March 18th, 2007
by Sunday Edition

It's Sunday March 18th, 2007. So we now have a precedent that when super heroes die their weaponry is given to comedians. We need to think this through and make some decisions before the next tragedy, just so we're not caught off guard. I'd hate to give Iron Man's armor to David Cross only to find out he's scared of flying or claustrophobic or something like that. It'd be embarrassing.

The people must have something good to read on a Sunday New Maps Of Hell, baby! We were thrilled this week to bring you news on the next Bad Religion record, a 17 track monster set to hit stores on July 10th. The old Dead Kennedys fued reared its ugly head this week, as Jello Biafra spoke out against his former bandmates' plans to license a song to the Quentin Tarantino / Robert Rodriguez double feature "Grindhouse." Green Day's putting together a cover of Lennon's "Working Class Hero" to benefit Amnesty's campaign to end the Darfur genocide. On a less dire note, they're also in the Simpsons movie. Davey Havok and Jade Puget of AFI finally released music from their electronic side-project Blaqk Audio, a band that's been in the works for several years now without any output. Of course we can't have a week with some sort of weird Fall Out Boy news, and this one tops them all. The mainstream pop rockers have plans to release posters inked in their own blood.

Everyone broke up this week. Under tragic circumstances street punks Cheap Sex are no more. Punknews helped them get noticed, but now we can report that Matchbook Romance has announced the dreaded infinite hiatus. We're left with one less Simpsons-referencing pop-punk band, as Madison, WI's I Voted For Kodos is gone. Finally the ever controversial Ramallah called it a day. Ditto Victory act Scars of Tomorrow. A number of new releases were discussed this week, including Propagandhi's upcoming DVD, the next record from Canadian pop-punks Sum 41, and a new record from ska-punks the Mad Caddies. To cap it off, we had one of our traditional monthly Sex Pistols arguments, as we celebrated the 30 year anniversary of the band's A&M swindle.

Our MP3 Of The Week introduced you to the Virginia Beach's No Brass and Philadelphia's Bookburner. We also spoke with members of the Riverboat Gamblers (interview) and San Francisco's Set Your Goals (interview). If you, like me, grew up with Short Music for Short People soundtracking your teenage years, you're absolutely going to love the stream from Short Attention.

Click Read More to see this week's streaming music, contests and more.

Radio Free Punknews

Check the Punknews Music page to stream all sorts of anticipated new music including the new full length from Smoke Or Fire, the split between Boston ska act Big D & The Kids Table and Beijing punks Brain Failure, Ottawa punk bands the Riptides and Million Dollar Marxists, ex-Tsunami Bomb band Nothington, Sudbury power-pop act Statues, the split between Reel Big Fish and Zolof The Rock and Roll Destroyer, BÃ¥stad, Sweden's Sounds Like Violence, the new full length from Saw Wheel, an exclusive live acoustic song from the North Atlantic, and a preview of the upcoming debut from Sparta-related act Glos.

Suntans are for Winners A Billion Ernies Snapdragon Records is giving 10 lucky winners a copy of ska act A Billion Ernies' newest declaration, Stop Calling Us Ska!. Interested in a skankalicious copy of the ska band's new ska? Yeah? Ska? In order to enter you'll have to do a little groundwork. Just a little, we promise. Besides, by groundwork we mean click a couple links and listen to a song. Simple enough, right?

Fall Out Boy: Honda Civic Tour
Tickets are on-sale now for The 7th Annual Honda Civic Tour featuring multi-platinum artists Fall Out Boy with supporting acts Plus 44, Academy Is., Paul Wall, and Cobra Starship. The tour kicks off on April 18th in Charlotte, NC at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre. While at the show fans can also check out a tricked out Honda Civic Hybrid created and autographed by Fall Out Boy, and one lucky fan will drive away in it. While we're not giving away the car, we are giving away some pretty cool merchandise from the band and the tour. One winner will receive a copy of the band's new album, Infinity on High, as well as a copy of the 12-inch picture disc, a 7-inch vinyl single and a package of buttons. A runner up will win a copy of the album.

Take Action! Tour 2007 contest: Etnies, Hot Topic, lots of music
We're happy to bring you a special contest from Punknews.org and the Take Action! Tour. Winners will receive a whole mess of good stuff including a $150.00 Hot Topic gift card, $150.00 from Etnies, $50 from Downloadpunk.com, an Alternative Press subscription, Chord Magazine subscription, a tour prize pack with T-Shirt, poster and comp and a big pile of merch from every band on the tour.

Samsung phone, new discs from AFI, Brand New, more
Once again, Fanscape is stepping in to offer serious goods in exchange for a little information on your part and some additional fine print. One lucky grand prize winner will stretch their mailbox's capacity with a Samsung SGH-t809 phone, $100 in cash, a Samsung accessory pack, portable multimedia speakers, and three albums from either AFI, Brand New, Motion City Soundtrack, All-American Rejects or the Used. A first prize winner will get the phone, accessory pack and compact discs.

Staff Blogs

When not writing about music on the internet, many members of the Punknews staff find time to write about music on the internet. You can check out the depraved musings of Adam White at 2:59, while Chris Moran's all over the place with content rocking both MySpace and Flickr. Reviewer Jesse Raub posts short fiction and web comics to Things That Go Bump In My Head.

Life at Disconnect

We've theorized that you visit other websites out there, and we know it can be tough to leave the calming blue glow of the `Org, so we'll help by infecting the rest of the web with Punknews content. Waste some time on the Punknews.org and Punknews Records MySpace pages or contribute your listening habits to the weekly charts Last.fm group.

Come Join Us

Why register on Punknews.org? Registered users can rate bands and reviews, building recommendations and links between artists for the whole community to share and discover. Users get their own profile page showing recent comments, top rated bands and favourite records and more. So go ahead, cast off the cloak of anonymity and create your account today - it's free, easy and private.