It's Alive Records - 2010 NEWS ARCHIVE


2010 News Archive
12/20/10 - Two New Releases to Close Out the Year 2010 is just about over. We're closing out the year with two great new releases. Both are available for purchase now on the store page as well as No Idea and Interpunk. Both are be up for digital purchase on iTunes and Amazon as well. Check out our downloads page for purchase links for both as well as all of our other titles. Mutant Pop Records ended with a couple of records left in limbo between plating and release. One of these was The Spinoffs Stayin’ Alive EP, originally slated to be released as MP-47. The band had intended to ask It’s Alive to release the EP (hence the first track and title of the record), but understandably jumped at the chance to be part of the Mutant Pop catalog when the opportunity arose. When the project was abandonned it made all the sense in the world to rescue it from oblivion and release it ourselves! The Spinoffs are a great representation of a pop punk band doing their own unique thing in their own special way, just the way MP and IAR like it. Stoned At Heart is the latest band made up of the inimitable trio of Todd, Chachi and Jimmy of Toys That Kill and Underground Railroad to Candyland joined by Sweet Baby J - a musical mastermind by her own rights. The foursome's first record Party Tracks vol.1 is a ten track trip into the heads and hearts of these San Pedro punk rock darlings. The jams bounce between the worlds of folk, pop, punk and good ol' fashioned musical magic! Some slow, some fast, all good. The first 50 copies of the 6-panel digipak purchased from the store page will come with a free can koozie and 1" button. Hear tracks from each record at The Spinoffs myspace page and Stoned At Heart myspace page, as well as the It's Alive Records Bandcamp page - a link for which can be found at the top and bottom of every page of this website!
11/22/10 - The Return of the Big Black Friday Sale! Just a quick update to let you all know we will be running our second year of the Big Black Friday Sale! Starting Friday morning November 26th we will be selling all It's Alive and distro CD's, 7"s, 10"s and 12"s for wholesale prices! Here's what that means price-wise: 7" = $3.00 10" = $5.00 12" = $8.00 CD = $7.00 In addition to the mark-downs above we will be discounting all Discount Distro CD's to just $1.00, all T-shirts to $5.00 and all Hoodies to $15.00! This sale will run until 11:59pm (pst). After that some items will remain as priced above, others will switch back to regular price. Take advantage of the savings while you can and get some holiday shopping done... even if it's just for yourself! We're also working on getting paypal gift-certificates in order before we start running this sale. So keep an eye for those and expect more updates here and through facebook and twitter posts as well.
10/13/10 - The Fest 9 Are you going to The Fest 9 this Halloween weekend in Gainesville? We're not... bummer to that! A bunch of It's Alive bands are playing including Chinese Telephones, The Copyrights, Dear Landlord, The Dopamines, The Gateway District, Stoned At Heart and That's Incredible! Be sure to try to catch each and every one of their sets if you're down there. Impossible? Probably, but you should try anyway! Check out the finalized weekend schedule by clicking here. The Gateway District and The Dopamines are both doing some touring on the way down. Check out the dates below and get out to a show if you're lucky enough to be in a town they're passing through! Oct 22 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals) Oct 23 - Chicago, IL @ The Beat Kitchen (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals) Oct 24 - Carbondale, IL @ Lost Cross Oct 25 - Newport, KY @ The Southgate House (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals) Oct 26 - Chattanooga, TN @ JJ's Bohemia (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals) Oct 27 - Pensacola, FL @ Big Easy Tavern Oct 28 - Tampa, FL @ ADD Records (early show in Dave's backyard) Oct 29 - Gainesville, FL @ The Atlantic The Gateway District also have a new album recorded, so expect to hear some new tunes on this tour. They're planning to have it mixed and mastered before the end of the year. Keep an eye out for a new album next year! All dates with Banner Pilot Oct 22 - Missouri @ Cicero's Oct 23 - Oklahoma Oct @ The Conservatory Oct 24 - Austin, TX @ Emo's Oct 25 - Houston, Texas @ The Mink Oct 26 - New Orleans, LA @ The Dragon's Den Oct 27 - Pensacola, Florida @ Big Easy Tavern Oct 28 - Tampa, FL @ Transitions Art Gallery Tampa, Florida Oct 31 - Gainesville, FL @ 8 Seconds Nov 01 - Atlanta, GA @ 529 Venue Nov 02 - Charlotte, NC @ Lunchbox Records Nov 03 - Asheville, NC @ The Get Down Nov 05 - Newport, KY @ The Southgate House Nov 06 - Indianapolis, IN @ The Dogo
10/04/10 - Post Awesome Fest Recovery Ok, gotta try to get back into the groove of updating the news here at least once a month on the first Monday of each month. I missed out all of September due in part to Awesome Fest 4 taking up a lot of my time and just, you know, real life shit. Awesome Fest 4 was indeed Awesome! I had a great time and can't wait for next year already. We have a couple of leftover Tshirts, koozies and compilation CD's. The CD turned out incredible! Big thanks to the fine folks over at Imprint Indie Printing for making them look so damn pretty and all the labels to contributed tracks. Pretty much any order placed between now and when we run out will have one included in the shipment. It's a real deal cd in a cardstock pocket holder - super fancy! The comp has a handful of unreleased tracks from the 36 bands on it. Check back for news a little later on about the Tshirts and koozies and how you can get one if you want one. The Spinoffs Stayin' Alive 7" is up on deck. The plates are at the pressing plant and the paper parts are already in hand. We hope and expect to have them up for sale by the end of the month. It's been a long time coming and we'll be stoked to finally have it out there. Same goes for the Chinese Telephones Democracy LP and the Stoned At Heart Party Tracks vol. 1 digipak CD. These things cost money, and money takes time. We definitely plan to have them all out by the end of the year. We're shooting for November for the last two. Thanks for your patience thus far! They'll all be well worth the wait I am sure. Check back in a bit for a bunch of new merch, too! A couple new t-shirt designs, new hoodie colors, koozies and I think a hat will be making their way onto the It's Alive store page. And keep an eye on the distro page as well. It's updated nearly every day with new additions. The coming months will see a bunch of awesome new import releases from The Apers, The Manges, Radio Days, Cheap Girls, Madison Bloodbath, and the Stardumb Records 50th release gatefold double LP, which will surely be one of the best collections ever released! We had some Mean Jeans / White Wires German import split 7"s, but they didn't last long. I am going to try to get more of those bad boys in because those are two of the best bands going these days! I am also working on getting some of The Crumbs Gator Kicks LPs too, so watch for that - it's one of their best records yet!
08/31/10 - It's Party Time! Thanks to each and every one of you that pre-ordered a Be My Doppelganger Party Pack! All orders have shipped. You should have received a shipping notification via email. The regular super pack and individual CD, LP and t-shirts for No Composure have been added to the store page. The half blue / half green vinyl is all gone, but there's still a great dark purple vinyl version available. We've also decided to include an MP3 download code with all copies of the LP. That includes all copies sent to No Idea and any other labels or mailorder distros we trade with. We're probably going to start doing this for all LP releases in the future. We might go retroactive with it too. We'll keep you posted. Those of you that didn't pre-order, get on over to the store page and get on it! This album is fantastic start to finish! There is also a contest up and running over at Interpunk. You can win a complete discography collection from Be My Doppelganger! Check it out here. If you live in the southern California area, you can see Be My Doppelganger at Babe's Warehouse in Long Beach this Thursday the 26th and Saturday the 28 at Club Eleven in San Diego as part of Awesome Fest 4. Other It's Alive bands playing Awesome Fest include Chinese Telephones, The Crumbs, The Ridicules, Stoned At Heart, Sunnyside and That's Incredible. It's gonna be a great time. Hope to see you there!
08/23/10 - Awesome Fest and Awesome Records! Unfortunately I broke the streak of updating the news page the first Monday of every month. I have been crazy busy at home, with the label and with Awesome Fest. But the lack of internet presence almost always means our presence out in the real world is making up for it by way of new records! A quick word about Awesome Fest IV I don't think I've mentioned here yet, but I have been part of the team putting together this years Awesome Fest IV happening in San Diego September 3rd, 4th and 5th. It's been a great experience doing this kind of thing for the first time and I think it will end up being a great experience and real good time for everyone who attends! There are a ton of great new bands from near and far playing that I am super stoked to be seeing for the first time. To name a few off the top of my head - The Credentials, New Creases and The Transgressions. Not to mention the crazy awesome reunions of FYP, Everready and The Soviettes! And then there's the It's Alive gang of Be My Doppelganger, Chinese Telephones, The Crumbs, The Ridicules, Stoned At Heart, Sunnyside and That's Incredible. Do yourself a favor and check out the website at www.awesomefest4.com and if at all possible, get your ass to San Diego for the best weekend of the summer! Only 50 weekend passes are left! Love Canadian Style It's no secret that we've got a lot of love for our neighbors to the north. The folks up there have been big supporters of It's Alive from the get go and we do our best to take care of them all by keeping shipping as cheap as possible and representing their fine bands on our label. There are a bunch of great Canadian bands making some of the best music out there today and we like to put out as much of it as we can. Please check out some of our most recent releases from The Varsity Weirdos, Fear Of Lipstick and The Creeps. Each record is among the best stuff we've ever put out and definitely some of our personal favorites. The Varsity Weirdos have a piece in the newest issue of Ghettoblaster Magazine, issue #25. They will also have a song featured on the free downloadable mixtape they put together for each issue as soon as it's updated for the new issue. Check out the website at the link above for info on ordering a copy. It's an eclectic magazine covering all kinds of underground scenes. We're stoked to have our weirdos up there in the mix! Fear Of Lipstick are getting some much deserved love over at punknews.org. Check out their latest update here and post some love if you've got it! They are also streaming the entire s/t album we put out a couple of months ago and you can check that out here. If you haven't picked it up yet, stream it. If you like it, buy it! We've still got 5 copies left on white vinyl too! The Creeps and ruling our stereos! We still can't get enough of their latest ep Follow You Home we released this summer. Listen to some tracks on their myspace page if you haven't already. And then check out these dudes' other bands The Visitors and Crusades. We hope to one day do records with either of these bands. In the meantime, you can get all of their releases to date from our distro! The Spinoffs were one of the first bands we ever talked to about doing a record with 6 years ago when we just got our start. It's finally happening! Their ep, aptly titled Stayin' Alive, will be the next release we put out and will hopefully see the light of day this coming month. Check out the bands myspace page to hear some tunes and get a sneak peak at the release here.
07/26/10 - Show 'Em The Hand, Bandcamp and Twitter Our first label sampler and another step into the digital world... Hell Cat Records has been giving you all the boot for thirteen years now. We figured it's about time you got shown the hand. So here it is... Show 'Em The Hand vol. I is the first of what will probably be many label samplers to come over the years. The plan is to do two per year - one near the start of summer and another near the start of winter. This first one is 35 tracks taken from all the records that we currently have both in print and available for direct purchase. At 35 songs long it certainly isn't a very focused comp, but it's free, so why complain, right? You can download the entire thing or individual tracks by heading over to the It's Alive Records Bandcamp page. Notice the new "bc" quicklink at the top of this news page and also at the bottom of every single page of this website. The comp is up for download with the option of donating a price to pay if you'd like. There isn't a minimum requirement, so you can enter zero if you'd like. And hey, if you wanna toss a couple bucks our way, that's cool too! We burned a couple hundred of these to cd-r too with a decent little jacket as well. If you've placed a direct order in the past couple of weeks, one was included in your package. We still have a few left and might make more. So you can probably expect to see one in your next order(s) for the next couple of weeks... maybe. Twitter this... Another quicklink has been added to the top of this news page and the bottom of every page of this website... Twitter! I don't really know a damn thing about Twitter, but I'm learning. I don't really get the point of it, but millions of people do, so I suppose I should at least try. So check out the It's Alive Records Twitter and subscribe to it to hear up to second news bits about crap that is so totally important to your everyday life. Seriously, our tweets will change your life.
07/12/10 - Be My Doppelganger!!! The new Be My Doppelganger album is up for Pre-order! Head over to the store page to pre-order Be My Doppelganger's new album No Composure! We've put together four different Party Packs to get this party started. All pre-orders come with an "instant" digital download of the album, a button, a Beer My Doppelganger koozie, and a half blue half green color vinyl pressing of the album limited to 100 copies and only available as part of this pre-order! All pre-orders will have a download code emailed to the paypal provided email address anywhere from a minute to a few hours after the order has been placed. The official release date is August 31st. All pre-orders will ship on or before this date! Here's a breakdown of the what each Party Pack comes with: Party Pack #1 MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12" Party Pack #2 MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12", T-Shirt Party Pack #3 MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12", Black Vinyl 12", White Vinyl 12" Party Pack #4 MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12", Black Vinyl 12", White Vinyl 12", T-Shirt Some words about the new album... No Composure is an eclectic mix of the best pop punk, powerpop and rock 'n' roll the midwest has to offer from one of today's best bands going. Be My Doppelganger bring a party to the stage every time they play. They've managed to capture that energy and excitement and put it on wax - it's like your own porta-party! There's something on here for everyone, whether you're an all out rager, a romance junkie, or a hang-in-the-corner kid. No Composure was recorded by Matt Allison at Atlas Studios, co-produced by Adam Fletcher from The Copyrights, mixed by Matt "Drastic" Yonker formerly of the Teen Idols, and mastered by Cliffy Huntington - all that shit's gotta count for something! The band will be playing a handful of shows throughout the midwest in early August and then again in late August. Then in early September they're heading west to San Diego, CA for Awesome Fest 4! They'll have a tour edition LP and regular edition CD's at all dates! Listen and download a few tracks at www.bemydoppelganger.com, It's Alive Record's myspace page, Be My Doppelganger's myspace page.
07/05/10 - Pre-orders are in with another one on the way! The new Fear Of Lipstick CD/LP and The Creeps 7" are in hand and are shipping! Thank you to everyone who pre-order these latest two releases. Both are in hand and have already begun to ship. If you haven't already received your shipping notification email, expect one before the end of the week. With the official release date being July 14th, you will soon be able to order from No Idea Records, Interpunk and all the usuals. Both records are incredible and I hope you all love 'em as much I do! Congratulations to Jerry Crago in Clio, Michigan on winning the Fear Of Lipstick test press 12" and Vincent Desrochers in St. Laurent, Quebec on winning the Creeps test press 7". Thank you guys for pre-ordering! New album from Be My Doppelganger coming in August! We're incredibly excited to let you know that Be My Doppelganger's new album No Composure will finally be seeing its release August 31st! This is Be My Doppelganger's second album and first with It's Alive. It's been in the works for about a year and can't get out soon enough! No Composure is 14 tracks of the best pop punk, powerpop and rock n roll the midwest has to offer from one of today's best bands going! This album will definitely go down as one of the best things we've ever been lucky enough to be part of. The band will be touring in support of the new album for nearly the entire month of August all the way out to the west coast and then back again in September for Awesome Fest 4 in San Diego! We'll have more album info up next week. In the meantime, please check out our myspace page and BMD's myspace page to sample a couple of tracks from the new album. And be sure to head over to www.bemydoppelganger.com to download 4 tracks from the new album as well! PRE-ORDER ALERT! Next Monday July 12th we will be activating up a pre-order for the new album including a limited to 100 copy half blue / half green color vinyl pressing only available during this pre-order! All pre-order packages will include an instant digital download code as well! Month of July Sale: 20% off all Test Pressings For the month of July we are have reduced the price of It's Alive 7" test pressings from $25 to $20 and 12"s from $50 to $40. Quantities on all titles listed are very limited! You can find them at the very bottom of the store page.
06/07/10 - New Records and New News! Pre-order the new Fear Of Lipstick s/t CD/LP and The Creeps 7" NOW! On July 14th we will be releasing the debut s/t full-length cd/lp from Fear Of Lipstick and our first 7" with The Creeps. Both records are killer and we're stoked to be releasing them! You can place a pre-order now to snag limited color vinyl version, be entered in a TEST PRESSING giveaway and help us catch up on the bills! Fear Of Lipstick's self-titled debut album is a slice of everyday life, love and social commentary set to the tune of straight-forward pop punk rock. They play it passionate; giving it all they got. The guitars are loud, bright and punchy as all hell, the bass is fast and frisky, the drums get it done, and the lead vocals go for the guts every time. This is a summertime album all the way. We've been in love with this band for a long time now and it's great to have the honor of releasing their first full-length album. We hope you all love it as much as we do! www.myspace.com/fearoflipstick1234 Fear Of Lipstick will be playing a two record release show this weekend June 11th and 12th at The Paramount Lounge and the Irishtown community center in Moncton, New Brunswick. They will have CD's and LP's at the merch table! The Creeps have been doing their thing for the better part of a decade now. They get better and better with each release. They've been ruling these past couple of years. Follow You Home is The Creeps' sound perfected! Incredible lead and backing vocals, bright and shiny guitar leads over driving rhythms, thick clean bass lines over precision drum beats... it's all there. It's hard to imagine them getting any better than this, but then again it has been and upward trend ever since their beginning. We're super excited to finally have a record out with these creeps! www.myspace.com/capitalcitycreeps The Creeps 7" and Fear Of Lipstick CD/LP will all be available for purchase direct from the bands at this year's Insubordination Fest in Baltimore, MD on June 25th! Fellow Canadian pop punkers The Varsity Weirdos will be there too, so check 'em all out if you can! Month of June Sale: CD's, LP's, Bundle Packs and Super Packs For the month of June we are rolling back all the prices of, well, almost everything! CD's and LP's are all a buck cheaper, CD+LP Bundle Packs and Super Packs are all two bucks cheaper. It's likely we'll keep prices reduced like this for a good while, but you should still treat it like a sale and buy too many records. Coming later this summer... August will see the release of Be My Doppelganger's latest full-length album No Composure, Chinese Telephones Democracy, and Stoned At Heart's Party Tracks vol.1. Check out the Releases Section for more news on each as it becomes available. All three bands will also be playing Awesome Fest 4 in San Diego, CA September 3rd - 5th... more news on that soon! In the meantime check out the officail website here: www.awesomefest4.com.
05/03/10 - Digital Mumbo Jumbo Free MP3 Download codes are kinda cool... So mp3s are all the rage. Not really my thing, but I can't argue against the convenience of them. In keeping with that convenience, we decided to drop the outdated optional CDR for our vinyl-only releases and go with the digital download code. Our first of these releases was the That's Incredible s/t 7" which you should totally buy if you haven't already - shit rips! We also decided to add download codes to a handful of our more recent 7"s that we've still got plenty of copies of in stock. So from here on out the following records will all contain download codes free with purchase: Barrakuda McMurder Slow Crawl The Crumbs / The Ridicules split The Legendary San Diego Chargers / Sunnyside Give 'em Enough Booze Festipals Gold Magic Get Bent Dead It Quit stealing our shit... Check us out on iTunes! A while back we added some quick links to the bottom of every single page of this here website. Well, every one of those button links is now active! The biggest deal of the four is the iTunes link. We created a page that conveniently collects a link to purchase each and every one of releases available for digital purchase. Most releases are only available on iTunes for now, but a few other are up on Amazon too - the rest will follow later this year! Links for Amazon are on the iTunes page as well. As soon as they're all available on multiple sites, we'll probably change the name of the page to Downloads or something smart like that. Click here to check out the new iTunes page! Month of May Sale: 35" Special Bundle Pack For the month of May we are offering you a nice and easy way to catch up on five of our most recent 7"s for the dirt cheap price of $15.00! Five times seven equals thirty-five, get it? The bundle pack includes all of records below on color vinyl and a Free MP3 Download card: The Crumbs / The Ridicules split The Legendary San Diego Chargers / Sunnyside Give 'em Enough Rope Festipals Gold Magic Get Bent Dead It That's Incredible That's Incredible CANADIAN INVASION!!! Next month will see the release of our next three records - each coming to you from the great white north, Canada! We'll have more detailed info for ya soon enough. In the meantime, get familiar with these bands if you aren't already. They all rule in their own special way, eh! Fear Of Lipstick Fear Of Lipstick CD/LP - www.myspace.com/fearoflipstick1234 The Creeps Follow You Home 7" - www.myspace.com/capitalcitycreeps The Spinoffs Stayin' Alive 7" - www.myspace.com/thespinoffs And speaking of Canadians, those Varsity Weirdos are playing what will probably be the biggest show of their life with The Riverdales on May 15th in Toronto, Ontario. If you haven't picked up their new album Can't Go Home yet, pick it up at the show! They might have a couple copies of the super limited blue/white vinyl LP too! The Creeps will be playing the show as well. Unfortunately, their 7" won't be out by then, but they've got other great records (most of which are in our distro section) that are totally worth owning. There hasn't been a pop punk show I've wanted to go to more than this one in a long, long time. Be there if you can!
04/12/10 - Varsity Weirdos Contests The Varsity Weirdos Can't Go Home half blue half white 12" vinyl LP is all sold out! If you lagged on getting a copy and still want one and don't want to go the eBay route, you're in luck! There are a couple of contests up and running and a couple more on the way. Or if you've just been holding off on picking up a copy on CD or LP, here's your chance to score either for free! Interpunk has a contest up on their front page that ends April 19th, which means you have a week from today to enter! Also on the front page is a link to purchase tickets for this year's Insubordination Fest in Baltimore. The Varsity Weirdos will be playing this year again, which will only be their second show in the USA to date! Get tickets now before it's too late! CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERPUNK CONTEST Punkradiocast is also running a contest through their Shopradiocast page. They carry most in print It's Alive Records release and a ton of other great stuff. Check out the radio show and buy some records! CLICK HERE FOR THE PUNKRADIOCAST CONTEST If you still haven't checked out this band, listen to some tunes from the new album here and here. And don't forget, The Varsity Weirdos along with The Creeps will be opening for The Riverdales in Toronto, Ontario on May 15th. This is like a dream lineup for pop punk fans!
04/05/10 - Another month, another update. In keeping with my commitment to post news on the first Monday of every month, here we are again with - you guessed it - more news! Be My Doppelganger / The Dopamines Tour Split 7" now available for purchase! Be My Doppelganger and The Dopamines just wrapped a few weeks of midwest and east coast touring touring together. In support of the tour and for the sake of ridiculous record making we pressed 200 copies of split 7" to be sold on tour. Turns out there were a decent amount of copies leftover, so we're selling them here on the store page. Copies are limited and in fairly low supply, so get one now while ya can! You can pretend you got it on tour and make up some wild and crazy story about what went down at the show. Chances are good that your wild and crazy story probably did happen somewhere at some point during this show. These dudes party pretty hard at times. Month of April Sale: All Super Packs and CD+LP Bundles For the month of April we have dropped the price of all Super Packs and CD+LP bundles by a few bucks. Purchase of these bundles really help us recoup production costs more than anything else we sell. The more you buy the more we can release. Your support over the years has made all of this shit possible. It's crazy to think we're almost at IAR #50! Here's a list of super packs currently available: The Veterans s/t The Dopamines s/t The Gateway District Some Days You Get The Thunder House Boat The Delaware Octopus The Varsity Weirdos Can't Go Home Out Of Print titles back in stock... As some of you may or may not know, the fine folks over at VInyl Collective have been having a real hard time this year. In an effort to help ease their money troubles and help sell some older titles of ours we made a deal which entailed getting our out of print and sold out (here on the site anyway) titles back. So you may have noticed some of them in the store already, but in case you hadn't, they are: Retarded Gambling On Rock (clear) 7" Fear Of Lipstick Indie Band 7" The Steinways Unoriginal Recipe (second press) 7" The Peawees Walking The Walk LP The Copyrights Make Sound (second press) LP The Veterans s/t LP Be My Doppelganger Sonic Annihilation 7" The Copyrights We Didn't Come Here To Die (picture disc) LP Quantities are very limited. Only one or two of these will might be repressed in the future. So grab them now if you missed them the first time around!
03/19/10 - Heads Up for this Tuesday! Early Tuesday morning we will be adding The Varsity Weirdos Can't Go Home CD/LP and That's Incredible s/t 7" to the store page. If you wanna get in on the limited to 100 half blue half white vinyl Varsity Weirdos LP you should probably try to get your order in sooner than later. We only have 75 copies for sale! Please take note that the color vinyl version comes in a fold-over jacket with altered cover art whereas the classic black vinyl version comes in a traditional LP jacket printed by the fine folks over at Imprint Indie Printing. Remember to check out one of The Gateway District / That's Incredible shows or The Dopamines / Be My Doppelganger shows in they are anywhere you can get to! I will be along for the ride with The Be My Doppeldopagangermines for the first five days of the tour. If you are at one of the shows, come say hey! The new That's Incredible s/t 7" will be available at all dates and so will this monstrosity!! Click HERE for more info.
03/01/10 - New Year, New News! Time has really slipped away lately. Here it is, the start of the third month of 2010 and this is our first update of the year. Don't let the lack of news reporting fool ya, we've been super busy getting stuff together for new records and some other little label changes. So enough about the lag, here's the news! Website changes... You'll notice on the bottom of every page we've added clickable links for myspace, facebook, youtube and itunes. Though they are all clickable, they're not yet fully active. In the coming months you can expect to find us all over the interwebs with new tunes, new records and even a video or two. Well, live footage anyway. The plan is to get a news blast out on the first Monday of every month; here, on myspace and on facebook. Everyone has their favorite way to catch up on things, so we figure we'll cover as many bases as possible. We're also planning to get an email newsletter set up shortly as well. As for the itunes page, we're going to collect direct links to all of our digitally available releases all onto one page. The distro section of our store page is updated daily to reflect exactly what is and what isn't in stock. It can be a lot to keep up with if you're watching, so we're making it a little easier to see what's new. Next to each new listing you'll see it called out as such with some blue text. Fancy, I know! The blue tag will stay there for about a month from when the item was first listed, whether it's a new addition or a newly relisted restock. Shipping notifications... If you've ordered anything direct from us anytime in the past few months you will notice you are now receiving shipping notification emails with tracking info. We are giving the post office a break and doing most of our shipping processing ourselves now. If you order from out of the country and your total order weighs less than 4 pounds, you won't receive tracking info. For some reason there aren't any online shipping options for first class international mail. Why? I have no idea! But if your order is over 4 pounds you will more than likely receive a tracking number. Either way, you will still receive an email notifying you that your order has shipped. Monthly contests and sales... Throughout the year we will be running contests and sales. The contests will more than likely be run through the email newsletter (once we have one set up). We'll try to keep them fun. Winners won't just be picked at random, you'll have to work for them! We're thinking quizzes or maybe coming up with ideas for t-shirts or record names or something else like that. The sales are something we will do on a monthly basis. Each month something different will be on sale. We might make up special package deals for these sales too. Month of March Sale: The Children's Crusade Get Awesome 10" We don't have too many copies of this record left, but the fact that we have any at all is ridiculous! This record is sure-as-shit one of the best we have ever put out. Not only is it one of the best, it's one of my favorites. I still listen to it all the time. To read my ramblings about it check out it's page in the releases section. It would have and should have been the first record It's Alive ever put out back in 2002. I love this record so much! Pick this 10" up anytime this month for the cost of a 7". Represses available now and in the works... Some of you keeping up with the releases pages or browsers of the store page may have noticed some older titles have come back in print. We had extra jackets for a few releases so we filled them with second pressings of vinyl. The ones already up in the store are Barrakuda McMurder Slow Crawl (now on green vinyl), The Dazes / The Wimpys Greetings From Japan (now on red vinyl) and The Copyrights / The Dopamines Songs About Fucking Up (on black vinyl again, but a handful with alternate cover art), The Copyrights Make Sound (alternate cover art and packaging - less than 50 copies), and Kitty & The Manges Joey's Song (on new color vinyl). For more specific info on each please check out their pages in the releases section. Coming later this month will be a split 7" with Be My Doppelganger's A-side of Sonic Annihilation and The Dopamines' B-side of Songs About Fucking Up. We are having 200 copies pressed to be sold during both bands' tour coming up later this month. There will more than likely be some copies leftover to be sold direct through our store page here. Keep an eye out towards the end of the month for that. New records coming soon... Up next we have the first full length from It's Alive all-stars The Varsity Weirdos. We've been waiting for this album since the first time we heard these guys five years ago. The wait was well worth it. Their new album Can't Go Home features 12 tracks of straight up pop punk played up to the highest of standards and expectations. The official release date is March 23rd. Get an order in as early as you can to snag one of the blue/white half-n-half color vinyl copies before they're gone! We'll only have about 75 copies (out of only 100 pressed) to sell here direct. March 23rd will also see the debut release from That's Incredible out of San Pedro, CA. The band is made up of current and former members of Toys That Kill, The Soviettes, Killer Dreamer and Dick Army, so you know it's gonna be good! The four song s/t 7" will be available for purchase during the band's tour with The Gateway District starting late March. This will be our first release to ever come with a download code! All copies will include a card with a link for downloading all tracks in high-bitrate mp3 format as well as cover art. Expect this from all vinyl only releases from here on out. Check out the It's Alive Records, The Varsity Weirdos and That's Incredible myspace pages for songs. And check out their pages in the releases section for more info including pressing details. Tours coming soon... Their are two tours featuring two It's Alive bands starting later this month. The first being The Dopamines and Be My Doppelganger, and the second being The Gateway District and That's Incredible. Both tours are meeting up with one another at the same show on March 20th in Chicago, where they'll be joined by Chinese Telephones! I will actually be at this show. So if you're there and you see a bald guy drinking some girly drinks, that's gotta be me! Come over and say hey! Check out the dates below. And finally, The Manges, The Varsity Weirdos and The Creeps have all been invited to play with the one and only Riverdales! The Manges are playing with them April 24th in Philadelphia, PA along with The Huntingtons. The Varsity Weirdos and The Creeps are playing with them May 15th in Torono, Ontatio. If you are able to attend either of these shows, do it! I am holding out patiently for a west coast appearance, but I'd kill to be at either of these shows.

2010 News Archive

12/20/10 - Two New Releases to Close Out the Year

2010 is just about over. We're closing out the year with two great new releases. Both are available for purchase now on the store page as well as No Idea and Interpunk. Both are be up for digital purchase on iTunes and Amazon as well. Check out our downloads page for purchase links for both as well as all of our other titles.

Mutant Pop Records ended with a couple of records left in limbo between plating and release. One of these was The Spinoffs Stayin’ Alive EP, originally slated to be released as MP-47. The band had intended to ask It’s Alive to release the EP (hence the first track and title of the record), but understandably jumped at the chance to be part of the Mutant Pop catalog when the opportunity arose. When the project was abandonned it made all the sense in the world to rescue it from oblivion and release it ourselves! The Spinoffs are a great representation of a pop punk band doing their own unique thing in their own special way, just the way MP and IAR like it.

Stoned At Heart is the latest band made up of the inimitable trio of Todd, Chachi and Jimmy of Toys That Kill and Underground Railroad to Candyland joined by Sweet Baby J - a musical mastermind by her own rights. The foursome's first record Party Tracks vol.1 is a ten track trip into the heads and hearts of these San Pedro punk rock darlings. The jams bounce between the worlds of folk, pop, punk and good ol' fashioned musical magic! Some slow, some fast, all good.

The first 50 copies of the 6-panel digipak purchased from the store page will come with a free can koozie and 1" button.

Hear tracks from each record at The Spinoffs myspace page and Stoned At Heart myspace page, as well as the It's Alive Records Bandcamp page - a link for which can be found at the top and bottom of every page of this website!

11/22/10 - The Return of the Big Black Friday Sale!

Just a quick update to let you all know we will be running our second year of the Big Black Friday Sale!

Starting Friday morning November 26th we will be selling all It's Alive and distro CD's, 7"s, 10"s and 12"s for wholesale prices! Here's what that means price-wise:

7" = $3.00
10" = $5.00
12" = $8.00
CD = $7.00

In addition to the mark-downs above we will be discounting all Discount Distro CD's to just $1.00, all T-shirts to $5.00 and all Hoodies to $15.00!

This sale will run until 11:59pm (pst). After that some items will remain as priced above, others will switch back to regular price. Take advantage of the savings while you can and get some holiday shopping done... even if it's just for yourself!

We're also working on getting paypal gift-certificates in order before we start running this sale. So keep an eye for those and expect more updates here and through facebook and twitter posts as well.

10/13/10 - The Fest 9

Are you going to The Fest 9 this Halloween weekend in Gainesville? We're not... bummer to that! A bunch of It's Alive bands are playing including Chinese Telephones, The Copyrights, Dear Landlord, The Dopamines, The Gateway District, Stoned At Heart and That's Incredible! Be sure to try to catch each and every one of their sets if you're down there. Impossible? Probably, but you should try anyway! Check out the finalized weekend schedule by clicking here.

The Gateway District and The Dopamines are both doing some touring on the way down. Check out the dates below and get out to a show if you're lucky enough to be in a town they're passing through!

Oct 22 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals)
Oct 23 - Chicago, IL @ The Beat Kitchen (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals)
Oct 24 - Carbondale, IL @ Lost Cross
Oct 25 - Newport, KY @ The Southgate House (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals)
Oct 26 - Chattanooga, TN @ JJ's Bohemia (with Toys That Kill and The Arrivals)
Oct 27 - Pensacola, FL @ Big Easy Tavern
Oct 28 - Tampa, FL @ ADD Records (early show in Dave's backyard)
Oct 29 - Gainesville, FL @ The Atlantic

The Gateway District also have a new album recorded, so expect to hear some new tunes on this tour. They're planning to have it mixed and mastered before the end of the year. Keep an eye out for a new album next year!

All dates with Banner Pilot

Oct 22 - Missouri @ Cicero's
Oct 23 - Oklahoma Oct @ The Conservatory
Oct 24 - Austin, TX @ Emo's
Oct 25 - Houston, Texas @ The Mink
Oct 26 - New Orleans, LA @ The Dragon's Den
Oct 27 - Pensacola, Florida @ Big Easy Tavern
Oct 28 - Tampa, FL @ Transitions Art Gallery Tampa, Florida
Oct 31 - Gainesville, FL @ 8 Seconds
Nov 01 - Atlanta, GA @ 529 Venue
Nov 02 - Charlotte, NC @ Lunchbox Records
Nov 03 - Asheville, NC @ The Get Down
Nov 05 - Newport, KY @ The Southgate House
Nov 06 - Indianapolis, IN @ The Dogo

10/04/10 - Post Awesome Fest Recovery

Ok, gotta try to get back into the groove of updating the news here at least once a month on the first Monday of each month. I missed out all of September due in part to Awesome Fest 4 taking up a lot of my time and just, you know, real life shit.

Awesome Fest 4 was indeed Awesome! I had a great time and can't wait for next year already. We have a couple of leftover Tshirts, koozies and compilation CD's. The CD turned out incredible! Big thanks to the fine folks over at Imprint Indie Printing for making them look so damn pretty and all the labels to contributed tracks. Pretty much any order placed between now and when we run out will have one included in the shipment. It's a real deal cd in a cardstock pocket holder - super fancy! The comp has a handful of unreleased tracks from the 36 bands on it. Check back for news a little later on about the Tshirts and koozies and how you can get one if you want one.

The Spinoffs Stayin' Alive 7" is up on deck. The plates are at the pressing plant and the paper parts are already in hand. We hope and expect to have them up for sale by the end of the month. It's been a long time coming and we'll be stoked to finally have it out there. Same goes for the Chinese Telephones Democracy LP and the Stoned At Heart Party Tracks vol. 1 digipak CD. These things cost money, and money takes time. We definitely plan to have them all out by the end of the year. We're shooting for November for the last two. Thanks for your patience thus far! They'll all be well worth the wait I am sure.

Check back in a bit for a bunch of new merch, too! A couple new t-shirt designs, new hoodie colors, koozies and I think a hat will be making their way onto the It's Alive store page. And keep an eye on the distro page as well. It's updated nearly every day with new additions. The coming months will see a bunch of awesome new import releases from The Apers, The Manges, Radio Days, Cheap Girls, Madison Bloodbath, and the Stardumb Records 50th release gatefold double LP, which will surely be one of the best collections ever released! We had some Mean Jeans / White Wires German import split 7"s, but they didn't last long. I am going to try to get more of those bad boys in because those are two of the best bands going these days! I am also working on getting some of The Crumbs Gator Kicks LPs too, so watch for that - it's one of their best records yet!

08/31/10 - It's Party Time!

Thanks to each and every one of you that pre-ordered a Be My Doppelganger Party Pack! All orders have shipped. You should have received a shipping notification via email. The regular super pack and individual CD, LP and t-shirts for No Composure have been added to the store page. The half blue / half green vinyl is all gone, but there's still a great dark purple vinyl version available. We've also decided to include an MP3 download code with all copies of the LP. That includes all copies sent to No Idea and any other labels or mailorder distros we trade with. We're probably going to start doing this for all LP releases in the future. We might go retroactive with it too. We'll keep you posted.

Those of you that didn't pre-order, get on over to the store page and get on it! This album is fantastic start to finish!

There is also a contest up and running over at Interpunk. You can win a complete discography collection from Be My Doppelganger! Check it out here.

If you live in the southern California area, you can see Be My Doppelganger at Babe's Warehouse in Long Beach this Thursday the 26th and Saturday the 28 at Club Eleven in San Diego as part of Awesome Fest 4. Other It's Alive bands playing Awesome Fest include Chinese Telephones, The Crumbs, The Ridicules, Stoned At Heart, Sunnyside and That's Incredible. It's gonna be a great time. Hope to see you there!

08/23/10 - Awesome Fest and Awesome Records!

Unfortunately I broke the streak of updating the news page the first Monday of every month. I have been crazy busy at home, with the label and with Awesome Fest. But the lack of internet presence almost always means our presence out in the real world is making up for it by way of new records!

A quick word about Awesome Fest IV

I don't think I've mentioned here yet, but I have been part of the team putting together this years Awesome Fest IV happening in San Diego September 3rd, 4th and 5th. It's been a great experience doing this kind of thing for the first time and I think it will end up being a great experience and real good time for everyone who attends! There are a ton of great new bands from near and far playing that I am super stoked to be seeing for the first time. To name a few off the top of my head - The Credentials, New Creases and The Transgressions. Not to mention the crazy awesome reunions of FYP, Everready and The Soviettes! And then there's the It's Alive gang of Be My Doppelganger, Chinese Telephones, The Crumbs, The Ridicules, Stoned At Heart, Sunnyside and That's Incredible.

Do yourself a favor and check out the website at www.awesomefest4.com and if at all possible, get your ass to San Diego for the best weekend of the summer! Only 50 weekend passes are left!

Love Canadian Style

It's no secret that we've got a lot of love for our neighbors to the north. The folks up there have been big supporters of It's Alive from the get go and we do our best to take care of them all by keeping shipping as cheap as possible and representing their fine bands on our label. There are a bunch of great Canadian bands making some of the best music out there today and we like to put out as much of it as we can. Please check out some of our most recent releases from The Varsity Weirdos, Fear Of Lipstick and The Creeps. Each record is among the best stuff we've ever put out and definitely some of our personal favorites.

The Varsity Weirdos have a piece in the newest issue of Ghettoblaster Magazine, issue #25. They will also have a song featured on the free downloadable mixtape they put together for each issue as soon as it's updated for the new issue. Check out the website at the link above for info on ordering a copy. It's an eclectic magazine covering all kinds of underground scenes. We're stoked to have our weirdos up there in the mix!

Fear Of Lipstick are getting some much deserved love over at punknews.org. Check out their latest update here and post some love if you've got it! They are also streaming the entire s/t album we put out a couple of months ago and you can check that out here. If you haven't picked it up yet, stream it. If you like it, buy it! We've still got 5 copies left on white vinyl too!

The Creeps and ruling our stereos! We still can't get enough of their latest ep Follow You Home we released this summer. Listen to some tracks on their myspace page if you haven't already. And then check out these dudes' other bands The Visitors and Crusades. We hope to one day do records with either of these bands. In the meantime, you can get all of their releases to date from our distro!

The Spinoffs were one of the first bands we ever talked to about doing a record with 6 years ago when we just got our start. It's finally happening! Their ep, aptly titled Stayin' Alive, will be the next release we put out and will hopefully see the light of day this coming month. Check out the bands myspace page to hear some tunes and get a sneak peak at the release here.

07/26/10 - Show 'Em The Hand, Bandcamp and Twitter

Our first label sampler and another step into the digital world...

Hell Cat Records has been giving you all the boot for thirteen years now. We figured it's about time you got shown the hand. So here it is...

Show 'Em The Hand vol. I is the first of what will probably be many label samplers to come over the years. The plan is to do two per year - one near the start of summer and another near the start of winter. This first one is 35 tracks taken from all the records that we currently have both in print and available for direct purchase. At 35 songs long it certainly isn't a very focused comp, but it's free, so why complain, right?

You can download the entire thing or individual tracks by heading over to the It's Alive Records Bandcamp page. Notice the new "bc" quicklink at the top of this news page and also at the bottom of every single page of this website.

The comp is up for download with the option of donating a price to pay if you'd like. There isn't a minimum requirement, so you can enter zero if you'd like. And hey, if you wanna toss a couple bucks our way, that's cool too! We burned a couple hundred of these to cd-r too with a decent little jacket as well. If you've placed a direct order in the past couple of weeks, one was included in your package. We still have a few left and might make more. So you can probably expect to see one in your next order(s) for the next couple of weeks... maybe.

Twitter this...

Another quicklink has been added to the top of this news page and the bottom of every page of this website... Twitter! I don't really know a damn thing about Twitter, but I'm learning. I don't really get the point of it, but millions of people do, so I suppose I should at least try. So check out the It's Alive Records Twitter and subscribe to it to hear up to second news bits about crap that is so totally important to your everyday life. Seriously, our tweets will change your life.

07/12/10 - Be My Doppelganger!!!

The new Be My Doppelganger album is up for Pre-order!

Head over to the store page to pre-order Be My Doppelganger's new album No Composure! We've put together four different Party Packs to get this party started. All pre-orders come with an "instant" digital download of the album, a button, a Beer My Doppelganger koozie, and a half blue half green color vinyl pressing of the album limited to 100 copies and only available as part of this pre-order! All pre-orders will have a download code emailed to the paypal provided email address anywhere from a minute to a few hours after the order has been placed. The official release date is August 31st. All pre-orders will ship on or before this date!

Here's a breakdown of the what each Party Pack comes with:

Party Pack #1
MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12"

Party Pack #2
MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12", T-Shirt

Party Pack #3
MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12", Black Vinyl 12", White Vinyl 12"

Party Pack #4
MP3 Download, 1" Button, Koozie, Compact Disc, Half Blue Half Green Color Vinyl 12", Black Vinyl 12", White Vinyl 12", T-Shirt

Some words about the new album...

No Composure is an eclectic mix of the best pop punk, powerpop and rock 'n' roll the midwest has to offer from one of today's best bands going. Be My Doppelganger bring a party to the stage every time they play. They've managed to capture that energy and excitement and put it on wax - it's like your own porta-party! There's something on here for everyone, whether you're an all out rager, a romance junkie, or a hang-in-the-corner kid. No Composure was recorded by Matt Allison at Atlas Studios, co-produced by Adam Fletcher from The Copyrights, mixed by Matt "Drastic" Yonker formerly of the Teen Idols, and mastered by Cliffy Huntington - all that shit's gotta count for something!

The band will be playing a handful of shows throughout the midwest in early August and then again in late August. Then in early September they're heading west to San Diego, CA for Awesome Fest 4! They'll have a tour edition LP and regular edition CD's at all dates!

Listen and download a few tracks at www.bemydoppelganger.com, It's Alive Record's myspace page, Be My Doppelganger's myspace page.

07/05/10 - Pre-orders are in with another one on the way!

The new Fear Of Lipstick CD/LP and The Creeps 7" are in hand and are shipping!

Thank you to everyone who pre-order these latest two releases. Both are in hand and have already begun to ship. If you haven't already received your shipping notification email, expect one before the end of the week. With the official release date being July 14th, you will soon be able to order from No Idea Records, Interpunk and all the usuals. Both records are incredible and I hope you all love 'em as much I do!

Congratulations to Jerry Crago in Clio, Michigan on winning the Fear Of Lipstick test press 12" and Vincent Desrochers in St. Laurent, Quebec on winning the Creeps test press 7". Thank you guys for pre-ordering!

New album from Be My Doppelganger coming in August!

We're incredibly excited to let you know that Be My Doppelganger's new album No Composure will finally be seeing its release August 31st! This is Be My Doppelganger's second album and first with It's Alive. It's been in the works for about a year and can't get out soon enough! No Composure is 14 tracks of the best pop punk, powerpop and rock n roll the midwest has to offer from one of today's best bands going! This album will definitely go down as one of the best things we've ever been lucky enough to be part of. The band will be touring in support of the new album for nearly the entire month of August all the way out to the west coast and then back again in September for Awesome Fest 4 in San Diego!

We'll have more album info up next week. In the meantime, please check out our myspace page and BMD's myspace page to sample a couple of tracks from the new album. And be sure to head over to www.bemydoppelganger.com to download 4 tracks from the new album as well!

PRE-ORDER ALERT! Next Monday July 12th we will be activating up a pre-order for the new album including a limited to 100 copy half blue / half green color vinyl pressing only available during this pre-order! All pre-order packages will include an instant digital download code as well!

Month of July Sale: 20% off all Test Pressings

For the month of July we are have reduced the price of It's Alive 7" test pressings from $25 to $20 and 12"s from $50 to $40. Quantities on all titles listed are very limited! You can find them at the very bottom of the store page.

06/07/10 - New Records and New News!

Pre-order the new Fear Of Lipstick s/t CD/LP and The Creeps 7" NOW!

On July 14th we will be releasing the debut s/t full-length cd/lp from Fear Of Lipstick and our first 7" with The Creeps. Both records are killer and we're stoked to be releasing them! You can place a pre-order now to snag limited color vinyl version, be entered in a TEST PRESSING giveaway and help us catch up on the bills!

Fear Of Lipstick's self-titled debut album is a slice of everyday life, love and social commentary set to the tune of straight-forward pop punk rock. They play it passionate; giving it all they got. The guitars are loud, bright and punchy as all hell, the bass is fast and frisky, the drums get it done, and the lead vocals go for the guts every time. This is a summertime album all the way. We've been in love with this band for a long time now and it's great to have the honor of releasing their first full-length album. We hope you all love it as much as we do!

www.myspace.com/fearoflipstick1234

Fear Of Lipstick will be playing a two record release show this weekend June 11th and 12th at The Paramount Lounge and the Irishtown community center in Moncton, New Brunswick. They will have CD's and LP's at the merch table!

The Creeps have been doing their thing for the better part of a decade now. They get better and better with each release. They've been ruling these past couple of years. Follow You Home is The Creeps' sound perfected! Incredible lead and backing vocals, bright and shiny guitar leads over driving rhythms, thick clean bass lines over precision drum beats... it's all there. It's hard to imagine them getting any better than this, but then again it has been and upward trend ever since their beginning. We're super excited to finally have a record out with these creeps!

www.myspace.com/capitalcitycreeps

The Creeps 7" and Fear Of Lipstick CD/LP will all be available for purchase direct from the bands at this year's Insubordination Fest in Baltimore, MD on June 25th! Fellow Canadian pop punkers The Varsity Weirdos will be there too, so check 'em all out if you can!

Month of June Sale: CD's, LP's, Bundle Packs and Super Packs

For the month of June we are rolling back all the prices of, well, almost everything! CD's and LP's are all a buck cheaper, CD+LP Bundle Packs and Super Packs are all two bucks cheaper. It's likely we'll keep prices reduced like this for a good while, but you should still treat it like a sale and buy too many records.

Coming later this summer...

August will see the release of Be My Doppelganger's latest full-length album No Composure, Chinese Telephones Democracy, and Stoned At Heart's Party Tracks vol.1. Check out the Releases Section for more news on each as it becomes available. All three bands will also be playing Awesome Fest 4 in San Diego, CA September 3rd - 5th... more news on that soon! In the meantime check out the officail website here: www.awesomefest4.com.

05/03/10 - Digital Mumbo Jumbo

Free MP3 Download codes are kinda cool...

So mp3s are all the rage. Not really my thing, but I can't argue against the convenience of them. In keeping with that convenience, we decided to drop the outdated optional CDR for our vinyl-only releases and go with the digital download code. Our first of these releases was the That's Incredible s/t 7" which you should totally buy if you haven't already - shit rips! We also decided to add download codes to a handful of our more recent 7"s that we've still got plenty of copies of in stock. So from here on out the following records will all contain download codes free with purchase:

Barrakuda McMurder Slow Crawl
The Crumbs / The Ridicules split
The Legendary San Diego Chargers / Sunnyside Give 'em Enough Booze
Festipals Gold Magic
Get Bent Dead It

Quit stealing our shit... Check us out on iTunes!

A while back we added some quick links to the bottom of every single page of this here website. Well, every one of those button links is now active! The biggest deal of the four is the iTunes link. We created a page that conveniently collects a link to purchase each and every one of releases available for digital purchase. Most releases are only available on iTunes for now, but a few other are up on Amazon too - the rest will follow later this year! Links for Amazon are on the iTunes page as well. As soon as they're all available on multiple sites, we'll probably change the name of the page to Downloads or something smart like that.

Click here to check out the new iTunes page!

Month of May Sale: 35" Special Bundle Pack

For the month of May we are offering you a nice and easy way to catch up on five of our most recent 7"s for the dirt cheap price of $15.00! Five times seven equals thirty-five, get it? The bundle pack includes all of records below on color vinyl and a Free MP3 Download card:

The Crumbs / The Ridicules split
The Legendary San Diego Chargers / Sunnyside Give 'em Enough Rope
Festipals Gold Magic
Get Bent Dead It
That's Incredible That's Incredible

CANADIAN INVASION!!!

Next month will see the release of our next three records - each coming to you from the great white north, Canada! We'll have more detailed info for ya soon enough. In the meantime, get familiar with these bands if you aren't already. They all rule in their own special way, eh!

Fear Of Lipstick Fear Of Lipstick CD/LP - www.myspace.com/fearoflipstick1234
The Creeps Follow You Home 7" - www.myspace.com/capitalcitycreeps
The Spinoffs Stayin' Alive 7" - www.myspace.com/thespinoffs

And speaking of Canadians, those Varsity Weirdos are playing what will probably be the biggest show of their life with The Riverdales on May 15th in Toronto, Ontario. If you haven't picked up their new album Can't Go Home yet, pick it up at the show! They might have a couple copies of the super limited blue/white vinyl LP too! The Creeps will be playing the show as well. Unfortunately, their 7" won't be out by then, but they've got other great records (most of which are in our distro section) that are totally worth owning. There hasn't been a pop punk show I've wanted to go to more than this one in a long, long time. Be there if you can!

04/12/10 - Varsity Weirdos Contests

The Varsity Weirdos Can't Go Home half blue half white 12" vinyl LP is all sold out! If you lagged on getting a copy and still want one and don't want to go the eBay route, you're in luck! There are a couple of contests up and running and a couple more on the way. Or if you've just been holding off on picking up a copy on CD or LP, here's your chance to score either for free!

Interpunk has a contest up on their front page that ends April 19th, which means you have a week from today to enter! Also on the front page is a link to purchase tickets for this year's Insubordination Fest in Baltimore. The Varsity Weirdos will be playing this year again, which will only be their second show in the USA to date! Get tickets now before it's too late!

CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERPUNK CONTEST

Punkradiocast is also running a contest through their Shopradiocast page. They carry most in print It's Alive Records release and a ton of other great stuff. Check out the radio show and buy some records!

CLICK HERE FOR THE PUNKRADIOCAST CONTEST

If you still haven't checked out this band, listen to some tunes from the new album here and here.

And don't forget, The Varsity Weirdos along with The Creeps will be opening for The Riverdales in Toronto, Ontario on May 15th. This is like a dream lineup for pop punk fans!

04/05/10 - Another month, another update.

In keeping with my commitment to post news on the first Monday of every month, here we are again with - you guessed it - more news!

Be My Doppelganger / The Dopamines Tour Split 7" now available for purchase!

Be My Doppelganger and The Dopamines just wrapped a few weeks of midwest and east coast touring touring together. In support of the tour and for the sake of ridiculous record making we pressed 200 copies of split 7" to be sold on tour. Turns out there were a decent amount of copies leftover, so we're selling them here on the store page. Copies are limited and in fairly low supply, so get one now while ya can! You can pretend you got it on tour and make up some wild and crazy story about what went down at the show. Chances are good that your wild and crazy story probably did happen somewhere at some point during this show. These dudes party pretty hard at times.

Month of April Sale: All Super Packs and CD+LP Bundles

For the month of April we have dropped the price of all Super Packs and CD+LP bundles by a few bucks. Purchase of these bundles really help us recoup production costs more than anything else we sell. The more you buy the more we can release. Your support over the years has made all of this shit possible. It's crazy to think we're almost at IAR #50! Here's a list of super packs currently available:

The Veterans s/t
The Dopamines s/t
The Gateway District Some Days You Get The Thunder
House Boat The Delaware Octopus
The Varsity Weirdos Can't Go Home

Out Of Print titles back in stock...

As some of you may or may not know, the fine folks over at VInyl Collective have been having a real hard time this year. In an effort to help ease their money troubles and help sell some older titles of ours we made a deal which entailed getting our out of print and sold out (here on the site anyway) titles back. So you may have noticed some of them in the store already, but in case you hadn't, they are:

Retarded Gambling On Rock (clear) 7"
Fear Of Lipstick Indie Band 7"
The Steinways Unoriginal Recipe (second press) 7"
The Peawees Walking The Walk LP
The Copyrights Make Sound (second press) LP
The Veterans s/t LP
Be My Doppelganger Sonic Annihilation 7"
The Copyrights We Didn't Come Here To Die (picture disc) LP

Quantities are very limited. Only one or two of these will might be repressed in the future. So grab them now if you missed them the first time around!

03/19/10 - Heads Up for this Tuesday!

Early Tuesday morning we will be adding The Varsity Weirdos Can't Go Home CD/LP and That's Incredible s/t 7" to the store page. If you wanna get in on the limited to 100 half blue half white vinyl Varsity Weirdos LP you should probably try to get your order in sooner than later. We only have 75 copies for sale! Please take note that the color vinyl version comes in a fold-over jacket with altered cover art whereas the classic black vinyl version comes in a traditional LP jacket printed by the fine folks over at Imprint Indie Printing.

Remember to check out one of The Gateway District / That's Incredible shows or The Dopamines / Be My Doppelganger shows in they are anywhere you can get to! I will be along for the ride with The Be My Doppeldopagangermines for the first five days of the tour. If you are at one of the shows, come say hey!

The new That's Incredible s/t 7" will be available at all dates and so will this monstrosity!!

Click HERE for more info.

03/01/10 - New Year, New News!

Time has really slipped away lately. Here it is, the start of the third month of 2010 and this is our first update of the year. Don't let the lack of news reporting fool ya, we've been super busy getting stuff together for new records and some other little label changes. So enough about the lag, here's the news!

Website changes...

You'll notice on the bottom of every page we've added clickable links for myspace, facebook, youtube and itunes. Though they are all clickable, they're not yet fully active. In the coming months you can expect to find us all over the interwebs with new tunes, new records and even a video or two. Well, live footage anyway. The plan is to get a news blast out on the first Monday of every month; here, on myspace and on facebook. Everyone has their favorite way to catch up on things, so we figure we'll cover as many bases as possible. We're also planning to get an email newsletter set up shortly as well. As for the itunes page, we're going to collect direct links to all of our digitally available releases all onto one page.

The distro section of our store page is updated daily to reflect exactly what is and what isn't in stock. It can be a lot to keep up with if you're watching, so we're making it a little easier to see what's new. Next to each new listing you'll see it called out as such with some blue text. Fancy, I know! The blue tag will stay there for about a month from when the item was first listed, whether it's a new addition or a newly relisted restock.

Shipping notifications...

If you've ordered anything direct from us anytime in the past few months you will notice you are now receiving shipping notification emails with tracking info. We are giving the post office a break and doing most of our shipping processing ourselves now. If you order from out of the country and your total order weighs less than 4 pounds, you won't receive tracking info. For some reason there aren't any online shipping options for first class international mail. Why? I have no idea! But if your order is over 4 pounds you will more than likely receive a tracking number. Either way, you will still receive an email notifying you that your order has shipped.

Monthly contests and sales...

Throughout the year we will be running contests and sales. The contests will more than likely be run through the email newsletter (once we have one set up). We'll try to keep them fun. Winners won't just be picked at random, you'll have to work for them! We're thinking quizzes or maybe coming up with ideas for t-shirts or record names or something else like that.

The sales are something we will do on a monthly basis. Each month something different will be on sale. We might make up special package deals for these sales too.

Month of March Sale: The Children's Crusade Get Awesome 10"

We don't have too many copies of this record left, but the fact that we have any at all is ridiculous! This record is sure-as-shit one of the best we have ever put out. Not only is it one of the best, it's one of my favorites. I still listen to it all the time. To read my ramblings about it check out it's page in the releases section. It would have and should have been the first record It's Alive ever put out back in 2002. I love this record so much! Pick this 10" up anytime this month for the cost of a 7".

Represses available now and in the works...

Some of you keeping up with the releases pages or browsers of the store page may have noticed some older titles have come back in print. We had extra jackets for a few releases so we filled them with second pressings of vinyl. The ones already up in the store are Barrakuda McMurder Slow Crawl (now on green vinyl), The Dazes / The Wimpys Greetings From Japan (now on red vinyl) and The Copyrights / The Dopamines Songs About Fucking Up (on black vinyl again, but a handful with alternate cover art), The Copyrights Make Sound (alternate cover art and packaging - less than 50 copies), and Kitty & The Manges Joey's Song (on new color vinyl). For more specific info on each please check out their pages in the releases section.

Coming later this month will be a split 7" with Be My Doppelganger's A-side of Sonic Annihilation and The Dopamines' B-side of Songs About Fucking Up. We are having 200 copies pressed to be sold during both bands' tour coming up later this month. There will more than likely be some copies leftover to be sold direct through our store page here. Keep an eye out towards the end of the month for that.

New records coming soon...

Up next we have the first full length from It's Alive all-stars The Varsity Weirdos. We've been waiting for this album since the first time we heard these guys five years ago. The wait was well worth it. Their new album Can't Go Home features 12 tracks of straight up pop punk played up to the highest of standards and expectations. The official release date is March 23rd. Get an order in as early as you can to snag one of the blue/white half-n-half color vinyl copies before they're gone! We'll only have about 75 copies (out of only 100 pressed) to sell here direct.

March 23rd will also see the debut release from That's Incredible out of San Pedro, CA. The band is made up of current and former members of Toys That Kill, The Soviettes, Killer Dreamer and Dick Army, so you know it's gonna be good! The four song s/t 7" will be available for purchase during the band's tour with The Gateway District starting late March. This will be our first release to ever come with a download code! All copies will include a card with a link for downloading all tracks in high-bitrate mp3 format as well as cover art. Expect this from all vinyl only releases from here on out.

Check out the It's Alive Records, The Varsity Weirdos and That's Incredible myspace pages for songs. And check out their pages in the releases section for more info including pressing details.

Tours coming soon...

Their are two tours featuring two It's Alive bands starting later this month. The first being The Dopamines and Be My Doppelganger, and the second being The Gateway District and That's Incredible. Both tours are meeting up with one another at the same show on March 20th in Chicago, where they'll be joined by Chinese Telephones! I will actually be at this show. So if you're there and you see a bald guy drinking some girly drinks, that's gotta be me! Come over and say hey! Check out the dates below.

And finally, The Manges, The Varsity Weirdos and The Creeps have all been invited to play with the one and only Riverdales! The Manges are playing with them April 24th in Philadelphia, PA along with The Huntingtons. The Varsity Weirdos and The Creeps are playing with them May 15th in Torono, Ontatio. If you are able to attend either of these shows, do it! I am holding out patiently for a west coast appearance, but I'd kill to be at either of these shows.