Following the release of Big Bad in June, Christopher Browder has taken a new approach to a handful of tracks from Mansions’ fifth full-length album. These scaled-back takes, while not fully unplugging, approach the feel of Dig Up The Dead (Acoustic), re-released by Bad Timing records last year.

These mixes differ from those heard in the video series of the same name Browder released last month.

Listen to the collection below and grab a copy of Big Bad on vinyl while you’re at it.

The Beths release their sophomore album, Jump Rope Gazers tonight, which—from my point of view—impossibly bests their debut. This is one of my favorite releases of the year.

Over the last few months, The Beths have periodically been streaming home studio sessions called Live From ‘House’ for fans across the globe to enjoy (first, second, third). These have coincided with the release of several singles and music videos to promote the new record. The final stream will occur tonight at 6PM EST to celebrate the release of the record.

The art direction for the group’s live streams and tour posters for this cycle has been really nice. The artwork, created by Toby Morris, has been so great, I did my best to compile a sampling of it into a 5k background for my home machine. That image can be found above.

Grab a copy of the record digitally on Bandcamp or a physical copy on the band’s store page.

Despite my best efforts to monitor eBay, Discogs, and various musical rarity locales for Bacon Ray releases, I missed this upload of Bacon Ray’s debut album, self-released on cassette in 1994.

I managed to grab a copy of their last album, The Golden Master, at some point after becoming familiar with one of the band’s vocalists and email contact, Merlin Mann. Of course, I know Merlin primarily as a podcaster, but his taste in music have continually proved eerily similar to my own. Thus, I’ve been seeking out his musical work for some time.

Perhaps down the line I’ll compile the various MP3s he’s dropped on Tumblr and Dropbox over the years. It’s a mess of in-jokes, covers, and instrumentals, but they’re all treats.

Anyway, Merlin noticed the upload on YouTube and tweeted it out today, much to my delight. It’s the first I’m hearing these tracks.

Update: The original upload has been removed. I’ve split apart the tape by track and re-uploaded it to the playlist embedded below.

At risk of this becoming a purely Mansions-related blog (I’m working on some things, I swear), I wanted to mark the release of Big Bad today because I just love this band so much.

I’m still waiting to receive my pre-order bundle, but in the meantime, I filled out the Genius data I could for the record. Lyrics, artwork, production, and mastering credits are all available there now. Chris also talked to Brooklyn Vegan about some of their influences on this record which include Frank Ocean, Spoon, Elvis, Patsy Cline, and Cat Power.

At 7pm pacific/10pm eastern this evening, Chris and Robin will be hopping on IG Live to celebrate and play some tunes. I’ll do my best to archive the occasion.

You can pick up Big Bad digitally on Bandcamp or physically from Bad Timing Records.

It was just a few days ago that Mansions announced Big Bad, their first record in 7 years. The timing of the announcement was greatly overshadowed by great civil unrest as thousands across the country protest police brutality in the United States.

Today Mansions is releasing a collection of demos and b-sides from the making of Dig Up The Dead. The collection is only available from June 5-7, 2020 and all proceeds will be donated to Black Lives Matter

From Christopher Browder on the release:

Most of these were never intended to see the light of the day. Unmastered, mp3 quality, no guarantees that any of it is good.

Today Bandcamp is once more waiving their share of sales to benefit artists during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, many artists are donating 100% of their sales to Black Lives Matter causes, making today a great day to put your money to good use.

To aid in directly supporting black musicians, artist Stephanie O'Byrne has compiled a list of black musicians who have music for sale on Bandcamp. The spreadsheet is being updated continuously throughout the day.

I’m overjoyed to write that Mansions have announced a new full-length record. That record is called “Big Bad” and it’s coming on June 26, 2020.

This marks the band’s first album since Doom Loop in 2013. It’s available for preorder now at Bad Timing Records or Bandcamp.

Jason Tate at Chorus.fm has undertaken a fun preservation project involving the “best of” lists published on his former website, Absolutepunk.net.

The story of what happened to ap.net is too long to get into here, but the gist is that after several years of trying, Jason managed to get the site back from the corporate reapers that he had previously sold it to. During its time under Buzznet Buzzmedia SpinMedia LLC SpinMedia Group, the site grew to a size that Jason couldn’t host independently. And so he made the difficult decision to let AbsolutePunk die, and with it over a decade’s worth of news articles, reviews, and forum threads.

For a while at least, a decent amount of material for the old forum and news feed was available on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It appears that is no longer the case as any searches on the tool result in the response, "This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."

Still he’s managed to scrape together these lists from 2005-2015. It’s great to revisit these lists again.

From Jason:

When I re-designed the new website and put together the new “End of the Year” feature page, I added a bunch of old lists from the AbsolutePunk days as well. They’re a lot of fun to read back through and remember the albums, remember the arguments, and see which ones have held up and which ones are hilariously all over the place.

In a rather unique promotional campaign, The 1975 have opened up a website called Mindshower.ai for fans to interact with assets from the band’s latest release, Notes On A Conditional Form.

The website simulates a waiting room for a “digital detox” center, as seen previously in the music video for “The Birthday Party.” Scattered around the room are a number of interactive elements that allow fans to explore behind-the-scenes photos or gather digital assets for posters. Most interesting, however, is the inclusion of complete audio stems for 3 of the band’s songs.

By accessing the computer sitting on the lobby counter, you can pull entirely mixed stems for “People Like People,” “The Birthday Party,” and “If You’re Too Shy Let Me Know.”

Using these, I took a wack at an acoustic take on “The Birthday Party,” pulling back the electric, percussive, and electronic elements of the song. I'd love to replace the "do you wanna come and get fucked up?" lines with some house-party gangs at some point.

Explaining all of these wonderful assets is a contest put on by The1975 and Amazon Music. Creators can upload their creations for a chance of featuring in a future marketing campaign.

Contest aside, this is a really clever project that gives fans like me exactly what they want—rare digital clutter!

Those who are savvy enough to go beyond what is given by the simulated file system will have access to instrumental versions of “Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America” and “The Birthday Party” by fiddling around with the water fountain feature to the right.

Super American, having just released both an album teaser, YOBWOC, and smash single, “How Big Is Your Brain"?,” are deep-diving into their hard drives to share some unreleased demos from their 2018 record Tequila Sunrise.

They are calling the list “Loose Ends” and it’s longer than you might imagine. Six unreleased tracks and one alternate mix have appeared on the band’s YouTube channel for 24 hours. These are “Tequila Sunrise,” “ Good Girl,“ “Way Too High!!!,” “Tears,” “Ballyhoo,” “Super Cute,” and Jacob Ewald’s mix of “Baby Blue.”

Update: They've kept the playlist available beyond 24 hours.

I didn’t grow up in a hardcore scene. I was a bit too young to be into much of anything more than Fall Out Boy or Green day in 2005. I’ve grown to appreciate the history of it though, and after browsing through the files Brian Kraus shared on Twitter today, I set off to archive and tag what I could find.

In doing so, I found the Rochester Hardcore History account on Soundcloud, a treasure trove of media from that particular scene. This is a passion project of superior detail that I’ve spent a good amount of time perusing and listening to as I work this afternoon.

From the owner of the page:

This page archives demo tapes, CD-Rs, 7"s and out of print CDs from Rochester, New York hardcore, punk, and metal bands. I made every effort to get permission from at least one band member before uploading these songs. I do not make any money of the streaming of these songs, in fact it costs me money, but it's my way of giving back to the music scene that helped guide my youth into a successful adulthood.

A few albums can be downloaded. Those albums are mostly ones that I played on, and felt that they never got their full mileage.

Please contact me if you want to have your hardcore, punk, or metal band on this page. We're all friends here, and I'll go out of my way to help you out. I have the ability to convert cassette tapes and records to MP3s if you do not have the capability to digitized them yourself.

Visit @rochesterhardcorehistory at Instagram for old fliers, live photos, and merch. If you do not want you band on this page, email me at rochesterhardcorehistory@gmail.com.

I love projects like these it takes time, patience, and heart to give forgotten music the attention it deserves. I’m sure others from Rochester and surrounding scenes appreciate this archivist’s efforts.

Bonus: I can’t believe bandtoband.com had not come to my attention previously. This is a vital resource for connecting the dots between bands like those listed on the Rochester Archive.

Will Pugh, lead singer of Cartel, has released a new EP under the name TAURIDS. The project is a collaboration with Adam Bokesch and Bobby Holland.

The new EP is available now, courtesy of Field Day Records. A share of proceeds will be donated to MusiCares for their COVID-19 Relief Fund.

From Will’s announcement on Instagram:

I’ve got a lot to say about this and that will come in the near future. For now, I’d just like to let you know that this is my first musical adventure outside of Cartel.

I started writing this a long time ago and finished it last year. My fellow creators on the production side are Bobby Holland and Adam Bokesch. They saw the vision I had for the songs I had written and got in the boat and started paddling towards the shore with me. I’m so excited to share this with everyone now because it was gonna be a while before we released this. With the situation at hand, it seemed like the universe was telling me “now.” The lyrical content and the overall theme of this EP are suited for what we’re all going through. This is for all of us now.

Punchline has recorded a delightful sonic plea to their fans in the form of “Just Stay Home.”

During this unprecedented time in humanity’s history , where the most we can do is nothing, Punchline have both embraced and technologically defied quarantine to record this new song remotely.

Hello dear friends— This strange window in time gave us a creative window to bring this song to life. Some songs take years to write and some come out in nearly real time. “Just Stay Home" was the latter. STAY HOME PEOPLE! This feels like 9/11 if someone told us that 9/11 was gonna happen, but not for 2 weeks, meaning there’s a chance we could save thousands of lives by not leaving the house.

It’s a lot to process. Mentally, it’s been a tough few weeks. It hasn’t hit as hard here yet in Pittsburgh, but following what’s going on in New York and Italy and in so many cities - it’s crushing. We hope this song gives you the feeling of hope and love. We’re thinking about yinz. 💕

We always talk in our band about how, in times of grief and confusion, we’re thankful to be obsessed with music, which gives us the luxury to open a recording session and get lost in recording a song. It’s wondrous thinking about all the books you’re writing, the meals you’re whippin’ up, the nintendo points you’re scoring, the miles of timelines you’re scrolling lol - it’s ok. We’re all doing it (Is it okay though??)

Thanks for listening. Please enjoy. Written and recorded by Punchline. Mixed by Marc McClusky. Mastered by Dan Coutant. Photo/art by Brendan Walter. PS Would it be cool if we made a music video for this out of footage submitted by all y’all of yinz in your homes? Let’s hear your ideas. <3

Benjamin Gibbard has released a new song called “Life In Quarantine” to benefit Aurora Commons, a Seattle-based non-profit that provides a safe space for people temporarily experiencing homelessness.

The airports and train stations are full of desperate people
Trying to convince the gate agents that not all emergencies are equal
But no one is going anywhere soon
No one is going anywhere soon

Wash your hands and keep your distance. Stay safe everyone.

In episode #158 of Reply All, PJ Vogt tracks an ear-worm lost to time. I don’t want to spoil anything because the story is really good, but this episode ticked a lot of boxes for me.

A man in California is haunted by the memory of a pop song from his youth. He can remember the lyrics and the melody. But the song itself has vanished, completely scrubbed from the internet. PJ takes on the Super Tech Support case.

While perusing a thread about The Starting Line on Chorus.fm today, I noticed a comment by one Matt Metzler who had an interesting url in their bio—anberlinforever.com.

The site itself is a splash page for a series of essays about Anberlin written by Matt. The history spans 12 years, from saGoh 24/7 through the end of the group’s recording career. The essays are well written and includes a lot of great detail. The website and essays (published on Medium) feature artwork by Tyler Davis.

I reached out to Matt to extend my appreciation and ask for some background. Here’s his response:

I wrote this from 2014-15 and published it in 2015. When Anberlin announced they were breaking up, I really wanted to do something to show how much they meant to me, so I started working on this project and shared it with the guys from the band that summer on Warped Tour. I had envisioned it being a published book someday but some of the guys plus the band’s lawyer didn’t seem to want to go that direction, so it turned into a website. Stephen was so supportive all the way through, and made himself available for my questions whenever I had them.

How I missed it when it was pushed live, I’m not sure—but I’m impressed by the passion and work put into the project. Fans of the group will want to check this out.

The Last Scene aims to be the definitive film about Punk and Emo at the dawn of a new millennium. The documentary, a project by filmmaker Kyle Kilday, was just funded on Kickstarter.

From Kickstarter:

The Last Scene will be the FIRST comprehensive chronicle of what many believe is the LAST underground, DIY music scene. One forged in VFW halls and community recreation centers across the United States in the Late 1990's/Early 2000's.

The filmmaker’s initial goal was $10,000 with stretch goals that would allow them to extend the scope of the documentary. The final pledge count was $14,036.

So, what are we getting? According to the campaign description, at $10k, Kilday will produce “a 20-30 minute documentary for digital release about the origins and formation of the scene (up until mainstream breakout).” These funds will allow them to conduct interviews in southern California, source archival stills and footage, and set up a workflow for producing the film.

At $15k, a 30-45 minute documentary could be produced with some additional travel for interviews. They just barely missed that goal, but I’m told travel is already in the works with some vital voices in the scene. Even if the film caps at a half hour, I’m anticipating a great result.

You can watch the trailer above and follow the project as it builds on Instagram.

Kyle Drake of Neocities has built a Pandora-like streaming player for the Myspace Dragon Hoard. The player is called Mydora and allows you to shuffle the entire collection or filter by genre.

In a thread of tweets, Kyle notes that he happened to conduct his own crawl of Myspace Music around the same time the Dragon Hoard was created, but instead of pulling audio files, he grabbed a large collection of metadata including name, location, views, plays, hits, last update, and genre (counts here).

It turns out that I just happened to conduct a full crawl of Myspace Music artists around 2009: name, location, fans, views, plays, hits, last update, GENRES. It fits the Hoard database (2008-2010) like a glove: after merging, only 32 artists are missing location info (0.0003%).

In 2009, Myspace Music had approximately 4.5 million artists. The Dragon Hoard contains 119,951 unique artists, so I believe it represents approx. 3% of the artists on Myspace in 2009. I have no info on total # of songs, but likely in the tens of millions (now lost forever).

This data fit the newly released database of tracks almost perfectly, allowing Kyle to create his player. he plans to tweak the interface in the future. The source code for the project can be found on GitHub.

For years, I’ve pulled MP3s from the abandoned MySpace profiles of bands and musicians that I admire(d). Admittedly, it’s been an occasional habit. I’m as prone to forgetting that MySpace exists as the next person. Still, I’ve taken the time to dig out the odd platform-exclusive gem whenever that niggling thought crossed my mind.

Finding a rare track still hosted on an abandoned profile was a rush for long time after MySpace lost its relevance. At a certain point a few years back however, virtually every track I’ve attempted to play on Tom’s old site simply stopped responding to playback controls.

Turns out, MySpace mishandled a massive amount of data and lost all music uploaded over a twelve year period. Initially, the company insisted there was an error, writing the following in an email to a user looking to recover their songs:

There is an issue with all songs/videos uploaded over 3 years ago.

We are aware of the issue and I have been informed the issue will be fixed, however, there is no exact time frame for when this will be completed. Until this is resolved the option to download is not available. I apologize for the inconvenience this may be causing.

Later, they admitted that the data was entirely lost.

Due to a server migration files were corrupted and unable to be transferred over to our updated site. There is no way to recover the data.

One Redditor believes the data loss occurred around a year ago. Based on my experience, it happened at some point around the time the revamped version of the social network went live in 2013.

Regardless, more than 50 million tracks from 14 million artists were lost according to a report by The Guardian. It appeared that most of these remnants of the early streaming era were gone forever. That was until Jason Scott of textfiles.com partnered with an anonymous academic group to release a dump of 490,000 songs saved over the course of two years (2008-2010).

According to Scott, this 1.3TB cache was gathered by an anonymous academic group studying music networks. The collection, named The Myspace Dragon Hoard, now lives on The Internet Archive with a search tool that will allow you to peruse the collection without downloading—appropriately called Hobbit.

The dump represents a mere drop in the ocean of what was lost, but it’s more than we had yesterday. I look forward to digging through in the coming weeks to see what I can find.