My Heart Is Fucking Broken

"Dearest friends from all corners of the world,

I write to inform you that after nearly 9 years, 5 full-lengths, 2 bass players, hundreds of shows, and numerous other achievements and follies, Andrew, Frank, and I have decided to end our career as The Fall of Troy.

This band has been my life, my love, the air I breathe, the food I eat, and what helps me sleep (and sometimes keeps me up) at night. I love and cherish the music we’ve made, the times we’ve had, and all the great friends we’ve met along the way. Andrew, Frank, and of course Tim, will always and forever have a special place in my heart. But it has come time for us to call it a day. After everything’s said and done, there is no drama, there is no blow out, it’s simply the three members of this band are on three different paths in our lives.

I always hold true to the fact that it’s better to go out in style, to ride off into the sunset, than go down in flames. This tour coming up with Envy On The Coast and Twin Atlantic will be our last go round, and we really hope that all of you will come out and celebrate what has been so unreal and unbelievable – let’s dance one last time!

We would really like to thank everyone that’s ever been involved with the band, managed the band, booked a show for us, let us eat your canned food, sleep on your floor, asked us for a picture, caught me when I’ve almost been dropped, put out a record for us, driven us through a late night drive thru, or anything else any of you could possibly look back on and enjoy what this band was…Fun.

So make sure you come out to “The Marked-Men of 2010 Tour” as it will be our last hurrah! We love you, and will be giving as much love as you’ve given to us at these shows. So that’s that! We love you with all our hearts, thank you from the very bottom of them, and goodbye comrades.

R.I.P.
TFOT
2002-2010

With A Heavy Heart,
Thomas Joseph Erak

PS. I have no intention to stop making music! Quite the opposite actually – but until then see you at the shows!"

This sucks. I feel like my parents are getting a divorce... Thomas is undoubtedly sick of the struggling but highly talented musician route he's been accustomed to these past 8 years and I hate that I have the suspicion he's he's got plans for a new project that might actually allow him some stability, but that's what's wrong with the music industry. I could go on about this for days, but the point is bad artists are getting too much money, while the unique ones are stuck in an overly saturated bin of mostly underachievers. Music shouldn't have to be for the masses, but the industry makes it appear to be. There's not really much else to say other than GO SEE THESE GUYS LIVE ON TOUR WHILE YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE THE CHANCE.

3/6: DeKalb, IL - House Cafe

3/7: Indianapolis, IN - Emerson Theatre

3/9: Covington, KY - Mad Hatter

3/10: Nashville, TN - Rocketown

3/11: Atlanta, GA - Masquerade

3/12: St. Petersburg, FL - Orpheum

3/13: Orlando, FL - The Social

3/14: Mobile, AL - Alabama Music Box

3/15: Metairie, LA - High Ground

3/17: Mission, TX - Never Say Never Festival

3/18 - 3/19: Austin, TX - SXSW

3/20: Dallas, TX - The Door

3/21: San Antonio, TX - White Rabbit

3/23: Phoenix, AZ - Martini Ranch

3/25: San Luis Obispo, CA - Downtown Brew

3/26: San Francisco, CA - Slims

3/27: Anaheim, CA - Bamboozle

3/30: Portland, OR - Hawthorne Theatre

3/31: Seattle, WA - El Corazon (HOME STATE SHOW)

4/1: Vancouver, BC - Rickshaw

4/3: Salt Lake City, UT - Murray Theatre

4/4: Denver, CO - Marquis Theatre

4/6: Lawrence, KS - Bottleneck

4/7: Des Moines, IA - House of Blues

4/8: Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock

4/9: Chicago, IL - Subterranean

4/10: Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop

4/12: Grand Rapids, MI - Intersection

4/13: Pittsburgh, PA - Diesel

4/14: Buffalo, NY - Mohawk

4/15: Toronto, ON - Annex Wreck Room

4/16: Montreal, QC - Underworld

4/17: Syracuse, NY - Lost Horizon

4/18: Albany, NY - Valentines

4/20: Allentown, PA - Crocodile Rock

4/21: Philadelphia, PA - First Church

4/22: Baltimore, MD - Ottobar

4/24: New York, NY - Irving Plaza

4/25: New Haven, CT - Toad's Place

Read All About It - The Oscars

who: Movies in 2009

why: have been seen, discussed, and now nominated for this year's Oscars. You can check out the nominations from Rotten Tomatoes' website, here.

But because I have no political or social concerns, I thought it would be more fun to start my own Awards system. Welcome to the 1st Annual Tasties.

'Best Picture' Nominees:

• Away We Go
• Big Fan
• District 9
• Inglourious Basterds
• The Road

'Best Director' Nominees

• James Cameron (Avatar)
• Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)
• Jim Sheridan (Brothers)
• Neill Blomkamp (District 9)
• Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
• Robert D. Siegel (Big Fan)
• Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart)
• Spike Jonze (Where The Wild Things Are)

'Best Actor' Nominees:

• George Clooney (Up in the Air)
• Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
• John Krasinski (Away We Go)
• Patton Oswalt (Big Fan)
• Sharlto Copely (District 9)
• Tobey Maguire (Brothers)
• Viggo Mortensen (The Road)

'Best Actress' Nominees:

• Amy Adams (Sunshine Cleaning)
• Charlyne Yi (Paper Heart)
• Maya Rudolph (Away We Go)
• Natalie Portman (Brothers)
• Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer)

'Best Supporting Actor' Nominees:

• Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
• Jake Gyllenhaal (Brothers)
• Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road)
• Max Records (Where the Wild Things Are)
• Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover)

'Best Supporting Actress' Nominees:

• Catherine Keener (Where the Wild Things Are)
• Emma Stone (Zombieland)
• Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart)
• Mila Kunis (Extract)
  
• Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)

'Most Underrated' Nominees:

• Away We Go
• Brothers
• Extract
• Funny People
• Gigantic

'Most Overrated' Nominees:

• Avatar
• The Blind Side
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Paranormal Activity
• Watchmen

'Worst Movie' Nominees:

• New Moon (The Twilight Saga)
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
• Terminator Salvation
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Year One

...stay tuned for the award announcements?

Read All About It - Zach Galifianakis

who: Zach Galifianakis

why: is hosting SNL on March 6th!

Read All About It! - Rise Records

who: Rise Records

why: label for bands like Attack Attack!, Miss May I, The Devil Wears Prada, Emarosa, Dance Gavin Dance, Of Mice & Men and so on, have introduced a new iPhone App that you, for any of you who are lucky enough to have an iPhone, should have. It gives you streaming and downloadable music, local concert updates and news updates straight to your phone. Pretty obvious to me that this could be the future of music.

Attack Attack!

Miss May I

Emarosa

Read All About It - August Burns Red

who: August Burns Red
why: because they made a couple heavy renditions of some Christmas classics that I thought were interesting enough to put up here, and everything else I've been reading has been kinda lame... so I gotta give you something.

Read All About It - Armor for Sleep

who: Armor for Sleep
why: has [prematurely?] broken up after a solid eight year run. Here's the statement they issue on their Myspace blog yesterday:

"it's been a little over a year since our last tour and some of you out there have kind of figured out whats been going on with us. we never wanted to burden you all with a formal announcement of any kind and cause some type of commotion- we just thought it would be better to kind of drift away nice and easy… i am writing this strictly speaking for myself and i honestly don't really know how pj anthony and nash will react to me being the one to write this, but i feel like it should come from me because ultimately it was me who decided it was best to leave things where they were. to me a song is like a snapshot of a moment, real or made-up, and the band that takes that snapshot is like a camera. i was really happy and proud of the pictures that came out of our little camera, but i would have much rather put in on a shelf for me and all of us to look at with fond memories than to feel this intense need to make it take high-def panoramic mosaics when maybe it was constructed to handle polaroid film. it's as simple as that. i guess someone could examine our inter-personal relationships and weird habits and attribute them to the reason for this decision, but we were like brothers and no clash was ever too great to slow us down. i hope that time won't obscure that fact…i know it won't for me. that being said, i think the real and only reason i am writing this is for you who have been fans of armor for sleep. even though it hasn't been a secret that we are not working on an album or touring, it has felt really weird to not come out and say that the needles been lifted from the record. you have always been so amazing to us and i know through all of our fancy little internet avenues we will always be able/willing/not creeped out/ to talk about life, death, armor tabliture, the needler, whatever your little hearts desire. pj anthony and nash are all amazing people who i've witnessed first hand probably more than anyone in the world as being super talented at whatever they do and i know whatever they choose to do will be amazing. i know you'll have their backs just as i will. as for me, i have been hard at work cooking something up. i have a new camera. i never like to blab about stuff until its ready and for this reason i wasn't giving play by play updates when it was still in its complete infancy…but i will get into it more very soon. i'm really excited, and for me as someone who has been working a long time at the art of writing songs and having these weird visions about how i see a band being presented, i feel like i've put lots of pieces together from the terabytes worth of experiences i've lived through…i know some people will probably always want to hear dream to make believe or something no matter what i'm doing, which is fine, but time is an arrow and i'm not going to try and argue with that…i know i will always be myself and no matter what camera i'm behind i know you'll always recognize the hands holding it. thank you to everyone who's been supportive and listened to anything i've been a part of in any facet. i can't wait to tell you more about things to come. Check back in about a week for something new…"

If your deprived little soul has never known Armor for Sleep, check out my favorite record of theirs here: their 2005 release 'What to Do When You Are Dead'

What To Do When You Are Dead -...

Read All About It - Attack Attack!

who: Attack Attack!
why: because frontman and screaming vocalist Nick Barham has "non-explosively" left the band. This sucks, because I hate when bands breakup... it seems like the music never comes out the same. Bands like Emarosa, Dance Gavin Dance, A Skylit Drive just to name a few off the top of my head have suffered because of lost members. On the other hand, bands like Blessthefall and The Fall of Troy have been able to overcome losses like these with new gains and in some instances, an improved sound.

The main thing that I'm not really feeling with this change is that instead of replacing Nick with someone new, Caleb (keys/programming) is gonna take the frontman posish and replace the performance of live keys with an iPod (sampled). I'm personally hoping it'll just be a temporary sacrifice and they find someone new, because I love the fact that there are six of them making such layered, aggressive music.

Stream: Attack Attack! - Someday Came Suddenly

Someday Came Suddenly - Attack...

Waffle Fries - This Time Next Year

who: This Time Next Year
why: because they're smart. They understand what's going on right now, and I appreciate sensible people. Following in the steps of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' release, This Time Next Year has released their debut album 'Road Maps & Heart Attacks' through what they're calling the "Pay What You Want" program. This gives YOU the ability to download their album for whatever price you want: you can pay anything from $0 - $100,000 for it. Radiohead made millions off of this promotion and literally everyone and their mother has that CD - granted: they're Radiohead.

But I think what's most important is that they're getting there music out there LEGALLY and people don't have to feel like thieves because they want to listen to some new tunes. I'm a broke college student, and if I bought every album I wanted - I'd have to do illegal things to come up with the money anyway.

Bands put up a few singles on their myspace for you to stream for free, but if you don't like the rest of the album once you're swayed into buying it, you just wasted 10 bucks! So I think these guys have the right idea. Most bands don't make that much money through their CD sales anyways (which is why I'm surprised Equal Vision went along with it), but this way people will here the music, go to shows, buy merch and anticipate new releases, so for this I thank This Time Next Year for not being driven by the dollar and instead focusing on what's really important - the music.

These guys are a pretty solid pop-punk band and you should definitely go donate even $1 to these guys for doing something bold. Maybe in the future some of your favorite bands will follow suit. DOWNLOAD HERE!

Read All About It - Continuance

who: Continuance and Rise Records

why: Rise is continuing their expansion and have just announced their signing of Indiana-based hardcore band Continuance. They have some rather messy recordings up on their myspace, but hopefully Rise can help em lay down some killer recordings for their album which is set to be released sometime in Spring of 2010.

Read All About It - Blink 182

who: Blink 182

why: because you will always remember how hot the nurse on the 'Enema of the State' album cover was, and now they're releasing it on vinyl. 500 of these are set to be printed in four different styles (2000 total), and you can bet die-hards will go crazy to get their hands on one. Independent punk/hardcore label Mightier Than Sword Records will be releasing them December 1st, but they will be on sale October 19th (next Monday).

Images of the vinyls from Punknews:

Read All About It - October 9th

Two-story Friday.

who: Conditions

why: just put up a stream of their 2009 'You Are Forgotten' EP on PureVolume, check it out!

If you like what you hear...Buy it on iTunes. Lala.

who: From First to Last | Rise Records

why: because all kinds of crazy shit was going on with this band... Sonny went nutso and released that terrible EP this year and no one knew what was gonna happen to them... but they've now signed with Rise, so things are looking up? Their first album with Rise is set to be out February 10th, 2010, so be on the look out!

Read All About It - Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar

who: Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar
why: because as if he isn't busy enough touring with Death Cab for Cutie or being newly wed to the beautiful Zooey Deschanel, Ben Gibbard has joined forces with solo-artist Jay Farrar to release the soundtrack for 'One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur' on October 20th. NPR music has been kind enough to allow your ears a free listen at a track off the record titled "These Roads Don't Move". Way too folky for my taste, and I'm not really anticipating the release per say, but anything Mr. Gibbard touches is good enough for me. If you'd prefer a visual representation of what to expect, you can check out the music video for "San Francisco" here.

Pre-order

Read All About It - Mae

who: Mae

why: their 2009 album, '(m)orning' is in stores now, but because they're such good people they've made it available for you to stream free on their myspace and purevolume pages. Check it out!

for fans of: Copeland | Daphne Loves Derby | Jack's Mannequin

Read All About It - I Set My Friends On Fire

who: I Set My Friends On Fire

why: because you either hate them, or love them. There's really no in between. They just recently put up a new song titled "Four Years Foreplay" and I can't help it - I love how terrible and terribly catchy it is at the same time. Check it out on their MYSPACE HERE.

Read All About It - Kanye West is a Meme

who: sxephil (Philip DeFranco) and Kanye West

why: If you don't know sxephil, he has a Youtube channel that's basically like a college student's popular culture Daily Show in 4 minutes a day. So recently, as you would expect, he's been talking a lot about Kanye West. He found all these pictures that people have edited making fun of Kanye's remarks, and even though I almost feel bad for him, you should see these cuz it's funny to laugh at others' expense, right?

That took forever.

Read All About It - Suburban Home

who: Suburban Home Records / Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground

what: FREE digital release for their 14-year Anniversary

why: because it's free music! Send in only your e-mail address and receive a digital download code for an album by one of the following artists:

Austin Lucas, Cory Branan and Jon Snodgrass, Drag the River, Ghost Buffalo, In the Red, Joey Cape, Jon Snodgrass, Josh Small, Jr. Juggernaut, KAY KAY AND HIS WEATHERED UNDERGROUND, Largencia, Laymen Terms, Love Me Destroyer, Mike Hale, Ninja Gun, Stereotyperider, The Gamits, The Fairlanes, The Playing Favorites, The Revenge, The Takers, Tim Barry, Two Cow Garage, Useless I.D. and Yesterday's Rising.

Go HERE to get your download!

I obviously recommend their album: