If you’re in the San Francisco area or planning on being there on April 7, 2008, you can get yourself into a free show with Alkaline Trio and American Steel. The bands will be doing a show at Cafe Du Nord, and you can get more information about that here. Of course, nothing is quite free now is it? You have to enter a contest, answer a trivia question and hope for the best. So if you win the contest, which will undoubtedly have many winners, you’re in. So brush up on your Alkaline trivia, and get ready to rock.

The current label that houses Smashing Pumpkins is soon going to get a lawsuit thrown at them for signing away a song by Smashing Pumpkins for the use in a Pepsi campaign. The band claims they did not authorize that sort of use, and will be filing actions against their label for breach of contract. Is this just a ploy to get news writers to talk about the alternative band? Or is it truly a breach in contract? I’m not quite sure, but more details will be forthcoming, as the alternative bands get older and try to deny that they are selling out.

Elvis Costello has officially abandoned future cd releases. The legendary musician has decided to release music through digital and vinyl formats only. It seems odd to release those two, but it does speak volumes about demographics in general. Taking that into consideration, people either buy digital media for their mp3 players, or they buy vinyl to collect. This might be the smartest thing I’ve heard in a long time, or it could be a dumb move, but whatever the case is, the cd is not looking to great right now.

The Tampa Pro, sponsored by the corporations this year, came and went. Heavy favorites Koston and Sheckler didn’t come out on top. However, the kid that’s ripping up contests left and right, did so again this year. With just two contests (not counting other ones he’s won this year) he’s already at 70K for the year! Here’s the final results for the Tampa Pro…

1. Greg Lutzka
2. John Rattray
3. Mike Peterson
4. Matt beach
5. Ryan Sheckler
6. Kyle Berard
7. Danny Fuenzalida
8. Erik Koston
9. Dennis Busenitz
10. Stefan Janoski
11. Chad Fernandez
12. Shuriken Shannon

*note - Rob & Big didn’t make it rain this year.

Check out Greg in Action from the Oakley skate vid.

If you’re one of those people that either has TIVO or likes to say up really late, here’s what you can expect to see on late night (music performances):

3/24 - Counting Crows on David Letterman [CBS]
3/24 - Panic at the Disco on Steven’s Untitled Rock Show [FUSE]
3/25 - TREOS, Funeral for a Friend, Thrice on Steven’s [FUSE]
3/25 - Panic at the Disco on Jimmy Kimmel [ABC]
3/25 - Panic at the Disco on D’Fused [FUSE]
3/26 - Atreyu, Idiot Pilot on Steven’s Untitled Rock Show [FUSE]
3/26 - Jose Gonzalez on Jay Leno [NBC]
3/27 - Bad Religion on The Daily Habit [FUEL]
3/27 - NOFX on The Sauce [FUSE]
3/27 - Pennywise on Steven’s Untitled Rock Show [FUSE]
3/28 - Serj Tankian on Jimmy Kimmel [ABC]

Of course, check your local listings.

The Dead Kennedy’s once again made news, and in no surprise to me, they’ve lost another singer. The singer apparently quit after hearing news that the DK’s members have gotten a new singer, without even telling the existing singer. So another singer down, and the Dead Kennedy’s are fighting to keep whatever fan base is still there for their tired punk rock sound. You can read the whole story here, or just forget the band ever existed.

Christian Metal Act, Soul Embraced, have decided to set up a mini-tour hitting some hot spots. Here are the dates:

Soul Embraced has lined up a handful of April tour dates. Here’s the latest:

4/5 Little Rock, AR @ Vinos
4/10 Tulsa, OK @ The Pinkeye
4/11 Okmulgee, OK @ The Aim
4/12 Wichita, KS @ Eagles Lodge
4/13 Plano, TX @ Rock Steady
4/16 San Antonio, TX @ The Underground
4/17 Mission, TX @ Smokin Aces

The band has recently been brought back together after the recent re-grouping of the band Living Sacrifice. Stay tuned for more news from the metal world.

Word on the street is, Pennywise has gone gold. That’s right, 500,000 units gone.

Well…not units. Apparently Myspace gave away the album to 500,000+ fans who became their friends on the website textango.com.

This is kind of hard to believe, considering Pennywise has never been a band that has been on the charts selling lots of records, and even with major festivals giving them punk rock credibility, they’re not exactly The Offspring or anything.

Our boy, Jordan Hoffart just scored an interview with The Skateboard Mag. Check out the details on the interview here at Jordan’s blog. Nice work Jordan!!

With so much hype around the Kelly Slater story, people have taken their attention off some of the other smaller-name guys competing as well. One of them being, 22 year old Dane Reynolds. Reynolds was boosting 9’s all day and his highest wave score came it at a 9.73 out of 10! That was the highest of the day.

Dane had this to say about the 9.73 score, “That (9.73) was just a perfect clean face,” Reynolds said. “I would have had to really blow it to not get a score. I basically connected the dots, I didn’t do anything too ridiculous, but that is all it took.”

Dane will be up against CJ Hobgood in round 3… Stay tuned for coverage soon here on Seshn. In the meantime, check out the rest of the scores and round 3’s matchups:

Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach Round 3 Match-Ups:

Heat 1: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Fredrick Patacchia (HAW)

Heat 2: Tom Whitaker (AUS) vs. Dayyan Neve (AUS)

Heat 3: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. Neco Padaratz (BRA)

Heat 4: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Daniel Wills (AUS)

Heat 5: Jeremy Flores (FRA) vs.Kieren Perrow (AUS)

Heat 6: Bobby Martinez (USA) vs. Jay Thompson (AUS)

Heat 7: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Adriano de Souza (BRA)

Heat 8: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Troy Brooks (AUS)

Heat 9: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Daniel Ross (AUS)

Heat 10: Luke Stedman (AUS) vs. Ben Dunn (AUS)

Heat 11: Pancho Sullivan (HAW) vs. Roy Powers (HAW)

Heat 12: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Dane Reynolds (USA)

Heat 13: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Jihad Khodr (BRA)

Heat 14: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Tim Reyes (USA)

Heat 15: Andy Irons (HAW) vs. Rodrigo Dornelles (BRA)

Heat 16: Kai Otton (AUS) vs. Luke Munro (AUS)