The Barometer Online

Jim Ward's side project, Sleepercar, has come a long way from its origin. Ward started writing notes for the song "Fences Down" during a sound check when he was in Japan in January 2002, touring with his former band, At The Drive In. Through the past four years Ward has played the songs that floated through his head sporadically, picking up friends to play instruments for him, even implementing his father on bass for the band's original session in a recording studio in - what do you know - West Texas.

Break As We Fall is a solid band. Solid in the way that if you pick up their EP at Bombs Away Café today, you will hear how natural they sound as a band. Inspired by jazz, '90s rock and ska, they just work. The best way to describe the sound of the band's self-titled EP is to imagine if Jason Mraz and Maroon 5 had a child that started a ska band, mixed with a healthy dose of awesome.

Friday, May 9 Break As We Fall's CD release show with Slater Swan and symmetry/symmetry, 10pm at Bombs Away Cafe, $5, 21+ Ebony Ball 2008, 9pm in Club Escape (Snell Hall), this event is FREE! Michael Gailinas will be performing at the Beanery, 9pm, th

The summer of superheroes has finally arrived. I know it's only May, but it seems that "Iron Man" kicked off this action-packed summer a bit early. With Robert Downey Jr. leading an all-star cast, and with a script straight out of the Iron Man comic world, this movie is just the beginning of a blockbuster-filled summer.

Faux Hawk It wasn't might. It wasn't valor. It was good hair that made the Spartans winning warriors. The story goes like this: At the age of 7, the male child is placed in the care of the state for the purpose of making him a warrior. Under the agoge system, the boy will be taught to dance, hunt, fight.

Never mind the annoying girl in your class who feels that she, out of the whole class, needs to say something every time the professor poses a question. Sure, raising your hand to (1) re-establish your major ("I'm a psychology major") and (2) tell everyone just how Pavlov's dog informs this conversation about the effects of damming rivers in the Pacific Northwest is a clear sign of attention-neediness.

Video games these days are mind-blowing, using handy tools like HD technology, online play and some hardcore music soundtracks. We know that 20 years ago we didn't have the technology. Therefore I bring you the Commodore 64 in all of its 8-bit glory. In the late summer of 1982, a whole new world opened to the public: the C64.

Something is wrong here. I find more and more that the "emo"" label is slapped on a lot of things these days. Some are rightfully labeled as such, and some perhaps not. I have stood steadfast against the worst that the emo scene has put out, and I have been a proclaimed fan of heavy music of many sorts for years, from the nu-metal craze of my middle school years and Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, to the resurgence of American metal such as Lamb of God and Killswitch Engage, all the way to the extremes of The Black Dahlia Murder and Cradle of Filth.