Hello, this is Kepi Ghoulie (formerly of the Groovie Ghoulies) and I have been asked to submit a number of Anti-Valentine songs, since I have been recording an annual audio Valentine for at least the last 15 years! With this year's Valentine release we come full circle with the first "new" Groovie Ghoulies recordins in years: a 7" featuring an unreleased version of "Lonely Heart Blues," available through Stardumb Records and Eccentric Pop Records... I would put Anti-Valentines into categories: Materialism, Anger, Indifference, Frustration, etc. Now let's see who the winners are: Materialism Although contenders may include the various versions of “Money (That's What I Want),” the winner here is obviously Madonna with “Material Girl.” "We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl"...that about says it all, no bones about it! Anger This one would have to go to FEAR: “I Don't Care About You!” Indifference The New York Dolls: “Don't Mess With Cupid” ("And like a lamp you turn it off and on".) Frustration A seemingly never-ending cycle, this anti-Valentine award goes to ‘80s legends the J. Geils Band, who put it bluntly in their hit song: "Love Stinks!" Years ago, the Groovie Ghoulies had a song called “Valentine,” in which the poor main character in the tune finds out his love interest “said that she was the only girlfriend, to about half the country” ...whoops! The Greatest Anti-Valentine song ever Last year, instead of a single, I did a whole full length album … Read more
Arkhtinn – 三度目の災害 (Prava Collective) The mysterious Prava Collective release music by a handful of artists (who may or may not be in every band or at least more than one), each … Read more
Another year is over. You yawn wearily as January beckons, trying to remember what your job is and clinging onto those hastily-made new year's resolutions. Maybe one of them was … Read more
As we've done every year since 2004 (except, for some reason, in 2017), SPB's hard-working staffers have beavered away around the clock to deliver you a set of lists to … Read more
It's been a long year, right? You may well find yourself examining the last twelve months and trying to remember what music got released so you can include it on your … Read more
We post a variety of features in recurring series – click below to browse them.
A regular series by Robert F.
A wide-ranging guest column written by BJ from Ancient Shores, mainly covering film but extending into philosophy and aesthetics too. Check out BJ's work on the A389 podcast.
How an artist spends their time by day will influence the creative process at night. In Don’t Quit Your Day Job, Scene Point Blank looks at how musicians split their time, and how their careers influence their music.
Guest column by T of Vegas
A cookery column by Nick, vocalist with metal band The Famine. Veggie/vegan friendly!
A roundup of coverage of the annual punk rock festival held in Gainesville, Florida
Our annual roundup from Gainesville, FL's famous Fest.
SPB's coverage of the annual festival in Gainesville, Florida.
Our coverage of the annual Fest extravaganza.
Our coverage of the 19th edition of the Fest – an independent multi-day, multiple-venue music festival held annually in Gainesville, Florida.
All our coverage from the long-running music festival
Articles about the Fest 21
We dive into the back catalog of a record label and ask them to nominate their most memorable releases from their label's history–with a few suggestions of our own.
An interview format where we ask a band to rate and review a bunch of music
A radio DJ profile series created by Christopher D & Matt Hutchison.
There’s so much music released, whether physically or digitally, that keeping up with what’s going on becomes almost like a full time job. With Only Death Is Real, the aim is to bring you something new.
A life lived and lessons learned by Eddie Spaghetti of Supersuckers.
Welcome to Running on Nothing, the latest addition to our stable of columns at Scene Point Blank. Running on Nothing offers a look at the world through the eyes of Kole, bassist of The Lippies, guitarist of The Bloody Lips, and gigposter artist.
We survey some of the other music releases out there. Results may vary...may get weird, but hopefully something covered here piques your interest.
A semi-regular column where we choose a specific area and give a local scene report.
Discussing the state of the music business at the kitchen table
A brief but englightening chat with an artist who reveals an interesting or unexpected story from their career
A collection of items grouped by topic, eg. "Top 5 Worst Beatles Songs" or "Top 10 best '77 punk releases".
One-question interviews with artists where we find out about the gear and equipment they use to achieve their sound.
A collection of coverage rounding up the year 2012, covering our favorite albums, shows, bands, and more, as well as asking record labels and bands about their past twelve months in music
It's the end of 2013, so here's our best-of roundup for the last twelve months.
Our annual round-up of the best music of the year 2014.
Our annual round-up of the best music of the year 2015.
Our annual round-up of the best music of the year 2016.
Our annual round-up of the best music of the year 2017.
Our summary of the best music (and more) of 2018.
Our wrap-up of the best music and more from 2019
Our wrap-up of the best music and more for the year we'll all want to otherwise forget, 2020.
Our roundup of the best music from the worst year (since the previous one, anyway).
Our favorite music and more from the year 2022
Our roundup of the best music of the year 2023
By Matt Hutchison -- A Jesuit school might not be what the general population would consider a thriving spot for underground music culture, yet that’s part of the allure of KXLU 88.9 FM. Entering the radio station’s cluttered, vinyl-stacked, and sticker-tacked fourth floor production area is like stepping into another world outside the sleek white, palm-tree-lined idyllic confines of Loyola … Read more
With a lineup of 300-ish bands playing throughout town over a 3-day period, there's a lot to discuss about The Fest, an annual celebration of punk rock that takes place in Gainesville, FL in late October. At FEST 21, the headliners included GWAR, Lucero, Dillinger Four, Thursday, Descendants, Tim Barry, Screaming Females...the list goes on. Yet, as I made the … Read more
It's the most wonderful time of the year! The air is crisp and the nights are drawing in, which for many of us means an increase in horror movie watching and thinking nothing of spending our hard earned cash on new spooky furnishings. The abundance of halloween decor is tempting us all to fill our houses with more candles, plastic … Read more
For most of the 21st century, The Fest has conquered Gainesville, FL for a long weekend near Halloween. With hundreds of bands playing each year, spread across multiple venues, there’s something for anybody interested in punk-leaning, independent music from headlining main stage acts outdoors to up-and-comers playing in small bars where it’s dark all day long. FEST 21 features a … Read more
You have three options, and not to get personal or anything, but do you have ADHD? Do you have attention problems? Don’t worry about it: I can’t sit through a twenty minute meeting either. If you’re the sort of person who plays on your phone, while watching a movie, while cleaning the house, go for option one or two. They’re not … Read more
It's time, once again, for Only Death Is Real to make an appearance. This is the twenty second edition of the column and I'll be honest with you, writing is becoming harder each time. Sitting down to purposefully do something is difficult, opening the laptop seems to get scarier and just hitting the keys and trying to say something cohesive … Read more
No, this is not like the movies, ok. I am not going to a restaurant and do a lot of impressions. I am just stealing a catchy title for my column. As you might remember from my last column, I was in the middle of a big renovation project. We had a vacation booked that caused us to miss the completion … Read more
I'm slowly running out of things to say in these intro pieces. Do you read them? Do you need to know why I chose these particular records or are you happy to dive in and discover? Barbelith – Deathless Master (Self-Released/Third House) Nearly ten years after Mirror Unveiled was released, Barbelith are slowly making their way back with Inner Eternal in 2021 and now Deathless Master in 2023. … Read more
How's 2023 been for you, so far? Good? Average? Pretty rough? Don't worry – the kind folks at SPB have got you. We've crunched the numbers, broken down the boundaries, and—more importantly—listened to all of the music released in 2023 thus far. Alright, most of the music. Armed with this knowledge, we've whittled down the list of new albums into … Read more
Welcome back! I hope you don’t mind the mess this time. I dislike it when people say this when you enter their house, as it usually means their house is ten times cleaner than mine. However, this time my house really is a mess. We are in the midst of a big renovation as we speak so everything is dusty … Read more
For the twentieth edition of this column, we are doing something slightly different. Why? Well, to be honest, my listening habits have taken a detour of late and instead of diving into a million different things, I am concentrating way too hard on a handful of releases. And these two have stood out the most over the last month or … Read more
There is a place, once a year, where we can all come together, Fest with others who believe that only music has the answer, and then at the end, go back to our homes reveling in another amazing Fest and hoping that feeling of belonging can last to the next one. Loren Green had a lovely idea for an article -- … Read more
It is when browsing through a boatload of year’s end lists that I begin to suffer from a strange form of FOMO. It is not so much the fear of going to miss something, but the fear of having missed something. Although I enjoy browsing those lists a bit too much to actually call it a fear. It is perhaps … Read more
Can you believe that it’s 2023? It hardly seems like last week that we were ushering in 2022 and trying to maintain an outlook of hope that maybe, just maybe, this was a year in which things got better. Judging by the music that makes up this edition of Only Death Is Real, hope is still hard to come by. … Read more
The local Las Vegas music scene is unique in that all of the DIY musicians and songwriters are battling against the million dollar shows that happen every night at the billion-dollar casinos with hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising budgets. It 's a David vs. Goliath situation 7 days a week. I moved to the city from Southern California … Read more
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