Jason Tate
Jason Tate is the founder and central writer at Chorus.fm, a music publication that focuses on alternative and emo-rooted artists, combining rapid news updates with opinionated commentary and long-running archival projects tied to the scene’s history. His coverage is distinguished by a curator’s approach: he highlights new songs, albums, and tours while continually connecting them back to a decade-plus of community and catalog he has built around punk, emo, and adjacent genres. Alongside daily news, he uses Chorus.fm as a home for personal essays, technology notes, and restoration projects that preserve the legacy of his earlier AbsolutePunk.net work for current readers.
Scene-Driven Music News and Release Coverage
Tate’s day-to-day output on Chorus.fm centers on concise music news posts tracking singles, albums, and other release activity from bands in the alternative and emo orbit. Recent front-page items include updates like “Scary Kids Scaring Kids – ‘Something in the Water,’” announcing a new single and the forthcoming album Rise alongside details on the band’s new lead singer. Similar posts highlight tracks such as “Beach Weather – ‘New Aesthetic’” and catalog moves like “The Killers Issue ‘Sam’s Town’ Remaster,” giving readers quick context on new material and reissues from recognizable names in the rock and indie space. He also assembles roundups like “Albums in Stores – Oct 2nd, 2026,” which organize weekly release information into a single reference point for fans following the scene’s calendar. In the confirmed Deftones piece about the leaked Eros sessions, he applies the same news-first format to a more speculative story, flagging a long-shelved record surfacing online and situating it within the band’s catalog for a readership that closely tracks such developments.
Archiving AbsolutePunk and Scene History
Beyond current news, a significant strand of Tate’s work is dedicated to preserving AbsolutePunk.net, the influential music community he previously ran, inside the Chorus.fm ecosystem. Under the AbsolutePunk tag, he has published pieces like “AbsolutePunk.net Throughout the Years,” where he reconstructs old site designs, gathers screenshots, and provides commentary on the evolution of the platform’s look and feel over time.
He maintains ongoing posts titled “AbsolutePunk.net Review Archive” and “AbsolutePunk.net Interview Archive,” restoring classic reviews and interviews from the earlier site and keeping them accessible as part of the current database. Another recurring project brings back his personal “Top Albums” lists from 2005 through 2015, integrating them into Chorus.fm’s end-of-year coverage and using them as a nostalgia lens on changing tastes and eras. This archival work marks him as a steward of the mid-2000s and 2010s punk and emo online ecosystem, connecting long-time forum readers and newer subscribers through shared history.
Editorial Commentary, Technology, and Culture
Alongside news posts, Tate’s author page shows a steady stream of blog entries where he writes in the first person about music, internet culture, and the realities of running an independent media business. He recently joined the Emo Kids Anonymous podcast to discuss AbsolutePunk, bands from the past, and the current resurgence of their scene, reflecting on both his role in that history and how it shapes today’s community.
His blog also engages with other podcasts like Diabolic Lies, where episodes on building and selling a business, burnout, and living under constant “worldwide feedback” resonate with his own experience operating a public-facing platform.
In another post, he singles out a Diabolic Lies episode on “Ethical Consumption” and the history of “Selling Out,” using it as a starting point for thinking about how artists and fans navigate commerce and credibility. On the technology side, he covers topics such as “ChatGPT URL Scheme Works on iOS Too,” applying his practical web and app literacy to explain how new tools fit into everyday workflows for his audience. This mix of commentary, cultural reflection, and tech notes adds depth to the straight news, giving readers insight into how he processes the ecosystem around the music he covers.
Community, Newsletter, and Long-Form Projects
Tate positions Chorus.fm as a curated destination “for those looking for something outside of the mainstream,” emphasizing news, reviews, forums, and commentary rather than generic mass-audience coverage. The colophon states that Chorus.fm is written, designed, coded, and produced by him, underscoring his hands-on role in shaping both editorial tone and the technical infrastructure that supports the community.
He describes himself there as a writer and music enthusiast who built the site as a platform to share his passions, and elsewhere notes that he has been writing and publishing online for over fifteen years. That longevity underpins his newsletter, “Liner Notes from Chorus.fm,” a weekly dispatch about music, entertainment, and related topics that extends the site’s voice into subscribers’ inboxes and deepens his relationship with a core audience.
Across the main site, blog, and newsletter, he repeatedly returns to themes of scene history, independent media, and sustainable community-building, reinforcing a distinctive perspective that blends fan-level enthusiasm with the discipline of a long-term publisher.
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