As a relatively young label, I’m still waiting to see what’s going to be the break-out release for Thorp Records. After playing “A Smile is No Good For Me,” i’m sincerely hoping that THE YOUNG AND THE USELESS are that band. The vocals are distinctly in the vein of GRADE, and the music is pretty [...]

In the mini-goldrush to become the next site to suffer obscene bandwidth costs, offset only partially by banner ads and membership fees, pureVOLUME has become the leader of the pack. With its main focus on punk / indie / emo / hardcore etc., and its super slick design, I must say that I’m impressed. Additionally, it appears that users can make both permenant downloads of songs, or choose to stream them through embedded flash players on each band’s page. Fortunately, the quality of the flash streams is of mp3 caliber. PureVOLUME offers two plans for bands – a basic free service that allows up to 3 songs hosted, or a paid service that is $7.99 a month or $69.99 for an entire year, that provides up to 25 hosted songs, space for photos, show listings, featured spots on the main page, and much more. Any serious band I imagine should consider the paid package, and I already have notice a band of Fueled By Ramen bands are listed prominently on the index page. If there’s any band reading this who has dealt with pureVOLUME, drop me a line with some of your thoughts on the service thus far.

purevolume.com.

Law of Inertia’s pop-punk gems, ALLI WITH AN I have some upcoming tour dates. If you’re sick of music that has some kind of “”core”" attached to it, one way or the other, this band will bring you back to when pop-punk was the kind of stuff Lookout Records was famous for releasing.

- Friday, January 2 in W. Columbia, South Carolina at the New Brookland Tavern with Chasing August, 6 pm.

- Saturday, January 3 in Athens, Georgia at Tasty World with The Knife Trade and Choke Their Rivers With Our Dead, 10 pm.

- Sunday, January 4 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at 600 Studios with Far From Over, 6:30 pm.

- Monday, January 5 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Dixie Taverne with Friends of Fire, 9 pm.

- Tuesday, January 6 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the Spanish Moon, 10 pm.

- Wednesday, January 7 in Fort Walton Beach, Florida at the Point, 7 pm.

- Thursday, January 8 in Gainesville, Florida at Common Grounds with Rehasher, 9 pm.

- Friday, January 9 in Melbourne, Florida at The Sanctuary with The Obscene and Beneath Low Flying Planes at 6:30 pm.

- Saturday, January 10 in Summerville, South Carolina at All Books with Parker and Eternity Until Tomorrow, 7 pm.

Lobster records doesn’t put out a whole lot of stuff, but when they do, it usually is of the highest quality, and YELLOWCARD keeps that tradition going strong. For the most part, these guys crank out seriously kicking melodic punk rock with strong emotional tendencies. Vocalist Ryan Key has one of those unique smooth voices [...]

Sweet Mother Malassie this is heavy!! WITH RESISTANCE is 100% metalcore mayhem. Tightly wound and ready to explode at moments notice, this 30 minute disc is fiercely aggressive and cathartic on the soul. Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of this release however is the sound quality, which retains a slightly older, unique hardcore sound that [...]

You didn’t mention the year’s greatest movie THE RETURN OF THE KING. You bow to everyone.

Alrighty, so after a nice trip to southern Florida where I essentially made a point to separate man from machine (i.e. the Internet was not a priority as compared to lounging poolside), it’s time to get this bad boy updated, numerical list style…

1. I don’t really mind the whole Code Orange airport security thing, but at least, if I’m going to have to remove my belt before going through a metal detector, can I get an advance warning so I don’t wear the loosest pants I own before arriving, and end up waddling through security like a webbed duck?

2. Best quote while traveling, courtesy of a lady sitting behind me on the plane, shortly after departure from DC. “”This plane is an Airbus model? Is that a good kind of plane?”" No lady…it’s a piece of crap that’s either a) going to fall out of the sky and land on a pre-school, or b) …. oh just shut the hell up…

3. Two highly underrated releases from 2003 that I picked up a not-so-crowded-on-the-day-after-Christmas Best Buy: YEAR OF THE RABBIT – S/T, and LONGWAVE – The Strangest Things. LONGWAVE sound a whole lot like THE STROKES, but uhh, way better.

4. If you have eight or so hours to kill, don’t feel like changing cds, and have a cd/mp3 player (yea, yea, I don’t have an iPod yet, hush…), the GoKart MP300 double-disc compilation is pretty awesome. 150 bands, 300 songs, and plenty of good tunes.

5. Virginia clearly needs a larger Jewish population because everytime I go to Florida (or New York), I sorely miss eating all of the requisite Jewish comfort foods.

6. Check out the new MOMENTS IN GRACE ep here. This band is chock full of emo-rocking goodness, with a vocalist who puts many of his peers to shame. This band’s full-length, the first on producer, Brian McTernan’s new label Salad Days, hits streets this summer, and it is nothing short of awesome.

7. New Year resolutions are for suckers. Every day is a day where we all should strive to be better people.

8. Buy something from Suburban Home Records and Distribution. They are always running good sales and both release and distribute some great stuff. DO IT.

For a disc that sounds this good, and has such stunning artwork, it’s a real shame that it’s only 11 minutes long. WITH HONOR play ridiculously fast old-school hardcore with a big-time guitar sound and loads of energy. If BANE was to be sped up one more turn on the dial, that would be a [...]