One for the bloggers.

Okay, first off: You know what grinds my gears? I bought the new Hold Steady CD at their show in Cleveland the other night because it comes with three bonus tracks ("Ask Her for Adderall," "Cheyenne Sunrise" and "Two Handed Handshake") that weren't on the advance copy of the album I got a few months back. So I finally get around to ripping the CD into my iTunes today, and you know what I find? All three songs are one track, and they just run into each other. That is so bogus, Vagrant Records! How hard would it have been to make each song an individual track instead of making one mega-track that's 11:29 long (and not exactly conducive to iTunes playlists or mix CDs)? Argh. That really grinds my gears. I guess I'll have to grab one of those audio editing programs and figure out how they work (unless someone knows another blog online that's already split 'em up and wants to leave a link in the comments...).

Besides that annoyance, though, Thursday was a great (if incredibly long) day. I spent all morning/afternoon/evening at Warped Tour hunting down some of your favorite bands--we scored interviews with Jack's Mannequin, Norma Jean and the Academy Is... all on the fly, as well as live footage of Against Me!, We The Kings and Charlotte Sometimes, so be on the lookout for that this week. I'm really happy with how all three of the the interviews came out; our interview with TAI even featured a special guest (Alex Suarez of Cobra Starship). Good times.

So after sweating it out all day in downtown Cleveland and drinking my weight in canned water (or so it felt like, at least), I returned home for a split second, wolfed down some cold pizza then headed off to the Hold Steady/the Loved Ones show across town, which was (1)sold out, (2)totally and utterly awesome and (3)completely exhausting. It's 36 hours after the show ended and I'm still aching, although I'm sure much of that has to do with Warped, too. I'm actually going out on Warped from July 27-August 3, so hopefully I can work up my endurance over that time period, otherwise, it might be a pretty unfun experience.

I'm really stoked for next week because we're launching our exclusive acoustic session with Less Than Jake and seriously, it sounds sooooooo good. I can't wait for all you people to hear it. Make sure to check the altpress.com homepage starting Monday to hear it!