The Witzard

Titus Andronicus, L-R: R.J. Gordon, Patrick "Paddy Stacks" Stickles, Chris "Big Steve" Wilson & Liam "The Younger" Betson (SOURCE: Big Hassle) Not entirely unlike Bob Dylan and/or Bing Crosby & David Bowie long before them, New Jersey's own Heartland Rock stalwarts Titus Andronicus are cranking up the festive mood yet another notch with the release of their first-ever stand-alone holiday single, "Drummer Boy." Having released one of the year's most celebrated Rock albums with The Will to Live and dazzled ecstatic fans across America, Titus Andronicus have much to celebrate. Plus, they're sharing plans to ring in The New Year with additional tour dates across The United States, Canada, The United Kingdom, and Ireland. "Drummer Boy" lifts the musical components from Billy Joel's timeless 1973 anthem, "Piano Man," and retrofits it to tell The Nativity Story from the perspective of "The Little Dru...

Titus Andronicus (ILLUSTRATION: Nicole Rifkin) Esteemed East Coast Rock titans Titus Andronicus have announced the long-awaited release of their seventh studio album, The Will to Live, out via Merge Records this September. It was produced by Titus Andronicus singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles and award-winning Canadian producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Godspeed You! Black Emperor) at the latter's Hotel2Tango Recording Studio in Montreal, The Will to Live is heralded by today's premiere of the stirring first single, "(I'm) Screwed," listen now at all streaming services. An official music video from director Ray Concepcion—which finds the band performing on a flatbed truck during The Independence Day Parade in the band's hometown of Glen Rock, New Jersey. Stickles elaborates, "in "(I'm) Screwed," we are introduced to the narrator of The Will to Live at the moment he realizes the walls are closing in. Be it real or ...

It's been widely reported this past Friday's 24-hour Bandcamp Friday festivities garnered $7.1 million, all of which went directly to the artists waiving the company's own revenue shares. Yesterday, we ran a feature on a collection of our favorite beat tapes released on or around Bandcamp Friday and today, we're going to do something similar, but with mixtapes. Now, these aren't exactly your typical rapper, producer, or DJ-orchestrated mixtapes... these are uniquely non-Hip-Hop "mixtapes" orchestrated and released by a few of our favorite Punk/Hardcore bands, DOPE BODY, F*CKED UP, and Titus Andronicus. For Bandcamp Friday, a newly-reunited DOPE BODY released an album/mixtape called Home Body, F*CKED UP issued their MIXTAPE 6, and Titus Andronicus uploaded Sorry About The Delay: Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Volume 2A, A Reductive Scoff: Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Volume III, and Broken Down In Morgantown: Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Volume 4 (An Aste...

Earlier this morning, Titus Andronicus posted a rather cryptic video on their band YouTube page simply entitled "TITUS ANDRONICUS - 2020 TEASER." It came packaged along with this block of text within the Description section: "On March 9th 2010, Titus Andronicus released their landmark album The Monitor . On March 9th 2020, Titus Andronicus released this cryptic video. What does it mean? Stay tuned to find out..." along with the cryptic hashtag #MON1T0R . The monitor was, of course, Titus Andronicus' sophomore album and follow-up to Seinfeld-referencing The Airing of The Grievances . It included soaring contributions from frontman Patrick Stickles and a who's-who of 2010 Indie Rock musicians, family, and friends, including Brett Bondar , Ian Graetzer, David Bentley , Eric Harm, Greg Farley (Conor Oberst,) Andrew Cedermark, Dustin Wong (Ponytail,) Pete Feigenbaum, Kevin McMahon (Diarrhea Planet,) Ian O'Neil (Deer Tick,) Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak,) Li...

Hammer Hulls are a Washington, D.C./harDCore -adjacent band I've been hearing rumblings about for at least a year or so now; I always knew it involved Alec MacKaye —younger brother of Minor Threat & Fugazi frontman, Ian MacKaye —but wasn't exactly sure who else, but knew they had been playing shows both in and around the D.C. area. It has now been revealed that, in addition to MacKaye, HAMMERED HULLS , also, consists of bassist Mary "T$" Timony , guitarist Mark Cisneros , and drummer Chris Wilson . Hammered Hulls' members either are or were once active as part of bands such as Acquaintances , American Hearts, Autoclave , Chain & The Gang, Deathfix , Des Demonas, Ex Hex , The Faith, The Firebird Suite , Green 4, Helium , Hound, Ignition , KID CONGO & THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS, Led Byrd , THE MAKE UP, The Mary Timony Band , Medications, Mind Science of The Mind , Open City, Shake Ray Turbine , The Spells, Titus Andronicus , Ted Leo / Pharmacists, The Wa...

Over the years, Patrick Stickles -helmed Titus Andronicus have unleashed quite the expansive, genre-eschewing back catalog-worth of music; for me, personally, it all started with 2012's Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band-evocative Local Business . Titus Andronicus —often, affectionately referred to as simply "+@" —have since released a cascading 29-track "Punk" Rock Opera, The Most Lamentable Tragedy , a 2016 live album, S+@dium Rock: Five Nights at The Opera , and most recently, Folk Rock/Acoustic opus, A Productive Cough . In-between said releases, +@ have meticulously trickled out a gaggle of official/"unofficial" non-cannon releases, such as their mail-order SEVEN SEVEN INCHES series, Titus Andronicus, LLC Mixtape, Vol. 1 , Lil' Wayne-referencing +@ LLC MIXTAPE, VOL. 2A: SORRY ABOUT THE DELAY , Titus Andronicus Mixtape, Volume III: A Reductive Scoff , and spook-tacular "Home Alone (On Halloween)" 12-inch. Titus Andronicus ...

Home Alone on Halloween by Titus Andronicus Alright, ladies & germs - now, first and foremost, I don't generally post press statements in full, but this one was, honestly, just too good to pass up: "With Home Alone on Halloween , noted Rock band Titus Andronicus celebrate the spookiest of the seasons by staring into the abyss and confronting the bone-chilling terror, which lies at the haunted heart of our human experience. Bearing the justly feared catalog number "MRG666," the 12-inch EP spans 31 minutes and features three tracks recorded concurrently with the group's most recent full-length, A Productive Cough , offering an Autumnal tableau of dread and decay to complement its LP companion's Springtime visions of re-birth and new possibilities." Essentially, beloved Brooklyn -based Alternative/Hardcore/Punk/Folk quintet, Titus Andronicus (or +@ for short) have returned with their latest seasonally-appropriate offering titled Home Alone On ...

No Faith / No Future / No Problem by Titus Andronicus / Craig Finn It almost seems as though New Jersey 's own pride and joy Titus Andronicus have been on a Bob Dylan 's Never Ending Tour -evocative cross-country jaunt in support of their critically-acclaimed Punk Rock Opera , The Most Lamentable Tragedy , onto which they've just added some sprawling 42 additional dates through May 30th with The Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn and La Sera ; "with the hotly anticipated "No Faith / No Future / No Problem" American Tour kicking off in just one week, peerless rock band Titus Andronicus and luminous singer-songwriter Craig Finn are ready to take their friendship to the next level," reads a recently published post to Titus Andronicus' own web-headquarters. "It is in that spirit of love and sharing that they make available today, for streaming and free download , a digital split single of mutual covers, celebrating the imminent tour and the two...

"'The Magic Morning" was written and directed by +@uteur Patrick Stickles in a display of artistic hubris that no buzz band today could begin to attempt... WATCH "Our Hero" awake to a world of wonder! GASP at the shocking secret of "The Lookalike!" MARVEL at the mysterious transformative powers of the Vernal Equinox ! DANCE to those which are already being called " [Titus Andronicus'] Greatest Hits Yet," reads a rather in-depth press release recently uploaded to Titus Andronicus' punked out webpage. "UNDERSTAND the underlying themes and motifs that elevate [The Most Lamentable Tragedy] far beyond the petty constraints of a mere " Rock album" and into the realm of that which the German philosopher K.F.E. Trahndorff first called, in 1827, Gesamtkunstwerk ( "total art" —look it up)," +@ continued. The New Jersey -based Heartland Punk Rock band are of course referring to their soon forthcomin...

"I love Rock 'N' Roll — just regular LP's give me a lot of pleasure. I have another, equally strong love for pieces of art that have different standards in place for, like, what makes them excellent, you know? I wanted to work on a macro level and a micro level. You can enjoy [this album] for three minutes and it's just a good time... or you can invest 93 minutes and hopefully, you'll get something else out of it," Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles recently lamented to Grantland concerning their just-announced Punk-Rock Opera, The Most Lamentable Tragedy (TMLT) . It was initially announced in a since long-dated September 2013 interview, wherein Stickles summarized it as the story of a "young man, his doppelgänger, and a superhuman race [that] has this curse upon it;" Grantland additionally mentions that in its early gestative phases, was to consist of 30 tracks and would be accompanied by a companion film upon its planned November ...

It's pretty safe to say that New Jersey Punks Titus Andronicus are having the most uncharacteristically blog-worthy week of their 8-year career; After unleashing "Still Life with Hot Deuce and Silver Platter"' s gritty performance video Monday afternoon, frontman Patrick Stickles opened his own singing telegram service... he'll personally travel to your house and sing anything you want, besides "Theme from Cheers" for $50, if you live in either New York City , New Jersey, or Long Island . Then Titus Andonicus uploaded an 8-minute "stone cold sober version recorded at one in the afternoon" of Icona Pop 's sugary sweet mega-hit, "I Love It." It was recently recorded at Brooklyn 's own D.I.Y. Punk club and the band's unofficial headquarters, Shea Stadium . I guess you could day Stickles went ahead and took a little bit of liberty with Icona Pop & Charli XCX 's lyrics: "Fighting with the cops (I love ...

Let's face it, karaoke sucks! Unless it's one of those beer-fueled, full bar sing-a-longs. Titus Andronicus are a "Beer-Punk" band hailing from Glen Rock, NJ who are named after a Shakespeare play. "Still Life with Hot Deuce and Silver Platter" is the second self-leaked track from the band's upcoming LP #3, Local Business (Oct. 22-23rd). " Titus Andronicus the studious recording project and Titus Andronicus the raucous touring machine are no longer two distinct beings; There is only Titus Andronicus , Rock "N" Roll band." ... Frontman Patrick Stickles notes that while Local Business isn't exactly a concept album per say, it was greatly inspired by a car wreck, "food fight" [eating disorder], and electrocution, a descent into insanity, and forgiveness. Loosely translating to "shit on a silver platter," "Still Life with Hot Deuce and Silver Platter" seems to be ragging on Hipsters [re...

Diarrhea Planet are exactly the kind of dudes I can get down with: hard-partying, guitar-drenched, Southern gentlemen with a Punk Rock edge! I must admit, I regularly talk with 3 of it's 6 Nashville -bred members through email, of course. Casey, Hodan & Evan C. Bird are really great dudes who really haven't let their recent wave of fame get to the heads and definitely appreciate their adoring fans. Since first hearing about their Infinity Cat debut, Loose Jewels over @ Prefix last October... I've worked "hands on" with Diarrhea Planet on a few assorted pieces for "The Witzard." Fresh on the heels of their recent SXSW 2012 appearance(s), Casey & Hodan mentioned a few upcoming happenings through email: Diarrhea Planet are currently in the studio... writing and recording material for a new 7" single, flexidisc, Infinity Cat LP #2, and a Titus Andronicus split! While nothing really has a concrete release date just yet, all 4 ...

While I love Hip-Hop and almost anything mildly "Punk Rock," I can honestly say that I've never really heard tell of a Hardcore band releasing a mixtape... and the sheer notion of it DOES sound pretty sketchy on paper. But I digress - Let's use the term "mixtape" loosely here and think of Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Vol. 1 as more of a Who Odds & Sods-esque mix CD or hand-dubbed cassette; Rather than an arrogant DJ drop-filled collection of unclear-able sampled Boom-Bap beats and rhythms. Roger that? Titus Andronicus sold 200 copies of a hand-made CD-R rarities collection @ SXSW this past weekend. Due to a wider response than expected, Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape, Vol. 1 was liberated on the band's Tumblr come Monday morning. It's essentially a 23-track collection of live cuts, covers, demos, out-takes, rehearsal sessions, and miscellaneous "odds & sods" spanning 2005-12. While the quality obviously varies from t...