Each summer the Vans Warped Tour introduces new music and a fresh look in fashion and technology as to where things are headed among trends in youth markets. This year there’s clearly a changing of the guard taking place among 15-18-year-olds with new top bands moving into the limelight at lightening speed thanks to viral marketing and websites such as the ever-popular Warpedtour.com, Fuse.tv, and now, myspace.com where bands post on-going profiles as the tour travels across the country. (See also, Vans Warped Tour Kick-Off Party Introduces Excited Fans with this Summer Music Season’s Most Eclectic Line-Up.)

Three bands taking over youth Americana include My Chemical Romance from New Jersey, HawthorneHeights from Ohio, and Fallout Boy (and the heavy band, Under Oath)eavHe. Moving from punk to “screamo/emo” punk, the main sounds coming out of the new music scene are lyrics with undertones of angst, love, religion, and squandered life in suburbia. In terms of sound it’s less singing and more postulating via vocals that border on screaming the message. This, mixed with choruses that have an emotional jingle, plus heavy metal, is a part of the screamo-emo scene.

With the changing of the guard in music and fashion (to be reported later) comes a new breed of technology usages: It’s more common to text, for example, than call someone on your cell phone, and taking phone pics and emailing them to friends not at the show is simply a part of the daily lives of many people. Sidekicks are clearly the hot item.