Although “The Cloak and Dagger Club” is a pretty cool release, it’s also rather boring and stuffy, with each song pushing five minutes or more. These guys kinda remind me of a mix between SAVES THE DAY and “Something To Write Home About” era GET UP KIDS, minus the keyboards. I appreciate the sincerity this [...]

The Hellfest 2002 DVD contest, as well as the NORA one end tonight – get your entries in before it’s removed sometime after dawn.

Going up tomorrow are two more rad giveaways – the first from Trustkill Records featuring ARMSBENDBACK, and the second, from Jade Tree, supporting STRIKE ANYWHERE.

Finally, don’t forget to enter the current contest featuring PENNYWISE and ATMOSPHERE – top prizes for that one feature limited skate decks from each band!

After you’re exhausted from entering your email address on pastepunk, cruise over to punkrocks.net for their STRETCH ARMSTRONG giveaway. Woo!

For those interested in THE EARLY NOVEMBER, Drive-Thru has created a pretty kickin’ e-card for their upcoming album, “”The Room’s Too Cold,”" that features five full songs from the release.

Check it out here: Early November E-Card.

Beloved, Strike Anywhere, Bleeding Through, Vaux and the Darkest Hour.

Making a late-year climb in my end of year rankings: AFI, Sonata Arctica, Comeback Kid, Park, None More Black

ANd, nowhere to be seen: Stretch Arm Strong, Alkaline Trio, Thursday

CAVE IN – Antenna

In today’s post, there’s an article about the horrible incident at Virginia Tech concerning the DEATH BY STEREO show there on Sunday. The article doesn’t name the band, but it gives some interesting background that the punk news sites aren’t covering:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19509-2003Sep29.html

This incident kinda sums up my worst fears about hardcore shows — it’s not usual stereotype of them acting as launch pads for violence, but the far more subtle conglomeration of the “”mob effect.”" When you’ve got a lot of people crammed into a tiny space, thoughts of safety are often left behind. It’s no different if an accident is spawned by fire or, as seen here, a window giving way to physical pressure. My parents would say to me a thousand times before I went shows when I was younger “”be careful!!”" – in fact, they still do, and I think they’ve been right all along.

well here’s the story, read it: http://www.punknews.org/article.php?sid=7211&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

then get your ass to getrockedout.com and look through their site for ways to help out the Blacksburg scene, the Solar Haus, and any of the kids that either experienced the fall or were there to witness it. It is truly a sad day, especially for a scene as genuine and honest as the Blacksburg one, still small enough to remain free of invasion by Clearchannel and greedy “”indie”" promoters.

what an awful day for this town.

The more material I hear from this DC band, the more I’m into it. “The Bleeding Starts Here” is a collection of this band’s out-of-print 1999 “S/T” EP, and high-quality demos from material that would eventually be on the “March To Your Grave” full-length, out on Thorp Records. There’s also two covers, one of MINOR [...]