Congratulations to this year's recipients of Snat's end of the year awards!

Best Male On-Air Personality: DJ Stuck Down a Mineshaft (Saker Alexander)
Best Female On-Air Personality: DJ Shredder (Erin Schroettinger)
Biggest Male Flirt: Ryan Hertel
Biggest Female Flirt: Brittany Peterson
Biggest Male Lush: Brian Ostrander
Biggest Female Lush: Brittany Peterson
Best DJ Name: TIE: DJ Stuck Down a Mineshaft & DJ NoPants
Biggest Scumbag: Ryan Hertel
Intramural All-Star: Parker Fernandez
ACE Award: Brittany Peterson
Bonehead of the Year: Michael Frank
Best Event: Lobsterfest
Best Specialty Show: 80s Babies
Best NSE Show: Tech Talk
Lobster of the Year: Brian Ostrander

The quarter is winding down and it's time for Snat to award his best lobsters for their achievements this year. The end of the year ACRN Awards Ceremony and Cookout will be Saturday, May 31 at 4pm at Bryan Olinger's house. Be sure to come out for Biggest Flirt, Biggest Lush, Best On-Air Personality, Lobster of the Year, and many more! Good eats and good jams will be present.

ACRN.com presents our annual dance party, $2 Prom! Put on your dancing shoes and dress up, dress down (just come dressed) to the Union this Thursday (5/22) for the dance event of the year. There will be music, there will be a picture spot, and there will be Snat the Rock Lobster. This year's theme is "GET WET!" so plan for that however you wish.

The dance starts at 10pm with music by DJ Good Clean Fun, The Wrightman, MF Doom, and DJ Pockit Rockit.

ACRN is teaming up with the American Cancer Society for Relay for Life--a fundraiser for cancer research. This year's Relay for Life is May 16. Help fight cancer by donating to the ACRN Rock Lobsters Relay for Life Team! Follow this link: http://main.acsevents.org/
to donate or join our team. Every little bit counts when it comes to fighting cancer.

ACRN loves DIY, so we are very excited to have a craft fair this year during Lobsterfest!

The Lobsterfest Craft Bazaar will take place during the afternoon/evening of DAY 3 of Lobsterfest (you know, the outdoor festival day with ANDREW WK) on Saturday, June 7.  If you're interested in getting your craft on and showing/selling your work during this event, head on over to www.acrn.com/lobsterfest and fill out an application.

Application deadline is: Friday, May 23, 2008.
All applicants will be notified of their acceptance status by: Tuesday, May 27, 2008.

The School of Telecommunications is now the School of Media Arts & Studies! To celebrate the new recording console in the studio, they're hosting Media Day: The Recording Industry this Friday, May 2nd and ACRN is co-sponsoring the event!

11AM-12:30PM: TV Studio C (RTV 515)
Media School Alumni Panel Discussion:
Future of the Recording Industry
featuring:

John Biondolillo: General Manager-ATO
Records, NY
Ted Keyes: Engineer-Sony/Battery
Studios, NYC
Colleen Griffiths: President-Undiscovered
Radio Network
Josh Antonuccio: Co-owner, Producer-3
Elliot St Studio, Athens, OH

2PM-4PM: The Athena Uptown Cinema
Me and Mr Jones: Legendary Producer/Engineer Ken Scott (The Beatles, David Bowie, Supertramp, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Devo and many, many others) with an outstanding multimedia presentation of the making of some of his classic tracks.

4-6PM: WOUB Studio A/Media School
Multitrack Recording Studio (RTV 300 and 329 respectively)
Public reception with Ken Scott and recording industry panelists, and live demonstrations of the The School of Media Arts and Studies’ new Rupert Neve Designs recording console across the hall in Multitrack Studio A.

9PM-2AM: The Union
A night of music celebrating artists who have recorded in Athens with Media School students, alumni and faculty.  Local favorites Kaslo  & Russenorsk and newcomer Jeff Ellis from Huntington, WV, will be playing material off their latest releases, all “made in Athens.”  The show will be recorded by audio students and possibly be broadcast live…!

Check out our new interviews!

1. Wheels On Fire
2. Royales
3. Rucus Roboticus
4. Sealove
5. Esskyma
6. Red Wanting Blue
7. The Ragbirds / Kal Penn
8. Los Viejos Blanquitos
9. Brian Bush
10. Bob Stewart
11. Dj Selfhelp
    

Stop by the Union this Thursday night (4/24) during Dance or Die and buy a grilled cheese from some friendly lobsters. We'll be raising money for Lobsterfest!

The new order of hoodies are in! Stop by the station to pick yours up.

Alumni: Thanks for you patience. Your hoodie will be shipped by the end of the week.

Before the Mahjongg show on Sunday (last day of ACRN WEEK!), stop by Baker Theater at noon for a premiere screening of Super High Me.

Punknews.org has announced that Chicago natives, Alkaline Trio, unveiled a special set of Nike Shoes, branded with the band's logo and splattered with Chicago pride.

Matt Skiba comments: "We chose red and black as the main colors to reflect our Chicago roots and pay homage to the Bulls. We are huge fans. I’m also into sneakers, so seeing the swoosh and our logo on one product is unbelievable. The shoe looks amazing and provides some insight into who we are."

The Heart and Sole Air Zoom Cush will be exclusively released June 27th at Jack Retail Shop in Huntington Beach, CA. These shoes will be unleashed nationwide on July 11th.

Their new record, titled Agony and Irony is set to released July 1, 2008.

The Athens based Ohio music and art collective, Aquabear Legion will be beginning a brand new monthly concert series at ARTS/West in Athens. The first of these concerts will be Thursday, June 12^th at ARTS/West and will feature music from Nostra Nova, She Bears, and Dinner of Swords. Doors will open at 7pm and music will begin at 7:30pm.

Andrew W.K.'s official website has posted a few pictures from this last Saturday's Lobsterfest.  A small blurb about the show also appears on the main stage where he calls Lobsterfest "absolutely one of the wildest, craziest, and most brutal shows I've ever been a part of."  The rest of his quote can be read at his official website.

www.andrewwk.com

Mastodon will be recording their newest album, and second major label album, with a new producer.  Brendan O'Brien, who also recorded The Offspring, Korn, Bruce Springsteen, and Audioslave, will take over the recording duties.  Matt Bayles had produced every Mastodon album up till now, including the major label debut Blood Mountain.

The band is shooting for a fall release date on the new album.

Weezer's forthcoming release, titled Weezer (yet again) but already known as The Red Album, has received a new release of June 3, 2008. The album's release date was originally slated for June 24. Eight of the ten tracks from The Red Album faced an Internet leak this past weekend. A music video for the album's first single, "Pork and Beans," is to be released in upcoming weeks.

(http://www.weezer.com)

Matt Pryor, former Get-Up Kids and now frontman for The New Amsterdam, will release a solo album on Vagrant records titled Confidence Man. The album will consist of acoustic folk tunes, echoing a style similar yet more more mellow to The Get-Up Kids.

This album is set to release on July 29, 2008. You can listen to a track off of it on his myspace (http://www.myspace.com/mattpryorsongs).

After the unexpected release two weeks ago of a new single, Discipline, Trent Reznor and Co. have released a new (digital) full-length album entirely for free on their website.

The album, entitled The Slip, can be found on the bands website. Any interested party just has to provide an email adress and the entire album, with PDF album art, will be sent to them.  A physical release on cd and vinyl will be released in July for those interested.

www.nin.com

Andrew W.K. is a big supporter of all music, from classical, to rock, noise, rap, Lil Wayne and even Hanson.  He also has a great liking for Emo, a style that has recently been a huge media buzzword.  He recently shot an interview explaining his thoughts on Emo that can be found from a link on his webpage.  Other videos include him discussing his hair as well as live performances, including solo piano performances!

Andrew W.K. will also be headling ACRN's Lobsterfest behind Baker Center on June 7th.

Emo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1mIu1L-RIs

Official Website: http://www.andrewwk.com/  
(click through the picture show to get there)

Ben Stein recently released an oh so charming film about the fight to teach creationism in schools called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed."  Needless to say, a lot of people aren't thrilled about another movie still rattling on the age old debate.  Inherit the Wind was most likely more fun, and Spencer Tracy is just a bit more charasmatic than Ben Stein.  However, Scopes Monkey Trial aside, the creators of this new movie made one mistake (well, probably many, but I'm only writing about one).

They placed a clip on John Lennon's "Imagine" in their film.  Anyone familiar with the song can tell you that Lennon and the Expelled creators probably did not agree on the subject of a higher power.  Thus said, Yoko and Lennon's two sons, Sean and Julian, are sueing for the removal of the song from the film as well as for "unspecified damages."  The creators, however, claim they used the clip legally under the fair use doctrine. This is the same law artists, such as Girl Talk, use to sample clips of other peoples music. Ono and the two sons (and a team of probably very expensive lawyers) will have to prove that the use of the song in the film will hurt the value of the song.

(Pitchfork)

A new single, Discpline, has appeared on the Trent Reznor's website.  This single has full vocals in contrast to the recent all-instrumental 4x release, Ghosts.  The new single sounds much like a song that would have been found on 2005's With Teeth.  The sudden release of the single also makes room for speculation as to whether or not a new Nine Inch Nails album could be appearing soon with little notice in Reznor's new, sneaky style.

It can be found on www.nin.com .