1. Finland Viking rockers TURISAS are streaming their upcoming full-length Stand Up And Fight on their MySpace page. It’s epically epic.

2. Continuing the metal theme, Aussie blackened thrashers ASSAULTER have a brand new song titled “Into Submission” streaming on Stereogum.  The slight nod to early 80s studio production sounds pretty damn authentic and in a good way. The band’s full-length Boundless comes out on 3/15 via Metal Blade.

3. SWINGIN’ UTTERS on Daytrotter. The last song they did was “Windspitting Punk”. Exclamation Point.

4. Suburban Home has “adopted” THE LUSITANIA, an Americana/Alt-Country band that is the touring/backing band for Jim Ward (AT THE DRIVE-IN/SPARTA, etc.). The band’s full-length Rain and Rivers was original put out by Ward’s Civil Defense League Records, but Suburban Home has taken over in helps of bringing it to the wider audience. You can stream/download a copy of it via Bandcamp. I give it a thumbs up on the excellent amount of organ usage alone.

5. The last time the federal government had a shutdown (’95/96), I was just short of 16 years old and was mesmerized following the situation in the news (I never said I wasn’t a bit of an odd kid). Come the end of next week, and I could be in the middle of it, as most federal employees are furloughed during a shutdown. I hope it doesn’t come to that, as I actually enjoy doing my job, and would find it unbelievably difficult to not work, especially since I work out of my home full-time. Maybe I could throw a big bed sheet over my computer systems. It’s a nervous but kind of exciting time – these events are rare in U.S. history. It’s a testament to our imperfect-but-not-awful system that shutdowns can occur without the involvement of tanks and military rule.

6.  Enough with the ‘limited edition’ cassette releases… this format has always sucked. They’re ‘limited’ because only 30 people in the frigging universe care enough about these things. There is nothing nostalgic about a cassette recording’s hiss or its napkin sized insert booklets. The only positive cassette memories I have are driving over a bunch of crappy free band demos on my driveway shortly after getting my license. Bah.