pastepunk

I guess I have to count myself as one of these as well. I have a suit-and-tie job as an economist, but I'm tattooed and I listen to Coalesce on the headphones at work. I like leading a double life. I think a lot of the DC area is like this (my office is in Old Town, Alexandria). Our Deputy Director of Policy and Procedure is a late 30s-something female who is a huge indie rock fan, esp. Neko Case. My wife always thinks its silly when I tuck in my blue BANE shirt behind a dark blue dress shirt. I can't blame her, heh, but whatever works, right?

I support the 'incognito metal fan' one. It's always great when colleagues at work stop into to my office (I'm a lawyer) and give me a quizzical look over whatever hardcore or metal I'm playing. I can admit to wearing more than a few times, a hardcore band t-shirt under my dress shirt just to get myself amped on days where I've got an oral argument before our reviewing court.

Not so much a 'best new job' - but the most interesting job I had was being a law clerk for a Family/Divorce law firm in NY. I worked there during the summer and winter breaks in college and besides getting to know the 'interesting' clientele, I often got to serve process of divorce papers on (usually) unsuspecting husbands are wives. This lead to many awkward and occasionally dangerous incidents - in one case, a guy who owned a towing company chased me off his lot while screaming at me. Good times.

This sounds like a bizarre melodic punk/hardcore take on a song by The Warriors. The Sum 41 comparison isn't a reach.

Another major turn-off... having your manager or pr person repeatedly send you links to promo material like EPKs and ask you "what can we do with this us?"

You would think that might be the case, but Against Me has always been Tom's band and I'm sure he makes many of the decisions and he might even be able to make the call on who gets paid what. I know it's speculation, but you never know. Maybe he wasn't being paid shit and he just got sick of it. I was just assuming both are financially risky and he was going from one shot in the dark to another.

I want to know more about his restaurant... man, talking about playing the financial odds, being in a moderately popular band on a major label or opening a restaurant. Yeeesh.

I've done more mailorder in the past two years since probably 1994 or 1995 and it makes a huge impression on me when I get brief personalized notes, or any kind of free thing, like a sampler, an old zine from some year back, etc. Vanessa @ Fat Wreck used to write notes in all of the Fat orders in the mid 90s and she actually became my first punk rock penpal of sorts. When I did mailorder for the first Pastepunk comp in 2002, I always included a brief note and occasionally some extra promo cds I had lying around, along with stickers.

I liked the revamped review section with the few Twitter style reviews... and the comparison of The Blackout to Story Of The Year, since the similarities on a few songs are just uncanny. Just curious Scott - do you still pursue a big story on Rancid after the relate date of the new album, or do only consider doing such if there's an unexpected amount of traction on the release?

Does anyone here have a Kindle? I think as e-book readers advance, we'll see this used a lot to read online magazines, which will be a huge improvement over browsers in smartphones in viewing the same, and less cumbersome than netbooks.

Glad to hear that they'll be sticking around online though.

Side One doesn't seriously care about leaks... if they did, they wouldn't be sending out promos three months early. Why fight what you can't stop? Them, and the other "smarter" labels already know their energy is much better spent on trying to convince people to listen to the band, see them at a show, and maybe pick up a cd or vinyl if they want to support the band.

Run from the music industry... ruuuuuuunuuuun!!

These guys have yet to write a bad song. I hope this one goes a long way.

I think there are way more people who perceive there to be a culture around B9 now than Fat Wreck. Take a look at the new media effort that B9 goes through to promote its releases and compare it to Fat, and it will be easy to pick out the 'legacy' label...

Good Riddance - Operation Phoenix Fastbreak - Whenever You're Ready Time Flies - On Our Way AFI - Black Sails...

Barry's whole deal is that he always supports whatever his constituents want him to... it's how he was remained so popular, despite coming off like an absolute fool for at least the past 20 years. He has open contempt for paying taxes, and really, for doing anything at all that doesn't help him win style points in his ward (DC's term for district). He's a sad joke in his current state, but there's no way he'll ever be voted out of office.

Quality writing, especially the Earth Crisis review. Thanks for the heads-up!

Hope Con and End of a Year.

Big fan of Let Me Out; hopefully the US release of their new album will get them some extra attention. I'm still partial to most of the Burning Heart roster, and definitely The Sounds.

1994 - white Black Flag t-shirt with "Damaged" on it.

I'd definitely look at Hyundai also. Same kind of competitive pricing, great warranty, and a huge improvement of quality over the years. Kia as done better, but it still lags. I back checking out a Corolla too. I've got a 2001 and it has been rock solid.

Attorney for a federal agency, doing Trademark law Editor/Owner of Pastepunk.com (would hardly call that a job though) Majored in Marketing and Political Science, then got the J.D. Would like to get my MBA eventually when the time is right.

Dug this band too. They were fans of Pastepunk and seemed truly flattered when we gave them good press.

This will put some urgency behind the transition to primarily digital releases. I believe all of these labels have their music up on eMusic.