SCENE FLYERS

Hello people! (Again, SORRY for the lack of activity... :( )

Today, I’d like to show you this poster from an old Alesana tour, that took place in late 2010. I stumbled upon it during the search for an original poster from the release year of “On Frail Wings...” but aside from an old Warped Tour flyer, I couldn’t find anything so this one will do.

Like I said, this flyer was created in more recent years. Post-hardcore band Alesana had already released their third album “The Emptiness” in January that year, completed an album release tour and then set up a small tour called the “Two Frail Weeks Of Vanity And Wax Tour” where they played their debut album in its entirety for their long-time fans.

Supporting acts were fellow post-hardcore act Our Last Night, who just got exposed to a larger audience by releasing their successful third album “We Will All Evolve”, the newly formed and horror-themed trancecore sextet Vampires Everywhere! and Honor Bright, a pop-punk band who had released their amazing second studio album “Action! Drama! Suspense!” via Triple Crown in summer that year (it’s a shame that they didn’t get more attention, even now that they are reunited).

SHEESH! Hello there, eh... it’s been a while right? I didn’t forget about this blog, it’s just that I was so caught up in work the last months, that I didn’t had the time to keep it active. But here I am still having hundreds of flyers to share and I WILL share them, pinky promise.

This wonderful hommage to 60s-80s horror movies is the flyer for the first incarnation of Artery Foundation’s now well-known “Artery Foundation Across The Nation Tour”. Being a rather small artist management company back then, the guys at Artery have made quite a name for themselves since the companys inception in 2004, they even founded an imprint record label with Razor & Tie in 2010.

The first Across The Nation Tour took place way back in 2008 and was sponsored by online merchandise shop MerchNow and Kyle Crawfords popular clothing brand Electric Zombie. When a new Across The Nation tour was announced, it always guaranteed for a badass line-up and the first one was no exception. Let’s first take a look at the bottom line, where you can see a then small band called Memphis May Fire, who had one little self-titled EP from 2007 under their belt and had recently replaced their original singer Chase Ryan with the now famous Matty Mullins. It’s fun to see them touring now with the likes of Killswitch Engage, Yellowcard or Of Mice & Men who ironically weren’t even existent back then. They are listed along with a band called Blinded Black (never heard of them) and The Hottness, who released their debut full-length on Ferret that year. They played pretty awesome post-hardcore and had a lot of buzz on MySpace but somehow just faded away after one last LP in 2009... :(

The next line features christian metalcore juggernaut Oh, Sleeper and Before Their Eyes. Both bands were only two years old and had their debuts “When I Am God” and “Before Their Eyes” out the year earlier. Four Letter Lie is the old band of A Day To Remember’s lead guitarist Kevin Skaff and Dylan Smith, better known as the rapper MOD SUN. They released a new EP in 2014, without the aforementioned members though.

Co-headliner Dance Gavin Dance had just kicked out their original singer Jonny Craig (for the first time :D ) and went into the studio recording their first album with Kurt Travis during this tour, which should be the reason for the “appearing on selected dates” asterisk. A Skylit Drive released their debut full-length and their first release with new singer Michael Jagmin during the time of this tour. The hype around that release was so real, that it instantly entered the Billboard 200 charts when it finally came out.

This time I even have two flyers promoting the same tour, namely the “Rise vs. Tragic Tour” back in March 2008. The upper one was made specially for the Florida dates. It was some sort of collaboration between Rise Records and Tragic Hero Records, two labels that were still very small at that time. The first releases from bands like The Devil Wears Prada, Before Their Eyes or Dance Gavin Dance were some of the bigger things from Rise, Tragic Hero was for example the original home to Alesana and A Skylit Drive.

Both labels put two of their bands on the tour. A Different Breed Of Killer were a young deathcore band (yes, Rise was also home to some deathcore acts back then). They released their debut full-length “I, Colossus” shortly after this tour. Sadly, that should remain their only release to this day. I think this is my third post to feature Oceana. And and this time they were even further at the beginning of their career. Their debut “The Tide” came out in the same month this tour happened. From Tragic Hero came the post-hardcore group Akissforjersey, who were on the verge of dropping their second studio album “Victims”, which happened in May that year. It is the only band that managed to come back with one last album in 2014, but has since disappeared. Knives Exchanging Hands was an extensively touring band, that played some crazy deathcore. Their debut “Hiatus” came out a year prior. They played a reunion show in 2014, but that was the last thing I heard from them. :(

The next poster I want to share was made for "The Secret Of The Dangerous Radio From Maine, In Space Tour”, that happened in the spring of 2008. First of all, it’s a hilarious title which was created by merging the names of all the bands on this tour. It was again presented by the clothing brand Pyknic and additionally by the music website PureVolume. Solo electropop artist The Secret Handshake had already risen to quite some fame by that time. His second album “One Full Year” was released a year prior and earned him lots of new fans. The Maine were still a very young band (They didn’t even had their cool logo, they used for the next two albums) and had freshly signed to Fearless in December 2007 together with releasing their second EP “The Way We Talk”. Danger Radio were a sweet pop rock band, who had also dropped their second EP “Punch Your Lights Out” at the end of 2007, which spawned the catchy single “Party Foul”. They should top that success by far with their debut full-length “Used And Abused” released in summer that year. I have to admit, I had to refresh my memory of Powerspace. :D They were a pretty rad powerpop band and had released their debut “The Kicks Of Passion” on Fueled By Ramen in summer ‘07, it should be their only one. Their single “Right On, Right Now” featured a pretty funny music video with one of the band members running and jumping around naked in some field.

HI. I’m finally back from the offline world. Had to get some really urgent shit done the last week. Oh and hi to all my new followers. :D Really, it feels good to see that it is not only me, who misses this time or is at least interested in a pretty defining time in alternative music history.

Okay, for the next one I chose a poster that maybe doesn’t have the most gory neon artwork but is pretty nonetheless and features popular and important bands for the scene culture in the late 2000s. This tour happened in the summer of 2008. It was presented by wildly popular merchandise and alternative clothing retailer Hot Topic and was headlined by the then young and upcoming post-hardcore act A Skylit Drive. Their studio debut “Wires... And The Concept Of Breathing” dropped a few months earlier on Tragic Hero and charted immediately. It was their first release with Michael Jagmin after their original singer Jordan Blake left to form Watchout! There’s Ghosts, Jagmin has left his old band Odd Project a year prior. Sky Eats Airplane was an absolutely sweet post-hardcore/electronicore band who had a huge cult following back in the day. In 2008 they were on their peak of success, thanks to their deal with Equal Vision and their second self-titled LP which was released during this tour. It’s crazy to look at the names below the two headlining bands. Younger people: just imagine a world were Breathe Carolina & Emarosa are listed below a band like Sky Eats Airplane (”Sky Eats Who??”) Well, even back then Breathe Carolina and Emarosa both sure enjoyed their good dose of MySpace popularity, which should rise even more when their debut full-lengths (”It’s Classy Not Classic” and “Relativity”) were released around the time of this tour, but they were still far from being the headlining band.

Hi again! Here we have a poster from an Automatic Loveletter tour, humorously titled the “Almost Have A Tour Bus Tour”, which took place in early 2009. It’s another sad example of a line-up, where every band has called it quits for a long time. Automatic Lovetter was a pretty well known pop rock back then, mostly thanks to their wonderful singer, songwriter and guitarist Juliet Simms. They had already gathered quite a lot of fans back then thanks to their 2007 EP “Recover” and should top that success the year after that by releasing their debut “Truth Or Dare”. A Cursive Memory were a pretty sweet pop rock band, who landed a fairly decent hit called “Everything” in early 2008 and released their debut full-length “Changes” shortly after. Powerpop act The Friday Night Boys had already generated some buzz with their first three EP’s but it wasn’t until summer ‘09 that they crashed into the mainstream with their debut LP “Off The Deep End” and hit singles “Stupid Love Letter” and “Stuttering”... god, I miss them. I don’t know much about Tickle Me Pink, except that they released their first studio album “Madeline” in fall 2007 and that their bassist died of heroin overdose in 2008. They played some decent emo/alternative rock and their single “Typical” is actually pretty sweet.

For the next one, I’m gonna go a little more into the heavy side of things. If you were part of the scene back then and weren’t into powerpop or electronica bands you most likely had your iPod crammed with brutal (or br00tal) underground metalcore/deathcore bands. One of those bands were Arsonists Get All The Girls who were headlining the “Broken Hearts Broken Jaws Tour” in early 2008. They played their own schizophrenic version of deathcore mixed with mathcore, a lot of electronic elements, or even interrupted their tracks for a little ska. They had just suffered the tragic loss of their long-time friend and bass player Patrick Mason, who died of alcohol poisoning after celebrating his 21st birthday at the 30th November 2007. Their second album “The Game Of Life” was released just a few months before that incident. All that didn’t let them stop making music, though. Most of the other bands were still newcomers at that time. MyChildren MyBride released their label debut during this tour, but they already had a solid cult following, thanks to touring almost non-stop. For The Fallen Dreams had just released their debut “Changes” in January that year and Stray From The Path were far away from the rap metal/hardcore mix they play today. Their third album “Villains”, that came out in May that year, featured a pretty math-y style of hardcore, which they kept the next 5 years.

For the sake of completeness, I also have to show you the flyers whose design I just can’t stand. This is one of them.

It is from the “The One Moment Tour” (named after One Moment Management) that took place in fall 2008 and featured a sweet bunch of popular post-hardcore groups from that time. Headlining act Before Their Eyes were still on Rise Records back then and released their second studio album “The Dawn of My Death” during this tour. Eyes Set To Kill were a young and upcoming band who had just released their debut “Reach” earlier that year. Ferret Music’s biggest flagship LoveHateHero had 2 albums under their belt, the last one being “White Lies” in early 2007. Sadly neither Ferret nor LHH have survived to this day. And I just realized that this is my second post to feature Oceana. On this tour, however, they still were at the beginning of their short career, before splitting up into different bands (Polyenso, Decoder/Lead Hands, Wolf:Speak) They had just released their debut “The Tide” in March that year.

Hey there!

This flyer is from the “No Parents No Rules” tour presented by the popular clothing brand Pyknic, which had a measurable influence on scene fashion back then. The tour happened in May 2009 and it was headlined by The Secret Handshake, the electropop/rock project of Luis Dubuc. He had just released his third studio album called “My Name Up In The Lights” a few weeks before this tour. 2009 was definitely the year where TSH was on the peak of it’s success, with a lot of touring, a good amount of press coverage and doing official remixes of All Time Low and Bring Me The Horizon tracks. The Dangerous Summer had their debut LP Reach For The Sun fresh in stores, same with The Bigger Lights’ Fiction Fever EP. Indie-pop band The Morning Of had released their second record The World As We Know It in early 2008.

EDIT: Thanks to the wonderful Wayback Machine, I finally found a flyer in good quality. I even found out, that this tour was presented by the clothing label Ikke Medal. Couldn’t read that before. :D   Hi again! :)

This sadly seems to be the only flyer left on the whole internet for this special tour. (And it’s not even in a good quality, I had to screenshot it because the file was broken somehow...) It’s from the EZ Bronz Tour, that happened in the last months of 2009 promoting the release of Breathe Carolina’s second LP “Hello Fascination” earlier that year. Supporting powerpop act Cash Cash had released their debut record “Take It To The Floor” a year prior. It was long before they decided to go full on DJing and producing house music. Stephen Jerzak is one of the guys who made those cute acoustic pop songs adored by scene kids around the world (like NeverShoutNever or Romance On A Rocketship). And Fight Fair... fuck, I miss them. They were part of the whole easycore scene and released an absolute banger of an EP called “Settle The Score” in November 2008, full of summer party jams spiced up with heavy breakdowns. I’m proud to own that EP, because it’s very hard to get where I live.

One thing I always had to grant the alternative music industry is, that they had established several projects to raise awareness of self-harm and suicide among teens and young adults, which still is not unusual among adolescents and was sadly also prominent among scene kids. One of those projects is the non-profit organization To Write Love On Her Arms, but another example of this is the Sub City record label found by Hopeless Records in 1999 and especially their annually hosted Take Action Tour. They book a couple of bands, which many kids listen to, so they can enjoy a day full of great music and clear their minds. They donate a good portion of their ticket and CD sales (there is also a Take Action Sampler every year) to a non-profit organization. Back then it was almost always an organization that helps people dealing with suicidal thoughts and self-harm.

The next poster I wanna show you, is this poster from an All Time Low tour illustriously titled the “Manwhores And Open Sores Tour” happening in the beginning of 2008. They garnered huge mainstream success by releasing their second LP “So Wrong, It’s Right” a few months before this and could now finally go on their first headlining tour. Guests on this tour were Mayday Parade, who had just released their first studio album in the summer of 2007 which generated a good amount of buzz within the alternative music community and is today considered one of the best pop-punk releases of all time. And the small name on the bottom right is the same Every Avenue that should give us 3 great albums in the years to follow. At that time, however it was not long ago that they signed with Fearless in 2007 and released their third EP “Ah!” which brought them some moderate success, mainly thanks to the single “Where Were You?”.

Whoa! Hi guys, I’m sorry for the lack of uploads. Keeping this as active as I would like it to be is actually harder than I thought, haha.

Okay, here we have a flyer from a Cute Is What We Aim For tour that took place in the late spring of 2010. It was one of their first tours with a completely new line-up except singer Shaant, after he had put CIWWAF on hiatus a year before that, blaming his abuse of alcoholics as the cause. For supporting act The Friday Night Boys it was one of their last tours before they announced the breakup later that year. The Bigger Lights, however, had just released their debut LP a few months before this and should be touring almost non-stop until the end of 2010.

Now this is what you expect, when you think of “scene flyers” right? This stunning piece from more carefree times was made for a Parkway Drive tour in spring 2009. That means one and a half year after they released their second album Horizons but still almost the same amount of time until they returned with an enormous bang, by releasing Deep Blue in the summer of 2010 and took album charts all over the world by storm. Another band that were still far from becoming one of modern melodic hardcore’s (and also Sumerian Records’) biggest flagship were Stick To Your Guns, who also still had one and a half year until they released The Hope Division which led them to some mainstream success.

The design of this poster looks outright hilarious. I don’t know exactly what’s happening here. There are some dudes and a woman in the front with some apparently bad intentions (I don’t think I want to know what exactly is happening graciously concealed by the plant in the front) and a van with a surf board near the palm tree in the back. It almost looks like a trip to the beach gone terribly wrong, maybe it’s a movie reference I don’t get? 

One thing I liked about the whole scene back then is that, contrary to their often serious and emotional lyrics, most bands never took themselves too seriously. An example for that is the poster for this Gwen Stacy tour, early 2010. It was one of their last tours before their break-up later that year. Supporting acts were Vanna, Oceana and Dead And Divine, who all had released their second LP’s a year earlier. Solely Vanna is still active to this day, Oceana released a last EP in 2010 before transforming into an indie/experimental outfit called Polyenso (which is amazing too, check those guys out!)

Hey! I wasn’t home for the weekend, but i’m back now, so I can finally post some flyers again. Yay!

This one is from a release show of Dance Gavin Dance’s self-titled second LP in their hometown of Sacramento in 2008. The album was released 4 days prior to this show. The supporting acts all had released new material in that year, with post-hardcore acts A Skylit Drive and Lower Definition having released their debut full-lengths a few months before this.

HII! I didn’t have much time today, but I want to keep this active, so here we go. This slimy flyer is from Pierce The Veils “Delicious Tour” that took place in the autumn of 2008. It was their first headlining tour since their inception in 2006. They had just garnered some solid hype by releasing their debut record “A Flair For The Dramatic” a year earlier and could only dream of a world tour like the one they should be doing with Sleeping With Sirens 6 years later.

The supporting acts were mostly newcomers at that time. Breathe Carolina and Emarosa (with Jonny Craig after he had been kicked out of DGD the first time) had just released their debuts a few months before this.