Punk'dnews

(Source: punknews.org)

Since there is no iPhone app yet for The Fest 11, I decided to write up a quick webapp with the schedule and map. Works for iPhone and Android (though John Flynn’s Android app is way faster and way more rad). Tap on any band to highlight it for future reference. You can even bookmark it to your iPhone home screen like a real app. Feel free to pass this around and let me know if I missed anything, because once I get down there I don’t plan on updating it.

Internet pirates everywhere shed hurricane waves of virtual tears last week when the popular file-sharing site MegaUpload was taken offline without warning.  While initial reports were linked to the FBI and a response to virtual protests against SOPA and PIPA, new evidence has surfaced, and the true cause of the downtime has been traced to an unexpected source – NBC’s The Office.

Once the episode aired, many Internet forum users noticed something familiar in the background of last week’s episode, and shared the speculation online. With rumor that Bomb the Music Industry’s Get Warmer demos may have leaked,  MegaUpload’s servers were scoured top to bottom in an effort to unearth the blissful audio perfection that the band has held hostage from the world.* The site was simply unable to handle the traffic, and even a full week later, it remains offline.

Our professional audio team decided to dig a little deeper and provide us with an in-depth analysis of the clip. With observations of depressing lyrics, a god-awful sounding drum machine, and something that sounds sort of like a synthesizer, our team declared it was officially a Bomb the Music Industry! song. On day three of research, the team emerged from their audio booth to confirm it was a demo for the pop tune “Jobs Schmobs”. But later, they re-convened and announced their mistake. It was actually the poetic “Showerbeers”. And still, minutes later, the decision changed again to “Future 86″. At that point, our team called it quits with the official statement: “Did anyone actually hear that? We quit. That last guess isn’t even a Bomb the Music Industry! song.”

So there you have it – the Punk’dnews exclusive coverage of the MegaUpload takedown. Leave your thoughts in the comment section.

* The “Get Warmer-gate” fiasco of 2007 was spawned by a typically aloof public statement by frontman Jeff Rosenstock. Nerdy fanboys and fangirls scoured the bombthemusicindustry.com domain name, Google, unofficial bootleg site snevesneve.com/btmi, torrent sites, and the like, but they were never found.

Some band called Silverstein is releasing a new record early next year called “Short Songs”. But because of their financial restrictions (they ARE part of the 99%, after all), they can only afford to record songs that are 90 seconds or less. One of their choices was NOFX’s classic “It’s My Job to Keep Punk Rock Elite”. Unfortunately, since they don’t have much money, they also could only afford one take at recording each track, and they sure did screw this one up.

Vocalist Shane Told admits he is “extremely embarrassed” to have mistaken the classic line (and also the title of the song), “it’s my job to keep punk rock elite”. He accidentally sang the words “it’s your job to keep Punknews elite”. One MIGHT think this is a clever reference to mock the litany of brilliant Punknews.org commenters, but he confessed later that he just screwed up the words.

“I mean, when I think of punk rockers, I think of people who have jobs and read the news. It’s so clear to me why it happened, but it’s still embarrassing. I only wish we could afford to have done one more take.”

You can listen to the gaffe via our enemies at Punknews.org.

(image stolen from http://www.flickr.com/photos/23538379@N06/)