For this week’s edition of the 7-inch corner, we pay tribute to the late Lance Hann, leader of J-Church who passed away early last week. Being down at the Fest this past weekend, Lance was definitely on the minds of many. Many shows began, ended with or featured some sort of commentry about Lance and the contributions he made to the scene we were all apart of that weekend, along with all the standards he helped maintain. I’ll admit, I was always a casual J-Church fan but the stuff I do have, I really dig. An example of this is the split between J-Church and Off With Their Heads entitled the Grin It And Bear It EP.  The two songs are examples of the type of pop punk that Lance Hann will forever be enshrined for. It also contains one of the best covers I’ve heard with their rendition of Snuff’s “Too Late.”

Everyone says Lance was one of the greatest people you could have possibly met. I may have never had the pleasure but we’ll always have the music to discover his messages. RIP Lance.

Tags: 7-Inch Corner, Album Review, J. Church, Off With Their Heads by Matthew
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I mean, honestly, what can I say about Joey “Shithead”Keithley that would properly serve his legacy? Besides being the father of hardcore, D.O.A and Joey have been a institution for nearly 30 years. Think about that… 3-0 YEARS people! While most of his peers from the time have either moved on to desk jobs or jail, Joey continues to hammer out songs and run Sudden Death Records. Pioneer, rebel, icon; Joey Shithead is all these things and will continue to be so until the day he dies. I recently had the pleasure of talking to Joey over the phone, while he was taking a break from his daily routine at Sudden Death.

So we’ll start off with Smash The State, you guys just put that DVD out recently. How did you guys decide on putting together the DVD, like compiling the early footage of DOA?

Joey: There’s a couple DVDs out there. There’s one of us called “Live At The Assassins Club” in England in 1985 or 1984 which is ok, it’s not bad. The sound quality is pretty good. There’s another one called “DOA: Greatest Shits” and that’s a collection of videos. I wanted to get something down to the raw, nitty gritty of what DOA was like live in those days and with the original lineup. I thought about doing a few of them, I had a lot of footage and I thought that it could all go on one package. It was just a matter of digging through all the tapes and a friend of mine dubbed them over from VHS. Just started going through them and seeing the stuff I thought might be interesting to people. I worked with what I had.

[Read more →]

Tags: D.O.A, Interview, Joey Shithead Keithley, News, interview by Matthew
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It was a crazy three days but I made it back from the Fest alive. While Bill and I go through the 300 plus pictures we took down in Gainesville, I just wanted to send out a huge thank you to Tony and everyone from No Idea for another great year. So much to talk about so be on the look out for the reviews, probably starting tomorrow.

Tags: News, The Fest, The Fest 6 by Matthew
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Deathwish, Inc. hardcore act Sex Positions have risen from their state of uncertainty and plan on becoming active once again. The group released their acclaimed self-titled album way back in 2004 and have gone through numerous lineup changes and shifts throughout the years. The Deathwish site sums it up best:

“After the release of their debut album, Sex Positions went through a drastic lineup change, losing members Rich Perusi, Mark DeGuilio, and John Blanchard. This left Eric Marcelino to assemble a whole new band, which later toured Europe, ironically enough, without him. Soon after and with little fanfare, version 2.0 drifted away into hiatus.

After talking on and off about possibly playing again since the band ended original members Rich, John, and Mark along with friends Sean Owen and Dave Kocses have finally begun playing and working on a come back as Sex Positions.”

The reunited group plans on playing their first show in Nashua, New Hampshire on November 24th.

Tags: News, reunion, sex positions by Jason
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After her life-changing recommendations in Garden State, acting goddess Natalie Portman is at it again. She recently curated a iTunes exclusive compilation for charity, featuring all the best of today’s indie rock. Portman recruited her current “new favorite band” Beirut to record an exclusive track for the album. Word on the street is that Zach Condon and company even asked her to sing on it, but scheduling conflicts prevented this (the jury is still out on whether this is a good thing or not). You can preview the exclusive track, “My Night With the Prostitute From Marseille,” here.

Tags: beirut, charity, natalie portman by Jason
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