Better luck this time? Pennsylvania act Runner Runner which features former members of the pop/punk band Over It (formerly on Virgin) has generated some buzz lately with a more Top 40 friendly sound. Tracks like “So Obvious” and “Believe” seem prime for success on the heels of the likes of Metro Station’s “Shake It”. Take a listen to Over It’s first single “Siren on the 101” from their Virgin records debut and decide if the change in sound was one for the better, or worse.

Under Appreciated Indie: Atlanta indie rock group The Constellations have remained seemingly under everyone’s radar with the release of their debut LP “Southern Gothic”. Check out the track “Love is a Murder” featuring Cee Lo of Gnarls Barkley.

Singer/songwriters: A few international singer/songwriters worth a listen are Canada’s Shawn Hlookoff who generated buzz with one of his newer tracks, “Without You”. Australia’s Axle Whitehead has also been receiving some airplay in Australia with his singles “Anywhere” & “I Don’t Do Surprises”.

Shifting genres in Australia, the post-hardcore, rock band Closure in Moscow has signed to the US label Science Records and should be seeing a 2009 release. Comparisons have been made to anyone from The Mars Volta to Saosin, check out the single “We Want Guarantees” and the hard hitting “Breathing Underwater”.

Signing? Ohio pop/rock band The Undeserving have apparently signed a record deal, but have not yet revealed with who, read their blog here

Quick Hits:

Rev Theory
Listen to: Wanted Man
Definitely an improvement from the first and fist pumping lead single
“Hell Yeah”.

Valencia
Listen To: Where Did You Go?

Jack McManus
Listen To: Bang on the Piano
UK piano rocker with radio ready singles.

Soundcheck is written by Dallas who currently attends San Francisco State University and works on the Live 105 (KITS) Action Team.

inPASSING who hails from Orlando Florida collaborated with James Paul Wisner (Dashboard Confessional, Underoath, The Academy Is) and released an EP in the spring of 2008. The band also just released a music video for the track “All Together”. Our favorite track is Back Down.

Tour Dates:

Sep 12th    Backbooth - Orlando, Florida
Sep 14th    Green St. - Greensboro, North Carolina
Sep 18th    Big Daddy’s - Tallahassee, Florida
Sep 19th    The Porch - Brandon, Florida

McCain Lifts Off With Van Halen: John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate with Van Halen’s song “Right Now“. Sammy Hagar has no objection to the Republican Party using the group’s song and said “When I wrote the lyrics to ‘Right Now’, I intended them to inspire people to not sit around and wait for something they believed in but to go out and get it, to make a change however they needed to”

New Video Stream: It’s been the month of Metallica. Metallica has posted the war centered video for the track ‘The Day That Never Comes‘ which can be found on their myspace.

Signings: Post Hardcore band Funeral For A Friend who was signed to Ferret Music and later Atlantic Records have now signed with Victory Records and will release their new album ” Memory and Humanity” on October 28th.

This Week Sales: Slipknot, the metal act from Iowa is expected to sell at least 200k. The band aimed for world domination early in their career and it seems like they accomplished their goal.

The Last Days of Bandwidth Hogs: Comcast recently announced that starting Oct. 1 it would set a threshold for monthly Internet usage. Users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of monthly usage. Comcast said its average residential customer uses approximately 2 to 3 GB while bandwidth hogs could typically use 250 gigabytes. Consuming 250 gigabytes would be comparable to sending 50 million e-mails, 62,500 songs, download 125 standard-definition movies or upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos. Frontier and Time Warner Cable are now moving toward imposing internet usage caps.

Universal Music Dodges The Bullet: The Rolling Stones jumping ship and joining Universal Music may have helped Vivendi meet its financial goals, profits for the quarter were up 12%. The rise of digital music is also contributing to the increase of Universal’s market share.

Man Arrested For Leaking Guns N’ Roses Tracks: A Los Angeles man who posted nine pirated tracks from “Chinese Democracy,” from Guns N’ Roses, was arrested by FBI agents and charged with violating federal copyright laws. He uploaded the songs from a computer at the online ad sales company where he works and if convicted of the felony count, he faces up to five years in prison. It’s about time the government is enforcing copyright laws. Here is the affidavit.

New Music: Listen to Walking Alone and Finding Your Way by
Daniel Ghattas. Ghattas hails from Montreal and draws influences from Bryan Adams, Daniel Powter, and Jack’s Mannequin. When I started writing and recording songs I vowed that I would make sure every track on my album was not just good but great. “No filler tracks” was my motto says Ghattas.

Music Biz Questions iTunes After Kid Rock’s Platinum Record:
The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “More Artists Steer Clear of iTunes“. Although iTunes have sold 5 billion downloads a growing number of record companies are trying to steer clear of Apple’s iTunes because they think that in some cases it’s crimping overall music sales.

Atlantic Records recently pulled the album by R&B singer Estelle from the iTunes Store, the same week that one of its songs entered the top-10-selling tracks on iTunes.

Many artists do not want their work dismantled and to be sold in individual tracks, instead iTunes requires that songs be made available separately. Artists, managers, and labels believe they can make more by selling complete albums for $10 to $15 than by selling individual songs. “In so many ways it’s turned our business back into a singles business,” says Ken Levitan, Kid Rock’s manager.

We think this solution is easy. iTunes requires that songs be made available separately because consumers prefer that, but, do artists prefer this? If artists want to sell their album as a complete package then iTunes should have this option. I can’t completely agree with Kid Rock’s manager that iTunes turned the music business into a singles business, because the music biz has always been a singles business since the 1970’s. Although it’s not far fetched and unreasonable to believe that iTunes can cripple album sales in some cases.

Neil Diamond’s Offer Called ‘Unprecedented’: Neil Diamond who is suffering from acute laryngitis apologized to his fans and offered refunds to 11,000 people who attended his concert. Diamond is a true rock n’ roller because he went on stage and gave it his all yet still offered refunds because of a subpar performance. Some industry veterans said they’d never heard of a performer offering refunds because of the quality of the show.

Recommended Listening: Listen to Proud To Be and Its Just Business by Hand Me Down Buick. The band hails from Atlantic City, NJ and they don’t stray to far away from the multitude of bands on purevolume. Although musically they may be on top of the heap it still won’t propel them to national status. We are hoping that some of the talented bands will let go of ‘Emo’ and renew their spirit of experimentation and musical innovation that will hopefully result into a new exciting scene.

New Video Stream: Glam band Hinder has posted the video for their current rock single ‘Use Me’. Seems to be a big budget video with a cast full of girls, but they definitely pulled it off.

LimeWire Moving Towards A Paid Platform: File sharing site LimeWire is moving towards a paid platform. According to Digital Music News Lime Wire finalized a content agreement with The Orchard, a deal that adds approximately 1.2 million songs to the LimeWire Store. Pricing options would include:

25 monthly downloads for $9.99
50 downloads for $14.99
and 75 songs for $19.99.

Songwriting Competition: ISC (International Songwriting Competition) has announced its line-up of judges. This year’s judges include Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20), Tom Waits, Ray Davies (The Kinks), Ricky Martin, McCoy Tyner, T-Pain, Loretta Lynn, Chaka Khan, Robert Smith (The Cure), and many more. To enter, go to www.songwritingcompetition.com