This band fucking rocks. Not only are they solid musicians and a great live act, but somehow they were kind enough to let us film them in a private acoustic session (see video). Now the boys are about to drop a new album on us, entitled Censored Colors, and they’ve decided to be super nice and stream the entire thing on their myspace. What do I think about it? Haven’t listened, but I’ll put some cold hard cash it’s better than Metallica’s Death Magnetic.

Here’s And I off the new CD.

Our Friends Portugal. The Man (who actually played one of our Live at Ryan’s acoustic sets are from Wasilla, Alaska which as everyone in America knows is also the hometown of John McCain’s Vice Presidential pick Sarah Palin. A recent (and really well written) blog post by John Gourley chimes in on the Palin situation:

Palin, Because We Don’t Need It

Here is a story from the younger pages of John Gourley (going by Johnny at the time)…

My first hunting trip.

All through my smaller years, from a boy through to a man, I have known true Alaskans. People who hunted for a living. By “a living” I should be sure to mean “for survival” or “as a necessity… Something along those lines… It was just a part of life growing up here in Alaska. People hunt, people work, people live, and fish and sleep and work and work and work and so on.
(more…)

As part of our continuing effort to turn Synthesis weekly Managing Editor Ryan Prado’s tiny apartment into a legendary music venue, we recently invited Brooklyn-based ultra-spocks The Big Sleep to come up and rock some tunes, and they obliged. Check out the band rocking “Pinkies” above, then check out our YouTube channel for an interview with the band, and clips of all the other badass bands that have played at Ryan’s lately, including Armor for Sleep, Portugal. The Man, The Color Fred, and a shit ton more.

Those wily Alaskans, Portugal. The Man stopped by Synthesis Weekly Managing Editor Ryan Prado’s apartment above the Senator Theater in Chico,CA a few days back during their tour with Minus the Bear to chop it up and perform a few of their amazing songs acoustic as part of our Live @ Ryan’s video series. Check out the band belting out “Church Mouth” above and stay tuned to our YouTube channel for more songs and an interview with the guys.

…is pretty sweet, I must say. Now if you’ve already heard of them/been listening to them then you are ahead of me, so kudos to you. BUT did you know that they are releasing a 3rd album?? And did you know it’s going to be released on Epitaph and not on Equalvision?

…well they are, and now you know. So that’s pretty exciting, yes? YES. They have yet to announce when the album will actually be released, but they just announced this label switch last month, so I would predict the next album to drop in early to mid 2008 and I have high hopes of some summer tour dates*.

*Please note, I really have no inside info on any of this and it’s just my personal prediction–but the release on Epitaph says the record will be released sometime in ‘08.

BACKGROUND INFO: For those of you out of the loop, as I am, and haven’t heard of TSOAF, they’re quite a talented bunch. It’s basically a super-band made up of members of other popular indie bands. If you visit their website or their MySpace you’ll see their members are listed as various animals, the four most prominent of which are the walrus, the lynx, the nightingale, and the skunk–which translates to (according to Wikipedia, so who knows how accurate this actually is, but) Matt Embree  (of the RX Bandits), Chris Tsagakis (also of the RX Bandits), Rich Balling (formerly of the RX Bandits) and Anthony Green (of Circa Survive). But there are tons of other animals making guest appearances on multiple tracks which includes members of Atreyu, The Autumns, Chiodos, Days Away, Finch, The Hippos, Sunn O))) and possibly Portugal the Man. It’s definitely something to check out if your a fan of any of the aforementioned bands.