This year marks the 25th anniversary of legendary skateboard trucks company, Independent. While skateboard trucks are certainly not immediately deemed as punk rock, it is hard to deny the kinship both skateboarding and punk music have shared. Even the timelines for the history of both are nearly identical, going from alternative idea in their respective genres (sports, music), to being associated with outcasts and those differing from mainstream society, to overall social acceptance and part of everyday culture.

Ask any 10 kids that skateboard, or are into punk rock, and more than likely at least 9 of them will tell you of some sort of affiliation they had with the other. Independent trucks have been a constant in the skateboard scene for as long as we can remember, so we salute them on a successful silver anniversary.

Eau Claire, WI's Arms Aloft are currently streaming the title track of their new Dead Format 7", Comfort At Any Cost on their MySpace page. They released their Demo last year.

The legendary Neil Young made waves at the recent Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference in Half Moon Bay, California by speaking out against the iPod and iTunes. A recent piece by Fortune Magazine details his criticism, which chides the tech industry for allowing for a loss of fidelity and sound quality for the sake of portability. From Fortune:

“Apple has taken a detour down the convenience highway,” Young told the Brainstorm audience after taking the stage for an interview with Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey. “Quality has taken a complete backseat - if it even gets in the car at all.”

Young complained that music has become “like wallpaper” - more Muzak than music. “We have beautiful computers now but high-resolution music is one of the missing elements,” he said. “The ears are the windows to the soul.”

Young will soon be releasing a ten disc set of his life's work on CD, DVD, and Blu-ray. His argument for fidelity favors high capacity Blu-ray, and he has come out as a vocal supporter of the format.

Savannah, GA's Kylesa have announced a string of East Coast shows which will also bring the band to parts of the southern US, including a handful of headlining dates and eleven shows with Pinback. They are currently working on their third full length record, due out via Prosthetic in early 2009.

You can click Read More for the dates.

The WGBH Forum Network has posted the audio from the presentation of Greg Graffin's Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism. It features the acceptance along with an acoustic performance. You can check it out here.

This past April the Bad Religion frontman was presented the award by the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy. The award went to author Salman Rushdie a year prior.

The Loved Ones has a bit of an automotive mishap on their ongoing tour with the Hold Steady. Dave Hause revealed the story:

Here's the story: We played an amazing show with The Hold Steady in Minneapolis, got up and left Eric D4's house where we had slept and were driving towards Fargo for the next show of the tour. And then 2 of our 6 wheels fell off.

That's right, like at 70 miles an hour. The 2 rear passenger dual wheels FELL OFF.

Our tour manager/merch man/driver/'overall miracle worker William Wilkie is the only reason I'm able to type this story out; he expertly navigated us to a stop on the shoulder of I94. After scrambling around, calling our loved ones, renting a van and spending every bit of money we'd made on the tour to fix our truck, we sailed out for Fargo with 10 minutes to spare before we were supposed to play. We played one of the most memorable sets I've ever played, given the circumstances. You never know when you are gonna be taken away, but I guess that just wasn't our day to die. Playing music that night never felt quite so free and so real.

The band is currently supporting Build & Burn.

Tiger Army will play a five show residence at The Grove of Anaheim in Orange County, California this October. The event, dubbed OCtoberflame 2008, will wrap up the band's support tours for 2007's Music from Regions Beyond. Frontman Nick 13 commented on the shows and the band's plans for downtime afterwards:

This very special event is a celebration of Tiger Army's fans that will mark the final shows of this year & the conclusion of touring for the latest album Music From Regions Beyond. The shows are exclusive Southern California appearances (meaning, if you're waiting for the band to come back to Hollywood or San Diego anytime soon, or anywhere else that's not currently on our show listings for that matter -- don't)!

For the ancient Celts, Halloween night marked the end of one year and the beginning of the next -- a harvest complete and the beginning of winter. It's the perfect night to end these shows and the two solid years of recording and touring that went into the latest album. It will be followed by rest, recuperation and the writing of new material by Nick 13. Tiger Army will be back, but we don't know when, so don't miss these very special shows before we take a break!

The shows will feature bands like Said Radio, T.S.O.L. and the Quakes. Click below for the details.

Wolfbrigade has been forced to cancel their upcoming U.S. tour, as well as push back the release of their next album.

Despite all the hard work all the organizers have done with setting up the tour, and despite how massive the response from all the punks out there has been, all this with Profane Existence Records suddenly stopping their operations and haveing no way to front the money for the planetickets, have lead to us decide that there is no way that we can do the tour...

You can click Read More for the rest of the bands explanation.