Its been one hot minute hasn’t it?

Yes it is.

We’ve been busy doing the band thing and all that jazz. See, this is why I’m posting right this moment because of said band news. We’ve been swamped with projects here in the Commune that its hard to keep up!

Lately, we here have been bitten by the “skramz” (what a really dumb term) bug and its evident with the future releases that are gonna pop up the next few weeks. Like that 4-way split.

Yes, 4-way split. Bands in this are Ana Pascal, Two Houses, canopies & grapes, and The Kate Dollenmayer Collective. If you’re fast enough (meaning not retarded) you’ll notice that 2 of those bands are new names here in the Commune.

canopies & grapes (yes, its lowercase) is an acoustic/emo project from two friends of different bands, namely Ana Pascal and Laguna band Kzario. It was born, so they say, when both were high and playing tunes to pass the time. Oh and disclaimer, it may be acoustic but its wayyyy far off from your Suckboard Confessional BS. Recorded with a very lo-fi touch, its something you might hear when actual emo bands play acoustic songs (think Thoughts Paint the Sky minus the full band setup). Or at least, that’s what those fuckers we’re hoping for.

While, The Kate Dollenmayer Collective is a collective (no shit, Sherlock!) of people playing really fucking sloppy hardcore, or what some would call “emo violence” (YET ANOTHER STUPID TERM). Its like these dudes are playing for the first time with real instruments, making them either a really easy to hate band (Musicbanter.com’s HC/Emo forum loathes these guys) or some band that you could brag about to your “false emo” friends. There’s no middle ground. The premise here is, they make music with whoever is there, with whatever equipment available. So it could be 2 people playing or easily 10, if possible. These fuckers wear their Emo Summer hearts on their sleeves, its embarrassing and at the same time enthralling to listen to. I’ll be putting up their 3 EP in a couple of days, which we are releasing as a floppy disk for physical copies. Keep your eyes and ears in your pockets.

Also, Two Houses. These 3 dudes are playing screamo sorta in the vein of those 2 man screamo bands (Ezra Joyce, Allegory of the Cave/Cheer Up!, etc.) last Kev (the guy from defunct Means to No End and the also defunct zine Unamused) and I spoke. But they’re 3 now, so I really don’t know. What I know is, is they’re from Lucena and part of the Sleepy Eye Collective — kinda like a Lucena version of PKi! minus being assholes — and they’re here to take names. Lots of names.

The split would have 2 songs from each band. Ana Pascal would record shit for this exclusively.

Now that’s out of the way, on to other news. Remember that weirdo noise band a few posts back? Yeah, the dudes with the morse code for a name. We still don’t know the band member’s names, and it looks like they have no plans in telling us. Although, what they did tell us is: they are working on new stuff. More expiremental noise stuff with an album tentatively titled The Traveler’s Guide to the Tempest. Sounds fucking epic. And knowing (well ok, not really) this band, its bound to be epic. Also, it promises to be more “out there” compared to their first release For Daniel, Laura, Ian, and Paul. They finished up 2 songs and is now up on their Myspace. You should really go listen to their track Purple in the Morning, Blue in the Afternoon, and Orange in the Evening. Its a mind fuck. You don’t know if they’re planning to go all “psychedelic” on you or continue the old school shit of Joan of Arc. And there’s actual vocals. Dunno if you’ll call that singing though.

As for the compilation — This is not the OC, This is BF — its been in a hold up. But we promise that we’ll work on it really soon. Like really, really soon. And I think folk-pop band Save the Sea Monkeys! are game with contributing a track of theirs. Still need to talk to them. So far people in it are: arthaus*, Happy Boy, Spazzkid, Dead Chasing Daylight, Cosby Sweater, Don’t Bogart the Can… Man, the Treblinka Love Scene, Sarcasm, flukeofevolution!, Laptop Avengers, El Explorador, and Legarda. So yes, Save the Sea Monkeys! is tentative (although they said yes already, still need to clear things up) as well as Kill Cathari. Still need to talk to Jeri about their recording and stuff.

And lastly, Charles Manson and The Manson Family. Yes that Manson, and yes that Family. We’ve been rocking their “apocalyptic bard” (tag from last.fm, fucking hilarious) tuneage around these parts a lot lately, and after reading Helter Skelter (found a SECOND EDITION PRINTING in Booksale) people are just going bat shit. No, we have no plans in killing anyone. What we do plan is a Commune wide project focusing on good ol’ Charlie boy and his fam. Concept albums and EPs about anything Manson related! Holy shit! We’re all going to hell for this. First release would be The Kate Dollenmayer Collective’s Charles’ Will is Man’s Son Volume 1. They’re working on it as we speak. Next release? Who knows!