House Boat has a new EP coming out soon on Traffic Street Records, it’s really good, which is no surprise when you look at the band’s lineup (former members of The Steinways, The Ergs, Off With Their Heads, Dear Landlord) or listen to their album ‘The Delaware Octopus’ that came out on It’s Alive Records. Five instant pop punk classics are what you’re going to be getting with this one, exactly what you’re expecting. No disappointment, just quick, catchy songs that will be lodged in your brain by the time you’ve heard them at least once. Don’t sleep on this one because it’s going to go fast.
1. DC Showcase Presents: Inferiority Complex, Volume 420
2. Payment Plan
3. Kids of the Black Hole Sun
4. The Self-Aware Octopus
5. Tired Pleas
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Filed under: Music, Pop Punk, Punk, Reviews | Tagged: Dear Landlord, house boat, It's Alive Records, Off With Their Heads, pop punk, poppunk, punk, records, review, Reviews, The Ergs!, The Steinways, Traffic Street Records | Leave a Comment »
If your not familiar with Suburban Home Records’s Under the influence series here’s the deal. They asked some bands to cover songs that have influenced their songwriting. The artwork is being done by the very talented Mitch Clem and Nation of Amanda who have been asked to make their own renditions of the album art that the song being covered originally appeared. Mitch Clem is always a plus, I love this guy’s artwork, and he seems to be a pretty stand-up guy. Anyway, they’re running volumes of this series, as near as I can tell at this point it’s about half way through with the ones they want to put out at this point in time. The bands that have covered songs as part of this series are Fake Problems, Look Mexico, Whiskey & Co., Ninja Gun, Mustard Plug, Bomb The Music Industry, Drag The River, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Cobra Skulls, Lemuria, Off With Their Heads, Austin Lucas, Frank Turner, Two Cow Garage and Jr. Juggernaut. Volume four included two powerhouses of the pop punk variety Teenage Bottlerocket and The Ergs!. Teenage Bottle Rocket do a cover of Green Day’s “Having A Blast” off of the famed Dookie album. This is a pretty quality cover however as with most cover songs, I perfer the original over it, still though, it’s worth your time to check it out. The Ergs! do a cover of Devo’s “Blockhead” from their second album ‘Duty Now for the Future’. Personally I’m not too big of a fan of Devo, I can deal with a hand full of songs but not much more that. Plus if you’ve heard any Devo you know their sound can be a little on the strange side, and I think that actually pulls over with this cover. It’s not your average Ergs! tune but I still enjoy it. As a whole this record probably will not blow you away but it’s an interesting take on both songs from both the bands, you should give it a listen. How easy or hard this is to find will depend on how much of a record nerd you are. At this point in time there are three pressings of this. One on “Partly Cloudy Sky Blue” that one will most likely be the simplest to find as there were a thousand pressed, quite honestly its the coolest looking too. Coming in at the second coolest (although it is very close to being as good as the blue one), Clear/Green w/ black splatter. There’s seven hundred of these bad boys floating around. And you know thinking about it I think I’m going to change my mind and say the one actually looks the coolest, not that that matters when your listening to the record. The third and final of the three pressings in a simple Clear/Red one, only three hundred of these guys and believe me when preorders went up for this people were foaming at the mouth and freaking out trying to secure some of these red ones so you might have a little bit of trouble coming up with one of these.
Dear Landlord’s other release also happens to be another split. Much like their split with the Chinese Telephones, Dear Landlord smashes the other band on the split. The Off With Their Heads side is really good, actually some of the best stuff I’ve heard from this group. But the Dear Landlord side of the record just takes it to another level. No Idea records knows a good thing when they hear it and they’re the ones responsible for putting this split out. This is a good record to have, and it’s got a couple of pretty cool vulchers on the cover.
