During a recent campaign speech in Florida, John McCain warned the crowd “I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.” How’s that for optimism? According to political pundit and former Republican Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, a vote for McCain is basically a vote for war with Iran.

“You get John McCain in the White House, and I do believe we will be at war with Iran. There’s no doubt John McCain is going to be a war president. … His whole career is wrapped up in the military, national security. He’s in Putin’s face, he’s threatening the Iranians, we’re going to be in Iraq a hundred years.”

Buchanan’s not exaggerating about Iraq either. John McCain actually said he’s fine with that too:

He later clarifyied that troops could be there ‘thousand years’ or ‘a million years,’ for all he cares. Talk about legacy.

To make matter worse, John McCain is a certified Myspace STEALER:

John McCain’s people commandeered my world-renowned MySpace design template and did a few things wrong:

They did not credit me for the template, even though the template explicitly requested credit.

They used my own unmodified imagery, specifically for the “Contacting John McCain” table.

As if #2 wasn’t bad enough, the McCain crew is actually pulling their image directly from my server on each page load. So every time someone visits the McCain MySpace page, my bandwidth is being used to deliver part of the page! Bad McCain!

Luckily this led directly to lulz:

The McCain campaign of course immediately swung into action, dispatching their obviously crack squad of 1337 Myspace page cr34t0r5 to solve the problem. Or not.

So anyways, if you want a president who loves war, thinks the internet is a series of tubes, and looks like the emperor from Star Wars, VOTE MCCAIN ‘08!!111

Awhile ago we got a press kit from a band called Nothing Ever Stays. From listening to them and perusing over their track list, I’d categorize them under “emo alt rock” but they list themselves on MySpace as “Rock / Alternative / Indie”. Either way, it was just another CD to land on the desk of Daniel Taylor. Now that I think of it, I had tried to give it to James to see if he wanted to listen, but he’s more of a metal guy and his hesitance to accept it was obvious. So I gave it to Daniel.

They followed up with the usual email asking if I had received it, to which I replied “Yes, I passed it along to an editor and you can get in touch with him at daniel@synthesis.net”. They hit me back with “Brittany, you are amazing. Thank you so much. The guys and I love you already!!!!!!” (Yes, I got 6 exclamation points). I blushed and wrote back a quick “Xo” and moved on with my day. Surely never to hear from them again… so I thought.

TWO DAYS LATER… They send us a bigass package.

Daniel walks into the office, “Hey Brittany, you know that band, Nothing Ever Stays?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Wull, they sent you this Valentine’s Day teddy bear and chocolate kisses.”

“No wai!?”

He hands me their note:

“I heard from my sources (lol) that you also are a big SleepyTime Tea fan. This should hold you over for a while. The Kisses are for Brittany, since we can’t see her in person. Thanks”

I just checked out DT’s desk and on it are THREE boxes of SleepyTime Tea. (One could only know that Daniel is a fan of that tea from checking him out on MySpace. Talk about doing your research.)

Now I’m sitting here, listening to their CD, and it could be the Hershey Kisses, but I think I love this band. Thanks, Doug, Milan, Ryan and Davey! You made my day! XOXOXOXO

Check out their MySpace page and fall in love with them, too.

Today on Synthesis’ Long Winded and Unfortunately Titled Synthesis Band You’ve Never Heard of Band of the Day, we bring you a band that some have actually heard about. Seattle’s Iceage Cobra (originally from Spokane) has been around for a while and done a few national tours (including stops at media-whore mecca SXSW), and released a full length album, Brilliant Ideas from Amazing People. The album’s radical, but you want to see these guys live because SHIT GETS NUTTY.

Mic stands are ditched, full stacks blow your ears out, high kicks wizz by your brow and beer gets spilt, hella.

We interviewed Iceage Cobra in the Synthesis Weekly when they came through town, and asked guitarist Jordan West about his stage moves. Our photo guru Mike Z caught Iceage Cobra in their natural habitat: wrocking.

I don’t know if any of you have ever heard a person in a successful, touring band say what a tough life they have, how it’s hard to adjust to being home and thought to yourself, what a fucking asshole, it must be really hard to be making money and playing shows for tons of people every night. Well, it is. Granted, it’s definitely one of the best jobs ever, you get to see so many different things and even when you’re not in the band, just with them, it’s amazing to see people that love to come to shows and watch music. But I sometimes wonder what I’ve done to myself. Why have I chosen a career path that calls for me to be gone nine months out of the year, put my personal life on hold and risk my health and sanity? The best answer to that question is really answered best with another question. Why would I not do this? In the coming eight weeks I will be making my way across the country in a tour bus with some of my best friends, and some soon to be new friends, and will be documenting as much as humanly possible here. Come to a show, hang out with us, join in on one of the many after show dance parties and support touring bands, gas is damned expensive now.

Emery Headlining Tour
w/ Mayday Parade, As Cities Burn, Pierce The Veil & Cry Of The Afflicted

January-
29- Nashville, TN Rocketown
30- Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
31- Chicago, IL The Metro
February-
1- Cleveland, OH Agora Ballroom
2- Detroit, MI St. Andrew’s Hall
4- Madison, WI Majestic Theatre
5- St. Paul, MN Station 4
6- Omaha, NE Sokol Underground
7- Lawrence, KS Liberty Hall
8- Denver, CO Marquis Theatre
9- Salt Lake City, UT The Avalon
11- Seattle, WA Showbox (At The Market)
12- Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom
13- Orangevale, CA The Boardwalk
14- San Francisco, CA Bottom Of The Hill
15- Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour
16- San Diego, CA SOMA
17- Pomona, CA the Glasshouse
18- Las Vegas, NV Jillian’s
19- Tempe, AZ Marquee Theater
20- Albuquerque, NM Sunshine Theatre
22- San Antonio, TX White Rabbit
23- McAllen, TX El Rey Theatre
24- Houston, TX Meridian Red Room
25- Dallas, TX The Door
26- Tulsa, OK The Otherside
27- Sauget, IL Pop’s
29- Cincinnati, OH The Underground
March-
1- Buffalo, NY Xtreme Wheels
2- Pittsburg, PA Mr. Small’s Theatre
3- New York, NY Blender Theater
5- Worcester, MA The Palladium
6- Towson, MD Recher Theatre
7- Philadelphia, PA The Trocadero
8- Richmond, VA The National
11- Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room
12- St. Petersburg, FL State Theater
13- Orlando, FL The Social
14- Orlando, FL The Social
15- Pensacola, FL American Legion Hall, Post 33
16- Little Rock, AR Juanita’s Cantina
17- Joplin, MO The Foundry
19- Louisville, KY Headliners
20- Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
21- Charlotte, NC Tremont Music Hall
22- Greenville, SC The Handlebar

let it out…

With the (not so sudden) surge in popularity among social networking sites (i.e. myspace, facebook), came a sense of insincerity among “friends.”

Now, you can express your hatred a la applications such as enemybook, or sites like hatebook and snubster!

These sites are perfect stomping grounds for misanthropes, curmudgeons and “anyone who happens to have a serious distaste for a person or persons.”

Facebook currently boasts roughly 59 million users, while snubster has about 16,000 users worldwide.

Universal Music has signed a deal to make their music available to Imeem users. With the signing of the deal, Imeem now has partnerships with all four major labels, including Warner Brothers, EMI and Sony BMG.

Imeem users can stream songs in full from partner-labels, who get a cut thanks to advertising. As of now, Imeem gains an edge over competitor MySpace because Universal allows only for the streaming of 90-second clips to members of that online social network.

Universal Music Chair and Chief Executive Doug Morris explains the reasons for treating the two sites differently as follows:

“Imeem has developed an innovative way to make our artists’ music a central part of the social-networking experience,” Morris said. “More importantly, they’ve done so the right way–by working with [Universal] to provide an exciting musical experience for consumers, while ensuring that our artists are fairly compensated for the use of their works.”