Goth ‘n’ roll pioneers THE 69 EYES have been haunting stages all over the world for 33 years and seem to be a truly immortal part of the dark rock/metal scene. Widely known as the Helsinki Vampires, the quintet gained several platinum albums with “Blessed Be” and “Paris Kills” and not only reached #1 on the single and album charts in their home country of Finland, but also plunged the world into a sinful cosmos of love, death and melancholy, while outliving any other band emerging from the goth hype of the early 2000s.
By developing their sound further into sleaze rock on “Devils” (2004) and “Angels” (2007) and not shying away from pitch black “Elvis” allusions in singer Jyrki 69’s dark voice and unique onstage dance moves, the band have established a worldwide following. Over the course of over three decades, the band has toured relentlessly throughout Europe, America, Asia and Australia and released 12 full-length studio albums. Now they return to take you on a dark road trip with this new EP “Drive” featuring 3 brand new tracks from 2022 and one live banger.
We worship at the altar of the MC5, Black Flag, and Chuck Berry. With a résumé long enough to make most blush, sigh, or generally not give a shit (Suicide Machines, MEST, Fordirelifesake, HiFi Handgrenades, The Get Go, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah), we are ready to entertain with a beer in hand, whether it be yours or ours.
It can be said that some bands truly embody a certain spirit or emotion. Without a doubt, Massachusetts’ long running juggernauts, THE ACACIA STRAIN, truly embody anger. And that shows more than ever on their newest full length, “Wormwood.” The band’s actual sound and vibe are more ferocious than ever on this, their fourth full length for Prosthetic Records and fifth effort overall. Even the successes of their previous full-length, “Continent,” which debuted at #2 on Billboard’s “Heatseekers” chart in 2008 and their DVD, “The Most Known Unknown,” which debuted at #10 on Billboard’s Top Video Sales Chart in the February of its release, have not assuaged front man and lyricist Vincent Bennett’s turmoil. For “Wormwood,” the band returned to the scene of the creation of “Continent;” producer Zeus’ of Planet Z Studio in Hadley, MA, who has previously worked with the likes of Hatebreed, The Red Chord, All That Remains and more, engineered, mixed and mastered the slab of vitriol. This time around, we find guitarist, D.L. experimenting with 8 string guitars, adding further depth and low end to the band’s already stomach-turning low end sound. “Wormwood” peaked at #67 on the U.S. Billboard charts, signaling metal fans’ increasing affinity for the band’s sheer musical passion and vicious brand of heaviness. The band appeared on last year’s “Cool Tour” with As I Lay Dying, Underoath, Between the Buried And Me, Blessthefall, Architects, Cancer Bats and War of Ages. The band’s extensive tour history has them on the road with acts such as Whitechapel, Unearth, Bleeding Through, Killswitch Engage, Despised Icon and August Burns Red. They have also appeared on The Sounds of the Underground Tour and will be a must-see addition to this summer’s Vans Warped Tour. THE ACACIA STRAIN were formed in 2002 in Western Massachusetts, and have gone through a variety of line ups, even, at one point having three guitars, but have played in their current incarnation since 2006. That line up consists of vocalist Vincent Bennett, bassist Jack Strong, guitarist Daniel “DL” Laskeiwitz and drummer Kevin Boutot.
Tautologic is an eclectic progressive rock band based in Chicago. The band was formed in 1997 as a vehicle for founding members Ethan Sellers’ and Pat Buzby’s eclectic musical compositions and off-beat lyrics. The group’s richly orchestrated recordings have garnered the band praise for its inventive arrangements, performed by some of Chicago’s best musicians.
Tautologic has released two CDs to international critical acclaim and radio airplay, making at least one critic’s year-end best-of list. The band has performed on the stage at various clubs, radio stations, and television shows in Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and the Minneapolis-area.
Tautologic writes lyrics and constructs rock operas about things drawn from life like burnout roommates and their psychotic crack-whore girlfriends, tube socks, crazy homeless people, indie hipsters, quasi-terroristic rants against totalitarian utility companies, and anything else that entertains and/or irritates Sellers and Buzby in real life.
In days of old when men were men a mighty band was forged. This quartet of debonair stoner rock hero’s was dubbed Team Hoss. Since the year 2000 A.D the group has sonically raped and pillaged their way across planet Earth like a Mongol horde on meth leaving a trail of broken hearts and bleeding eardrums in their wake. Get your daily dose of ferocious fuzz here.
Berklee grad Ted Sirota has been a steady presence in the Chicago music scene for two decades. While he is perhaps best known for his late Saturday night gig with Sabertooth at the Green Mill and his own group, the Rebel Souls, he has worked with a long list of great musicians including Von Freeman, Greg Osby, Bobby Broom, Eddie Kirkland, Jeff Parker and hundreds of others. His Rebel Souls draw on myriad styles, including afro-pop, funk, reggae, ska and hip-hop. “Sirota turns in one of the most inspiring, integrational “jazz” performances since Charlie Haden’s first Liberation Music Orchestra album… The sheer musical and emotional range of this band is startling.” – Thom Jurek
Ted Wulfers is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Born and raised in the Chicago-land area, he splits his time between Chicago and Los Angeles but calls the road his home. He is the leader of the Ted Wulfers Band and also performs solo acoustic. As a rootsy rocker, his combination of Heartland rock, Stadium pop, Stonesy swagger, California cool and Texas twang has earned him comparisons to Tom Petty, Wilco, The Foo Fighters, Chris Isaak, Dierks Bentley, Kid Rock, Kings of Leon, Lyle Lovett and The Wallflowers. His ability as a performer to connect with listeners keeps him busy for 50-200 shows a year.
Ray Carlisle – vocals/guitar // Kody Templeman – vocals/guitar
Miguel Chen – bass/vocals // Darren Chewka – drums/vocals
They’ve toured the world countless times. They kept the leather jacket-and-Converse look alive through an increasingly neon landscape. They’ve written songs about KISS, Top Gun and Minecraft. Hell, they’ve even been on CNN a few times! Please welcome back to the spotlight Wyoming’s own Teenage Bottlerocket, whose ninth album, the 12-track Sick Sesh! — traffic-cone-orange cover art and all — will be released 08/27/2021 on Fat Wreck Chords.
“This record is 12 songs because 14 was too long,” cracks vocalist/guitarist Ray Carlisle. “We wanna keep the energy up.”
Recorded in November 2020 at the Blasting Room (the band’s eighth straight full-length with producer Andrew Berlin), Sick Sesh! is a little bit rougher around the edges than the last few TBR albums, from the haunting “Statistic” to the panic-inducing “Strung Out On Stress” to the buzzsaw lead of “Semi Truck.” According to Carlisle, that was on purpose.
“We spent a lot of time on guitar tones this time around — that was important for us,” he says. ““We made sure to bring the noisy, loud, irritate your fuckin’ mom guitar back. There’s a ton of intentional guitar noise and feedback. We dug up the amps we used for Freak Out! and They Came From The Shadows. This is punk rock, after all. Stay Rad! Is a great record, but it’s very radio friendly. I wanted to do the opposite of that: Let’s get fuckin’ noisy.”
While the bulk of Sick Sesh! was written in January 2020 (with “Statistic” actually co-written between Carlisle and his son Milo), the COVID pandemic allowed for the band to take a little extra time for fine tuning, and the resulting tracks are some of the most stylistically diverse on the record. First up, there’s the Templeman-penned “Strung Out On Stress,” the fastest, angriest track on Sick Sesh!, all about losing your mind during the pandemic. On the flipside, there’s the mid-tempo, melodic track “The Squirrel,” written by bassist Miguel Chen and sung by Templeman, that’s literally about a cute little rodent.
“He had too much time on his hands during the pandemic,” Carlisle jokes. “How did it become a Teenage Bottlerocket song? I’m not sure. But it has the best guitar lead we’ve ever written!”
Chen also wrote the infectious sing-along “Ghost Story” as well as the album-closing “Moving On,” which marks the first time Carlisle has ever sung Chen’s lyrics on a Teenage Bottlerocket album. The song, about the bassist’s decision to move from his hometown of Laramie, Wyoming, to Texas to be with his ailing father, demonstrates a new side of Teenage Bottlerocket that’s reflective, wistful and dare we say a little mature. (“It felt good to sing that one,” says Carlisle.)
With more than 100 original songs already in their catalog, how does the band stay motivated when they’re eight records deep?
“We’re always in competition with ourselves,” Carlisle explains. “The real competition is between me and Kody. It’s like, ‘You wrote a song that destroys everything else on this record. Let me try to do that to you real quick. How’s that feel?” And then he comes back and one ups me.
“It’s all about the songs,” he continues. “The songs carry this record all the way. That’s not to say there are bad songs on our other records — we have a hard time releasing a shitty song. But these songs are especially great. You know ALL’s best-of record where Allroy is dissecting a musical note? I felt we kind of tapped into that record in a great way, not in a ‘Oh no, they’re experimental now!’ way. This is a Teenage Bottlerocket record through and through, but there’s a lot of hidden elements.”
Carlisle’s pride about Sick Sesh! is obvious, but he’s not the only one who loves the album.
“Fat Mike called me and said, ‘Hey, this is your best record,” Carlisle recalls. “I said, ‘Cool, thanks for noticing.’”
With Sick Sesh! ready to drop, Teenage Bottlerocket will return to the road once more throughout 2021 and beyond, and you can expect to hear plenty of new tracks peppered into their already high-energy sets. Given that the band is already two decades old, however, is there any chance of the band slowing down? Carlisle shoots that idea down right away.
“I want to have the best next 10 years,” the singer says. “We’ve grinded the grind. Now we get to actually enjoy being a band, and not think too much about different ways to try and ‘make it.’ We’re riding this wave we built ourselves. I wanna surf it for another 10 years.”
Well there you have it: The three things in life can always count on are death, taxes and Teenage Bottlerocket. But before Carlisle signs off, he has a question for all the fans out there,
“What’s your favorite Teenage Bottlerocket song?” he asks. “Bzzt! Wrong answer. It’s on this record, you just haven’t heard it yet.”
Simply put, Teenage Rehab is a punk rock band. After a decade of touring, recording and releasing albums Teenage Rehab have won over many fans in America and beyond. In an age where emo,screamo, and indie have all but replaced punk music, Teenage Rehab stand out as the pocket of resistance against mainstream and underground trends in music.
Since forming in 1988, Tempest has delivered a globally-renowned hybrid of high-energy Folk Rock fusing Irish reels, Scottish ballads, Norwegian influences and other world music elements. The last 26 years have seen the San Francisco Bay Area based act release fifteen critically acclaimed CDs and play more than 2,000 gigs. It’s also enjoyed an evolving line-up that’s enabled musicianship and creativity to rise with each new member.
Hailing from Oslo, Norway, founding member and lead singer/electric mandolinist, Lief Sorbye, is recognized as a driving force in the modern folk-rock movement. He started Tempest after years of touring and recording on the folk circuit. San Francisco fiddler Kathy Buys brings her international award winning playing to the Tempest stage. Her experience performing world-fusion music with high energy dance bands combined with many years of playing Irish traditional music in America and Ireland makes her a perfect fit for Tempest. The newest member is Josh Fossgreen, an exceptional young talent whose innovative bass textures add a rich dimension to the Tempest soundscape. Born in Colorado and brought up in small town Missouri, Gregory Jones is the latest in a long line of Tempest guitar greats! His fiery licks and hard-rocking approach to the instrument, combined with his experience and understanding of Celtic music is a fast favorite with fans, new and old alike! Cuban-born drummer Adolfo Lazo, an original Tempest member, colors the band’s sound with inventive rhythms, and rock-steady drumming.
Signed to Sony-distributed Magna Carta Records, Tempest’s releases are acclaimed worldwide. The group’s latest studio CD, The Tracks We Leave, may be the bands most exciting work to date, as their unique blend of world music elements showcases inventive new original and traditional material.
Tempest is regularly featured at prestigious festivals including The Philadelphia Folk Festival, Denmark’s Skagen Festival, Britain’s Cropredy Festival and The Winnipeg Folk Festival in Canada. The band is also a mainstay at countless American Celtic festivals.
You’ve heard our name, you’ve seen our records, our t-shirts and our stickers. We’re probably the favorite band of someone you know and yet maybe we’re still a mystery to you. Well my friend, that’s okay, you’re at the right place to get to know the greatest rock-n-roll band in the world, The Supersuckers.
And the next time you see the ‘Supersuckers’ name, whether it’s in the record store, online somewhere, or on the marquee at your local rock club, know that there’s some quality, honest, ass-kicking, hard working individuals behind it all trying to make your life a little better through the “Evil Powers Of Rock-n-Roll” (and the occasional detour into the country music, of course) and we’d love nothing better than to have you there with us as! Just remember to wear clean underwear, because we’re gonna rock your pants right off of you.
Fathme Records plague metal artist Surachai has been clearing dance floors for years leaving only true worshippers of metal. Providing punishing disjointed blast beats and spitting out non-time signatures, the once ‘breakcore’ categorized Surachai has been mending it’s own path. Focusing purely on melting off faces, he heavily relies on modular synthesizers to provide a crushing tower of sound. He currently runs the infamous Trash_Audio blog and shade:red record label with Justin McGrath.
SutureSelf is a female-fronted Chicago electronic/industrial band that was originally formed as a solo-project in 2001 but evolved into a four-piece in 2009. Incorporating elements of metal, goth, EBM, and cinematic music, the band is hard to categorize. SutureSelf released a five song EP in 2010 and their first full-length album in October of 2011. The band recently signed with Beyond Therapy Records and released an album of remixes in September of 2012.
More than two decades of despair, beauty, and heartache have not only shaped but fueled Finnishmelancholy torchbearers, the chart-topping and two-time Finnish Grammy nominated Swallow TheSun. Formed in Jyväskylä in 2000, the quintet has enjoyed numerous fan-lauded music videos(10+ million YouTube views) and streaming dominance (50+ million Spotify plays), while alsoembarking on a four-continent, 900-show run throughout their 23-year career. The new album,Shining, however, is the group’s first step on the new path to the unknown.Shining is an exceptional album, not only because of the beauty and sheer power of the songs, butbecause this time the band searched for something new, something bright, something that will takethem to new spheres.Dan Lancaster, two-time Grammy nominee producer (Bring Me The Horizon, Muse, Don Broco,Blink 182, Enter Shikari, etc.), had the privilege to dive into the new Swallow The Sun material.This unexpected combination, and him producing the album, created something that Swallow TheSun has never experienced before. The leap into the unknown created an album that will blow youaway!Shining the latest album from Swallow the Sun, encapsulates the profound duality of the humanexperience and the band's enduring brilliance. The album explores the intrinsic challenges of beinghuman, contrasting the beauty and purity within individuals with the transformation that occurswhen we come together, chasing us away from innocence like rats from Eden. It highlights thestruggle and disillusionment in human interactions, dealing with a deep carved fear of life, and howmelancholy can slowly turn into your God.Marking 23 years of their musical progression, Shining also symbolizes the band's pride andresilience, showcasing their brightest and strongest work to date. This album is a testament toSwallow the Sun's artistic legacy, intertwining existential reflections with their characteristicmajestic sound. Shining – or the “Black Album” of Death Doom, as the bassist Matti Honkonencalls this album – was produced and mixed by Dan Lancaster, mastered by Tony Lindgren(Fascination Street Studios), and recorded by Juho Räihä at SoundSpiral Audio, except vocalsrecorded by Dan Lancaster. The artwork is by Rami Mursula.
Sweet Cobra formed in 2002 with drummer Jason Gagovski (Suicide Note) and vocalist/bassist Botchy Vasquez (The Killer). Guitarists Robert Lanham and Matt Arluck later joined on to complete the line-up. The band made its debut on Seventh Rule Recordings with “Praise,” introducing Sweet Cobra’s boundary defying sound. Picking up where “Praise” left off is 2007’s “Forever,” originally released through Hawthorne Street Records. “Forever” offers eight songs, encompassing a similar reefer madness, with production by Greg Norman (Pelican) and mixed by Sanford Parker (Minsk) at Volume Studios.
