It's Alive Records



01/21/08 - Two more next week... We've got two releases coming out next week. First up, The Steinways Unoriginal Recipe 7". It's six new songs from pop punk's funnest (yeah, it's not a word, so what) band around. We wanted to give everyone a heads-up on this release because it is going to be released in a super pack similar to that of the Chinese Telephones album. The super pack is officially a Pizza Pack. The Pizza Pack is an actual pizza box stuffed with the following: a pizza crust color vinyl 7", a thermo printed cd-r, an insert, a poster, a standard 7" jacket, a magnet, a button and a t-shirt with the cover art for the record silk screened on the front. The pizza pack will go up on the site next Monday (01/28/08) and will ship the following week. We felt the heads-up was necessary because they will be limited to 100 copies and shirt sizes are limited. If you want one, be sure to order right away. Once they're gone or your shirt size is gone, that's that! On the same day we will be releasing The Peawees Walking The Walk on 12" vinyl. If you aren't already familiar with The Peawees check out their myspace page and get ready to rock n roll! They do the whole rock n roll soul, rockabilly, punk rock thing better and different than any band out there. We've been huge fans for many years and it's really awesome to be able to finally release a record with them. We will be running a contest for this release. The main prize being a copy of their debut album Where People Smile, which was released long ago in Italy only and only on 12" vinyl. In the meantime we are trying to stock up on copies of their second and third albums for our distro as well as the import cd version of Walking The Walk. So keep an eye out for the news update next Monday to get in all the action! In the meatime, check out the It's Alive Records myspace page for song samples. In other news, the Chinese Telephones s/t 12" is already sold out not two months after its release! But fear not, if you missed it you'll have a chance to get it again in a month or two. We placed a repress order for another 500. This time, the first 200 on opaque blue vinyl. The jacket artwork will have a very small difference than the first time so you'll be able to differentiate 1st pressing black copies from 2nd pressing black copies.
01/01/08 - Contests and OOP Records update Interpunk just sent us the list of winners for the Chinese Telephones contest they were running this past month. The winners are below. Thanks and Congratulations! Your prize packs are in the mail. 1st Place: Timothy Peacock from Opp, Alabama 2nd Place: Chris Chambers from Seattle, Washington James Hansen from Newport Beach, California Ashley VanTilborgh from Godfrey, Ontario, Canada 3rd Place: Anita Yancey from Barnesville, Georgia Alfredo Arraiza from Pamplona, Spain Lonna Mahurin from Afton, Oklahoma Martin Tangman from Erlanger, Kentucky Erica Berumen from Santa Maria, California Vinyl Collective is currently running a contest for the Chinese Telephones album as well. They are raffling off a copy of the 12" vinyl test pressing for the album. Only five of them exist! If you want to be entered in the contest all you have to do is buy the album from through their site. The first pressing of Chinese Telephones s/t LP is just about sold out! We have only about 10 copies left. A handful of mailorder distros still have copies, so if you get here too late, try No Idea, Interpunk or Littletype. I think Littletype might even still have a copies on clear vinyl. The album will be repressed asap. Hopefully we'll have another 500 copies in month or maybe two. A few other titles of ours have recently sold out and slipped into OOP status. Here's everything we've put out so far that is all sold out: IAR02 Teenage Bottlerocket / Prototipes split (500 clear, 500 black) IAR03 The Copyrights Nowhere Near Chicago (100 white, 100 red, 300 black) IAR04 Kitty & The Manges Joey's Song (600 multi-color) IAR08 The Apers / Sonic Dolls split (500 purple) IAR09 The Copyrights / Zatopeks Handclaps & Bottlecaps (250 orange, 250 green) And here's a list of records we have less than 20 copies of before they are sold out: IAR05 The Varsity Weirdos Fly Me Up To The Moon (500 clear) IAR06 The Popsters The Scene (500 blue) IAR07 Zatopeks Smile Or Move (500 gold) IAR10 The Badamps Two Face (500 black) IAR11 Retarded Gambling On Rock (200 grey, 200 red, 200 purple, 200 pink) IAR12 The Copyrights Mutiny Pop (500 clear w/ orange & black splatter) IAR13 The Manges Go Down (500 black) IAR14 The Popsters Two Minutes (500 black) IAR17 Dear Landlord / Chinese Telephones split (500 violet, 500 black) IAR22 Chinese Telephones s/t (200 clear, 300 black) Some of these titles will more than likely be repressed, but not many of them. If you're still holding off, don't wait any longer! Two new records coming this month! The Peawees Walking the Walk 12" vinly LP and The Steinways Unoriginal Recipe 7". More news on these coming soon!
12/07/07 - Super Pack, Pooper Pack! Ok folks, here's the scoop: we totally blew it on getting the Chinese Telephones Super-Packs out before the album's official release date. We ran into just about every problem we could with the t-shirts - bad screens, damaged t-shirts, etc... The good news is the t-shirts are finally good to go and turned out great! Before the t-shirts became a problem we got totally bombarded with orders (thanks!). So buried in orders that we were making boxes out of any kind of cardboard we could get our hands on - again, sorry for the delay getting those orders out as well. As of last week we are entirely caught up to the day with order fulfillment. We really pride ourselves on getting ALL orders out within 24 hours of receiving them. Up until this release we always made good on that dedication. I hate waiting forever and a day to get mail-order packages. It really sucked being on the other end of that shitty situation for the first time. I know all our regulars have been really understanding and I hope all the new comers realize this is very out of the ordinary for It's Alive mail-order. To make it up to all the Super Pack pre-order people we are including a very limited, hand numbered little bonus in every package. We hope you dig it as much as you're gonna dig the new Chinese Telephones album. And while I am updating the news page I should direct all of you over to Interpunk where they are having a Chinese Telephones contest which ends December 10th. We put together some pretty awesome prize packages for the winners. The album was featured on the front page and as of today has broke into the TOP TEN list for cd sales at number nine!
11/14/07 - Chinese Telephones debut album! Well, we've finally crossed over into the land of full length releases. We've been plugging along for just about three years and two months now. In all that time we were never really dead-set against putting out a full length release of our own (we did do vinyl versions of full length albums for The Copyrights and Manges), but the cd format wasn't something we were too sure about getting involved with just yet. Our release of Way Out of Control by For Science got us real comfortable with it real fast! So when the opportunity to release Chinese Telephone's first full length album came knocking, we jumped at the chance to try something new. Chinese Telephones self titled debut album will be officially released on November 27th, but you can buy it directly from us on our store page now and have it shipped out by November 19th. The first 200 copies of the LP were pressed on clear vinyl, the rest are black. All cd's come in digipaks! It's Alive loves digipaks - they're the closest way to making a cd as collectible as a vinyl LP. We're offering some great package deals as well which include multi-format deals and t-shirts too! As always the first 50 orders of any package deal or individual purchase will come with a Chinese Telephones button. Both formats of this release will be available from many other online mailorders and distros including Interpunk, No Idea, Little Type, Vinyl Collective, Punk N Junk, and many more here and overseas! Check out the distro section of our links page for more sites. Writing about the music we love is hard to do, especially without sounding all lame about it. But for those that don't know what Chinese Telephones are all about, here's what we came up with for this release, enjoy (or don't)... They've got the hooks, they've got the riffs, they've got the message, but more than anything they've got the heart - enough of it to choke on! With their self-titled debut, Chinese Telephones deliver an album of urgency that needs to be heard. It's Alive Records was lucky enough and is incredibly proud to be the label releasing Chinese Telephones. Just as it's the band's first full length album, it's the label's first full length album as well. Chinese Telephones is the soundtrack to a sweaty house-party basement show in Any town, USA. It's got the get-up-and-go of a youth anthem fight song for the fist-pumpers, the pogo power for the pop punkers, the heartache in the slowdown for the heartsick, and the undeniable catchiness in the hooks that brings it all together for everyone to come together, sweat together and hug it out in the pit. As is usually the case with the best bands playing punk rock these days, the music played by Chinese Telephones is hard to nail down to any one style or genre. The guitar work these guys put out is all killer! The rhythms are thick and chunky, and the leads and fills are super clean. Daniel James really knows his shit – quite a few of the tracks on Chinese Telephones have guitar leads and fills from start to finish. That alone takes a lot of skill to pull off, but the fact that it never gets stale takes some serious talent! Like the rhythm guitar, the bass lines are big and beefy. And like Daniel James, Ray Suburbia knows his way around the block on his bass. The backbeat for the whole enchilada is laid out by Gorky on drums. The energy and enthusiasm of his drum work set the pulse high for the heart attack on its way. Justin's lead vocals are filled with power and passion. When someone really makes the most of what he's got it comes through as more than just sound - it's felt as much as it's heard. Ray Suburbia is joined by Jeff Burke of the Marked Men for much of the backing vocals, all of which are right on-time and in just the right amount. The lyrics are the biggest mystery with this band. Justin's dead-set against printing any lyrics of his from here on out. Some friends of the band say it's because he doesn't actually have words for parts of the songs so he just grumbles some nonsense. As funny as that would be, it's not true. Listen long and hard and you'll make out the message your gut and your chest already figured out on first listen. Besides, nothing makes you wanna sing along more than when you don't know a single word. The Riverdales knew it, the Marked Men knew it, and now Chinese Telephones know it. Check out our myspace page and the Chinese Telephones myspace page for songs samples!
11/13/07 - Finally, The Mugwumps are here! Generally speaking we get shit done around here really fast. Once the band has their recordings done and mastering is complete, the printing and pressing usually get taken care of pronto. The Mugwumps Do Time 7" has probably taken longer to get released than any other record on It's Alive before or since. The reason being, two of the tracks were originally planned to be released as a split 7" with Teenage Bottlerocket. Few bands could standup and standout on a split with TBR, but The Mugwumps are definitely on of the few that could! Picking 2 of the 4 songs submitted for the split proved to be a real challenge. We loved them all to much to pick just two! So when things didn't come together for the split project, it wasn't all bad news - we got to put all 4 tracks onto wax instead of just 2! Lately we've been putting out records that are getting further away for the 4-chord Ramones style of punk rock that in a way put us on the map. But Do Time is a strong reminder that we will always have love for this style and always put out these kinds of pop punk records! And just because a band's from Europe doesn't mean we're not going to get behind that band even though we may likely never get to see them play a live show here in the states. We sell almost as many records to kids keeping it alive in Europe as we do to kids stateside. That's something we're really proud of around here. The Mugwumps Do Time 7" will be officially released on November 27th, but you can buy it directly from us on our store page now and have it shipped out by November 19th. The first pressing of records come in blue and black. Both colors of this release will be available from many other online mailorders and distros including Interpunk, No Idea, Little Type, Vinyl Collective, Punk N Junk, and many more here and overseas! Check out the distro section of our links page for more sites. And now, a word about the record: The Mugwumps play straight up 4-chord punkrock. They’ve got a big Ramones sound going for them circa Too Tough To Die. There’s a lot to be said about keeping it simple, but keeping it fresh and listenable at the same time. To do that you’ve got to have vocals that stand apart from the masses, which Chris Mugwump definitely does - he’s got a great, gruff howl not many in the genre could compete with. You’ve also got to have your shit locked down water tight: the 16th’s have got to be on time, the down-strokes have got to be flawless and you’ve gotta make it look and sound easy! Finally, there has got to be at least a little bit of variety of style between your songs - Do Time starts things off right with a nice pogo popper (”Do Time”), goes into a midtempo singalong head bobber (”Pass Out”), flipsides into a fist pumping screamalong (”Monkey Face”) and rounds things out nicely with an old style foot stomper (”Wanna Be Alright”). The Mugwumps take care of business like total champs. Check out our myspace page and the Mugwumps myspace page for songs samples!
-news archive-

01/21/08 - Two more next week...

We've got two releases coming out next week. First up, The Steinways Unoriginal Recipe 7". It's six new songs from pop punk's funnest (yeah, it's not a word, so what) band around. We wanted to give everyone a heads-up on this release because it is going to be released in a super pack similar to that of the Chinese Telephones album. The super pack is officially a Pizza Pack. The Pizza Pack is an actual pizza box stuffed with the following: a pizza crust color vinyl 7", a thermo printed cd-r, an insert, a poster, a standard 7" jacket, a magnet, a button and a t-shirt with the cover art for the record silk screened on the front. The pizza pack will go up on the site next Monday (01/28/08) and will ship the following week. We felt the heads-up was necessary because they will be limited to 100 copies and shirt sizes are limited. If you want one, be sure to order right away. Once they're gone or your shirt size is gone, that's that!

On the same day we will be releasing The Peawees Walking The Walk on 12" vinyl. If you aren't already familiar with The Peawees check out their myspace page and get ready to rock n roll! They do the whole rock n roll soul, rockabilly, punk rock thing better and different than any band out there. We've been huge fans for many years and it's really awesome to be able to finally release a record with them. We will be running a contest for this release. The main prize being a copy of their debut album Where People Smile, which was released long ago in Italy only and only on 12" vinyl. In the meantime we are trying to stock up on copies of their second and third albums for our distro as well as the import cd version of Walking The Walk.

So keep an eye out for the news update next Monday to get in all the action! In the meatime, check out the It's Alive Records myspace page for song samples.

In other news, the Chinese Telephones s/t 12" is already sold out not two months after its release! But fear not, if you missed it you'll have a chance to get it again in a month or two. We placed a repress order for another 500. This time, the first 200 on opaque blue vinyl. The jacket artwork will have a very small difference than the first time so you'll be able to differentiate 1st pressing black copies from 2nd pressing black copies.

01/01/08 - Contests and OOP Records update

Interpunk just sent us the list of winners for the Chinese Telephones contest they were running this past month. The winners are below. Thanks and Congratulations! Your prize packs are in the mail.

1st Place:
Timothy Peacock from Opp, Alabama

2nd Place:
Chris Chambers from Seattle, Washington
James Hansen from Newport Beach, California
Ashley VanTilborgh from Godfrey, Ontario, Canada

3rd Place:
Anita Yancey from Barnesville, Georgia
Alfredo Arraiza from Pamplona, Spain
Lonna Mahurin from Afton, Oklahoma
Martin Tangman from Erlanger, Kentucky
Erica Berumen from Santa Maria, California

Vinyl Collective is currently running a contest for the Chinese Telephones album as well. They are raffling off a copy of the 12" vinyl test pressing for the album. Only five of them exist! If you want to be entered in the contest all you have to do is buy the album from through their site.

The first pressing of Chinese Telephones s/t LP is just about sold out! We have only about 10 copies left. A handful of mailorder distros still have copies, so if you get here too late, try No Idea, Interpunk or Littletype. I think Littletype might even still have a copies on clear vinyl. The album will be repressed asap. Hopefully we'll have another 500 copies in month or maybe two.

A few other titles of ours have recently sold out and slipped into OOP status. Here's everything we've put out so far that is all sold out:

IAR02 Teenage Bottlerocket / Prototipes split (500 clear, 500 black)
IAR03 The Copyrights Nowhere Near Chicago (100 white, 100 red, 300 black)
IAR04 Kitty & The Manges Joey's Song (600 multi-color)
IAR08 The Apers / Sonic Dolls split (500 purple)
IAR09 The Copyrights / Zatopeks Handclaps & Bottlecaps (250 orange, 250 green)

And here's a list of records we have less than 20 copies of before they are sold out:

IAR05 The Varsity Weirdos Fly Me Up To The Moon (500 clear)
IAR06 The Popsters The Scene (500 blue)
IAR07 Zatopeks Smile Or Move (500 gold)
IAR10 The Badamps Two Face (500 black)
IAR11 Retarded Gambling On Rock (200 grey, 200 red, 200 purple, 200 pink)
IAR12 The Copyrights Mutiny Pop (500 clear w/ orange & black splatter)
IAR13 The Manges Go Down (500 black)
IAR14 The Popsters Two Minutes (500 black)
IAR17 Dear Landlord / Chinese Telephones split (500 violet, 500 black)
IAR22 Chinese Telephones s/t (200 clear, 300 black)

Some of these titles will more than likely be repressed, but not many of them. If you're still holding off, don't wait any longer!

Two new records coming this month! The Peawees Walking the Walk 12" vinly LP and The Steinways Unoriginal Recipe 7". More news on these coming soon!

12/07/07 - Super Pack, Pooper Pack!

Ok folks, here's the scoop: we totally blew it on getting the Chinese Telephones Super-Packs out before the album's official release date. We ran into just about every problem we could with the t-shirts - bad screens, damaged t-shirts, etc... The good news is the t-shirts are finally good to go and turned out great! Before the t-shirts became a problem we got totally bombarded with orders (thanks!). So buried in orders that we were making boxes out of any kind of cardboard we could get our hands on - again, sorry for the delay getting those orders out as well. As of last week we are entirely caught up to the day with order fulfillment.

We really pride ourselves on getting ALL orders out within 24 hours of receiving them. Up until this release we always made good on that dedication. I hate waiting forever and a day to get mail-order packages. It really sucked being on the other end of that shitty situation for the first time. I know all our regulars have been really understanding and I hope all the new comers realize this is very out of the ordinary for It's Alive mail-order.

To make it up to all the Super Pack pre-order people we are including a very limited, hand numbered little bonus in every package. We hope you dig it as much as you're gonna dig the new Chinese Telephones album.

And while I am updating the news page I should direct all of you over to Interpunk where they are having a Chinese Telephones contest which ends December 10th. We put together some pretty awesome prize packages for the winners. The album was featured on the front page and as of today has broke into the TOP TEN list for cd sales at number nine!

11/14/07 - Chinese Telephones debut album!

Well, we've finally crossed over into the land of full length releases. We've been plugging along for just about three years and two months now. In all that time we were never really dead-set against putting out a full length release of our own (we did do vinyl versions of full length albums for The Copyrights and Manges), but the cd format wasn't something we were too sure about getting involved with just yet. Our release of Way Out of Control by For Science got us real comfortable with it real fast! So when the opportunity to release Chinese Telephone's first full length album came knocking, we jumped at the chance to try something new.

Chinese Telephones self titled debut album will be officially released on November 27th, but you can buy it directly from us on our store page now and have it shipped out by November 19th. The first 200 copies of the LP were pressed on clear vinyl, the rest are black. All cd's come in digipaks! It's Alive loves digipaks - they're the closest way to making a cd as collectible as a vinyl LP. We're offering some great package deals as well which include multi-format deals and t-shirts too! As always the first 50 orders of any package deal or individual purchase will come with a Chinese Telephones button. Both formats of this release will be available from many other online mailorders and distros including Interpunk, No Idea, Little Type, Vinyl Collective, Punk N Junk, and many more here and overseas! Check out the distro section of our links page for more sites.

Writing about the music we love is hard to do, especially without sounding all lame about it. But for those that don't know what Chinese Telephones are all about, here's what we came up with for this release, enjoy (or don't)...

They've got the hooks, they've got the riffs, they've got the message, but more than anything they've got the heart - enough of it to choke on! With their self-titled debut, Chinese Telephones deliver an album of urgency that needs to be heard. It's Alive Records was lucky enough and is incredibly proud to be the label releasing Chinese Telephones. Just as it's the band's first full length album, it's the label's first full length album as well.

Chinese Telephones is the soundtrack to a sweaty house-party basement show in Any town, USA. It's got the get-up-and-go of a youth anthem fight song for the fist-pumpers, the pogo power for the pop punkers, the heartache in the slowdown for the heartsick, and the undeniable catchiness in the hooks that brings it all together for everyone to come together, sweat together and hug it out in the pit.

As is usually the case with the best bands playing punk rock these days, the music played by Chinese Telephones is hard to nail down to any one style or genre. The guitar work these guys put out is all killer! The rhythms are thick and chunky, and the leads and fills are super clean. Daniel James really knows his shit – quite a few of the tracks on Chinese Telephones have guitar leads and fills from start to finish. That alone takes a lot of skill to pull off, but the fact that it never gets stale takes some serious talent! Like the rhythm guitar, the bass lines are big and beefy. And like Daniel James, Ray Suburbia knows his way around the block on his bass. The backbeat for the whole enchilada is laid out by Gorky on drums. The energy and enthusiasm of his drum work set the pulse high for the heart attack on its way. Justin's lead vocals are filled with power and passion. When someone really makes the most of what he's got it comes through as more than just sound - it's felt as much as it's heard. Ray Suburbia is joined by Jeff Burke of the Marked Men for much of the backing vocals, all of which are right on-time and in just the right amount. The lyrics are the biggest mystery with this band. Justin's dead-set against printing any lyrics of his from here on out. Some friends of the band say it's because he doesn't actually have words for parts of the songs so he just grumbles some nonsense. As funny as that would be, it's not true. Listen long and hard and you'll make out the message your gut and your chest already figured out on first listen. Besides, nothing makes you wanna sing along more than when you don't know a single word. The Riverdales knew it, the Marked Men knew it, and now Chinese Telephones know it.

Check out our myspace page and the Chinese Telephones myspace page for songs samples!

11/13/07 - Finally, The Mugwumps are here!

Generally speaking we get shit done around here really fast. Once the band has their recordings done and mastering is complete, the printing and pressing usually get taken care of pronto. The Mugwumps Do Time 7" has probably taken longer to get released than any other record on It's Alive before or since. The reason being, two of the tracks were originally planned to be released as a split 7" with Teenage Bottlerocket. Few bands could standup and standout on a split with TBR, but The Mugwumps are definitely on of the few that could! Picking 2 of the 4 songs submitted for the split proved to be a real challenge. We loved them all to much to pick just two! So when things didn't come together for the split project, it wasn't all bad news - we got to put all 4 tracks onto wax instead of just 2!

Lately we've been putting out records that are getting further away for the 4-chord Ramones style of punk rock that in a way put us on the map. But Do Time is a strong reminder that we will always have love for this style and always put out these kinds of pop punk records! And just because a band's from Europe doesn't mean we're not going to get behind that band even though we may likely never get to see them play a live show here in the states. We sell almost as many records to kids keeping it alive in Europe as we do to kids stateside. That's something we're really proud of around here.

The Mugwumps Do Time 7" will be officially released on November 27th, but you can buy it directly from us on our store page now and have it shipped out by November 19th. The first pressing of records come in blue and black. Both colors of this release will be available from many other online mailorders and distros including Interpunk, No Idea, Little Type, Vinyl Collective, Punk N Junk, and many more here and overseas! Check out the distro section of our links page for more sites.

And now, a word about the record: The Mugwumps play straight up 4-chord punkrock. They’ve got a big Ramones sound going for them circa Too Tough To Die. There’s a lot to be said about keeping it simple, but keeping it fresh and listenable at the same time. To do that you’ve got to have vocals that stand apart from the masses, which Chris Mugwump definitely does - he’s got a great, gruff howl not many in the genre could compete with. You’ve also got to have your shit locked down water tight: the 16th’s have got to be on time, the down-strokes have got to be flawless and you’ve gotta make it look and sound easy! Finally, there has got to be at least a little bit of variety of style between your songs - Do Time starts things off right with a nice pogo popper (”Do Time”), goes into a midtempo singalong head bobber (”Pass Out”), flipsides into a fist pumping screamalong (”Monkey Face”) and rounds things out nicely with an old style foot stomper (”Wanna Be Alright”). The Mugwumps take care of business like total champs.

Check out our myspace page and the Mugwumps myspace page for songs samples!

-news archive-