Silverstein – Short Songs
Release date: February 7, 2012

I’ve never heard these guys, but I can only assume that no matter how good they actually were, they were terrible. After all, they were on Victory during the label’s great decline in the early 2000s. Whatever their quality, few things scream rock and roll more than broken guitars and a grungy sans serif.

:: Sleigh Bells will be playing on SNL on Feb 18th.

:: CD Baby artists got 77% of their digital revenues from the iTunes Store.

:: The royalties are starting to roll in from Apple’s iTunes Match.

:: Lisa Coverdale is interviewed in this weeks, Girls Don’t Like Metal column by Natalie Zina Walschots.

Did Get Up Kids singer Matt Pryor know that Something to Write Home About would go on to be such an important album?

Anybody who says that they were making an “important” album is either an idiot or an asshole. You’re just trying to make a good record. How it’s interpreted throughout history is not up to you at all. It’s completely up to everyone else. I don’t know that what we did is important. I’ve been told by lots of people that they like it and some of those people are in successful bands but most of them aren’t.

Bleached is made up of the Clavin sisters — Jennifer and Jessica — who previously played in Mika Miko. This time around, however, things are less raucous. Jennifer told the Washington Post:

I mean it doesn’t feel as punk. Bands that are punk, they don’t really have plans. [With Mika Miko] it was just, let’s start a band and play music. And now we’re actually trying to write good songs and caring a little bit more. Before we didn’t really care.

:: It’s like history class, only cooler: 10 bewilderingly underrated post-punk bands you need to hear.

:: When Shelby Earl talks about an artist (in this case, Jonsi), you should pay attention.

:: Metallica is doing an indie rock music festival in Atlantic City, N.J.

Cheap Girls played a few songs for Nervous Energies, including their latest single, Communication Blues.

The band’s third album, Giant Orange, comes out Feb. 21 on Rise Records. You can hear the album version of Communication Blues over at Spin.

Not only did The Seedy Seeds give us this badass video to premiere, they also gave us the lowdown on how it contains, as they put it, “Nostradamus-level sorcery.” It’s a magical video on its own, but it’s even more magical when you know the story.

And just for reference, this is one of many videos the Seeds are planning to release in 2012. Every track on their last album, Verb Noun, is getting the video treatment.

Here’s a bit of a backstory, since this kind of popped up. We contacted the director, Dominik, in the middle of 2010 to make a video for Telephone the Constrictor. We wanted stop-motion, he had done some great work, we were pumped, he was pumped, etc.

Dominik spent the next year or so making the video, and the original concept was to use stop-motion with a person as the subject — which is an extremely difficult thing to do, since humans don’t sit still exactly for months on end. Especially this one, as the main actress actually got pregnant in the middle of the filming!

At the end of a long pile of work, Dominik let us know that he just wasn’t able to deliver what he wanted and what we wanted, and he would need more help and it just didn’t look like it was going to happen. But he still loved the idea, and he grew a brand new concept, and with the help of his sister Bianca, they worked to create what you see. They completed a rough cut for a film competition and he sent us the version they entered, which at this point is around November 2011.

Now here’s some crazy stuff. Being based on the West Coast, Dominik was working basically in a bubble with extremely few contacts from us — we knew he was working on something, he was trying to do it, he didn’t need input from us, we didn’t bother him about it. So in November when he sent us the rough cut, we were floored.

Not only was it totally awesome, but it included some Nostradamus-level sorcery and future-telling that he would have absolutely no way to know about, since he started working on it months before these things actually happened, and we hadn’t even said more than a few sentences to him that entire year.

VIDEO: Starts with Margaret rescuing a puppy in our band vehicle, in this case a viking boat.

REALITY: On September 5, 2011, Margaret actually rescued a puppy, while driving the band van in Newport KY, and took it back to my house and his name is Charley and I love him.

VIDEO: Towards the end, Brian, our former drummer, disappears down a drain plug in the bathtub

REALITY: Brian actually did leave the band in November 2011, months after this video was in production and just a few weeks before Dominik sent us the rough cut.

VIDEO: After Brian disappears and Margaret and I are trying to figure stuff out, the puppy returns and we love him!

REALITY: After rescuing the puppy, we tried everything possible to find his rightful owner; after a few weeks, we had already fallen in love with Charley, and his owner called and said she was going to pick him up the next day. That night we played an outdoor festival in Dayton, Ohio, and we brought Charley along for one last hurrah. After a long night of tearful goodbyes, we went to work the next day knowing it would be the last we would see of our beloved dog. BUT THEN! The other owner never called back, stopped returning phonecalls, and never picked him up, so I came home from work to find an adorable puppy that was mine to love and hold forever!

So yeah. Hope you enjoy!

-Mike + TSS

Back in June 2011, East Hundred self-released The Spells. The Philadelphia band recorded the album live in the studio as a full band.

The band was recently nominated for Indie Pop Rock Band/Artist of the Year by Tri-State Indie, with a big awards show happening Feb. 26. “It’s pretty rad to be nominated,” Will told Buzzgrinder, “and be listed amongst so many other great regional musicians.”

East Hundred will be doing a live DVD/audio recording in early spring at a local show in Philadelphia.

:: Jesse Leach is back in Killswitch Engage.

:: Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade makes Fred Armisen’s playlist at the LA Times.

:: VEVO not paying indie labels? Gee, who would have thought?

:: Every song from every Super Bowl Commercial.

Jessica Dobson (Beck, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) is working with The Shins on their new album, Port of Morrow.

Also of importance, her band Deep Sea Diver is putting out History Speaks later this month. While you’re waiting, you can listen to a new track from the album, You Go Running.