Reports are that Atom Willard has left The Offspring.
Willard became famous as the drummer for Rocket From The Crypt and lately has been part of the Angels And Airwaves group started by Tom Delonge.
The Offspring meanwhile are working on the next album and rumours are that they will be touring it on this year’s Warped Tour.
Capdown will release new single Surviving The Death Of A Genre on February 26th and have announced some dates to support the release of that and their new album Wind-Up Toys:
February:
2nd – Bristol Academy
3rd – Milton Keynes Pitz
4th – Exeter Cavern
5th – Bournemouth Elements
6th – Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms
7th – Plymouth University
8th – Bridgewater Palace
9th – Oxford Zodiac
10th – Stoke Sugarmill
12th – Sheffield Leadmill
13th – Manchester Academy 3
14th – Leicester Charlotte
15th – Nottingham Rock City
16th – Middlesbrough Cornerhouse
17th – Dundee Westport bar
18th – Glasgow King Tuts
20th – Leeds Cockpit
21st – Reading Fez
22nd – London ULU
23rd – Norwich Arts Centre
24th – Peterborough The Park
Kings Of Leon‘s third album. Because Of The Times, will be released on April 2nd. The album, recorded in Nashville and LA, will be preceded by the My Party single, which is out on March 26th.
In addition to this, the band will play some low key shows as well as their headline appearance on the NME Brats tour in February.
February:
22nd – Folkestone, Leas Cliff Hall
23rd – Norwich, UEA
24th – Lincoln, Engine Shed
26th – London, Astoria (NME Brats Show)
Minus The Bear have begun work on their new album, and will be produced by their former synth player who left the group a year ago to focus on production work. The album will feature 14 songs and has a working title of Planet Of Ice. Jake Snider said:
“We’re substantially done with writing and the music sounds very organic to me. We’ve been on this intense musical journey the past few months and this new record is going to be expansive… but catchy. Everything is bigger and seems, at least to me, more dramatic than the last record.”
Punk band of the moment, Gallows, have been added to the line up at this year’s Warped Tour in America.
They will make their first trip over to the States for it and will be joined by the likes of Bad Religion, Paramore and Tiger Army.
Comeback Kid and theAudition will play some headline shows to coincide with their upcomcing support slots in the UK.
theAudition will play the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes on January 17th, and are currently touring with Biffy Clyro, I Am Ghost, The Bronx on the 2007 Kerrang Tour.
Comeback Kid, who will support Alexisonfire’s UK tour, will play a headline gig at the Peel in Kingston on 6th March.
The Ataris have put up a new song on their myspace page called The Cheyenne Line. The track will be featured on their upcoming album Welcome The Night, which is due out at the end of February.
The new album will be the follow up to 2003’s So Long, Astoria record.
Reports are that V2 Records in America has been shut down, with 35 members of staff being let go. The parent company, Sheridan Square, had spent $43 million buying indie labels and catalog releases. The company will keep its catalog but will not issue any new music from their frontline acts [which includes the White Stripes].
The label had been home to acts like the Blood Brothers, Sugarcult, Icarus Line and Alkaline Trio and whilst their future homes are not certain, it is thought that they are all free agents. The V2 in question is the American version of the label, which isn’t affiliated with Virgin, and the UK version of the label is unaffected by this change.
Kevin Shields, guitarist and vocalist of My Bloody Valentine, recently talked about his interest in doing some new work with the band. He said:
“A lot of people say the reason My Bloody Valentine didn’t make another record is because we couldn’t. That’s mostly true, but not because we couldn’t make another record, but because I never could be bothered to make another record unless I was really excited by it. And just by fate or whatever, that never happened. I’m quite optimistic about the future, even though experience has taught me that I’m probably just delusional. I do feel that I will make another great record.
We are 100 percent going to make another My Bloody Valentine record unless we die or something. I’d feel really bad if I didn’t make another record. Like, shit, people only got the first two chapters, but the last bit is the best bit. It’s just that it’s taken me such an oddly long time for that to happen. How long will that take to transpire into an actual physical record? I don’t know.”
Though they never officially broke up, the band hasn’t been active since 1995, with their last release being Loveless in 1991.
In addition to the three hometown shows we told you about earlier this week, Maximo Park have added 2 more dates to their tour calendar. This time round they’ll be playing in Newcastle and London at the NME Awards Show, with support from !!!.
The group have also worked with super DJ/Producer Mark Ronson on a remix of one of their songs which we heard an exlusive play of when Mark was at Crossfire HQ this week and it’s absolutely banging!
The two extra dates are:
February:
20th – Newcastle, Stage 2
21st – London, ShockWaves NME Awards Show @ The Astoria