I got these news from the Epitaph mailing list. 

• 24th December:

The official rancid page is finally up!!!!!!! And it's soooooo fuckin cool, with great news pics, some infos, and many many exclusive stuff 'coming soon' that i can't wait to see...Wow wow wow orgasm!!!!!!!! Uhh shit i forgot: the url is http://www.rancidrancid.com .

• 17th December:

I finally found Give Them The Boot II in a store, so it's out in France as well!!!! It's a fuckin good compilation, even if the rancid cover deceived me a little bit. But their song with Buju Banton really rules, and so do The Distillers (Brody Armstrong's band).

• 3rd December:

 The release date for the new album is May 5th 2000. Give Them The Boot II is out in the US, in Australia... everywhere but not in France :((( so i dunno if it's good (but i got some good reviews of it).

• 31st October:

"Rancid head into the studio this month with Brett Gurewitz producing to record their highly anticipated and currently untilted new album scheduled to be released spring 2000 on Hellcat Records." (that's what the mailing list said)

• 25th September:

According to Hellcat records, the release of 'Give them the boot 2' has been pushed back to 23rd November, and to the year 2000 for the new Rancid album.

• 24th August:

The 'Give them the Boot 2' compilation will actually be out on September 21st, and the Rancid songs will be 'Life won't wait' and 'If the kids are united' (a Sham 69 cover).

• 31st July:

Agnostic Front's forthcoming album, 'Riot, riot, upstart' is recorded, and Lars Fredericksen was the producer.

 Joe Strummer played 6 US dates recently, and maybe he'll play a few more shows in November, to promote the release of 'The X ray style', his first solo effort in a decade, which will be out in October.

• 5th July:

Hellcat record's new compilation, Give them the boot II, will be out on September 10th, with new songs and unreleased tracks from Rancid, Hepcat, Dropkick Murphys, the Silencers, f-minus....

• 27th June:

 Tim Armstrong sings back up, with Roger Miret from Agnostic Front, on the new h2o album (on the song 'Faster than the world').

• 19th June:

All star Hellcat project THE SILENCERS, helmed by Tim Armstrong, Matt Freeman, and Vic Ruggiero (of the Slackers) will head in the studio in early May to record a full-lenght.

• 15th May:

(from Rocksound) Joe Strummer is in a new band, the Mescaleros, and his album (maybe named "the X-ray style) is gonna be released by Epitaph/Hellcat Records.

• 20th March:

Rancid won the award for Outstanding Punk/Ska album.

• 22nd February:

Rancid and Union 13 were nominated at the Bammies (L.A. Music Awards) this year. Hepcat won two of them, one for Outstanding Ska Band and one for Outstanding independant album.

• 9th January:

Rancid's "Bruckout" remix for Dancehall artist Buccaneer (VP Records) is available on his new LP titled Da Opera.The remix also appears on the Bruckout 12" (VP).  Rancid is the band backing up young reggae star Buccaneer. Buccaneer and Rancid's Tim Armstrong hit it off when Rancid went to Jamaica to record with Buju Banton on 'Life Won't Wait'.Look for more collaborations like this in the future.

Both Hepcat and Rancid are overseas right now, Hepcat in Australia with the Australian Warped Tour and Rancid in Japan.Both Rancid and Hepcat made it onto quite a few critics' Top Ten lists this year, and Hepcat made it onto TIME magazine's Top Ten Records of the Year!

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