months later. And I didn’t think we could sell enough to both recoup the cost of the pressing, and make enough profit to cover the recording budget we wanted. So we knew we wanted to do a short run. I didn’t want to do it on CDR though, because I didn’t think that was cool. I felt like anyone could burn a bunch of songs on their computer and hand them out, and I wanted whatever we were selling to have our sweat in it, so we could feel like we were giving people something worthwhile, that was special, and not just some knock-off bullshit we put together to get their money. That was really important to us.

So eventually, we settled on cassettes, which are actually a lot cheaper than you might think. When you buy a 90-minute cassette at Walgreen’s for like $.89 or $1.19 or something, you’re paying for a J-card, and a box, which we didn’t need. When you order cassettes in bulk, without a label, with only 12 minutes of recording time on each side, they get a lot cheaper. It took a fucking ton of time to put everything together though… My girlfriend helped us out a lot, but we spent what felt like a week straight at Kinko’s getting the labels to print right, Xeroxing and cutting the covers, and coloring everything by hand with magic markers. And I spent what felt like even longer dubbing 300 cassettes by hand in my apartment. So cash wasn’t the issue. The time involved with putting everything together was.

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In addition to the cassette box sets, you included a survey for fans to list their favorite Direct Hit! songs from EPs #1-#5 and those favorites would go on Domesplitter. Did you get a pretty good response back from the surveys and what song came out ahead as the favorite?

Yeah, we had a bunch of folks send us stuff back, which was awesome. Definitely took a lot of pressure off of us, picking which songs people wanted to hear again. “Snickers Or Reese’s” was the clear favorite. “Failed Invasion” and “They Came For Me” were up there too.

Were there any songs from the EPs that you wanted to include on the full-length that listeners didn’t vote for?

I think all of us had our favorites that we didn’t get to do again – Danny and Robbie really like “Last Train Out”, but I hate that song. I really wanted to redo “Captain Asshole”. It’s OK though, we’ll still play them live from time to time. And I think it’s good we have a certain catalogue of songs that people have to dig for a little bit if they want to hear them.

What made you want to re-record songs from past EPs for Domesplitter instead of just writing new ones?

We honestly just kept using all of the new material we had been writing on other stuff. Right after we got done writing DH#5, things started to get busy – KOL asked us to do the split with Mixtapes right after we finished that, and we only had one new song written, “Werewolf Shame”, which went on that 7”. And then we wrote a couple new ones when we got back from tour that summer, and those ended up on our split with Tit Patrol. We had another two written by the end of the fall, but at that point we just said fuck it. We had realized that none of us were completely happy with any of the old versions of our songs. The drum and bass parts were totally different for all of our older material.

Danny had been in the band for well over a year at that point, and wasn’t even on all of our stuff. We really wanted a release that gave a good picture of who we actually were, that showed how far Direct Hit had come.

We’re not planning on slowing down at all once this album is released either – We have a couple more 7”s planned within the year following, and we already have three or four new tunes written that we haven’t recorded yet.

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How much did the songs change sound-wise from the original EPs to Domesplitter?

It changed a lot more for the older material than the new, I think, but this album just sounds a lot more cohesive in general than all of our previous releases.

More than half of Domesplitter is made up of songs that Danny or Robbie didn’t record on originally, so the rhythm section is completely different. We also knew what we were doing on this album a lot better, which I think makes it sound a lot more intense and unrestrained than our old releases. I dunno, I’m biased because I’m proud of it. You’ll understand when you hear it I think.

You’ve mentioned a few times that you’re influenced by Top 40 music as much as anything else.

What bands in the Top 40 realm are you paying attention to or favor the most?

I don’t really pay attention to particular musicians or bands on the radio, because that whole “scene”, if you want to call it that, is so driven by individual songs, most of the time manufactured by committee. One tune by one artist could be absolutely incredible, but that doesn’t indicate at all whether their next one is going to suck. Katy Perry has some stuff that I think is fucking awesome, but that new single she has with Kanye makes me want to cut out her tongue. Ke$ha too – That song “Dinosaur” she just came out with? I’m pretty sure Hitler gets to listen to that tune while Satan is stuffing hot pineapples up his ass. But “Your Love Is My Drug”?

Total jam. There aren’t many bands or singers on the radio that consistently come out with great stuff, I think. But that doesn’t matter, because even if someone puts out a dud, they have something new for you to listen to three months later.

One recent interview I read, you talked at length about misogyny revolving around Tyler, the Creator and Chris Brown. What do you think makes Tyler, the Creator so appealing to young people and what do you think of Chris Brown winning all those BET awards given his recent altercations outside of music?

I think more than anything, Odd Future as a group is producing and releasing music in a way that most people haven’t heard or seen before. That’s really the unexciting truth about it. The controversy is what caught people’s attention, but they have the talent to back it up. There’s plenty of ultra-offensive rap music that Odd Future doesn’t create. So why haven’t those groups gotten the same amount of

hype? If I’m making a blanket statement about music in general, hype doesn’t exist solely because of the message that a certain band or artist propagates. There has to be a good tune behind it. And when it comes down to it, I think Tyler, the Creator is writing awesome music. Maybe I’m impressed just because I haven’t listened to a lot of rap music, and don’t have a lot to compare.

I don’t really have an opinion on Chris Brown, really.

I think that new single he did with Busta and Lil Wayne is good, but it’s good because those two are on it. Breezy’s verse is fucking lame. And I think it’s lame he punched a girl in the mouth, instead of pulling his car over, calling a cab, and cooling the fuck out. I didn’t know he won awards from BET, but the people who put that single together for him probably deserve some kind of recognition. I dunno.

Earl Sweatshirt rhymed “Asher Roth” with “apple sauce”. I’m a lot more impressed with that.

You’re currently a grad student and work full-time and other members of the band have pretty serious jobs too. Where do you all find time to do Direct Hit!? Do jobs and school ever conflict with obligations to the band like touring and writing/ recording?

Oh yeah, we run into conflicts all the time. It’s a big reason why we don’t get more stuff done. If we could quit, we would. But making money playing your own music in this day and age is nearly

impossible, and I like being able to pay for heat and food and beer and Netflix. We work it out though…

All of our schedules outside of the band are pretty regular, so it’s just a matter of planning well, and keeping on top of each other.

Each member of the band has had a number of side projects going at one time or another. Who’s currently playing in what?

I actually just quit my other group because I couldn’t handle school, two full-time bands, a full-time job, and a long-term relationship all at the same time. So Direct Hit is the only band I’m playing with now. Danny and Robbie have a sideproject with just the two of them called La Tenia that’s a lot weirder, heavier, and more technical than Direct Hit… It’s more along the lines of stuff like Mr. Bungle, or Lightning Bolt. And Devon fronts a band called Devon Kay & The Solutions that have an EP coming out the weekend before our album does.

Is it true that Ryan from Mixtapes likes ICP? I don’t know if that’s actually true, but he has a Black Crowes tattoo on his stomach. Have him show you that sometime. It’s the shit. (ed. note: Lisa from Kind Of Like Records confirms that Ryan from Mixtapes does indeed like ICP and has all their songs on his iPod.)

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Scrnd:

Jason Taylor

Jason Taylor is an accomplished designer and illustrator who has designed packaging for food and board games, and has worked for brands like Disney and Parker Brothers. He has designed and screenprinted posters for Mono, Vetiver, and ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. You can check out some his other work at jasontaylordesign.com

Man Man

This was my first gigposter as well as my first try at screenprinting. Looking back at how little I knew of screenprinting I’m surprised it didn’t turn into a disaster. Instead it sparked an addiction to screenprinting. So I can blame this poster for all of my ink stained clothing.

Man Man’s songs have an almost maniacal or murderous sound, even when the lyrics say otherwise. So I felt a lie detector was fitting. In hindsight I wish I had done something different with the type on the bottom. I think it could have been integrated better. Maybe more custom type. It still bothers me. Live and learn.

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The Album Leaf

The concept for this poster just started out with a sketching session while listening to A Chorus for Storytellers. Albums with so few lyrics are great brainstorming music - a blank slate for the brain to freely smear ideas onto. I ended up with this simple multi-dimensional sea voyage concept. I’m still not sure why. That’s just how my brain smeared. It also conjured up images of those old nautical map embellishments of sea monsters I love. This is my humble take on those sources of inspiration. I designed this around a deep purple paper so it would have a night time dreamy feel fitting for The Album Leaf. The type was created to reflect the dimensional feel of the main image. Two color screenprint on purple paper. All hand drawn.

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Built to Spill

Personally this was probably the most intimidating poster to take on since BTS is one of my all-time favorite bands. This is probably why I ended up with two finished poster designs. The other design was more of a collage type thing. I wasn’t satisfied with it so I trashed it and moved on to the whale one. On some level I probably envisioned myself as a fisherman way out of my league. Like this whaling ship obviously taking on more than they can handle. But that’s reading into it a bit much. The poster is more the result of having a Whale Wars marathon running in the background during a brainstorm session. It’s outrageous whaling still goes on, and I hope to see it end before we’re all under water. I was really worried about getting the overprint right on this.

If the light blue ink wasn’t transparent enough this would have been a big fat fail. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. It ended up printing better than I imagined it.

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Low

The C’mon album sounded like weary, guarded lovers still battling for peace with each other.

It’s a beautiful album. The tired-eyed lighthouse and the sleeping dragon guarding the heart is my visual take on that.

I chose to hand draw this one. I think I do that so I can add minor details to help support the overall narrative. Or I just needed a break from the computer. Four color screenprint on off-white paper.

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Lou Barlow

This is one of those times when I don’t want to explain my concept because other people’s interpretations are better than mine. Is the patched up balloon a metaphor for the travels of the love-weary? Is that a sniper or a bird hunter hunting for the allusive blue smugbird? Um...Yes. This one was all hand drawn elements. Four colors on red paper.

Mr. Barlow was kind enough to take the time out to send a quick thank you email for the poster.

I thought that was pretty damn awesome of him.

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PSWINGSET // June 2011 with Football, etc.

Photo: Molly Rodriguez // molly-rodriguez.com

Touring with Pswingset is a different experience than any of us had previously had with our past bands.

We’re all nearing 30 years of age and setting up a tour, finding time and money to sacrifice, and explaining to wives, girlfriends, and parents that “No, we wont make a lot of money but we have to do this” gets harder each time. But we’re lucky to have the support we need to make it possible to hit the road for small chunks at a time (we recently got back from a ten-day tour with Football, Etc.) without it hitting us too hard financially. In fact, we were surprised at how well every show went on tour and how easy it was to do it.

By no account are we a very hyped or “popular” band. We understand we wont be selling 100 shirts or records at each show, and that’s fine. If all we do is break even and get to play to a handful of eager faces each night, than we accomplished what we wanted. We’ve been in touring bands since we were all in our late teens (Junius, Little Compass, Adios, Mans, Papermoons, and more), so just to be able to still get the chance to release music and tour is a great opportunity. Thanks to everyone who watched us, bought something, or donated on this past tour - without you we would forever be stuck behinds desks reliving past memories while tagging old tour photos from 2002 on Facebook.

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Brian Nagan // Warped Tour 2011

Photos: Stephanie Gomez // stephgomez.net

You spent your summer on the Warped Tour with We Came As Romans, what was a typical day like for you?

Well my day generally starts around 8am. I wake up around 7:30am and head to the trailer to get my merch tent. On Warped Tour, the spots you sell merch at are pretty much first come first serve. If you struggle every day and show up at 10am, everyone will be set up and you will be setting up over by some porta johns. Every day I set up with my friend Aaron from Stheart Clothing. He endorses the band and was on the tour and rode on our bus, so he was pretty much my partner in crime. We would set up every day next to each other. You usually make a few trips from the bus to your merch tent with all of your boxes and supplies. Some days are a lot harder than others depending on the setup and location.

We pretty much prayed for pavement and short

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distances. Some days were all gravel and the haul could be up to a mile. Once doors open it’s pretty much selling all day, the dudes would have a signing once a day at our tent usually too, so that would increase traffic a ton. Then at the end of the night, we try to pack up around 7 and would be back to the bus by 9. Then depending on bus call, we would try to go snag a shower and then it’s counting money and entering numbers. Then you go to sleep and do it all again. It took awhile to get into a routine, but once that was down it got really easy.

What was your view like from the We Came As Romans merch tent?

Haha, it varied every day, that’s why being out there early helps....Depending where we were it was usually crowds of people. Some days we got stuck next to the TRUTH TRUCK, if you don’t know what

that is, it was thetruth.com truck and they would have these annoying girls be MC’s and they would get kids to come over to their truck to play games to win t-shirts. And not to mention none of it ever had anything to do with their campaign, which was the harmful effects of smoking.

How did you end up doing guest vocals for We Came As Romans?

Pretty much every day I would be at their stage for the set, I would take a break to go hang out and watch. The dudes have a new song they have been playing on that tour and there was a part I was really into, so they were cool enough to let me come up every day and dust off the ol’ mic for some vocals.

It was a lot of fun.

Having seen how the Warped Tour works from the perspective of not having to play a show everyday, is doing the Warped Tour something you could see doing with Four Letter Lie? This tour is the best and worst tour. If you can get through this tour, you can get through any tour. It would be a struggle for some of the smaller bands, bands that are in vans, bands that have to work all day, hustle CD’s all day, and then drive all night to the next date. I would love to do it with Four Letter Lie. It would be tough, but the experience would be worth it for sure.

What did you do with your downtime in between shows and cities?

Usually we had one day off a week, so a lot of it was really just relaxing. We would have a hotel and hit a Wal-mart for snacks and supplies and just chilled out all day. We did fun things too though, when we were in El Paso we went to a huge outdoor water

park and we also got to go to a huge amusement park in Ohio. The days off ruled. The last stretch of the tour was a little tough because we went 14 days in a row without a day off! Exhausting!

Did you get a chance to catch any bands while on the tour, and which bands did you see most?

I heard so many bands every day especially if you are set up near a stage, then you have to hear them all day long. But when I took breaks the bands I loved to go see were Gym Class Heroes and Dance Gavin Dance. August Burns Red was awesome as well.

How many hugs do you think you gave out?

Haha, way too many. A lot of kids think I look like one of We Came As Romans vocalists, so a lot of times I was signing as him or taking pictures and we all would just roll with it. It was an ongoing joke and we would tell people on the tour that I was his older brother. Too many hugs, and all sweaty. But it was fun!

Did you really eat the whole Big Texan 72oz steak yourself?

Haha, no way. We just took a picture in the big chair.

I don’t think I could do it, plus it would be 75 dollars if I didn’t.

What did you take away from this experience of being on the Warped Tour?

Just an appreciation for all the work that goes into a tour like that, an appreciation for being home, and I didn’t think I could work that hard. There were times I didn’t think I would make it, but we did, and it was an awesome experience!

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Reading some old interviews with you from your old band Let Me Run, it appeared that things were going pretty well with that band that you even quit your job to devote more time to it. What happened that made you want to leave Let Me Run and join Banquets?

There were pretty much two things that played a part in me leaving Let Me Run. The first being that I missed my job. Kind of odd to hear someone say. I am a Special Education Teacher in Lambertville, NJ. I work with kids that are classified E.D., meaning emotionally disturbed. They were bummed out when I left, and that weighed heavy on me for a while. The second being that it just wasn’t the same amount of fun for me anymore. We just weren’t clicking. Things were said that weren’t cool. I mean, its probably all my fault. No big deal, it’s water under the bridge and I wish nothing but the best for those guys.

After getting back from that mid-tour “peace guys, I’m out”, I really had no desire to do anything musically for a while. Dave called me and mentioned that he was playing and writing songs with Pete and Chris, so I asked to hear it, and then he asked me to come play with them. I went, we shotgunned beers, and the rest is history.

You’ve all played in some pretty notable bands in the past. What things have you learned in past bands that you are or aren’t doing in Banquets?

We’ve learned what works for us as people. I used to go balls to the wall and get angry if someone in the bands I played in couldn’t do a show or whatever. I was very selfish. We pretty much learned to be better people. I’m saying this and feeling like such a shithead. We don’t stretch ourselves too thin.

Is Banquets just a fun musical project or is their a goal you want to achieve with the band?

Banquets is a band that has nothing to lose. We’d like to gain the whole “my punk band desires” list, of course. Free beer, free terrible all-over print neon t-shirts, the whole boat-load. However, we will settle for what we have accomplished already. We are pretty fucking stoked that people are getting behind us and saying some nice things.

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You guys have recently been working on a full-length. What’s it titled and when will it be out?

We finished it all up earlier this spring. We decided to write a record in October, so we did it and recorded it in February. It’s titled Top Button, Bottom Shelf and I think the street date is going to be the end of August.

How long have you been working on the full-length and has the process gone pretty smoothly?

It went pretty smooth overall. I got to do some stuff that I’ve always wanted to do with songs. We have a song that I play the same chord the entire time.

How does the new full-length compare to your previous releases and what can be expected of the new album?

It is definitely a fuller, more guitar oriented recording than This Is Our Concern, Dude and Nothing Is Fucked Here. The lyrics are more of a direct “fuck you” than I’ve written in the past. There may be a line that is just “fuck you”. No songs have more than 2 choruses. We really went a Bad Religion route during the writing. I think the longest song is like 2:45. We are very happy with it, and excited to play the new stuff out.

What are some advantages and disadvantages to being on a record label run by a band member?

We had to turn down Drive-Thru Records’ offer! Not happy about that. I even walked on that guys back, but Dave was not having it. It’s definitely a cool thing. Phil and I have been friends for a long time, and Dave is my BFF. We have more freedom to do whatever, and we know that no one is trying to dick us over.

In a battle of New Jersey rock icons between Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, who would win?

I fucking hate Bon Jovi. I like that song “Always” from 1994. I’m a sap like that. Do you know how hard it is to hate him? I have anxiety over it. God Dammit. My girlfriend and I will be in the car, and one of his songs like “Livin’ on a Prayer” comes on, and I’m singing along. Of course, she has to call me out on it, and I’m like, “I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M SINGING ALONG!” But seriously, fuck Bon Jovi.

I love Springsteen. I could go on forever about how awesome he is, but I will save you.

In an interview a while back, you said that you’d give your left testicle to play with Bruce Springsteen.

What’s your first memory of Springsteen and how has his music influenced you in your musical career?

Lyrically, he is my biggest influence, but I can never write in his style. I’ve tried, but I get ADD and can’t finish it. He is a story teller, I’m just too personal. Every song I’ve ever written is about something, someone, some event that is in my life.

Were you saddened by the passing of Springsteen’s saxophone player Clarence Clemons?

I was definitely saddened, and then Ryan Dunn. Weird week.

I don’t know much about NJ politics, but I know that current NJ governor Chris Christie is looking to make a run at the White House, how would you feel if he was elected president?

I don’t follow politics much. I would hate to be one of his kids. I’m sure they go to private school, but if they were my students, I’d be like, “What is your dad doing?”, “Does he want me to give you more homework?”.

There is a billboard on my way to work for Christieformillionaires or something like that, and the dude is sweating for a piece of cake so bad in the picture they used.

With each member of the band having a full-time job, is it difficult to schedule time to write/record and tour with Banquets?

It isn’t really that inconvenient. We talk it all out first, so every one knows our schedules. We are each other’s moms kind of. Everyone’s limitations are on the table, so we just work around it.

Do you guys have any plans for touring later this year in support of the new album?

We will be doing a bunch of weekends, maybe a week here or there. There are talks of doing Europe next summer, so we will see.

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Interview with Evan Weiss Photos: Melanie Parker-Levi

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First of all, I wanted to get your explanation as to why you think pie is better than cake?

Because pie is better than cake. What do you mean, are you kidding me? There’s so many options. It’s like a completely unfuckwithable desert! I don’t know how anyone would rep cake over pie. The only suitable cake competitor is cup cakes, because it’s not too much cake.

What about cheese cake? It’s presented in a pie form, yet it’s called cake!

No, no, no, no cheese cake is not cake, that’s kind of like pie. That’s basically pie.

When we were in Kansas recording, we invented this thing called “Adult Cereal”, which is a donut heated up in a bowl in the microwave and then you cover it with ice cream. And then if you want “Deluxe Adult Cereal”, that’s with chocolate syrup on top.

Is that part of your regime?

Me and my friends snack professionally, I don’t know if you knew that?

Did you say snack constantly?

No, snack professionally. We’re professional snackers. I mean we snack constantly also.

That’s always something to fall back on if music doesn’t work out.

Yeah, just get in to serious hardcore snacking.

You could be on that show, Man v. Food and just do snacking all the time.

I was watching that on the last tour I was on nonstop and these two dudes that I used to be in a band with, back in New Jersey, were on an episode. Are you familiar with the show? Like do you know when at the end when they do the question and answer thing, they’re standing right in front of the question and answer thing and I bugged out! I was like “Oh my God, that’s Joe and Chris!”

You’ve been popping up online a lot lately on t-shirts and in music videos, how did you get involved with all that?

The World Is... dudes are really good friends of mine.

I’ve known Derek from that band for like eight years and then the other dudes I’ve known for the last two or three. A while ago they were like, “Can we use your photo for a t-shirt?” I was like, well it depends what the photo was of and Greg was like “Oh it’s just

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this photo that Mitch shot”, when Mitch was on tour with me when I was on tour with Moving Mountains.

And I was like, if you send me the photo, then sure I don’t see why not, just send me the photo before you do it. It’s me wearing this girl’s leopard coat that’s way to small for me at this show in Lawrence, Kansas. I just kind of put it on and just looked all weird, and then Mitch shot this photo real quick. So I was like go ahead and use it, and they made the shirt apparently. I didn’t think they were actually going to do it, but they did it.

For the Mixtapes video, when we are at Blacklodge recording, I come upstairs after doing guitar all day or something and Mitch is like “Look, ok, I bought a pizza. You’re gonna be in a Mixtapes music video.”

I was like, ok cool, I love that band, what do I have to do? He’s like, “Just sit on this chair and eat the pizza”. And I was like “That’s it?” And he was like “Yeah, and when the song is over, shut the box and get up and walk away”. We did one take of it and that was the whole video. Ryan and Maura from Mixtapes have a really similar sense of humor to me and they thought it was the best, they thought it was the funniest thing. It was definitely a right place, right time kind of deal. It was like I was there and Mitch had the idea, so why not ask me to do it.

I thought that it was pretty funny.

I’m glad some people did think it was funny because my favorite reactions are the ones like “This is so fucking pointless! What is the point of this video?”

And there really is no point, it doesn’t matter. It’s better than watching the one and a half minute clip of just the album cover on Youtube.

I was sitting there and waiting for something to happen and trying to figure out what you were going to do. Then the song was over and I was like all right, that’s funny. I thought you were going to eat the whole pizza.

(Laughs) We were talking about it, but I was like there is no way. If it was a smaller pizza, I absolutely could of, but it was like 13 inches and the song is a minute and a half. There is no way I am going to be able to do that. We thought it would be great if I just really went for it, but I was like, if I fail, we don’t have another pizza on backup. We only had the one pizza, so we had to do the best with what we had.

When got you into music and when did you start playing?

I grew up in a musician family. My parents were both musicians and they were both in bands. So I was raised into it, kind of just one of those things that’s always around. We had MTV when I was growing up and I’m 27 now. We had MTV when it was all videos all the time like in the 80’s and stuff. It was kind of natural for me to want to start playing an instrument.

I didn’t start playing in a band until, this group of dudes I went to elementary school and high school with, which eventually became The Progress. We just kind of learned our instruments together at the same time and started writing songs together at the same time. We were in that band together for 11 years.

Through it’s many incarnations, the last 7 years of the band were actually The Progress.

Was there anything you learned while playing in your past bands that you’ve applied to current projects; Into It. Over It. and Stay Ahead of The Weather?

Oh my God! Everything I’ve learned from my past bands has been applied to my new bands, it’s basically the one thing, the overlying rule that’s been applied is, don’t do what you did in your past bands.

Stay Ahead Of The Weather really doesn’t have any rules. We kind of just do whatever we want. That goes down to like the smallest little details. Like what goofy things can we get away with now, and we’ll just be like, “Ok let’s try this!” We made these cassette tapes for our last two shows that had this awful, ugly layout with a hand-drawn cartoon ninja turtle eating pizza on the front. It was just awful. But it was like whatever, we’re making 50 for fun. The whole point of that band is just to have a good time, all

“It’s like a completely unfuckwithable dessert!”

Do you still keep in contact with those guys in The Progress?

Jason played drums on a good portion of 52 Weeks and he plays drums on two or three songs on the Twelve Towns records. Eric, I talk to every now and then, it’s very sparingly. And Mike I talk to semi-frequently now. There was a period where we weren’t talking for a little while, just because we were both doing different things and our lives were going in different directions. Now just recently we’ve started talking again because we’re trying to figure out putting out The Progress discography on double LP. So we’ve all been talking about stuff to get that in order and we’re talking about doing a last show, because we never had a last show. Like the band just sort of fizzled out, we never really declared it dead or broke it up or anything. It just kind of stopped happening and then now we realize we should’ve had at least a big send off for it. Hopefully next year we get the last show in somewhere in New Jersey.

the time. The rest of us are in serious type bands, so it’s nice to have that band, where we can just be like who cares, let’s just have a good time and make the best of it.

Every band I’ve ever been in, before Into It. Over It., has always been held back by something. The big thing I try to do is just try to do all the things. Like if I say something, I’m going to do it. If I get offered to do something, I usually take it. Anytime anything is on the table, I usually just say yes. I’ve spent so many years having to say no to things, because people had conflicts or just something else going on.

When I decided to go full-time on this, it was kind of like, I’m not going to say no, really. I’m not in any position to say no to anything, so I have to try to do everything. It’s been a lot of hard work for the last 12-13 months, but it’s cool to see it maybe starting to pay off a little bit, which is nice. When I say pay off I mean getting to do fun stuff, not really paying off.

It’s just been more fun than usual.

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You’re originally from the East Coast, what drew you to Chicago as a place to live?

I love this city. I’m from New Jersey, like ten minutes from Philadelphia. When I moved to Chicago, I sublet from this dude Brian from the band Damage, I don’t know if you remember that old Philly hardcore band?

So I sublet his apartment in Chicago, and I was here for six months and fell in love with the place. And then had to move back to Jersey to do The Progress and a bunch of other stuff, but I always wanted to move back here. When 52 Weeks was pretty much wrapping up, it was time for me to make a move and come out here. I’ve been here about two years at this point and I love it.

or stuff was being sent through an amp, like there’s parts where my vocals are distorted and that’s just me singing through an amp and just stuff like that.

Everything about it was really organic. That was a new experience for me to be able to make a record like that.

Did you have any guest musicians playing instruments or is everything done by you on this album?

Nick from CSTVT and Stay Ahead Of The Weather played drums, he also drummed on the KOJI Split.

And then Kate, who sang on the KOJI Split, and Everyone Everywhere worked with her, sings on a cou-

“I’m usually going to McDonalds and getting nine cheeseburgers, then spinning them like plates and eating them.”

You recently wrapped up recording your new fulllength, Proper, how did the recording process go and how was it working with ED Rose?

Working with Ed is great! He’s the best. I don’t know if you could picture a 42 year old version of me.

We’re both really two laid back dudes. Ed is a great guy who is super funny. He’s dry just like I am and we had a really really good time. It was a perfect amount of time to get the record done. He was in my court.

He was down to try anything that I wanted to do and kind of just let me do my thing. I kind of just went in there and said “I want to try this” and he’d say “Alright cool! Lets do it!”. He was really up for anything and it was a pleasure to be able to just spend time, goof off and try to get the tones we really wanted and get stuff we were both really really happy with. At the same time, he kept me in check because his method of recording is very organic and it’s very...Pretty much everything on the record is exactly how it got recorded. Like any effects on anything, any sounds,

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ple songs and plays piano on a couple songs. One other thing and that’s it. I didn’t want to tell anybody about this yet, but Nathan Ellis from The Casket Lottery sang on one of the songs on the album. That was the other thing. I was kind of holding out on that one, I didn’t want that one to get out yet, but if it’s not going to be printed for while.

The songs on your previous albums, 52 Weeks and Twelve Towns were written long before they were released officially, how does it feel to be releasing fresh songs that haven’t been widely heard yet?

When we did 52 weeks we were doing a song a week for a year, which was so much easier for me. When we were doing Twelve Towns, we would do one or two songs at a time and it was spread over a four or five month period of us recording. So I would go in to the studio on a weekend and we would do two songs and then get those ready for a 7” and then go in like two or three weeks later with two more songs

and get those in order for another 7”. It was constant coming back to do a little bit at a time. When we did the KOJI Split, Koji and I had seven days to do five songs each in the same studio, which was the first time I ever recorded more than one or two songs in one session, which was really difficult for me. From being the guy who is all alone, I have to play everything. So normally when a band’s guitar player finishes his guitar track it would be someone else’s turn and they’d have a chance to chill out for a minute. I don’t get that. When I was in the studio with Ed, it was 15 days straight of work for 10 hours a day, every day. I was starting to loose my mind.

So when we did the full-length, it was two weeks of working on twelve songs which was unlike anything I’ve ever done; just in the fact that I had never recorded that way since I’ve started doing Into It. Over It. I’ve never had to do that much or had to focus my attention on so much material, considering that when we went into the studio only about 45% of the record was written. All the bass, all the second guitar, everything that wasn’t the main guitar, was all written on the spot. With any Into It. Over It. recording I would always write that stuff last, but to have to do so much of that in one time span is really difficult.

That’s how this session was different than the other ones. It’s exciting to be able to put out twelve new songs all at once, it’s like “Here you go!”. I’ve never done anything like that. Where every record has had a theme, the theme for this one is now I have to

do something that I’ve never done which is in turn something that every band does. That’s the theme for this one, is that I actually have to flip the script on myself and do something really weird for me that isn’t weird for anybody else.

Was it more of a challenge doing it this way?

Absolutely! I would of so much preferred to have done six - 2 or 3 day sessions and have done it all separately, like done two or three songs at a time. But I would never grow as a musician if I didn’t do it this way, because I’ve never done it this way. So I would just keep falling into a rut of recording the same way I’ve recorded forever. It was a personal challenge to myself and now I’m better aware of what to prepare and what not to prepare before going into the studio the next time I have to do a big record.

You’ve got a break in touring this summer before you go on tour this fall with Frank Turner, what are you doing with your time off and what are you doing to get by financially?

I’m actually going out on tour with The Swellers for three weeks. It’s me and them, Fake Problems and Daytrader. I’ve toured with Fake Problems and Daytrader this year and I’ve known The Swellers dudes for a couple years. It’s really just an ultimate friend hang-vacation tour for me. I just have to do merch and hang out and enjoy myself, instead of having to worry about playing or watching what I say. I can

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kind of just have fun on tour. I have fun on tour all the time, but to be able to not have to be responsible as much will be really nice. I can just focus on hanging out and enjoy myself. Koji and I are going to the UK together. We’ll be going from August 25th until September 8th for me because I’m flying home a couple days early to play The Early November reunion. That’s what I have coming up this summer before we leave for the Frank Turner tour?

playing music or going to shows. They get it when we’re making jokes and when we’re being goofballs.

From your experience, how do U.S. audiences compare to UK and Europe audiences?

My last tour in Europe was with Grown Ups and that was over a year ago. We went over together and for me at the time being someone no one knew about. I only just started touring at all and my second or third big tour was a European tour was kind of surreal. No one knew who I was in the States let alone who I was over the Atlantic Ocean. I think sarcasm and cynicism and being yourself translates no matter where you are. People think that’s funny no matter where you are. The same stage banter and things I would say over here, I would say over there and it went over just as well. But then again, that could be that dudes like us attract a certain audience. We’re playing for kids that are on the level. We’re playing with kids who listen to the same things we do, say the same things we say and do the same stuff we do when we’re not

eryone’s hanging out, which is nice and what I miss about touring solo. It’s like you don’t have four other dudes that you can goof off with for days. I think I prefer that method overall, but within the last seven months, I have been touring in my own car. Which also has its merit too, because I can get to the city early and I can park where ever I want. I can go walk around for a while. I get way better gas millage, so I’m saving a lot of money. Everything I have fits in the trunk, so nobody even knows that I’m a band on tour.

I can park the car anywhere I want, it’s awesome.

They both have their upsides and their downsides.

The grass is always greener on the other side, you know?

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Do you tour in your own car or do you ride along with the other band on that tour?

I’ve done both. They both have their upsides. Riding along in the van, we split expenses. Obviously we are taking up way less space, we’re using way less gas. There’s that camaraderie that’s there, like ev-

Does touring for long stretches take a toll on you?

It does if I don’t take care of myself. The first couple times I had been touring alone, doing all the drives and playing every night for 20 days, I wasn’t taking care of my body. I was drinking and not getting much sleep and yelling and laughing a lot. Just not being conscience of my health, so I’d wind up losing my voice after 15 shows, which is detrimental to me. I cannot lose my voice. Either that or I would come home sick. I came home from the Daytrader and Transit tour, and I was sick for like a week. Like completely side-lined. I was good health and everything was totally cool until the day I got home. And then I was completely destroyed. For the last two tours, I’ve been taking much better care of myself. Making sure I get a full night’s sleep, not drinking as much,

were contributing to the 7” records would be limited to 500 and eventually hard to find. Everyone was really down for the project as a whole, which was really cool. I thought it was a cool way to reissue everything once it was all unavailable. Some of the stuff, like the CSTVT split and Such Gold split, were gone so fast that it made it really tough to get. Plus there is bonus content; 2 of the songs that are on there were never released digitally, one of them was never on a 7”, five of them, the five Nervous Energies Towns recordings were never released. If you buy the LP, you’ll be getting seven songs that a lot of people never even got to hear. And the layout is obscene.

It’s the most detailed, ridiculous layout ever and I’m really stoked for people to see it.

“I think sarcasm and cynicism and being yourself translates no matter where you are.” and eating really well. Those last two tours, the Fake Problems into the Ace Enders tour was something like 37 shows straight and I felt great the entire time.

I didn’t get sick at all, I didn’t lose my voice, nothing bad happened. I think it’s just a matter of taking care of my body and making sure I’m putting good stuff in so I can get good stuff out. Which I’ve never had to do before. I’m usually going to McDonalds and getting nine cheeseburgers, then spinning them like plates and eating them.

The Twelve Towns album is coming out soon, why did you want to release it as an LP when you already released the songs as six separate 7”s?

The idea we had was to do a collection of the Towns once all of the 7”s were out of print. We had a really great layout idea and Top Shelf really wanted to do it.

We treated it as a full-length basically and they were excited to get a full-length LP out of it. Now that I’m touring just as much as I did last year, I’m not going to have any of those songs available on the merch table anymore, unless we make a physical copy of it. That was kind of the plan from the start. All of the bands that got to work on the 7”s knew that there was going to only be 500 of them and that those songs that they

You tweeted last week about how the Snack Town 7” went for $65 on Ebay. How does it make you feel when your releases go for that much when you’re not seeing any of the profit?

Typically, it doesn’t usually bother me at all. That one particular circumstance bothered me. Otherwise, I think it’s flattering, I think it’s really rad when stuff goes for that much money. I know what it’s like to be that dude who has one; sold records for a lot of money, and two; bought records for a lot of money and been like “Whoa, I can’t believe I spent that much money on this record”. I’ve been in both people shoes. When I saw that it went for that much, I wanted to offer whoever bought it a show. Like, I’m going to play your house because I know that is a big fucking deal. I’m sure I’m going to hopefully come through your town soon, I could stop by and play like 10 songs.

Make it worth their money.

Yeah, exactly. If I bought a record for $70 and that band came to my house and played it, I would loose my mind.

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Interview with Jeff Takacs What was your experience with music prior to starting the podcast? Were you in any bands or did you work in college radio at all?

My experience with music prior to the podcast was pretty minimal. I was not really ever in a band. I tried to start a ska band when I was in college. We met and rehearsed twice and then we were never to be seen again. That’s really my only experience. I didn’t do college radio, but I did do radio in high school. A couple of friends and I had a show that came on after school every other week. We basically played whatever we wanted to, but it was a lot of punk, alternative, and that kind of stuff. That’s really the only kind of experience I had before starting Rocket Fuel.

What made you want to start a podcast as opposed to a music website or zine?

Back in 2007, I was reading Michael Azerrad’s book, Our Band Could Be Your Life, and I was having lunch with my wife one day and I was just talking about how great this book was and the impact that music has had on me over the years and how much I enjoyed it and everything. I had talked to her about, what I thought would have been cool at the time would have been to just try to hook up with a local AM radio station to see if they would give me an hour of airplay a week just to play whatever I wanted, and she was just like “Why don’t you just do that through the internet”.Four or six weeks later episode one of Rocket Fuel came out.

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How long does each podcast take to complete?

I never sit down and do it all in one shot. I’m gonna say it probably takes me six hours from start to finish from getting the interview lined up and then recording the interview and choosing the playlist for the episode. Editing the interviews is actually the part of the episode that takes the longest for me. Writing out my outline of what I want to say and what I want to cover and then recording my parts and pasting it all together.

When I did the review for you, it took me forever to get that minute and a half piece down, does it take you a long time to go through all your speaking parts and make sure you’re not stumbling over your words?

I’ve gotten better at it. If you listen to some of the earlier episodes of the show, it’s a little rougher. I’ve gotten a little bit better at it over time. For the longer parts, like when I do review a record on my own and I don’t do a guest review, I try to break those parts up so that I’m not having to say two minutes of perfect wording on the review. Even the little snippets that I do before or after a song that may only be actually 20 seconds of me talking, I’ll sometimes have to take multiple takes of that to get it the way I want it to.

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How do you choose what music you want to highlight for each podcast?

If I have the interview lined up, I generally start with that band. I always play two songs from the band I am interviewing for that episode. Then after that, it’s just basically my favorite new music at the time of when I’m putting the show together. I try to have it a little bit across genres, so there is a little bit of something for everybody when they listen to the show. Other than that, it’s basically what I’ve been listening too and what I’ve been liking and what I think people should get into.

For the interviews you do, do you just contact the band or do you try to go through the PR people and have them contact the band?

That varies depending on who the band is. If it’s like a smaller band, I’ll generally reach out to them myself through email. Some of the bands I’ve interviewed I’ve gotten to know over the years, so I’ll just call or text a guy or whatever. If it’s like a bigger band, I’ll go through either their label or whoever is doing PR for the record. Most of the time when I interview a band, it’s because they have a new record that’s out. Like as an example, the next episode, which will be Episode #50, I got to interview Trevor Keith from Face to Face and of course they have a new record out. He’s one of my heros, so it was really awesome to talk to him. They have a new record out and so I had talked to the guy, Austin, who is doing PR for the record and he was able to work it out with me and with Trevor to get a good time and do the interview. So that was really awesome to be able to do that.

You mentioned earlier that you do edit the interviews before you post them, is there a lot involved when doing that?

I’m not really big on editing the content of the interview out unless it’s by request. Sometimes I’ll ask a question and someone who is answering the question will start to answer and “Ahhh I don’t like that, can you just edit that part out. Here’s actually my answer to it”. I’ll edit that kind of stuff out, but I like to try to keep the content as original as possible. What I will do, is when I’m editing the interview out, is try to take out some of the “Ums” and “Uhs” and all that kind of stuff. As you can probably relate with a phone interview is, when you record a phone interview sometimes you as the person who’s at the microphone asking the question comes out much crisper than the person who is on the other end of the phone call which is generally on a cell phone. I try to equal that out, from the volume perspective, from the audio perspective as much as I can and that’s what takes the most time really, is editing that and trying to make it as even as possible compared to my voice asking the questions. I try to keep the content of it intact, but just make it easier to hear for folks.

Have any opportunities been presented to you as a result of doing the podcast?

Yeah, the one that did come to me was being able to work with AMP Magazine.

I do some interviews for them, mainly for their website. I get the sense that they’re probably always looking for folks to help out with that. I had Brett Matthews, who’s one of the editors of AMP on Rocket Fuel like two and half years ago or so and we kind of stayed in touch ever since and he was talking to me when they were looking to have more of an online presence and really do some stuff with their website and have a lot of content on it. He had approached me early in that process to say “Hey, would you be interested in doing interviews for that”. Of course I jumped at the chance to do that because I saw it as another opportunity for me to be able to help out smaller bands and get folks

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maybe interested in a band they might not of heard of otherwise. That’s been really fun to be able to do that and kind of get a little bit of a spotlight on some of these bands that are smaller, could use the help, that are really good and deserve it. That’s been really cool.

You’ve interviewed some pretty notable artists, which ones have been your favorites?

My favorite would definitely be Vinny from Less Than Jake. I’m a pretty huge Less Than Jake fan and being able to talk to him was really great and in fact, that was one of my longer interviews for the show and it was really great to talk to him. Obviously as I mentioned earlier, being able to talk to Trevor Keith from Face to Face was really awesome. Josh Caterer from Smoking Popes is another one that kind of sticks out. Mike from Small Brown Bike, Ray from Teenage Bottlerocket. I’ve really been fortunate to be able to interview a lot of musicians I look up to and love their music. It’s just been really phenomenal for me to be able to that. When I stated Rocket Fuel, I never expected to being doing interviews at all, let alone being able to talk to musicians that I really admire. It’s really been fun to see this little show grow into something like that.

You said you didn’t expect to be doing interviews at first, how did you get into that? What was the first interview you did and how did it go?

I guess I had done maybe a small handful of shows, maybe like three or four episodes in and I was re-reading a review of a record about this band from Seattle that were called Speaker Speaker. I had listened to the record and I really liked it and I was like “Gosh, it’d be pretty cool if maybe they would come on to the show and do an interview”. So I contacted them and just introduced myself and talked to them a little about what the show was all about they were really great. They were like “Yeah we’d love to do an interview”, so I actually interviewed all three guys in the band from the back of their van and it was really good. I was incredibly nervous. I had never done an interview before and I had also never recorded an interview before. So I was really nervous on the technology end on how this was all going to work and everything. It worked out great and I’ve actually had an interview on the vast majority of my episodes since I interviewed Speaker Speaker in early 2008.

You’ve obviously done quite a bit of interviews, have you ever thought about putting them into a book or anthology type thing?

No, I had actually never really though of that. That would be something that I would be interested in doing. The biggest challenge of course would be the transcription of all those interviews. That would be the tough part. I hadn’t really thought about that, but maybe I will now.

You’ve interviewed some popular bands and some not so popular bands, have you ever questioned yourself about interviewing certain bands due to their popularity or lack there of?

No, not really. The main test for me, if I want to interview a band, is if I like them. There are times where if a smaller band, taking for example the band How Dare You out of Orlando, they’re not terribly big, but are really great and I love that band a lot. I don’t really have any problem, in fact they were just on the show, the current episode, the ones that’s out #49, and I don’t really think about how big or small the band is. Being able to interview a band like Face to Face is a lot more difficult to achieve, you have to work through PR people and it’s a

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little bit more difficult verses a band like How Dare You where I’m pretty good friends with Elliot in the band so I can just call him up and say “Hey dude, you wanna get on the podcast?”. I never really think about how big the band is, I really just think if I like their music or not. That’s really the main test for me.

You have a family and you have a full-time job, how do you balance your personal obligations with doing the podcast?

That’s probably the most challenging thing about doing Rocket Fuel is, balancing the family stuff, which is obviously more important, that comes first for me. So what I try to do is, I try to work on pieces of the show when my son is asleep. Most of the time I can’t do Rocket Fuel work when my son is awake. My wife is pretty awesome and will sometimes take him out and go to the park or something if she knows I’ve got to get my parts recorded for the podcast. She’s super supportive, which is really great. I wouldn’t be able to do it without her. Other than that I just try to do work at night and do work when I can and when my schedule allows. I try to put out an episode once every month and I would love to do it more frequently than that, but my schedule just doesn’t allow it. I just try to work on it when I can.

In addition to doing the podcast, you also do some writing and interviews for other publications, and you mentioned you did writing for AMP, do you do any other writing for other magazines or websites?

I haven’t. There was a time when I did some writing for the music blog Sound As Language (SAL), which is no longer out, which makes me very sad. But I used to work with Will, who did that blog, I had written several columns called “120 Minutes on SAL”. On the podcast, I basically play new stuff all the time and try to highlight new stuff coming out. I’m a really big 90’s music geek and writing the “120 Minutes on SAL” column was a chance for me to highlight some bands from the 90’s that I thought were awesome, that I didn’t feel like got enough attention. So that gave me a chance to write about some of those bands and let me geek out on the 90’s which I like to do. That was a lot of fun and unfortunately Will decided to close shop on Sound as Language and I haven’t done any other writing since then except for AMP. I thought I saw Will mention that he might get back into it at some point but I’m not sure if he was being serious about it or not.

I hope so. Every once in a while I try to send him a little love letter to tell him that I think he’s great, I think Sound as Language was great and that he should consider bringing greatness back.

That was a pretty great blog he had going and he always made me feel lazy about blogging because he updated his site so much.

I find that if you’re going to do a blog, to me, constantly having new content is key, it’s like vital, and I think if you can continue to put out new content you’ll attract readers or listeners or whatever it is. I think that’s why a lot of blogs drop off, because they start off really great and have a lot of content and stuff happens, people get busy and you kind of get bored with it, and it’s the same thing and they kind of tail off. If you’re able to keep a pretty consistent stream of content coming out, I think that’s how you keep people coming back and reading your site or reading your zine or listening to your podcast.

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I’ve started and failed on a few blogs and even with the zine I’m doing now I tried to do more online stuff, but it seemed like it was too much work to constantly update stuff and getting stuff back took forever.

It’s a lot of work to keep up an active zine or blog or whatever it is. I don’t think people realize how much work it takes to put out consistently good content. It’s hard and that’s why people drop off, because they think they can do it. Their heart is in the right place, they’ve got the right mentality and they start doing it and then after a few months they realize how difficult it is and they work on it less and less and then the blog kind of fades away. That’s the constant struggle for all of us who do this kind of thing, as you know.

You mention you’re a pretty big music geek and you enjoy finding new music what blogs or sites are you looking at to find new music?

The blogs that I go to regularly are Punknews.org, obviously. I go to canyouseethesunset.com a lot, my friend Eric does that site and does a really good job with it. Switchboard Sessions. I really love what Dane does with that site. I think he’s doing something that nobody else is and I just think he is a phenomenal writer. I send him like little love notes after each post he puts up, because I’m just always in awe of his writing ability and what he is able to do with that. I definitely love that. I look at, kind of a newer blog, called Idle and the Bear, I look at that quite a bit. They’re kind of funny. They do music reviews and all that kind of stuff, but their approach is much more light-hearted and funny, which is kind of nice because there are a lot of people that are too serious in this world. Obviously I read your zine, Manual Dexterity is one of my favorites for sure, I’m always excited when a new one comes out. Those are the ones off the top of my head. I do a lot of research on my own, as you can relate to. We get a bunch of emails of press releases of stuff that is coming out and I try to listen to most of or all of that or will get submissions directly from bands ourselves. I’m sure you get that too. I’ll try to listen to as many of those as I can and then I’m just doing research on my own too. I’ll just kind of look around the internet and see what’s out there. If a couple of bands are playing together and I know one of the bands then I’ll check out the other bands and see if I know of them at all. One of the bands that I ended up interviewing on the show who I really like, Failures Union, out of the Buffalo area of New York. I found out about them because they were touring with Cheap Girls and I love Cheap Girls. I researched them and found out about them and I love them too. Just always trying to search out new stuff.

What would the ultimate achievement be for the podcast? Like, I don’t know how long you plan on doing the podcast for, at what point would you say, “I’ve done everything, I can end it comfortably now”?

I definitely have what I like to refer to as a “bucket list” of interviews that I would like to do. There are still names on that list of people that I would like to interview, so I’ll definitely keep doing the podcast until I am able to cross off all the names on that list. But really I’ll probably keep doing Rocket Fuel as long as I’m able to and as long as people are listening. If there are people out there that care about the music that I’m playing on the show and care about DIY punk rock and rock and indie or whatever you want to call it, I’ll probably keep doing it. I’m getting ready to do episode #50 and that took me almost four years to get to, so doing the 100th episode would be pretty awesome. As far as other achievements for the show, I would just like to see more people listen to the show and listen to the bands and get into the bands they hear on the show. That’s really why I keep doing this, because there is so much good music out there that people, in my opinion, need to hear. As long as I still have that feeling I going to keep doing it.

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I assume that the bucket list keeps growing with every year that goes by?

Yeah exactly. It’s pretty easy to say, and I think you’d agree for yourself, I can say with a pretty good amount of certainty that I’m like addicted to new music and good music and finding the best bands and the best new bands and all that kind of stuff. I was like that before I did Rocket Fuel, so now by doing the podcast I’m just being that much more exposed to new music as it’s coming out. So that definitely kind of feeds that habit.

For me, I think the part that’s been the coolest is just to see people’s reactions to it and what makes me the happiest is when I get an email or someone puts something up the Rocket Fuel Facebook page where they say “Ahh man, I heard this band on the show and a I totally love them and I just found out they’re actually playing in my city next week and I’m gonna go!” That’s why I do this. That makes me happier than anything.

As long as I keep getting responses like that from people, I’ll keep going as long as I can.

I want to congratulate you on your 50 episodes, it’s not always you can say you’ve done 50 of one thing.

I definitely appreciate that. Part of what makes it a little more challenging for me, as you can imagine, there are other podcasts out there who have done way more than 50 episodes and they are great shows and that’s really awesome. I just don’t have the time. I can churn out episodes as quickly as other folks can and it just takes me more time and part of that is just being busy and working full-time and being a husband and a dad.

I do spend a lot of time picking the bands and music that I play. I’ll listen to a record multiple times before I pick my favorite songs that I want to play and that’s generally what I do. I pick my favorite song from the record and play it assuming it’s not like 25 minutes long or something. I really do take my time to pick the songs for each episode. I really appreciate you saying that and it’s been a lot of fun to do and again when I started, I think if you had come to me four years ago and said “Hey Jeff, this is where your little podcast that could would go and you got to interview Vinny from Less Than Jake and Trevor Keith, Josh from Smoking Popes and people would want Rocket Fuel tee-shirts and stuff”, I don’t think I be able to comprehend it. Like it’s really exceeded my expectations so greatly and I don’t say that in a braggadocios way, I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, it’s really more about just the bands that I play on the show and just the reaction that people have for new music. They are all people that are like you and me who are always looking for new music to listen too. I say it’s not braggadocios, it’s more humbling than anything, because I really can’t believe that it’s been able to garner as much support as it has. It’s not like I’m This American Life or anything, like I can make money off of this and retire or anything like that. It’s really been awesome to have people respond to it and give me encouragement to keep doing it and all that kind of stuff. That’s been the part that’s been, thinking of achievements, that’s actually been the biggest achievement for me is just creating a show that people would want to listen to and find their new favorite band based off of what they heard on the show. That’s where it’s at for me.

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Bruno Guerreiro Restorations

Restorations S/T The Holy Mess The Holy Mess How does the design relate to the music?

I spent what felt like an entire summer working on the artwork. The record made perfect sense to me, it sounded exactly what my life felt like at that moment, and still to this day. So I tried to capture the image I was getting from the music.

The outside of the record has a lot to do with the summertime in our neighborhood in Philadelphia.

So I pulled the colors from the sunsets that I would get in the back of my house where I spent most of my time working on the artwork. The swirls represent a certain pulse this music and city gives us, and also the fireworks that have become a fixture in our neighborhood in the summer.

Where did the idea come from for the design of the Restorations album and what were some other concepts you had for it?

For this record, the artwork was purely based on the feeling the album gave me. Listening to it, it felt like the record was painting itself in my head.

At first when Jon approached me about doing the artwork, he mentioned having me do some kind of illustration, but the more I listened to the record, I kept returning to a certain feeling the record gave me, and I didn’t think an illustration was going to properly interpret that. It had very much to do with the summer time where we live, and our friends.

Did the band members have any input into the design of the album?

Mostly Jon. Jon and I have been friends for quite some time, and we’ve worked together on design projects for years now. So anytime I made any headway with the artwork, I’d show him and he’d give me feed back. So he was a tremendous help throughout the process.

The inside of the gate fold is a bit more abstract than the front, it represents an excitement for a place that does not exist quite yet. If you close your eyes and envision your perfect place to be or live, that’s what the inside is about. It’s stems from the song “Val d’or.” For me, side A of the record is represented by the outside of the gate fold, and side B is the inside. I interpreted the music on side A as our lives in this moment, and side B is remembering the good times, and looking towards what’s ahead.

When drawing out elements like the circle “Restorations” text on the front cover, do you start drawing with an intended shape in mind?

I already had most of the art established, so the circle came naturally from the swirls. But I also wanted a smoky and claustrophobic feel to it, to represent the hot sweaty city.

How did you develop your style of hand-drawing text and what are some benefits of drawing your own type?

I’ve been doing hand-drawn text a lot more lately.

I’ve worked at Decibel Magazine for about 6 years now, doing design and layout. I have a nice balance now where I go into the Decibel office for about two weeks or so, and make an issue. Then I spend my time working from home and concentrating mostly on my illustration work between issues. So eventually the two started catching up to each other.

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I’ve been doing lots of the features in the magazine with some hand done text, and I’m just having a blast doing it. So now I’m working on a series of show posters for a local venue that are all hand done. The only time I use the computer for them is to scan and color in the illustration, then they are screen printed. I think the benefits of hand-drawing text, is the uniqueness you get each time, and being able to mold the text whichever way you like. There are no restrictions.

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Even though it hasn’t been very long since its release, looking back on it, is there anything you would change?

Absolutely not. This record has defined where I am at in my life right now, and I think the artwork represents exactly the feeling the record gave me.

It was great to be able to express myself on this record, and it’s one of the few things I’m truly proud of. I’m thankful those guys let me do my thing and just react to the music.

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The Holy Mess Was the artwork created specifically for the album and were there any other ideas you had for this album?

I knew that this album was going to be a mash up of the Benefit Sesh EP, and the Dismount LP. The idea was to somehow bring the two records together based on the previous artwork. I sent my idea to Yosco, of a donkey on stilts walking through an ice cream forest. He thought it was great, so I went from there.

How does the artwork relate to the music?

I think the artwork is a bit out there and fun, and I think that’s what these guys are. Seeing them play live, or just hanging out with them, never a dull moment. And I think all that translates in their music.

What’s your process when creating an illustration like the one on The Holy Mess album? Do you hand draw everything first or do you do everything on the computer?

I first pitched my idea to Yosco, and he seemed stoked on it. So then I sketched out my idea, made sure it was cool with the guys, and then began inking the illustration. Everything was hand drawn, and the colors were actually painted separately.

I brought the illustration and colors together on the computer, then did all the text on the back and layout on the computer.

How long did it take to illustrate the artwork for The Holy Mess’s album?

I honestly couldn’t tell you, I’m terrible at managing my time. It was definitely over a few weeks off and on. I usually stop when I’m happy with what I’ve done, and luckily was given the time. I’m very detailed and use lots of lines, and for some reason decided to work bigger on this project. So this one definitely gave me a sore wrist.

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Did the band members have any input into the design and how did they react to the final product?

I think I had a lot of freedom on this one. I spoke mostly to Yosco during the process, he’d give me feedback when I needed it. As far as the artwork went, it was pretty smooth. I spoke more to him at the very end of the project, but that was mostly a lot of text editing and such. The guys all seemed really excited about the end result.

What do you want people to take away from the illustration on the cover of The Holy Mess’s album?

Like I said before, these guys are a trip. So if anyone likes fun, I think this is a good introduction to this band. I had a great time working on the artwork, and like Restorations, these guys just let me do what I do, and I am again so grateful. Both projects were definitely some of the most enlightening things I’ve done.

This icon denotes an album that has been made available by the band free of charge or for a donation. Links are on page 56.

from this collective that is certainly growing on me. The opening track has a nice build up and pay off that entices you to stick around for a while and listen to the whole album. (Quote Unquote)

The American Scene

By Way Of Introduction The American Scene reminds me a lot of Hot Rod Circuit and those are big shoes to fill for a new band. By Way Of Introduction is an incredibly tight and convincing release. This being their debut album, and being really good, they definitely have an advantage over other new bands.

(Pure Noise Records) Bangers Small Pleasures It may have taken me a little bit to get into UK’s Bangers, but I’m glad I stuck with them. They have a similar approach to music like many American punk bands and I could see them playing along side bands like Off With Their Heads and VRGNS. (Kiss of Death) Banquets Top Button, Bottom Shelf I’m sure the people who heard Banquets previous release, This Is Our Concern, Dude, had some idea that their debut full-length would be good, but I bet they didn’t know it was going to be this good. Top Button, Bottom Shelf is classic East Coast punk rock that reminds me of The Loved Ones, but much better. (Black Numbers) Bomb The Music Industry!

Vacation I’ve been an off and on Bomb The Music Industry! fan for a while. While none of their music has really struck a chord with me, I really appreciate what they do. That said, Vacation is another really good album

Braid Closer to Closed It was a surprise to everyone when Braid announced that they would be recording new material, their first since 1998’s Frame and Canvas. Even more surprising was the lead off single, “The Right Time”, was sung by Chris Broach. Throughout Braid’s career, Broach has mostly been second vocalist to Bob Nanna, but this song really shows that he can actually sing really well. Plus it’s one of the catchiest songs on this EP. The other two original songs are in the same vein and are classic Braid with some Hey Mercedes seeping in through the cracks. They round out this EP with a good cover of Jeff Hanson’s “You Are The Reason”. (Polyvinyl Records) Broadcaster Joyride Bringing back a much needed 90’s alternative revival, Broadcaster sure knows how to write a catchy tune while not repeating what others have done in the past. These four songs are simply not enough and will leave listeners demanding more music from this band. (Self-Released)

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the sound builds from there. The rest of the album is equally as good, if not better. I wish of only two things from CoCoBees releases, that they’d have more material on each release, and that the releases would come out quicker. Everything else is perfect.

(Hometapes)

Build Us Airplanes The Pale Ale EP Build Us Airplanes has a certain 90’s alternative/ grunge charm that’s missing form a lot of music these days. They mix it up a little bit on these five songs, but ultimately they are memorable songs that will stick with you. (Sell the Heart Records) Canon Blue Rumspringa There is a certain energy exuding from Canon Blue’s Rumspringa. Maybe it’s the fact that part of this album was made in Copenhagen with Danish orchestral pop ensemble Efterklang and part in Iceland with Amiina. Either way, Canon Blue ringleader Daniel James has a cunning ability to construct these wonderfully quirky and eccentric pop songs.

(Temporary Residence) Collections of Colonies of Bees GIVING I’m always excited to hear new Collections of Colonies of Bees material. They have a way of holding the listeners attention that goes as far back as when some of these guys were playing as Pele. GIVING is probably their most “rock” sounding album. “Lawn” starts off the album with a repetitive drum fill and

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Dan Andriano In The Emergency Room Hurricane Season Before listening to this, I thought it was going to be more similar to Alkaline Trio’s music than what it actually is. Hurricane Season is incredibly intimate and gives the feeling that Dan is singing the songs directly to you. This album shows that Dan could probably have a just as successful career as a solo artist as he is having with the Alkaline Trio.

(Asian Man Records) Diamond Dancer Will You? Hailing from Vancouver, BC, Diamond Dancer is leading the way in terms of Canadian emo revival bands. Their debut release Will You?, steps beyond the emo boundaries with some post rock inclinations à la The Appleseed Cast. The occasional female vocals also add a nice touch to the music.

Considering that this genre is mostly male led, the dual vocals gives Diamond Dancer a step up from most bands.(Self-Released)

Direct Hit! Domesplitter Direct Hit! has been quietly releasing EPs of songs for a while now and recently caught the attention of Kind of Like Records. Domesplitter is a collection of the best songs from those early EPs, re-recorded to sound awesome. There is a hidden party inside of Direct Hit’s music that is chugging beers, causing a ruckus, and pissing off the neighbors. Domesplitter is probably the best album of songs taken from previous releases and re-recorded and released this year. Maybe. (Kind Of Like Records)

Early & Often Present No Fiction, Fear No Tense If you can get past the opening three and a half minutes of recorded audio of general blabbing from someone on the street, Present No Fiction, Fear No Tense may have something to offer. Unfortunately, there was nothing on this album that really interested me, though I’m sure some people will find the value in it. (Sell The Heart) Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) Home After Three Months Away With as busy as Empire! Empire! is outside of their band, working jobs & running labels, it amazes me that they still have the time to write and release their

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own amazing music. Home After Three Months Away shows Empire! Empire! hitting their songwriting stride with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. (Stiff Slack Records) Go Rydell/Grey Area Split 7” Go Rydell sounds an awful lot alike Polar Bear Club, but with shorter songs and Grey Area has a familiar sound as well. Both bands songs are good and I like that the bands don’t sound like each other. It shows two sides of punk to keep things fresh.

(Black Numbers) Grown Ups Hand Holder EP Grown Ups are really out doing themselves these days. Their latest release, Hand Holder, is really great and it shows them experimenting a little bit with their instruments. Anything from this band is worth putting into your collection.

(Doghouse Records) Half Hearted Hero Running Water Half Hearted Hero’s Running Water is a really great glimpse into the pop punk workings of this Massachusetts band. The music is infectious and they throw in some squealing guitar riffs for good measure. (Animal Style Records)

Halloween, Alaska All Night the Calls Came In All Night the Calls Came In, the latest from Minneapolis’s Halloween, Alaska, sounds like mix of Death Cab For Cutie, American Analog Set, Field Music and this old band from MN called Valet. Though not in the way you’d think a group like that would sound. There are very small elements of each band at work here combined with some atmospheric flourishes that give this album a decent quality.

(Amble Down) Handguns Don’t Bite Your Tongue The reason I like Don’t Bite Your Tongue is that is sounds like Dude Ranch era Blink-182, just with less dick and fart jokes. Handguns has the potential to be on the same level as other pop punk bands like The Wonder Years and New Found Glory.

(Pure Noise Records ) Hold Tight Can’t Take This Away One listen and it’s easy to see why Can’t Take This Away was picked up by a label for a re-release. Hold Tight sounds like if Blue Album era Weezer were a punk band today, with the singer from The Suicide Machines. Can’t Take This Away is an outstanding album full of promise. (Animal Style Records)

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The Holy Mess The Holy Mess This self-titled album is a re-release of their material from the Dismount EP and Benefit Sesh 7”, plus two new songs. If you’re familiar with their past releases, then you know what you’re getting. The two new songs are top notch and some of the best they’ve written. (Red Scare) Junior Battles Idle Ages Junior Battles killed it on their last EP and on their debut full-length, Idle Ages, they kill it, reanimate it, then kill it again. There is something about this band that sets them apart from the rest, but I just can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s because they’re Canadian? (Paper + Plastick) LKN/Knife The Symphony Split 12” The LKN (Lauren Kathryn Newman) side of this split is a sometimes sung/screamed/spoken angular noodlely free-for-all, while the Knife the Symphony

side is distorted and rough with an At The Drive-In/ Young Widows vibe and finishes with a cover of fIREHOSE’s “On Your Knees”. (Phratry Records ) Love of Everything Sooner I Wish Bobby Burg is hitting a turning point in his career where he is now making Love of Everything songs a bit more accessible to the masses. Where his early work may have been a bit tough to listen to, his last couple releases including Sooner I Wish have been lo-fi pop gems. (Polyvinyl Records) Memory Map Holiday Band As soon as the first few seconds of Holiday Band tick away, your ears will perk up and you will be caught off guard by the quick guitar picking and catchy beat. On practically every song I heard, I’d giggle a little to myself, because everything coming out of the speakers was unexpected and awesome.

(Joyful Noise Recordings)

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The New Trust & Friends Battle to the Death Battle to the Death is a collection of new and old songs from Get Vulnerable and Dark Is The Path Which Lies Before Us done acoustically. The Friends part of this album is a bunch of New Trust covers done by artists like Hanalei, Oddbird, Themes and others. The acoustic versions of these songs are quite good and give them new life. This album is a must for any New Trust fan. (Saint Rose Records) Pygmy Lush Old Friends I remember being kind of neutral on Pygmy Lush’s last album, Mount Hope, so I was a little weary going into Old Friends. That weariness soon faded as the first couple songs on the album were heard. Old Friends is as delicate as it is rigid and is a beautiful album throughout. (Lovitt)

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The Reveling Tributaries Tributaries, the debut full-length from The Reveling, is a blue collar worker’s punk album. You can almost feel the gritty East Coast industries rooted in the Reveling’s brand of punk rock. Tributaries is the album bands like AFI and Anti-Flag wish they could make. (Black Numbers) The Rutabaga Cursed You probably remember The Rutabaga from the split with Owen back in 2004. Since then, Joshua Wayne Hensley, The Rutabaga, has been releasing music and his latest, Cursed, is being self-released with the hopes of a future vinyl release. The music on Cursed is fairly minimal, with just a guitar and some background distortions and is well written and personal. As one of those people that paid more attention to the Owen songs on that split way back when, I’m glad The Rutabaga is still making music.

(Self-Released)

Swear Jar Cuss Swear Jar definitely reminds me a bit of The STNNNG from Minneapolis. Both bands use a variety of vocal deliveries, and each band’s music is sometimes difficult to digest. Cuss is a welcome change a pace from more straight forward bands.

(Phratry Records)

Sleeping Bag Sleeping Bag The upbeatness of the power-pop combined with the straight-faced vocal delivery create a very interesting listen on this self-titled album. Sleeping Bag has a nostalgic 90’s slacker feel to it with some off-beat rhythms that make it worth while.

(Joyful Noise Recordings) State Lines Hoffman Manor I came across State Lines while searching through Bandcamp and was floored by the maturity and overall quality of this album. It was hard to believe that an album this good wasn’t being plastered around the web. State Lines has a Tigers Jaw/Saves the Day like quality to them, but with a lot passion behind their vocals. Hoffman Manor will easily be on my top ten list for album of the year.

(Meadowbrook Records) State Song Dear Hearts and Gentle People Featuring ex-members of The Dopamines and The Invitational, State Song has a singer that is one part Jim Ward, one part Julian Casablancas and a small part Jordan Jeffares of Snowden. Their music is similar to early Sparta mixed with 90’s college rock.

Dear Hearts and Gentle People is a pretty good record and quite solid throughout. It is definitely one of those albums that you would probably pass over, and then regret doing so once you find out everyone is into them. (Phratry Records)

The United Sons of Toil When The Revolution Comes Everything Will Be Beautiful The United Sons of Toil, from Madison,WI, will knock you down with their heaviness, but will lend a hand to help you up. The music is politically motivated to a point of over doing it, they even include a manifesto with the album that details the roots and explanations of each song. This album is great for people who are interested in and will talk in-depth about the sort of political stuff that The United Sons of Toil sing about. Not so great if you’re looking for something entertaining to listen to while you shake your ass and pump your fist. (Phratry Records)

You Are Plural Hand It Over You Are Plural are a two piece boy/girl band from the West Coast. The interesting thing about this band is that the only instruments they use are cellos, wurlitzers and their lovely voices. Hand It Over is a wonderful album of classical sounding harmonies, similar to what Georgie James was doing, but coming from a different time period.

(Self-Released)

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Downloads Bangers // Small Pleasures // bangersbangers.bandcamp.com/album/small-pleasures Bomb The Music Industry! // Vacation // quoteunquoterecords.com/qur051.htm Broadcaster // Joyride // broadcasterny.bandcamp.com/album/joyride Hold Tight // Can’t Take This Away // holdtight.bandcamp.com/album/cant-take-this-away Junior Battles // Idle Ages // juniorbattles.bandcamp.com/album/idle-ages The Rutabaga // Cursed // theseknottylines.bandcamp.com/album/cursed Statelines // Hoffman Manor // statelines.bandcamp.com/releases

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Photo Credits COVER, Pg 4-5, : Nicole Kibert // elawgrrl.com Pg 14-15,19: Joanna Moreno // flickr.com/photos/39369670@N06 Pg 16: Unknown // Promo Photo Pg 25: Molly Rodriguez // molly-rodriguez.com Pg 26-27: Stephanie Gomez // stephgomez.net Pg 28: Jesse Caldwell Pg 30-36: Melanie Parker-Levi // whatstheruckus.com Pg 49: Paul Drake Pg 50: Build Us Airplanes // Unknown Collection of Colonies of Bees // Yasuhiro Ohara Pg 51: Unknown // Promo Photo Pg 52: Half Hearted Hero // Unknown // Promo Photo Halloween, Alaska // Cameron Wittig // cameron-photo.com Pg 53: Rachel Ankney Pg 54: Unknown Pg 55: Sleeping Bag // Unknown You Are Plural // Nolan Conway // nolanconway.com/music

Support Bands: Into It. Over It. // intoitoverit.com Direct Hit! // facebook.com/directhitband Banquets // banquetsamerica.com The Wooden Birds // thewoodenbirds.com Snowing // snowingtheband.com Prawn // facebook.com/prawnmusic Joan of Arc // joanfrc.com Junior Battles // myspace.com/juniorbattles Band Name // facebook.com/pages/ Band-Name/295257318326 Pswingset // pswingset.tumblr.com

Ads: Featherproof Books // featherproof.com Side With Us // sidewithus.com Asian Man Records // asianmanrecords.com Tiny Engines // tinyengines.net Modern-Radio // modern-radio.com Saddle Creek // saddlecreek.com Black Numbers // theblacknumbers.com Lujo Records // lujorecords.com Lovitt Records // lovitt.com Rocket Fuel Podcast // rocketfuelpodcast.com Labels: Amble Down // ambledown.com Animal Style Records // animalstylerecords.com Asian Man Records // asianmanrecords.com Black Numbers // theblacknumbers.com Doghouse Records // doghouserecords.com Hometapes // home-tapes Joyful Noise Recordings // joyfulnoiserecordings.com Kind of Like Records // kindoflikerecords.com Kiss of Death // kissofdeathrecords.com Lovitt Records // lovitt.com Meadowbrook Records // facebook.com/MeadowbrookRecords Paper + Plastick // paperandplastick.com Phratry Records // phratryrecords.com Polyvinyl Records // polyvinylrecords.com Pure Noise Records // purenoise.net Quote Unquote // quoteunquoterecords.com Red Scare // redscare.net Saint Rose Records // saintroserecords.com Sell the Heart Records // selltheheartrecords.com Stiff Slack Records // stiffslack.com Temporary Residence // temporaryresidence.com

People: Jeff Takacs // rocketfuelpodcast.com Bruno Guerreiro // behance.net/brunoguerreiro Brian Nagan // myspace.com/fourletterlie Posters: Jason Taylor // jasontaylordesign.com

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