A big story making the rounds today is the annoucement of a new digital music service called SpiralFrog. While it may seem that the internet is already crawling with more than a enough digital music services, SpiralFrog plans to differentiate itself by offering “free” music downloads to all visitors. The company’s revenue model will be strictly advertising based. I put the word free in quotes because freedom here, like so often is the case when it comes to digital music, is only in the monetary sense. According to the New York Times, digital music file restrictions are abound:

For consumers, SpiralFrog’s free downloads will come with many more strings attached than Apple’s paid ones do. Users of SpiralFrog will have to sit through advertisements, and will be prevented by special software from making copies of the songs they download or from sharing them with other people.

They will have to revisit the SpiralFrog web site monthly to keep access to the music they download. And the songs will be encoded in Microsoft’s WMA format, meaning they will not work on Apple iPod portable music players.

For more information, check out the New York Times story here.

Another month, another chance to pick up some quality Deep Elm Records music for painfully low prices. Check out the brand new deal “4 CDs For Only $19.99″ here. There’s a slew of gems among the 80 releases to choose from.

Throughout our lives we’ve been told by other people to appreciate the small things that life has to offer. In terms of “personal accomplishment” via Pastepunk, I’d say that this one ranks up there pretty high, even though to most of our readers, I’m sure this isn’t viewed as a very big deal. I’m pleased to announce that the latest edition to our “Cut and Paste” media player is a stream of the amazing BY A THREAD album The Last of the Daydreams. When this disc was released in 1999 on Revelation, it rocketed to top of my playlist for months and months, and it has never really left. I always described these guys to friends as what SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE would have sounded like if they came from a more hardcore-centric background. Pastepunk graciously thanks Bob Shedd @ Revelation for giving this a go. Please take a listen and consider picking up the CD from Revhq.com.

Revhq.com store: BY A THREAD – The Last of the Daydreams

- As with all of our streams, you made need to refresh your browser a few times, or wait a few hours. This doesn’t seem to be a problem with IE, but for whatever reason, it does occur in Firefox. Thanks for your patience!

Check out the latest from the Philly’s R5 Productions in podcast form:

1) Silversun Pickups – Kissing Families

2) Plus/Minus – Trapped Under Ice

3) Be Your Own Pet – Funnn

4) Rabbit Blood – Calvin Johnson

5) Tax Dollar – Erase Eratta

6) Standing In The Way Of Control – The Gossip

7) Forward – The Thermals

8) Emily Kane – Art Brut

9) Brothers – Annuals

10) Lullabye – Grizzly Bear

11) Snow – The Baird Sisters

12) I Cant Sleep At Night – Garry Higgins

13) Winter Shaker – Wovenhand

14) Drain Considers – Serena Maneesh

15) Home Of The Brave – Naked Raygun

16) n Sub Ulysses – Nation of Ulysses

17) Top Rocket – Chavez

18) Kepe Me From Killing You – 1.6 Band

19) Province – TV On The Radio

20) Playhouse – TV On The Radio

21) One Imma – Alone Blanc

22) Larva – Georgia Muldrow

23) Slim’s Return – Madlib

24) 40 Days – Yesterdays New Quintet

25) Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up – Love Is All

26) Flagpole Sitta – Harvey Danger

27) Aloha – Radiobirdman

28) Thin White Line – Avengers

29) Electric Somethingorother Pt 2 – Steven Reich

30) Kensington Blues – jack Rose

31) Raga S – L. Shakir

32) Move Along – All American Rejects

33) Dirty Littel Secrets – All American Rejects

34) Live Daft Punk Set

* free show giveaways

* vague cocaine references

* stories of us setting fires and getting arrested

* talking about hiding from my ex on valetines days

* steven dissing lance bangs

* be your own pet smokes weed through a vaporizer

* win a kitten

Listen here- R5 Productions

During the U.K.’s Reading music festival, a bunch of kids who apparently hate MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE’S music decided it’d be funny to throw stuff at them – they did just that. Singer Gerard Way responded by saying “We may be outsiders today, but we represent every outsider out there.”

Singer Brendon Urie of PANIC AT THE DISCO received similar treatment earlier in the day when a water-bottle smacked the dude in the face.

You can read the rest of the story at NME.com. Take ‘em away link.

-I dislike PANIC AT THE DISCO as much as the next guy, but come on – if you don’t like a band, don’t listen to them. We’re not talking about the resolution to conflict in the Middle East, and we’re not talking about ending world hunger – we’re talking about freakin’ pop music folks, and no one, even MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE, deserves to be publicly humiliated for writing some shitty tunes. What they did to those guys was just wrong. Whatever happened to just yelling “play Free Bird” when you didn’t like a band?

Much talk has been made this year about the return of MADBALL, with their Ferret Records disc, The Legacy. With more than five years between releases, that talk of course, has been plenty justified. But MADBALL is not the only group of NYHC veterans waging another stand – not by a long shot. Formed around [...]

It’s almost that time of year again for MTV’s Video Music Awards. The press ripple is starting up, but the biggest story so far seems to be venue and internet related — I haven’t heard much of anything about the acts scheduled to perform. Every year I think back to when a show like the VMAs actually mattered. Bands weren’t just trotted out as accessories like hair pieces, but were the spotlight of the event. Two performances in particular still remind of impact the awards show could continue to have if it only stayed the course and kept rock a part of its agenda: NIRVANA’s Krist Novoselic tossing his bass into the air and having it pummel him in the head during “Lithium,” and in my opinion the crown-jewel of modern rock grandeur, GUNS N’ ROSES jaw-dropping performance of “November Rain.”

Will we ever see rock bands of that caliber rise to the top again, and do so while retaining their unique characteristics, with so many people watching them and cutting in line for some of the action? I want to say yes, but I’m not so sure…

With a street date that’s barely more than a week away, you can now stream the entirety of the highly anticipated new full-length from Richmond’s STRIKE ANYWHERE at Alternative Press’s website, altpress.com. The band streamrolls through 14 songs in just a shade over 30 minutes, and the result is nothing but pure energy and thoughtful release.