Hostage Life B-Side + NXNE»

In celebration of tonight’s out of control NXNE rage-a-thon, we’ve posted the last Hostage Life song your ears will probably ever hear, a cover of Tapper Zukie’s “MPLA” originally intended as a 7″ release to accompany the CUTO vinyl. As the story goes, the band broke up just before the record went to press, but here she is, ready for you to download and get down to. Then come out the Bovine tonight! Get there early and stay late - Victim Party, who play at 2am, features Colin and Pat from Hostage Life, along with every one of their best friends. You’ll fucking love it because it’s fucking awesome.
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08 pm: The Decay // Punk rock from Guelph
09 pm: Wayfarer // Hot Water Music worship from KW
10 pm: Cavaliers! // Alt-country from Newmarket
11 pm: !ATTENTION! // Pop-punk from Toronto
12 pm: Dig It Up // Party punk from Montreal
01 am: The Video Dead // Hardcore from Burlington
02 am: Victim Party // Best friends from Toronto (members of Bombs Over Providence, Hostage Life, The Black Lungs, The Artist Life, The Little Millionaires, Bang It Out and Marilyn’s Vitamins)
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Only $5! Cheap! (Or free with a festival wrist band!). And because of the municipal magic of NXNE, the Bovine will be serving until 4 a.m. It’d be swell to see your face.

Juicebox/UOBA NXNE Party»

Hey friends, it’s been a while since we all hung out and shared a knowing glance, hasn’t it? So consider this a formal invite to our NXNE-themed debutante ball. On June 16 at the Bovine Sex Club in Toronto, we’ll be showcasing a bunch of bands we’ve released records for over the past year or two + some additional friends courtesy of brother-in-arms Adam Kreeft & UOBA. The lineup looks like this:
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08 pm The Decay // Punk rock from Guelph
09 pm Wayfarer // Hot Water Music worship from KW
10 pm Cavaliers! // Alt-country from Newmarket
11 pm !ATTENTION! // Pop-punk from Toronto
12 pm Dig It Up // Party punk from Montreal
01 am The Video Dead // Hardcore from Burlington
02 am Victim Party // Best friends from Toronto (members of Bombs Over Providence, Hostage Life, The Black Lungs, The Artist Life, The Little Millionaires, Bang It Out and Marilyn’s Vitamins)
——————————————————————
Only $5! Cheap! (Or free with a festival wrist band!). And because of the municipal magic of NXNE, the Bovine will be serving until 4 a.m. It’d be swell to see your face.

Party + Contest = Party»

The extra fine Juicebox/UOBA tour that’s been rolling through Quebec and Ontario finishes up this weekend in Toronto with the extra-rad addition of Horses and Greg McPherson to the west-coast wrecking crew of Party at the Moontower. That sounded like a bad marketing sentence meant to sell shoes to high school girls, but shit, we mean it. To celebrate Saturday’s night of music and responsible adult debauchery, we’re offering up some vinyl and free tickets through our television buds, AUX. Just cruise over to their site for your chance to save some money and get some free records. Life is good sometimes, right? Stay tuned for an extra-special announcement about our extra-special NXNE showcase. Hint: It will be the best.

TOURING TOURING»

Attention, live music fans and generally cool people who live in Quebec and Southern Ontario. A bunch of bands who have released records under the loving umbrella of the Juicebox Recording Co. are heading out in vans to play multiple shows as part of what is commonly referred to in The Biz as “a tour”. Anchored by Party at the Moontower and the Video Dead, the shows also include label-buds and great folks Prevenge, Dig It Up, Horses, and Stay Home. Kind of the best, right? So if you live in or around Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Oshawa, Hamilton, London, Sarnia, or Toronto (what an exhaustive list of places!), get your dancing shoes on and your liberty spikes fresh. For a complete list of dates and info on each show, check this out. And go download some free records and get your brain ready.

All Grown Up»

If you check out the snazzy new artwork below, you’ll see (because you’re oh so smart) that we’ve posted a new record from our west coast mega-buds, Party at the Moontower. Unlike their first EP, this one isn’t entirely dedicated to a single character from Dazed and Confused, but we promise you that it will still hunt you down and try to kick the crap out of you, O’Bannion-style. This EP is especially cool for us, as it marks the first time we’ve been able to release a follow-up from a band whose first recordings were posted here, and the second time we’ve gotten involved in a limited-run vinyl adventure with a release also available here, for free. We’ll have more details on that soon, but for now, just download the free music because you’re an honest thief.

BIG PLANS AND THINGS»

It’s been a while, good inter-chums. Why? Because it’s spring! If you look beside this text, you’ll see one of the first Google Image results for the word “spring”. That fresh-faced baby animal is expressing our general excitement at the end of the dark times here in dumpy, snowy Canada. Reading outside! Drinking outside! Concerts outside! We basically just move everything we do in basements to our backyard between the cars and the weeds. We have some major announcements coming up in the next few weeks: new records (including Hostage Life b-sides), new tours, and a bangin’ showcase for a big music festival that happens in Toronto in June. Plus, we’re going be to re-launching this site sometime in the summer, with real blogs, written with some degree of regularity, by real people. We think it’s an idea that could really catch on. In the meantime, would you like to read about how the government of a foreign country flew one of us across the ocean to talk to bands? Go ahead!

Prizes!»

Hey buddies! That wicked-good TV show we have is now repeating in its entirety on AUX, and to try and fool you into watching every episode again (you already watched them all, right?), we managed to wrangle a mess of cool prizes from a mess of cool record labels (Matador! Paper Bag! Dine Alone!). To win, all you have to do is join the show’s new Facebook group. It’s so easy, you should be offended. We hope you aren’t.

In more free news, we’re really excited to be the digital home for Wayfarer’s new full-length, Our Fathers. It’s great. Go get it. And like some kind of visionary collaboration between Kanye, Lil Wayne, Drake, and Eminem, the Juicebox Manor House Band, Junior Battles, just released their latest 7″ on pretty coloured vinyl through Square Up Records, and as a PWYC digital download through If You Make It, the more-Brooklyn incarnation of the kind of spirit we try to foster with this weird little creative hub. Up the punx, everyone, everywhere.

C’mon in»

Hey, what’s new? Probably a lot since last we spoke. Us too… we really should try catching up more often. But I get it, you’re busy, we’re busy. We should just enjoy the time that we do have. SO! The latest episode of Talk Show Night at Juicebox Manor is now online, featuring the mighty & newly minted ANVIL (our first and only guest to have also been on Conan O’Brien. Look out late night network TV, we are limping toward you in a menacing albeit friendly way). On the very same episode, we go to DJ school with Maximum RNR to learn how to do what the kids do, AND we get drunk with power and feature Juicebox Recording Co.’s own Cool Dad… who may or may not have broken up since we filmed this, rendering our incestuousness useless. But what an episode! Also, feel free to check out the episode previous to that, which is just as full of fun and whimsy and high-flying death-defying action, with The Gaslight Anthem (and a 4-year old), Diableros, and a basement performance by the king of beards himself, Mayor McCa. Lots of fancy news on its way about Recording Co. releases in the near future too. Oh, and I think we have an intern now. More on that when we wrap our brains around it.

Ugh January»

Hey sweet peach. You’ll be tickled to know that episode 12 of our TV show is online now. In this whirlwind teevee adventure, Gonzalez teaches us how to properly disrespect a piano, The Hidden Cameras’ Joel Gibb tells Canada what’s what, and Halifax’s own Cousins play a couple songs in the basement. And hey, while we’ve got you, be sure to check out Punknews and Paper & Plastick’s limited pressing vinyl auction for the Haiti disaster relief effort. There’s a bunch of cool, super rare stuff available (including a 1/100 blank sleeve pressing of the final Hostage Life album that was supposed to be a full art pressing of 1000 but the band broke up blahblahblah, you know the story). All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders. In the same vein, The Decay have announced that all donations for their record that we recently released will now be going to www.chglobal.org.

Rent Party»

Oh hey bros. We’re back! Twenty ten, listen to Len! Hope everyone had a relaxed or insane end to 2009, depending on your preference. We’ve been busy, making new episodes of our smash hit TV show and using our newfound digital cable celebrity to pass ourselves off as some kind of “experts” on Allan Cross’ TV show. Then we posted another great record for you to love forever. Hey, do you use Twitter? It’s awesome, follow us. If you do, you are automatically entered for a chance to win a great time, every day, when you look at your Twitter. Life! It’s a miracle. Stay real.

Time to eat hams»

It’s holiday time at the manor which means we can update the site even less than usual. Great! Before we go, we wanted to celebrate our ever increasing love for You and Yours with a HOLIDAY MESSAGE from Us and Ours (featuring some of our studliest houseguests from the past year). If that’s not enough, we’ve got our dear Aaron Zorgel’s annual Christmas miracle/holiday mixtape/celebration of friends up for grabs. AND one of our favourite interviews + episodes of the show is now online. Mow down. Merry this and that! See you in 2010, buttheads.

Montreal Punk Rock Tuesday Thursday»

Things are hectic at the buddy factory as usual, so here are some gifts in lieu of our embarrassingly characteristic lack of updates. GIFT ONE: Not one, but TWO brand new EPs direct from Montreal + straight to your download finger here (by Dig It Up!) and here (by Prevenge!). GIFT TWO: several newly internet-ified episodes of our AUX teevee show. GIFT THREE: a kiss. Come collect at 633 Clinton between the hours of 2 & 3 a.m., Monday through Friday. Or Friday night at the Press Club where you’ll have to kiss Greg too because it’s his birthday.

California and Quebec City»

We’re pretty sure that headline makes us looks cool. Last week’s stellar episode of the show is now online, featuring us going to California for Warped Tour, an interview with the Reason, and a performance from the Roman Line. This week’s episode, airing tonight at 11pm on AUX, features us trying to find KISS in Quebec City, an interview with Spookey Rueben, and a performance from the Darcys. 1000% bangers.

Hostage Life Update»

So. Hostage Life broke up right before Centre of the Universe was sent to press. The band + us decided that pressing hundreds of copies was now probably an unsound idea; pressing was halted, and in fully shitty news, the gorgeous full-art copies we were all stoked about will never see the light of day. The band is, however, pressing 100 blank label copies to mail out to anyone who pre-ordered and to sell at their last few shows. We wish things had worked out, but life is one crazy motherfucker.

Quit eating our pumpkins, you jerk»

With the Fest over and our kittens headed back to the den, things are slowly returning to normal at the manor. Episode four of the show (feat. Tokyo Police Club + Crystal Antlers) is online now; our Canadian Fest Comp is still available (freshly antiquated and collectible!); and today the Toronto Star called our show “a cross between a regular talk show and a riotous house party.” Thank god tonight’s episode (11 p.m.! Rogers cable 107!) is a banger: Josh Reichmann, Dave Bidini, and D-Sisive.

Canadians Abroad!!!»

For the last eight years, the folks behind No Idea Records have organised a monster punk circus called the Fest. In the past, Canadian representation has been limited. As in, one band out of about 300. But this year, seven filthy Canuck rock units are headed down to Gainesville to blow minds. So we’ve compiled tracks for all but one Fest-bound Canadian band. And it rules. And you can go download it now.

Beer! Folk music! Dating!»

Last week’s hotly-anticipated second episode of Talk Show Night at Juicebox Manor—wherein we hit the Steamwhistle Brewery with United Steelworkers of Montreal, talk dead bodies and dating with Alexisonfire, and The Thermals play the basement (no big deal)—is now online. On tonight’s on-the-actual-TV episode (11 p.m.! Rogers 107!): Woodhands, Wax Mannequin, and The Artist Life.

One down…»

Last week marked the debut of our real-life, parent-impressing TV show, Talk Show Night at Juicebox Manor. Everyone we watched it with said it ruled, and we don’t think they’re biased or unlikely to express dissent, so the show must rule. Now you can watch it online and decide for yourself if we’re full of it or not.

Talk Show Night»

The thing we’ve been yammering about forever is happening, finally, in the real world. The trailer is up. The countdown is on. Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 6th, at 11:00pm, Talk Show Night At Juicebox Manor becomes a TV show that you, your mom, and your best friends can all watch, love, and enjoy forever. If you live in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick or Newfoundland, you can catch the fever on Rogers Cable 107. Elsewhere, head to www.aux.tv to fall in love all over again. We are stoked. You are stoked.

It’s Here»

While we squeaked in with the midnight release of Hostage Life’s utterly rad sophomore full-length record, Centre of the Universe, we were faced with the simultaneous complete meltdown of our server. After endless discussions, revisited mixes, couriered masters and fierce uploading, this whole night rested on two pots of coffee, one large pizza, and an endless series of calls to some guys in California, offering indisputable proof that God hates Hostage Life and doesn’t want you to hear their record. Do you need a better reason to download it right now?

(Pictured: Webmaster losing his mind trying to not fail at delivering maximum rock to you on schedule.)

Hostage Life announce “Centre of the Universe”»

We’ve talked about it in dark rooms with large beers, and there have been murmurs over these interwebs, but we are officially making it official: Hostage Life will be releasing their massively rad sophomore full-length through the Juicebox Recording Co. on September 30th. It’s called Centre of the Universe. It’s incredible. Donny Cooper recorded it and Alex Snelgrove did the artwork. There will be vinyl. You will be stoked. Check out this video for a snippet of just how good this record is going to be. If you like punk rock and thinking about stuff, you will be down.

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