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"Say Goodnight, But Mean Goodbye..."

Posted on April 25, 2005 at 05:28 PM

While spring-cleaning my apartment this past weekend, I came across something that I hadn’t touched in several years…my old CD book.  Flipping through this little gem was a bit well…embarrassing…but, I did try to remind myself that there’s a time and place for everything, even local ska – not that I am poking fun - I obviously owned some.  Regardless, I also found a little EP I hadn’t even thought of in a few years, THE GET UP KID’S RED LETTER DAY.  After playing it twice, I spent the rest of the day listening to the entire GUK LP catalogue: FOUR MINUTE MILE, SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT, EUDORA, ON A WIRE and GUILT SHOW. Each of these albums have something distinctly special to offer, and I’m not going to lie, I’m quite bummed (for me and all you) that after this last tour and live album they’ll be the GOT UP KIDS (pardon the joke).  Anyways, this blog is meant to be a little birdie on your shoulder reminding you all that you too love the GET UP KIDS.  This summer tour is the last. Here are the dates.  I guarantee the SURS trio will be in attendance in NYC. 

Date	Venue	Location
6/2/2005	The Fillmore	San Francisco, CA, United States
6/3/2005	The Majestic Ventura Theatre	Ventura, CA, United States
6/4/2005	House of Blues - Los Angeles	W. Hollywood, CA, United States
6/5/2005	Glass House	Pomona, CA, United States
6/9/2005	Metro	Chicago, IL, United States
6/10/2005	House of Blues- Chicago	Chicago, IL, United States
6/11/2005	Majestic Theater Detroit	Detroit, MI, United States
6/12/2005	Kool Haus	Toronto, ON, Canada
6/22/2005	9:30 Club	Washington, DC, United States
6/23/2005	Electric Factory	Philadelphia, PA, United States
6/24/2005	Webster Hall	New York, NY, United States
6/25/2005	Palladium	Worcester, MA, United States
6/26/2005	Starland Ballroom	Sayreville, NJ, United States
7/2/2005	Uptown Theater	Kansas City, MO, United States

Tagged as: Music

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RockTastic

Posted on April 25, 2005 at 11:55 AM

Whuzup kids (and when I say "kids" I don't mean kids, like children, I mean it as a collective, a unifying greeting for us all - from me to you, that and I can't spell "people") Greetings from rock central. 

Today is the day Green Day announce our finalized chosen by you the fans name for our little show.  And I couldn't be happier.  This is a huge week for us.  We're launching the big new show (more than 30 minutes,) Billie Joe and Mike announce the name, and this weekend we'll be spending three days in glorious Asbury Park, NJ (or as I like to call it - Beirut) for the Bamboozle Festival.  Fun stuff.  Good bands - including Alkaline Trio WHO will be dropping by our little studio right after Bamboozle to grace us with some tunes.  Jeez Loouise, Alk3, Green Day, bring us AFI and we will just plain rule. 

Speaking of great new bands I went to see one last night.  Lost City Angels they are called.  Straight outta Boston on Stay Gold Records.  Their latest is called Broken World and I think you'll dig it.  They are closer to the Bronx and the Explosion in sound and love their punk.  They look like this and are super nice dudes.  Check'em out.  Hit their website for some tracks  http://www.lostcityangels.com/. 

All for now.  See you at Bamboozle.  I'll be the one with the microphone. 

Until then and always...

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The Day

Posted on April 22, 2005 at 10:47 AM

Good Morning Chaps and Chapettes and those wearing chaps (Bruce?)  It's a glorious Friday in the city and we are ever so close to our one-hour launch with none other than Green Day1  They have a few albums out I think. 

Despite how my hair looks, I love this picture:   

In case you're wondering where Tre is, so were we, and by we, I mean Billie Joe, Mike, and myself.   I like the ring of that. 

Until then and always..

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Pictures of

Posted on April 21, 2005 at 06:29 PM

Hi everyone.  Been a while.  We've been busy as all get out putting out our soon to be premiered one hour rock show.  Lots going on but I did get to take a few days off and bask in the sun of the Caribbean.  Course I got sick the first day I was there and had to be on antibiotics but that's beside the point.  The water was like crystal.

Okay, this is hard but it's important.  On the way back from the airport I heard a newscast about a humanitarian worker in Iraq who was killed by a suicide car bombing.  This struck me hard as she was young and doing something she believed in.  Not a lot of people like that.  Another senseless casualty of a, in my opinion, senseless conflict. 

Fast forward twenty-four hours I receive a phone call from my oldest friend in the world, Jason Vest.  Now Jason is one of the premier political journalists writing today (go ahead and Google him) and one of my best friends since I was thirteen.  Jason called me to ask a favor.

He told me he didn't know if I had been watching the news but something happened to a close friend of his.  Rewind to my airport car-ride and I knew immediately who he was talking about.  His friend in question was Marla Ruzicka, she was 27. 

(from MichaelMoore.com):

April 17th, 2005 1:18 pm
Baghdad car bomb kills US humanitarian worker

BAGHDAD- Three people, including a US humanitarian worker, were killed by a suicide car bomber on the perilous road to Baghdad airport, the US embassy in Iraq said.

Marla Ruzicka, 27, who headed the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), a non-governmental organisation that lobbied to get financial compensation for civilian casualties of war, was driving toward the airport when her vehicle was targeted by a suicide car bomb, the US embassy said.

"There were four deaths we know of, including a suicide bomber. One of the dead was a private US citizen Marla Ruzicka. Her family has been notified," said spokesman Adam Hobson.

Hobson added that five others were wounded in the attack.

The nationality of the other victims and their relation to Ruzicka were not immediately known, Hobson said, adding the attack was under investigation.

Ruzicka's vehicle was travelling near a civilian convoy, but it was not clear if her car belonged to the convoy.

The aid worker, who came from California, had helped rally the US Senate's appropriations committee to award 2.5 million dollars in compensation for victims of war in Afghanistan in 2002. She was doing similar work in Iraq.

She had helped lobby the Senate for a 10-million-dollar appropriation for conflict victims in Iraq.

Ruzicka arrived in Baghdad in April 2003 and immediately set to work investigating civilian casualties of the conflict and trying to get compensation for their families.

One, this is terrible, two, I felt for my friend.  On May 4th we're playing a special video for Marla, one specifically requested by her good friend and mine Jason Vest.  I'll let him do the honors:

"Some of y'all might have seen the news last week about an amazing, beautiful young woman  who was killed in Iraq named Marla Ruzicka. She spent the past few years trying to document all the innocent civilians wrongly killed in Afghanistan and Iraq by the US military, and to get the US goverment to acknowledge their plight and do the right thing about it. She touched a lot of lives, and though she's gone, her many friends want to see her work continue. So even if you've only got 10 bucks---or if you don't but just want to know more about what she was doing---go to her group's website, www.civicworldwide.org. The next song's a dedication from some of her friends, it's the Cure, "Pictures of You."

As far as pictures go, here's a couple:

Goodbye Marla, I didn't know you, but I wish I had. 

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One Last Taste (of Chaos)

Posted on April 21, 2005 at 04:56 PM

Bonjour, Blog Buds!

It's hard to believe, but it was two MONTHS ago that we returned from our first round of shooting on the Taste of Chaos in Florida!

Ten episodes, two versions of the tour special, and about 100 repeats later, the tour and our related programming are completely wrapped up, and our microsite at fuse.tv/tasteofchaos is just about to expire too.

We were slated to take the site down at the close of the tour earlier this month, but it's been such a hit that we extended its lifetime for a bit. Now we have to move on to other projects, so if you haven't watched all the clips yet, or if you're longing for one last reminder of those happy halcyon days, you've got to do it by April 28, when the site is retired!

Some of the things you can catch there for one more week: Bert McCracken from The Used & Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance answering fans' email questions; the onstage wedding at the Orlando tour launch; Bert handling poop during his chat with Steven, or any of the never-aired outtakes with A Static Lullaby, Buddy Nielsen from Senses Fail, Opiate For The Masses, and Bleed the Dream.

Remember, it all goes the way of the dinosaur on Thursday, April 28, so get it while you can at fuse.tv/tasteofchaos!

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A Warped Tour IDOL!

Posted on April 20, 2005 at 11:39 AM

In the summer heat, they cry "more, more, more!"

We just found out that music legend and punk pioneer (Generation X, anyone?) BILLY IDOL will perform on a leg of Warped Tour dates this summer!

Billy's been on a comeback tear for a few years, and his live sets are still getting great writeups from critics. I saw him perform at some other channel's 20th anniversary celebration a few years back and thought he was still kick ass, so I hope I can make it to one of these dates:

• 7/6     Pomona, CA
• 7/7     Sacramento, CA
• 7/10   Deer Island, OR
• 7/16   Salt Lake City, UT
• 7/17   Denver, CO
• 7/20   Noblesville, IN
• 7/24   Minneapolis, MN

PS - A little piece of Billy Idol trivia that I carry around in my frontal lobe: during the height of his popularity in the 80s, Billy checked into hotels under the name "William Alucard." Check out what that last name is when you read it backwards. What a clever little bugger!

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Awwwww...our own little fan club

Posted on April 19, 2005 at 05:55 PM

We are beyond flattered here in Rockville that a MySpace group has been founded in dedication to our lil' old rock show!

If you'd like to interact with other regular SURS viewers, and you're a MySpace member, you can join up here:

http://groups.myspace.com/SURSLoversUnite

We're touched!

Thanks for watching, and thanks for rocking!

And thanks especially to Andrea, whose love of pineapples and rock inspired her to create the group!

www.fuse.tv/steven
www.fuse.tv/tasteofchaos
www.myspace.com/SURS

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"It's the terror of knowing what this world is about..."

Posted on April 15, 2005 at 02:40 PM

In a previous Taste of Chaos post, Sir Steven of Rockalot told you about the amaaaaaazing cover of the David Bowie/Queen classic "Under Pressure," as performed by The Used and My Chemical Romance at the close of most TOC shows.

Before performing the song on tour, the bands had actually recorded a studio version of the song as a fundraiser for southeast Asian tsunami relief efforts, and on Tuesday 4/12, it was FINALLY been made available through iTunes!

All proceeds from the sale of the single will go to Music For Relief, who will divide it evenly between UNICEF (funding their efforts to provide food, water, medical services, and education) and Habitat For Humanity (former President Jimmy Carter's wonderful home-building charity). The boys in the bands sincerely want to raise money for the cause, so no stealing or swapping out there! Not than any of you ever do that...I'm sure you've each paid for all your MP3s. *wink*

As always, thanks for being the charitable souls that you are!

ROCK!

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PUNK ROCK 101

Posted on April 14, 2005 at 03:17 PM

If you saw Monday's show with Mark Hoppus, then you know that we've now officially kicked off our awesome new campaign: AP Presents Punk Rock 101!

Punk Rock 101 is our partnership with Alternative Press magazine to bring you answers to the issues affecting baby bands out there, in the worlds of publicity, booking, touring, music video making, using the internet as a resource, and whether major labels are really evil empires.

To answer these questions every Monday from April 11 to May 9, we've tapped into an all-star lineup of band panelists, including: Taking Back Sunday, Motion City Soundtrack, Strike Anywhere, Straylight Run, Rise Against, Thrice, Hawthorne Heights, Matchbook Romance, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Scatter The Ashes, James Dewees, and video director Darren Doane.

We'll be posting each week's piece on our site the day after it airs, and we'll continually be adding outtakes from our Punk Rock 101 interview sessions with the bands you know and love. We've already posted the first piece, "When should my band get a booking agent/when should I get a publicist?" along with outtakes from Senses Fail, Taking Back Sunday, Strike Anywhere, Motion City Soundtrack, Thrice, and James Dewees.

Go to fuse.tv/steven and click the Punk Rock 101 link to find all the media clips AND info on the amazing contest AP is running to help bring one lucky band to the next level!

Just click on fuse.tv/steven for all your Punk Rock 101 fun!

Thanks for reading, thanks for watching, and thanks for rocking!

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Sad News

Posted on April 11, 2005 at 07:30 PM

Those of you who caught our Taste of Chaos episodes might remember one of the bands on the acoustic stage; Bleed the Dream talking with Steven about their drummer’s battle with leukemia.  Sadly, on Sunday, April 10, 2005, Scott Gottlieb passed away from the disease. The Rock Show sends its sincerest sympathies to Scott’s family, friends and band mates. 

To learn more about how he persevered through his illness, visit: www.bleedthedream.com

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