I have a ritual...every week I go out on iTunes and listen to every new release in the "alternative" category. A lot of times I am disappointed with the selection, but once in awhile I'll come across a band I have never heard of and get stoked out of my mind that smart people still exist in this world. Bands like This Town Needs Guns, Phoenix, and XX Teens were all bands I had never heard of before my New Music Tuesday fascination began.

One week in May I stumbled across a Portland, OR based band called Hockey who had just released the single "Too Fake." Other than the fact that Dustin Brown from the LA Kings went to my High School, I wasn't much of a fan of hockey until I found this band! After rocking out to "Too Fake" I found the need to slap shot my fruit loops across the breakfast table and walk around work checking my co-workers into their cubicles. Ok...lame joke...tangent over...the point is this band is rad!

After scouring the internet for info on the band...even heading over to Wikipedia, I still don't know much about the band except that they hail from Portland, are signed to Capitol Records in the US and Virgin Records in the UK, that they have cool hair, write dope music and are a band you NEED to check out with a record coming out later this year. Their sound is tough for me to describe, but the vocals are raw, the music is upbeat, the melodies strong and their second single "Learn to Lose" was just released on iTunes this week.

Head over to myspace.com/hockey to partake in their glorious tunes...now!