Sunday Edition: June 22nd, 2008

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Hello everybody and welcome to Navel Gazing: your look back at the week in Punknews. I'm Adam White and I'll be your guide through some of the most popular, notable, and otherwise attention getting stories of the past seven days. Each and every Punknews story is built from tips contributed by you fine folks, and here's what got the community talking...

The People Must Have Something Good To Read On A Sunday
This week's most popular stories

This is the season of tours and festivals and that's what dominated the news this week. Looking ahead to the fall we saw the formal announcement that
The Fest will again rock Florida with their seventh year. The Warped Tour is underway and organizers are striving to make the summer ritual environmentally sustainable. Against Me! appeared on the
Tonight Show and frontman Tom Gabel announced solo appearances with Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry and Ben Nichols of Lucero. Canuck indie darlings Tegan & Sara and Alexisonfire offshoot City & Colour announced shows together this fall. This week had it's share of offbeat news as well. A Boston paper discussed punks in the freemasons, over the hill rockers KISS accused Radiohead of contributing to the demise of the recording industry, Escape The Fate's former singer was caught by police and Rolling Stone tore apart the new TV show from Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz.

Digital music's still a small slice of the pie but it's showing some muscle with the announcement that Apple's iTunes store has sold
5 billion songs. Coming to a store (physical and otherwise) soon will be Alkaline Trio's new one, of which there'll be a deluxe version and, um, matching shoes. Christian metalcore act The Devil Wears Prada will release their next via Ferret. Rise Against has recorded the song
"Little Boxes" for use on the TV show Weeds. On the streaming music front we checked out Rotation by Cute Is What We Aim For and Against Me!'s "So Much More". We also lent a curious ear to Greg Graffin's son's band The Rolemodels.

This week we're also asking for your advice. Punk and politics are often closely intertwined, but how (if at all) should we approach the upcoming US election? Do we cover politics here on Punknews? Do we leave it to the experts? Let us know what you want from your Org.

I Can't Control My Fingers I Can't Control My Brain
New feature content, weekly columns and exclusives

The Asian Man Records tour is in full effect and we had a little sit down with the bands involved for a group chat. Check out the interview with Kepi Ghoulie, Jeff of Bomb the Music Industry!, Alexander of Lemuria, Sean from Andrew Jackson Jihad and Joe Queer of The Queers.

Our Video of the Week featured Scranton, Pennsylvania's Menzingers performing live in Richmond, Virginia.

This week's Editors' Picks recommended music from Dublin's Heathers and Calgary's Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir.

This week also brought new Streaming Music from

Philadelphia's Jekylnhyde,

three new songs from Mark Lind and The Unloved,

and

a full album stream from Austin, TX-based Driver F.

Click Read More to check out our ongoing contests, recent streaming music and more.

So what's coming up this week? Look for releases from Less Than Jake, Steve E. Nix and the Cute Lepers, Cancer Bats and LaGrecia with tours kicking off from Butthole Surfers (US / UK), King Khan and the Shrines (US / Can), and H2O (Europe).

Radio Free Punknews
Streaming music

Check the Punknews Music page to stream all sorts of anticipated new music including

eclectic Ohio-based act nsdwhoa,

Vicenza, Italy's Sun Eats Hours,

Richmond, VA's Mouthbreather,

the debut full length from pop punk act Lipona,

Kevin Seconds' new solo album Rise Up, Insomniacs!,

two new full lengths from former Groovie Ghoulies frontman Kepi Ghoulie,

Manchester ska act Sonic Boom Six,

Amarillo, TX-based surf/punk outfit The Mag Seven,

and

the long-awaited new album from The A.K.A.s on industrial powerhouse Metropolis Records.

It's Funny, I Don't Feel Like a Winner
Contests

Win stuff from Killing The Dream
In a few days, Killing the Dream will be releasing their second Deathwish, Inc full length. The record is titled Fractures and is due out June 10, 2008. It is the follow-up to In Place, Apart which was released in 2005. To celebrate, the label has given us some CDs and vinyl to give away as well as some of Deathwish's famous posters.

Weezer - "The Red Album"
So, by now we've figured out that Weezer dig colors. Their newest record, The Red Album, was recently released, and the band is giving away some free stuff. We've got some CD's, a vinyl single and some posters to give away to a few lucky winners.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad
This month Vice released the DVD of the critically acclaimed documentary about aggressive music in Iraq, Heavy Metal in Baghdad. The film primarily focuses on Acrassicauda, one of the few bands that dared to play Western music in the dangerously sectarian Iraq. To celebrate the release, the label has provided a copy of the DVD and a poster autographed by the band for one winner here at Punknews.org.

Win stuff from A Wilhelm Scream, Living With Lions
New Bedford Massachusetts' A Wilhelm Scream are embarking on the "Famoose Friends & Fashion Pelts Tour" across Canada this summer with special guests, Living With Lions
For every Canadian show on the tour, the bands will be providing two tickets, a copy of
Career Suicide and an AWS shirt, a copy of Living With Lion's Make Your Mark and a big of Atticus Merch. At the end, each winner will be part of a grand prize draw for an even bigger Atticus prize package.

Win a record player from Less Than Jake
Less Than Jake, who are about to release GNV/FLA on their own Sleep it Off Records want to offer one reader the opportunity to take home not only a copy of the record, but also a portable record player to play it on. Wait, it gets better. Tthe portable record player is hand-painted by Richard Minino, the artist responsible for the new album's artwork. Just to make the deal even sweeter, Less Than Jake will be throwing their signatures onto the record packaging.

Tonight We're Gonna Give It 35%
Staff blogs and side projects

Your trusty Punknews staffers and reviewers have all sorts of projects on the go, everything from poorly spelled and oft neglected blogs to big official world domination schemes.

Make sure to check out
editor and videographer Chris Moran collection of recordings online at Vimeo,
editor Justin August's actually updated blog Kinder Words,
editor Adam White's blog 2:59,
and
editor Jesse Raub's webzine Bitter Press.

Super Powers Enable Me To Blend In With Machinery
Social networking links

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