Hawthorne Heights recently spoke to Rolling Stone on the eve of their first show since the passing of guitarist Casey Calvert last November:

There is one song that we’re playing especially for Casey. It’s a new song, Once we’re out there, we’ll announce it and let people know what it is. It’s going to be on our next album, but the song is still a work in progress and we’re changing it day by day.

The band also discussed the legal problems that have kept them out of the studio for the past while:

We want to be able to release a record however we want. We had sort of been misguided a little bit at the beginning of that whole process. I think if we knew then what we know now, we may not have even filed a lawsuit to begin with. Our legal system is set up for justice, but that doesn’t really matter in terms of the record industry because artists’ careers are so short, you can’t just be tangled up in lawsuit for two or three years. It’s impractical.

We could go into the studio next week if we’re able to and make this new record.

The band's last studio album, If Only You Were Lonely, was released in 2006.

This week we are handing the Video of the Week reigns over to our friends over at National Underground. They started out in 2005 as a group of music enthusiasts who wanted to archive shows. They ended up with hundreds of sets recorded at The Fest (4-6) in Gainesville, and at shows all over Florida, recording studio quality audio and multi-camera video. The idea had been to start a label with the material, but eventually they decided to release it all online...For FREE! No gimmicks, just signup at NationalUnderground.org and you can download everything at absolutely no cost. They plan to release additional material soon from Fest 6, including sets from Dead To Me, Smoke Or Fire and American Steel

This week's video comes from Fest 5, and features the recently defunct Colorado post-hardcore-semi-metal outfit Planes Mistaken For Stars. Check it out below by clicking Read More.

Foundation, the acoustic project from Rob Huddleston (Ann Beretta, Inquisition), have announced plans to release a new record. The album will be released via Paper & Plastick Records later this year. Rob had the following to say about the release:

The plan is to record close to 20 songs to be used for a full length and possibly an EP to be released later in the year, it will be recorded in April/May...with artwork from Horsebites.

The release will be the band's first since 2001's Foundation via Paper & Plastick founder Vinnie Fiorello's (Less Than Jake) former little record label.

Punknews.org will be in the studio with the band, capturing the process for a series of video recording journals, which will be posted here and the band's MySpace page in the coming weeks. We'll keep you updated as they are posted.

Michigan's The Swellers are doing 2 consecutive U.S. tours in support of their 2007 album, My Everest.

Select dates include shows with Less Than Jake, Streetlight Manifesto, Slick Shoes, Light This City, Broadway Calls, Shook Ones, Comadre, Anchors For Arms and Nothington.

Furthermore, DeepRockDrive.com is hosting a live webcast for the band on April 11th which will feature an interactive set where fans can ask questions and request songs. The event will be shot in hi-def with the stream available all over the world.

In related news, bassist Lance Nelson announced his departure from the band in his personal blog:

Well, I’m not so sure that all of you know or not yet, but I am no longer with the Swellers. I made the decision to quit last Tuesday and haven’t been real vocal about it to anyone except for those closest to me at the time. I’m not going to get into all the details and bullshit as to why I left, I just know that I made the right decision for myself. Sometimes words are better left unsaid and it will stay that way.

As for future musical endeavors, he has formed Deadtown, a band he describes as "late 90s emo or anything orgcore". He will also be filling in as a touring bassist for Empty Orchestra for their upcoming May dates.

You can click Read More for the Swellers dates.

Exclaim! TV's latest interview is with The Vandals. During a recent stop in Toronto, the Exclaim! crew sat down to do a couple of interviews with the long-running California band, one serious, one not so much.

You can click Read More for both videos.

Former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has had his death sentence repealed by a US Federal Appeals Court. According to the BBC the jury's instructions for considering mitigating circumstances were found to be flawed by the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals.

Abu-Jamal has long been in the spotlight in the punk/activist music scene, drawing support from disparate bands like Anti-Flag, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Indigo Girls, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and more.

Apparently Abu-Jamal's supporters are not pleased with the verdict calling it a "devastating decision" and protests are expected tomorrow in San Francisco and elsewhere in April. The organization called The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal is aiming for a complete retrial of the case, instead of the new sentencing hearing granted by a 2001 federal judge.

The court has upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction for killing a Philadelphia police officer. More information can be found at Wikipedia.

The Phenomenauts have announced a headlining tour supported by The A.K.A.s. The latter band just released Everybody Make Some Noise! while The Phenomenauts are gearing up for their new album, For All Mankind, on April 08, 2008.

You can click Read More for the dates.

Punknews contributor Frank J. Corva III took in a Loved Ones show during their recently wrapped up tour in support of their second album Build & Burn. While at the show Frank had a chance to spend some time talking to The Loved Ones' Dave Hause.

You can click Read More for the interview.

Underoath has a live feed up of their recording of the followup to 2006's Define the Great Line.

You can check it out on their stickam.com page.

The Offspring have announced a number of Festival dates in Europe as they gear up for the release of their next full length, and follow up to 2003's Splinter. The band hasn't revealed too much about the record, only saying: " think all our albums are relevant to punk when they were created, and this one will be no different.."

The current lineup of shows includes festivals in Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, England, Hungary and France.

You can click Read More for the dates.

Details are sparse, but Black N Blue Productions has confirmed via their official MySpace page that Gorilla Biscuits and CIV will be playing the annual Black N Blue Bowl (formerly the Superbowl of Hardcore) along with Agnostic Front, Madball, Terror, Breakdown, Fahrenheit 451 and a plethora of other twee-pop acts on April 5th at Studio B in Brooklyn, NY.

Gorilla Biscuits has reunited in recent times for a U.S. tour in 2006 and last year for a European tour. However, CIV has reportedly not played since their disbanding in 2000.

The former is often heralded as one of the most important New York hardcore bands of all time, notably for their sole full-length, 1989's landmark Start Today (Revelation). CIV was comprised of Anthony Civarelli and Arthur Smilios of GB, though GB/Quicksand guitarist Walter Schriefels received production and songwriting credits for 1995's hit debut Set Your Goals (Lava). The less celebrated Thirteen Day Getaway (Atlantic) was released in 1998.

Update: Sources close to the band are saying that only CIV will appear; the Gorilla Biscuits appearance does not look to be happening.

Pennywise's experiment with free online distribution has apparently turned into a major success for the band. According to an OC Register report, the album has been downloaded more than 400,000 times and has resulted in the band's highest charting single to date. The track, "The Western World" debuted at No. 34 on Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks.

The band commented:

The minute you give away something free, you're setting yourself up for disaster. Are we gonna sell 10 records? Are we gonna do 100,000, or 5,000, or 500,000? We don't know. It's never been done. But we figured, worst-case scenario, we're gonna be able to get our music and our message out to potentially millions of people at the click of a button.

The whole time that this stock market of music has been busy spiking and plunging, we've just been down here cruising along. We've had success, but it's come in these tiny little increments. We never wanted to be rock stars – we still don't.

The band was equally blunt about the dissolving of their lengthy relationship with Epitaph:

No one was really excited about doing the next Pennywise record at Epitaph. You could almost sense it in the air there: 'We love you guys, but we gotta do something new.

In regards to downloading, they noted:

Who goes to buy a new pair of pants without trying them on, you know? If you're a band you should be so confident in your music you can say, 'Here, try it. If you like it, buy it.'

You can find the rest of the interview here.

In a surprising story, some anti-emo fans in Mexico have apparently taken things a little too far. According to Daniel Hernandez, who is covering the story, the spark came first in Queretaro earlier this month. An estimated 800 young people poured into the city's Centro Historico hunting for kids sporting "emo" looks.

By the next weekend, it had spread to Mexico City, where emo kids faced off at the Glorieta de Insurgents. There have also been reports of anti-emo violence in Durango, Colima, and elsewhere. The LA Weekly music blog notes:

In Mexico, emo culture is a butt of many jokes. It is either despised intensely or generally ignored. But it's only the despising sentiment that lately has been getting wide airplay. In the above clip, a Televisa on-air personality named Kristoff expresses a serious dose of anti-emo rhetoric and switches to English to say, on network television, "Fucking bullshit" to the emo movement. Some emos I've interviewed point to the Kristoff clip as a defining provocation of the current wave of anti-emo violence.

For the clip in question, you can click Read More.

Note. The art you see to the left is by Rob Dobi.

Lemuria have posted a live video for the song "Hours" on their MySpace page. The song is from their first collection of songs, appropriately titled The First Collection.

The Buffalo band most recently released Get Better on Asian Man Records.

You can click Read More for the video.

Bayside have posted the latest video from The Walking Wounded.

You can click Read More for the video.

Atreyu have posted the new video from their 2007 major label debut, Lead Sails, Paper Anchors. Plans were recently announced for a deluxe reissue of the album. The reissued record is due out April 15, 2008 and will feature three new studio recordings, video profiles of the band, behind the scenes footage from the road, a digital booklet and other content.

You can find the video for "Falling Down" right here.

Sybris have launched a full album stream of their new full length, Into The Trees. The record is due out June 03, 2008 and is the follow-up to Sybris which was released in 2005 on Flameshovel.

You can check out the stream here.

Nashville-based hardcore act Mankind has posted a new track titled "Omega." The song will appear on their forthcoming self-titled EP, which the band will self-release in late April. You can check out the track on MySpace.

Indianapolis reggae-punk act Lockstep (ex-members of Naptones and No Reason Given) has posted a new song titled "Last Time Again," from their recently released 7" of the same name. You can check out the song on MySpace.

Get Bent, a new band from Queens, NY featuring members of Potboiler (now defunct), Down In The Dumps and Red & Blue, has posted two songs from their new demo. Check out the songs or buy the demo here.