You can listen here.

It’s poppy. It’s a move forward. I am interested to see how the new album will be. New guitar player, new backup vocals. I’m not going to be pessimistic though. It has a hook – but who doesn’t these days?

Here are a couple notable tours/festivals that will be happening:

Warped Tour – ALL SUMMER

Bamboozle & Road Show – May 09

All Points West Festival -

The JONAS BROTHERS (yes!!)

…I was going to list everything but I gave up.

I highly suggest getting the iConcertCalender for iTunes. It is a free add on and automatically searches the artists you have in iTunes – and tells you when they are playing. It’s all connected to JamBase. Make a profile, and share what places you will be going to this summer. And meet friends. And buy merch. And have fun.

If you enjoy – I recommend you doing the same. Check out Good Old War. They were members of a band called Days Away. You might have seen them on tour with Envy on the Coast in the past, and now they are on tour with the Gaslight Anthem. All fabulous bands. This might be the first time buying music since Ace Ender‘s “Bittersweet Symphony” cover, Forgive Durden‘s “Razia’s Shadow” or Sherwood‘s “A Different Light”. I just totally shouted out a bajillion bands.

It looks AWESOME.

Check it out here

The only downside is that we lost all the original users we had – so they all have to re-register.  But once they finish with that we will be good as new. I am pretty pumped.

We are going to be promoting outside of Bamboozle and Warped this year. Watch out!

There was a time when shows were $5. There were no presale tickets. Bands like Taking Back Sunday and Brand New were still playing bars.

In fact, one of my fondest memories of a show – when I was in 9th grade I went to Backstreet Blues and saw Yellowcard and the Starting Line – and it wasn’t sold out.

That is where I first heard about bands like Chance of Lifetime, High School Football Heroes, Patent Pending. Now only one of those bands still remains a band.

Its interesting to see what worked for the scene then. There were compilation CDS filled with local artists. And cheap shows.

All of that is history. None of it exists. But I hope to change that. With theSceneLife.com (thats where I got the idea for this blog..) I hope to get a scene back. A world, the Internet, to promote LI happenings. And hopefully, in turn, bands will come out again – people were come out again.

So, Buddy from Senses Fail has recently spoken out against BrokenCYDE or whatever its spelled (how inconvenient are the capital letters…seriously!!):

“Yeah, I slam them every night because in no way, shape or form do I back anything they do or say and I am embarrassed that kids these days are into it and am sad that kids these days are exposed to it. There is absolutely no substance whatsoever in their songs and no passion in anything they do. It is the musical equivalent of a snow cone, bland tasting frozen tap water loaded with sugar, yet colorful, that will give you a brain freeze, melt all over your hands leaving yourself dissatisfied and sticky. They seem like pretty harmless guys but if I don’t voice my opinion on what I think about Brokencyde then I have no right to ever speak up about any other injustices to the music scene in the future. There are only going to be more Brokencydes in the coming months with Millionaires, Breath Carolina and countless other mindless white suburban hip-hop “acts” popping up. I never thought Id say this but this new wave of horse shit makes me look back and not hate Atom and His Package because at least he was original. I know I am not going to change anything, there will still be 14 year old girls that like their colorful merch and there terrible club beats but if I can make one person at least question the authenticity and integrity of singing the words “let’s get freaky now, let’s get fucking freaky now” then I think it is well worth the effort.”

It is AMAZING. Mainly cause I am not a fan of the band too, and I don’t like a lot of the new music that is becoming popular. If that doesn’t do it for you…Anthony from Bayside‘s response from his tumblr…

“Hell yeah. Buddy sent me a text message about this the other night. This is hillarious. Me and you on Warped this summer with all this nonsense dude. We’ll sweep up the fucking streets”

And if that isn’t enough, there is now more or less a petition to get them off Warped tour. View that here.

I think its amazing, because I LOVE Internet drama. Bands like BrokenCYDE have been hurting the scene. I have a similar feeling about a certain group of synth-pop bands. It is true every so often you will catch me listening to someone with synth, but sometimes its way to much.

This was too good to NOT post. It’s a shame Bamboozle has the band covering a “crunk’d” set. LAME.

I have been booking since age 16 – when my parents had to sign contracts for me to rent a hall. I used to have bands play and they would bring all these people – pack the place to 200-300 kids (when only 100 people were legally allowed in…). I would pay all the bands that played. Everyone would be happy.

Then I let some other folks book shows.

After that…people did drugs, drank beer at the shows. The shows got shut down and no one could book at those halls anymore. It was over.

Until I found a new place. However it was much more expensive.

Say a venue costs $800 (which one of the ones I work at do..)

At $10 a pop, you need at least 80 people in to break even.

Laws make it so only 150 people could be in the club at a time.

Do the math, thats $1500 – $800 leaves room for at least $700 profit.

But its not always profit. You should pay bands that do well and touring acts. Factor in at least another $200-$300 in. So most of my shows give a $400 profit. But I am also a nice guy and give out a lot more money to locals.

Basically, so I know that at least $800 comes in – I put on 4 local bands at 20 tickets, or $200. That gurentees me paying for the venue. I let them keep whatever after – usually another 5-10 tickets ($50-$100 respectively..).

If they bring more in through the door they make $5 a head.

All in all, everyone walks away happy. And Long Island has a scene again.

Unfortunately, after this weekend, I am no longer doing shows for a while.

We recorded before we had songs – we created them on the spot. It was something totally different then what I am used to. Basically we jammed in January, came up with stuff but scratched some, combined some. I have to say, we sounded pretty solid for practicing everything for the first time tonight. We just got the songs only 2.5 days ago. So awesome.

Our first show is going to be March 22nd at the Crazy Donkey. I am pretty psyched because it will be my first time hitting the stage since the last TGAD show back in October of 2007.

(Fun Fact #45: I actually played bass guitar at a TC show in October…)
Sweet!

However, every so often you need a break.

Last night I came home from our last weekend shows for the next two months. It hasn’t hit officially yet – but we aren’t going out again until late May.
It has been an exhausting couple months, but we a got a lot of work done.
Now each of us are going to do our part to ready the van, and ourselves, for a grueling 3-month tour.

Tour doesn’t start until June but I am going to start booking now. You must start early. TONS of bands “go on tour” in the summer (even if its for a week or two – certainly still a tour…)
You have a lot of competition. Make yourself special.

We are fixing up the van in due time. If that thing is taking us to CA and back, we want to make sure its ready. You don’t want to get stuck in a random road off I-80 in the midwest.

Even though we won’t be out playing for 2 months, we are definitely promoting. We are going to go out to malls every other weekend, utilize MySpace more, and just interact with fans.

The new site, www.dobslovearmy.com is going to connect the fans we have met on the road. I think all of these things are important. Every band does it their own way.

For me, I am also picking up an instrument for the first time in 2 years.
www.myspace.com/thepromiserock