Hardcore fish fest (by James Dewees)

I'm not sure what the rest of the worlds fish rights are,but in new york they get all kinds of rights. i was recently discussing this with my friend over a sweet piece of swordfish. he was vegetarian so it was my swordfish and his disgust was hanging out. (true friends will sit with you through whatever you are doing.) i have slowly been learning about fishing since i moved to long island from brooklyn. my neighbors t.j. and bobby are teaching me about the do's and don'ts of fishing. there are so many rules about when, where, and what you can catch its amazing that people can catch a fish at all. they come back a lot with nothing because the fish they caught didnt meet the requirements of the state. basically the fish's rights protected it from being caught.

im not bitching about this because i think its great fish have rights, they also have the right to get caught ya know so to me that works out great. there are some hardline fishermen (thats an amazing phrase, hardline fishermen), these people feel that the fish have too many rights and they go in front of the parks dept boards and complain about this topic. it seems that they never win because the fish rights list gets bigger every year. go team fish rights. its amazing.

i know that there is a lot more to the rights. basically preserving all the species because the humans will catch every last one and sell it to pay for the gas on their s.u.v. that they use to haul their boat around. it was just the simple thought of fish having a ton of rights that made me laugh, because the fisherman seem to all respect the rights of fish. we cant even respect the rights of our fellow human beings but we honor the fish code for some reason. hopefully the fish never develop the power to speak and reason. their rights will be thrown back to the sea from that moment on. sooooooo wierd.

a side blog: teenagers will never learn how to spell correctly. they abbreviate everything. how this will affect the next generation we will have to wait and see, but i bet it will be a generation of peeps who splel lik this and omg tht wod rul. lazy kids stop texting and talk for a change.

-James Dewees, Reggie And The Full Effect

An Intern's View Of Alternative Press

Hi! I'm Laila. I'm the summer editorial intern here at Alternative Press. That means I get to be in close contact with all the editors (Scott, Rachel, Tim, Jason and Jennifer, the new copy editor). Be jealous. Be very jealous. They're kind of a big deal. I know I sometimes get jealous at myself and laugh like Dr. Evil...yeah when you're at a corner desk in the darkest ethers of the AP office, you tend to begin thinking of ways to entertain yourself.

Today, I decided to give all two of you who may be reading this (Hi, Mom and Dad! Can you send me some money? And cookies?) an intern's view of AP via pictures and futile attempts at humor. I also will eventually need this masterpiece for my portfolio that I'll turn into get credit for college. Cool, huh? I get to say to my friends and random people I meet in the gym and on the street who give me strange looks that I pretend to be on the inside circle of all things AP-related... AND count it as a class. This blog might even give me an extra point or two. Score.

So, without further rambling from me since pictures are more fun...

AN INTERN'S VIEW OF ALTERNATIVE PRESS:


This was the first thing I saw when I started here. A whole big wall of all AP's magazine covers! I wanted to take them all right then and put them on MY wall. I'm slowly doing it. Don't tell anyone.


Around the office, there are clear plastic walls with lots of autographs. This is one of them. It is awesome.


This is the kitchen, and the general communal area. So it pretends to be. I like it because there's free red bull (guide your eyes to the cooler next to the water). At least I assume it's free.




This is that dark corner I was telling you about. It makes me want to make gremlin noises. Teehee.




This is what I spend a lot of my time doing. I'm an archiving freak, so I decided to re-alphabetize all the press photos in the vault (okay, the 7 cardboard boxes in the back room). Little did I know that there would be 700 bands whose names began with the letter S. Word of advice? Don't ever start your band name with the letter S. You will suck. Trust me. I pretend to know things about the music business because I intern at AP.




This is something I really like. Stickers on desks. Stickers on trash cans. Stickers on everything. It was a moment of happiness for me. I never thought they could go anywhere except my laptop and car. Now I have a road of endless possibilities ahead of me. Watch out, light switch.




I don't know how this works, but it looks like something I'd be awesome at. BTW those totally might be Craig Owens' legs. Or Geoff Rickley's. Or Sherri Dupree's. You never know. Because I'll never tell. Muahaha.




The art department keeps it real.




You know when you order back issues? Yeah, this is where they come from. It's a scary place. I trip a lot. I think it's the gods telling me not to try to live there.

So that's a little snippet of what I like to notice here at Alternative Press. If you're interested in becoming an intern, I would give you this advice:

Be prepared to be shoved in a dark corner.

Bring a duffel bag and take all the cds the editors try to get rid of because they think the band sucks. They probably do, but the cd still have that brag-to about them.

Avoid this guy at all costs. He'll either try to hump you or growl and give you the evil eye:

Get a part time job. You will not get paid at AP. And that's fine, cause it's worth it. But you'll go broke pretty fast. Now, I'm not one to talk because it took me until the beginning of July to get one. But hey, I'm advising here. Shush.

Ask lots of questions and for advice. Tim Karan sat down with me yesterday for a good hour after looking at some old articles I had written for my college newspaper and gave me some AWESOME advice. I'm serious. This is free aid to be a music writer. Take it.

Have fun! I know I do =). Everyone is incredibly nice and laid back. The stuff I have to do is meaningful and makes me feel like I'm important. Aside from the photos, which I took upon myself anyway, I post a lot of the articles that you see in the back issues on the web, I do some research and I've even gotten to write a few articles that are going to be published. That's always a rad feeling.

Front Row Center: The Hold Steady

7/17/08 - The Hold Steady/The Loved Ones @ Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, OH

Photos and video by Scott Heisel/Colors Of Insomnia

The Loved Ones - Louisiana (w/Tad Kubler)


The Hold Steady - Magazines

Front Row Center: Hot Water Music

7/12/08 - Hot Water Music/Thursday/Paint It Black @ Terminal 5, New York, NY

Photos and text by Jason Bergman

At about 7:20 p.m. on Saturday, July 12, I found myself in a room backstage with Geoff Rickly of Thursday and Dan Yemin of Paint it Black/Lifetime/Kid Dynamite while they did a shot of Jameson together. It was kind of a surreal moment and certainly the kind of experience that my 9th grade self would have killed for back in the day. The actual show, featuring reunited Floridians Hot Water Music, Jersey's favorite sons Thursday and Paint It Black seemed like the kind of dream-team show that you always heard about when you were younger, but were never able to get to due to lack of transportation or lame friends. However, the 2,000-plus people at Terminal 5 in New York City knew they were in for something special and made the most of it, despite the gigantic size of the venue, beefy security guards and huge barricade.

"I'm coming back down," Yemin proclaimed as he jumped off the 6-foot-high stage into the crowd during Paint It Black's opening set and then let loose on the front row with his patented Yemin yell. Despite a room that was slowly filling up during their set, PIB played as if they were in a friend's basement: Loud, fast, and full of energy. Dr. Dan spent most of his time up with the crowd while members of the crowd surfed their way up front to try to get closer. Although the venue is absolutely not suited for a typical Paint It Black show, the group know how to make any room feel intimate with their brand of passionate, pissed off and political hardcore punk.

Despite not having played a show in NYC for over two years, Thursday certainly felt like they were right at home. With the opener "For The Workforce, Drowning," Geoff Rickly dove into the crowd and screamed at the audience as they gave it right back at him. The group played a solid mix from their newest album, but also threw in a brand new song off their upcoming split with Envy, that had them channeling Mogwai for an extended, instrumental jam. Before the show, Rickly was wondering how the crowd would react, since it's been a while since they've played in the area, but once the band finished, there was no doubt that everyone was just happy to have Thursday back and playing.

As the stage lights came on and Hot Water Music played the opening chords of "Remedy," the cavernous venue resonated with the sound of people collectively losing their minds while yelling out, "I need a remedy of diesel and dust/Something I can taste with a fix I can trust." Over the course of an 18-song set, the group crossed the gamut of their catalog, from "Trusty Chords" to "Turnstile" and "Moonpies for Misfits" while clearly enjoying the simple act of playing together again. I was lucky enough to catch the reunion show in New Jersey back in January and the initial sheer enjoyment of seeing the group play together has not worn off one bit. They may have taken a few years off, but HWM prove that even if they just play their back catalog, that's enough for everyone from the casual to the diehard fan.