originally published April 16, 2008

Celebrate Your Roots: Saturday, Apr. 19 is Record Store Day. Yes, it’s a national celebration of record stores and hundreds of stores around the country are participating. Locally, Wuxtry Records will host the day with special discounts and free giveaways from labels such as Matador, Darla, Polyvinyl, Touch & Go, Sub Pop, Temporary Residence and Asthmatic Kitty. Wuxtry manager Mike Turner is throwing in some stuff from his own label Happy Happy Birthday To Me and is busy lining up other local labels to participate, too. The national event has been endorsed by Patterson Hood, Dave Schools, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Berry, Paul McCartney, Joan Jett, Damon Albarn and tons of other artists who understand the cultural life-blood that independent record stores provide. So, please, unplug your iPod, quit downloading for a few hours and visit your local record shop. For more information about Record Store Day please see www.recordstoreday.com.

Click on In: Local rockers The Leavers are totally done with their new EP titled Eat of Any Tree and it will be pressed into shiny compact discs in the near future, but is available for download right now. The six-song release was recorded down-home style in a creek-house just north of Athens in Ila, GA which is, by the way, one of my favorite places and I’m not lying. The engineering was handled by former band member Jeremy Beck and still-a-member Owen Hunt. It was mastered by Martin Brummeler over at his M. Cadet Mastering facility. The band next plays locally on Friday, Apr. 18 at Farm 255 with Trances Arc and Part Bear. Go check it out at www.myspace.com/theleavers.

Ridiculously Exciting: Although they currently play at the clip of seemingly several hundred shows a month, the guys in Athens hardcore band American Cheeseburger never fail to put on a do-not-miss performance. Especially exciting is the band's upcoming gig on Friday, Apr. 18 at Go Bar when it will play with Louisiana’s We Need to Talk and the impossibly wonderful Double Negative from Raleigh, NC. The fact is that there is nowhere else you need to be this night. So, I guess you’ll know where to find me. Dig it over at www.myspace.com/thedoublenegative, www.myspace.com/wntt and www.myspace.com/cheeseburgersrule.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can… Sam Grindstaff of local pop band Titans of Filth has made pretty good headway on his promise to continually upload new MP3s each day he’s off of work. Since late last month, he’s completed six new tracks, and they’re all available online along with the three previously-released EPs by the band. It’s all pretty swell stuff, and I recommend grabbing it. So go get it via www.titansoffilth.com.

This Just In: Athens' Grateful Dead cover band Cosmic Charlie narrowly escaped a fire during a gig in Boone, NC on Thursday Apr. 10. Mid-song, members of the band picked up the smell of burning paper and turned around just in time to see the wall behind them engulfed in flames. Everyone in the Boone Saloon escaped safely, but the club was destroyed and most of the band's equipment was lost. No word yet on what caused the fire. [MG]

Headline News: The headlining acts for AthFest have been announced and they are Dark Meat on Friday, June 20; Modern Skirts on Saturday, June 21 and Dubconcious on Sunday, June 22. In other news, the brand new AthFest 2008 compilation CD will have a release party held in its honor at Tasty World on Friday, May 2 featuring performances by Packway Handle Band, Titans of Filth and Timber, each of whom appear on the CD. For up-to-the-minute news and other hoo-ha please see www.athfest.com.

When the Circus Came to Town: The aforementioned Dark Meat saw its debut album, Universal Indians, re-released by New York’s Vice Records last week. The new version features three bonus tracks - two of which were recorded live on the band’s first US tour and the third being a cover of Albert Ayler’s “Universal Indians.” It’s available on CD and vinyl which makes me very happy, indeed. The band is currently on a mega-tour for the next 2 months and will play virtually every night until May 30. Local band Quiet Hooves will be the opener for a stretch in the Midwest in May, and Darkmeat will also play several shows with Drakkar Sauna and Israeli rockers Monotonix. Although the band will perform at Chillicothe, IL’s Summer Camp Festival with Flaming Lips and The Roots, it's my opinion that the most exciting appearance is sharing a bill with Levon Helm (The Band) at Woodstock, NY's Mountain Jam. Oh, did you know that Dark Meat's big, green tour bus was the one originally featured carrying the football team in We Are Marshall? Neither did I, but I'm told it is so. Dig them the most over at www.myspace.com/darkmeats and keep up with singer Jim McHugh's tour blog on www.flagpole.com.

Free If You Want It: The new-to-town Glow Studios is offering a free copy of Glow Worms Vol. 1 to any artists, labels, etc. that think they might want to work with them. All the tracks were recorded by various bands at the studio’s former home in Jacksonville, FL. In other news, Glow Studios has decided to record one song per week, by a different band each week, for free! The deal is this: provide the studio with a copy of a demo you have already recorded, and Glow will dig through the submissions and pick bands from that. The catch is that Glow gets to pick which song it wants to record based on your demo. The studio is particularly interested in genres that fall outside the normal clientele of rock and pop. So, that means traditional country, experimental noise or straight-up jazz combos should really look into this. Drop them a line with MP3s of your demos over at theglowstudio@gmail.com. For more information you could bug them at that email address or visit www.myspace.com/theglowstudio.

Now Hiring: Want to learn what goes on behind the scenes at Flagpole? The music department is now accepting applications for summer and fall interns. If you're reading this page, then you're already partially qualified, so send a cover letter and resume over to music@flagpole.com for more information. Make sure to put "internship" in the subject so you don't get overlooked. [MG]

As always, be sure to keep your news coming in, and always mention either Threats & Promises or my name in the subject line of all emails. When the children cry, let ‘em know we tried via email to music@flagpole.com, voicemail at 706-549-9523, ext. 203, or by post to P.O. Box 1027, Athens, GA, 30603.

Gordon Lamb