"An aromatic blend of hip-hop, reggae, funk, and jazz awakens you're senses with refreshingly crisp melodies and organically orchestrated instrumentation. Inhale..."

Midwest Hype combines vintage cool, 80's pop culture throwback, and modern hippie flare into a blend of Funk, Reggae, Rock, Jazz, and Hip-hop...an intense, high energy group with happy music that never drags and personalities that keep a smile on every face.

Michael Rother and Friends will take the stage at 10:30

New York Times Piece on Hallogallo 2010

Michael Rother and Friends Perform the Music of NEU! with Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) and Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs)

The legendary German group NEU! released only 3 albums between 1972 and 1975, but these albums had an influence wildly disproportionate to their modest commercial success; praised by and influential to David Bowie, Hawkwind, Iggy Pop, DEVO, Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Autechre, Radiohead, U2, Wilco, Primal Scream, and beyond. In May 2010 Gronland Records will release a box including these three LP’s and an incredible batch of bonus material. Also this year will be the first live presentation of this music in more than 35 years as ‘Hallogallo 2010.’

Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger first came to the public’s attention shredding Hendrix-toned riffs and pounding monotonous, tom-heavy beats in a particularly psychedelic 1971 version of Kraftwerk. The pair left after 6 months to form NEU! and took with them their tandem musical language that would go on to have a far-reaching influence. Dinger’s propulsive beat is often cited as the quintessential motorik drumming, while Rother’s guitar playing made something new from a variety of influences: The timbres were of rock music, but the melodic sense was something else- the scales were bittersweet and very European, accompanied by a Middle-Eastern style open-string drone. The trio of Rother, Dinger, and producer Conny Plank created a cohesive universe where straightforward tones and melodies intermarried with heavily processed elements, where reality could turn itself inside-out or stretch out seemingly forever.

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Formed in 1999 in the seemingly improbable locale of Victoria, British Columbia (perhaps the launch of a new British (Columbian) invasion?), Hot Hot Heat have, in their relatively short life-span, metamorphosed in a way coincidentally implicit in the elemental dynamism of their name. Heat as force of change. Hot Hot Heat have transformed from within the confines of their tense, angular synth-rock beginnings while losing none of their sense of urgency. Combining ‘60s mod rock, ‘70s prog and ‘80s new wave/punk, these four have created their own style of danceable pop oddities. And, more to the point, Hot Hot Heat are genuinely fun, with a capital F-U-N. Responses to the band often cite such varied influences as the quirks of early XTC, the solid, blues-based rhythms of Led Zeppelin or the melodic hooks of The Cure. Equally apt, these disparate touchstones give an indication of Hot Hot Heat’s sources of inspiration and unique synthesis.

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A portion of all tickets sales benefit Feeding America, the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

Have a bacon recipe of your own? Send an email to enter! I make dreams come true! I can give you 15lbs of Hormel Black Label Bacon with which to create your farthest-fetched bacon notion!!! Enter now!!! There’s $1500 worth of top-notch cookware prizes from WÜSTHOF, Anolon (The Gourmet Authority), & Microplane.

"In the spirit of two wholly American pursuits — overeating and winning — comes the Takedown, a cooking competition where anything goes." - New York Times

"There’s simply no other food gathering in which a community of cuisine lovers can unite to celebrate the wondrous and wild recipe discoveries by amateur chefs." -Village Voice

"Matt Timms, the czar of amateur cook-offs, take-downs, and bake-offs in NYC, (inspired) a movement of down-home cooking competitions." - Phoenix New Times

The Takedown blasted into existence in the winter of 2003 - in a little hovel somewhere in Brooklyn NYC. Everyone loves us, so the Takedown has quickly grown into an adult-sized event. The press is insane, and in it’s wake, other cooking events across the country were more recently spawned, but the Takedown will always be the first and awesomest! Self-taught cooks bring in their brilliant creations and compete for money, prizes, and self respect.

Join us for a VIP Gallery Preview from 5:30 - 7:00 PM featuring complimentary cocktails & appetizer buffet, a meet & greet with Alice Peacock and Paul Natkin, and first-look access to Paul's photography exhibit. Tickets include admission to the main event at 7 PM and are available now at this link.

A portion of this evening's proceeds benefit Rock For Reading, a program which seeks to combat rising youth illiteracy rates in the United States through the recruitment of book donations from publishers and distribution of donated books to literacy organizations

Paul Natkin will display 21 of his best photos around our balcony throughout the night- signed ink jet prints, as well as signed and numbered limited edition art prints, will be available for purchase to benefit Rock For Reading.

Read more about photographer Paul Natkin & view his work at this link.

"I'd like to get stoned," sings Alice Peacock over a shambling electric guitar at the beginning of her fourth album, Love Remains.

It's a startling, if tongue-in-cheek, way to kick off a set of country-tinged pop-rock tunes recorded in the heart of Nashville. But like the title of the song in which it appears, "All About Me," it's also a tad misleading.

In fact, the song is about setting aside self-indulgent fantasies to embrace love and commitment, and after a few verses of wistful imaginings about Jack Kerouac road trips and "no sacrifice," Peacock concludes – as swelling pedal steel and honky-tonk piano guide the waltz – "The life that I've got/ I guess that it's not/ All about me."

The song provides a fitting gateway to the album's deepest themes and a statement of purpose after Peacock's acclaimed 2005 album, the introspective, piano-driven Who I Am. "Enough navel-gazing!" Peacock declares with a laugh.

"This is a really positive record," says the Chicago-based singer/songwriter. "It's a reflection of where I am in my life and what really matters to me now. The title comes from this idea that other things fade away but love remains." The often buoyant, outwardly focused lyrics are mirrored by a largely ebullient musical approach rife with feel-good guitar hooks and heartland grooves.

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$9 Bud & Bud Light Pitchers + $4 Bloodys & Mimosas

$5 Gameday Food Menu:

Buffalo Wings

Artichoke or Buffalo Cheese Dip with Flatbread

Quesadillas with Salsa & Sour Cream

Chili Cheese Fries

Chicken Fingers with Your Choice of Honey Mustard, BBQ, Buffalo, or Ranch Dipping Sauces

Burgers

Breakfast Burritos:

The Ultimate: Scrambled Eggs, Sausage Patty, Tater Tots & Cheddar Cheese

Redeye: Scrambled Eggs, Spinach, Chihuahua Cheese & Salsa

Pesto Omelet, Bacon, Pepperjack Cheese & Tots

In the life of Nathan Williams, the year of 2009 will go down as both a highlight reel and a total shit show. Meteorically, feverishly and somewhat improbably, two albums worth of naïve punk rock he recorded behind his parents’ San Diego home as Wavves became a sensation in the world of indie music. As a result, passports got filled, capers got pulled off and lots of good things got said about the music in both print and digital ink, plus in actual human voices. At the same time, fights got fought, situations got hairy and people got indignant and mean.

Oh well. Fuck it. All of it.

What’s important now is that, in the beginning of 2010, Williams madeKing of the Beach, the new Wavves album. King of the Beach is an adventurous and ambitious record. It cuts deeper into the bleeding throat catharsis and ’60s sunshine soul that Wavves is known for. It also unexpectedly flips out with elements of primitive electronics and psychedelic studio experimentation.

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Jenny and Johnny first started working together in Los Angeles in 2005, after being introduced by Conor Oberst. Rice had traveled to Nebraska to make his first record before moving to L.A., where Lewis was beginning work with Mike Mogis on her solo debut Rabbit Fur Coat. They both ended up playing on each others recordings, and struck up a lasting creative relationship. Rice joined Lewis’ band for the Rabbit Fur Coat world tour in 2006, and has played live with Lewis at every show of her solo career thus far. Jenny contributed both songwriting and singing to Johnathan’s Further North in 2007, and he was quick to return the favor as one of the producers of Lewis’ album Acid Tongue and again joining her on the road. During the Acid Tongue sessions, the band cut the song “Carpetbaggers” with Elvis Costello. The legendary songwriter was so inspired with the collaboration that he enlisted Lewis, Rice, their Acid Tongue crew, and the Imposters to help make one of his finest records of recent years, 2008’s Momofuku.

The Beautiful Girls, kick-started with a full-throttle, sold out tour of Brazil and huge shows at this year's Splendour In The Grass, Blueprint and Sounds of Spring Festivals, have begun work on the follow-up to 2007's Ziggurats. The rest of 2009 will see The Beautiful Girls writing songs and demo'ing for the new album, due out May 2010, on home soil, in between special appearances at festivals around the country.

With the electric plugged back in, the band is ready to deliver on the promises made on We're Already Gone and Ziggurats. "With the next album I want to be able to bring the whole thing together" Mat explains "to make sense of the music on all the previous albums."

The whisper is that TBG will drop a new single into the pool very soon so keep your eyes peeled!

Listening to Help, it's almost impossible to hear anything but mere traces of the chaotic noise rock path John Dwyer followed to make it to Thee Oh Sees (aka OCS, and Ohsees), but it's that noisy past, and penchant for musical shit stirring, that informs the jangly garage pop on Help, and transforms the band's jangle and shuffle and pound into near perfect buzzy fuzzy catchy retro pop, and makes it easily the best Oh Sees record yet. And a definite contended for (garage) pop record of the year.

Most of us were introduced to Dwyer via his two piece noise rock costume rock combo Pink And Brown (after brief stints in some well known Providence outfits), but unlike most of the costumed joke bands at the time, P&B offered some serious songsmithery along with the unhinged live shows and audience baiting. A brief stint drumming for SF grindlords Burmese led directly into the band that brought Dwyer to worldwide attention, the Coachwhips. Arguably one of the best live bands around, the Coachwhips made up for what they lacked in actual songs with sweat and alcohol soaked performances, utter chaos, and sometimes literally, ultra destructive houseshows. Coachwhips shows were all about the energy, the vibe, jumping around, flailing wildly, getting wrecked and having a blast. Sometimes though, that energy was difficult to translate to home listening. Take away the sweaty throng and the deafening volume and, well why would you want to do that?

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Known for his work fronting the enigmatic rock band Pedro the Lion, David Bazan’s emotionally charged narratives, eye for telling detail, and mournful voice have more in common with J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories" or Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood" than with the usual lyrical slant of popular music. Bazan is a gifted storyteller, weaving parables of spiritual conflict, suburban ennui, and personal surrender into magnetic, well-crafted songs.

His debut solo full-length album, Curse Your Branches (out now on Barsuk), is a masterwork by a modern American poet at the height of his powers. Paste Magazine called him one of the "100 Best Living Songwriters". This record is the deepest and most explicit exploration of his struggles with faith and the Evangelical world in which he was raised to date, and a meditation on all things passed between the generations.

Like many bands before them, School of Seven Bells were born as the result of a late-night revelation. Benjamin Curtis connected with sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza in 2004 while their bands—Secret Machines and On-Air Library!, respectively—were on tour. While watching PBS at 3am, Alejandra caught a show about the School of Seven Bells: a mythical South American pickpocket academy that may or may not have existed in the ‘80s. The idea of seven minds working as one appealed to her, as did the phrase’s cryptic musicality, and a creative spark ignited.

By the end of 2006, Curtis and the Deheza sisters had completely disappeared into School of Seven Bells. From the outset, it was clear that the trio’s music transcended the usual genre restrictions. Early recordings popped up on Sonic Cathedral, Table of Elements, and Suicide Squeeze, then Blonde Redhead tapped School of Seven Bells for a tour. Remixes came from Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie and Prefuse 73, whose “Class of 73 Bells,” a re-imagining of SVIIB’s “Iamundernodisguise,” ended up on his 2007 album Preparations (Warp).

Justin Townes Earle is an anomaly. He’s tall as the day is long, all angles and elbows and a hard stare, both welcoming and deadly serious. He’s Nashville North, all set up in lower Manhattan now, just like his hero Woody Guthrie, with twang and charm intact.

That hard working earnestness has paid off, to say the least. Justin won the Best New and Emerging Artist at the 2009 Americana Music Awards. His record, Midnight at the Movies, was named one of the best records of last year by Amazon, received four stars in Rolling Stone and found a sweet spot in the blackened hearts of fans and critics alike. GQ Magazine named him one of the 25 best dressed men in the world in 2010. He also appeared on HBO’s Treme with his dad, troubadour Steve Earle, on whose Grammy Award-winning Townes record Justin also guests.

The aforementioned Woody Guthrie once said, “Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.” On Harlem River Blues, Justin chose the simple route. The record’s not a wall of sound produced to the rafters. It’s rockin’ and reelin’ at times, sweet and slow at others—and it’s great. Like good fried chicken, a well-cut suit and a handmade guitar, there’s heaven to be found in the beautifully crafted simpler things.

$9 Bud & Bud Light Pitchers + $4 Bloodys & Mimosas

$5 Gameday Food Menu:

Buffalo Wings

Artichoke or Buffalo Cheese Dip with Flatbread

Quesadillas with Salsa & Sour Cream

Chili Cheese Fries

Chicken Fingers with Your Choice of Honey Mustard, BBQ, Buffalo, or Ranch Dipping Sauces

Burgers

Breakfast Burritos:

The Ultimate: Scrambled Eggs, Sausage Patty, Tater Tots & Cheddar Cheese

Redeye: Scrambled Eggs, Spinach, Chihuahua Cheese & Salsa

Pesto Omelet, Bacon, Pepperjack Cheese & Tots

Margot & the nuclear so and so’s third album Buzzard is primal and truculent, going straight for the vitals. Opener “Birds” finds the band going to places they haven’t before – lovely, languid verses progressing into fuzzed out, howling choruses throughout the song’s twists and turns – while still holding to the guitar-based ethos on which the album is founded. “Lunatic, lunatic, lunatic” may be familiar sonic territory for singer/guitarist Richard Edwards, but the (very) dark humor that slowly unveils is something that he has only flirted with (innocently) in the past. “New York City Hotel Blues” and “Claws Off” distill Margot’s music to its essence: melody-driven pop music with teeth, set adrift against Edwards’ surreal and emotional, if slightly twisted lyrical tendencies. Similarly, “I Do” refines the evocative chamber-pop for which the band is known to its most heart-rending fundamentals, supported by simply Richards’ plaintive voice and an acoustic guitar.

And there is, of course, an intriguing path that led Margot towards this evolution in sound, which contrasts the lively optimism of 2008’s Animal! (and/or Not Animal, simultaneously released after contention with former label Epic). Buzzard was recorded over one freezing month last winter in an abandoned movie theater in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood. Edwards had taken up residence there after leaving his hometown of Indianapolis, when the house where he and the previous seven members of the band had lived was damaged in a fire last summer. Once settled, he began writing a collection of songs loosely inspired by the 8mm ‘nudie cutie’ films unearthed in the theater’s basement, and the youthful reaction of mixed emotions that the films evoked.

2007 was the year the tortoise overtook the complacent hare and claimed the glory. Faced with a musical climate of TV talent freakshow contestants momentarily setting the gossip world aflutter before plunging back into obscurity, and fame hungry starlets publicly unravelling in front of the paparazzi, the alternative came in the shape of ‘Puzzle,’ the fourth album by Ayrshire rock trio Biffy Clyro, which exploded to propel the band out of the underground where they’d been honing their craft and into the mainstream consciousness. The gold-selling major label debut went on to shift over 250,000 copies, to the delight of the loyal and passionate fanbase who had been willing them on for the past decade. An overnight success story, this is not.

Biffy Clyro came together in 1995 in a school in Kilmarnock, just outside of Glasgow, when childhood friends Simon Neil (vocals/guitar) and twins James (bass/vocals) and Ben Johnston (drums/vocals) started playing music together. United by a love of underground, experimental rock and post-hardcore bands such as Braid and Karate, along with the starrier likes of Guns N’Roses and Metallica, they quickly honed their own unique sound, a mind boggling mix of off-kilter tempos, itchy, unpredictable guitars, soulful choruses and feral screams, sewn together into a strange tapestry of sound that sat resolutely apart anything else being made at the time, both in spirit and - thanks to their admirable refusal to uproot from their hometown for the dog eat dog music community of London - geographically too.

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Click Here for Free Land of Talk mp3 Downloads from Saddle Creek

Montreal trio Land of Talk, spearheaded by vocalist and songwriter Elizabeth Powell, have announced the release of their sophomore full-length album, Cloak and Cipher, out August 24th, 2010 on Saddle Creek. Joining Powell on the album are Eoin O Laoghaire (bass) and Andrew Barr (drums) and special guests drawn from the Montreal music scene and beyond including Patrick Watson as well as members of Stars, Silver Mount Zion Band, Wintersleep, Besnard Lakes, Arcade Fire and Esmerine.

The follow up to 2008’s critically adored debut LP Some Are Lakes, Cloak and Cipher’s ten tracks mark an electric step forward for the band musically and sonically, establishing Land of Talk as one of Canada’s most exciting new musical voices. Recorded in Montreal’s Breakglass Studios in the Fall of 2009 with producer Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes, Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown), the return to the studio was a homecoming of sorts after nearly two years of life on the road that was punctuated by the release of 2009’s Fun and Laughter EP. Following the release of Some Are Lakes, Land of Talk joined Broken Social Scene on a North American tour where in addition to opening the show, Powell joined the collective on stage nightly and left critics taking note, including the New York Times raving in their live review, “[Powell] proved herself a strong guitarist and a calmly arresting lead singer…She made a virtue of directness and brevity, letting small details speak for themselves.” While the buzz around Some Are Lakes was steadily growing, these staggering live sets brought attention to Powell’s stand-out voice and undeniable presence as a front-woman to watch.

Listen to "Night Jogger", Those Darlins' fantastic first new track since their debut full-length, at this link.

Those Darlins are Murfreesboro's southern garage rock band who set out in 2006 to get folks off with their rowdy, cheerfully sarcastic, booze-fueled show. Those Darlins' curious mix of classic country punk and ragged garage rock makes them one of a kind, eliciting comparisons like, "The Carter Family meets The Black Lips." In 2009, the girls toured feverishly around their critically acclaimed debut, playing 140 shows and sharing the stage with the likes of Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys), Deer Tick, King Khan & BBQ Show, Wanda Jackson, and Jon Spencer. They made huge waves not sucking at SXSW, Bonnaroo, and Garage Fest. 2010 has already been full, with a Eastern headlining tour selling out many cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, St. Louis, Louisville, Birmingham, Nashville, and more.

On Sept 14th, they release a new 7”, Night Jogger b/w Funstix Party. This is the first music from Those Darlins since their 2009 self-titled debut and showcases the more rockin' direction the band is heading in. Advance copies are available now on thosedarlins.com and the 7" hits indie retail on September 14. Fans are hungry for more music and Those Darlins will be doing an extensive headlining tour around this 7" including a performance at ACL Fest.

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Tickets On Sale Now via eTix

Ed Kowalczyk, widely known as the lead-singer, frontman, guitarist of the band LIVE, has built an impressive résumé with his bandmates that includes eight full-length albums, total CD sales exceeding 20 million, a huge international fan base and extensive touring all over the world. Live has been one of the most successful and enduring alternative rock bands of the 1990s and 2000s.

One of the main things that have enabled Live to maintain a devoted fan base is the substantial and durable nature of their lyrics, which have often reflected Kowalczyk's personal and spiritual concerns. “My approach as a songwriter is to write songs that are not finite and will resonate with listeners for a really long time,” Kowalczyk asserts. “Sixteen years after our first album, Mental Jewelry, I am still able to get something out of songs Live recorded in the early 1990s--and I think that one of the reasons why we have had so many fans for so long is that our fans are also continuing to find nuances in the songs.”

Ed released his first solo album, ALIVE, on July 6th, 2010.

The story of Foals’ second album could not be told without the victories won by the first. One of the strangest, most exotic creatures to have seen the upper realm of the UK album charts this young century (debuting at #3 upon release), Antidotes was a special album. In the idiot clamor of retro guitars, its keen sense of dare and future marked the Oxford quintet out as a band keen to establish their own context: hurtling along on incessant, acrobatic fret-play and cymbals hissing with the bliss of exertion. It won them attention, and the chance to evolve in a space of their own.

Two years on from that impressive introduction, a choice has been made—rather than contort Antidotes’ lissom guitars into ever more elaborate patterns, Total Life Forever is the sound of a band settling into and surveying the decay of old protocols. The restless, woven guitar tattoos of their debut haunt its successor, remembered only in fragments. The pace is less breakneck. Foals have relaxed the formulas and diagrams used to build their early identity and stretch out, instead, in the sad, quiet chaos of rot.

Baths' debut full-length, Cerulean, snagged an 8.2 from Pitchfork- full review & mp3 download here!

“The double-neck guitar is the ultimate signifier of musical masturbation and phallocentric crotch rocking. That is, unless you’re El Ten Eleven, the post-rock duo from Los Angeles, who lay down simple rhythms, then wield the finished product as mechanized dance jams.” Flaunt

Call him a one-man band, a virtuoso, a gifted collaborator or a family man, Martin, Marty, Dosh or Dad, our subject has gotten to now by what seems an uncanny path (perhaps call it fate). When they met, Dosh's father was a Catholic priest with pile of degrees, and his mother was living in a convent in Minneapolis preparing herself for nunhood. They left the fold for marriage; subsequently the elder Dosh found himself blacklisted from local employment, and so they left Minnesota as well. Martin was born in the greater Los Angeles area, but at age 2, his health problems and the city's endless sprawl delivered the family back into the musically nurturing arms of the Twin Cities.

The origins of Innerpartysystem can be traced in 2002, when drummer Jared Piccone and vocalist Patrick Nissley attended school together in Reading, Pennsylvania, an hour outside of Philadelphia. The town’s somewhat bleak, depressed nature (it remains the country’s sixth most-dangerous city) eventually inspired the harsh, mechanical tones of the band’s current music…although, ironically, the area’s local “scene” had little to do with IPS’s eventual sound. As the band puts it, “we were the only group in our area experimenting with dance sounds.”

The duo started writing songs together, inspired by both by their love of electronic music (The Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Nine Inch Nails) and hardcore punk. Although the intensity of the band, in all its forms, has stayed consistent, the group saw its style begin to morph over time, becoming less “rock” and more digitally based.

Things got serious around 2006. IPS’s music started picking up some serious hits on MySpace. Wanting to tour, Piccone and Nissley recruited some new bandmates, including Kris Barman, a former high school friend who had relocated to Florida, and Jesse Cronan, an acquaintance of the band. The addition of these two, who are more apt to play synths than guitars, veered the band further into samples and electronic direction.

Taking its name from novelist Jack London’s 1904 seafaring adventure, Sea Wolf has evolved organically from its hermetic origins in Alex Brown Church’s living room into a muscular, full-bodied musical entity with passion to burn. After adopting the sobriquet, Church burst onto the music scene in two-fisted fashion with the EP, Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low, and the subsequent full-length debut album, Leaves in the River, about which Interview magazine observed, “His music is both erudite and unvarnished, a blend of swirling melodies, literary balladry and damaged art-rock composition.”

Laura Veirs’ seventh album July Flame, which Colin Meloy calls “the best album of 2010,” explores the emotion of mid-summer. Drenched in wood smoke, sunlight, pollinators, pastoral dales, fireworks and warm nights, her lyrics explore the dichotomy between one’s desire for permanence and security and the realization that such things rarely exist. Nowhere on the album is this inherent tension more crystallized than on the title track.

On a day in late July 2008, when the sun was hot enough to melt the skin, Veirs and a friend stumbled upon a booth at the Portland, Ore. farmer’s market selling July Flame peaches. Veirs so liked the name that she suggested she and her friend each write a song with that title. They bought a bunch of peaches and canned them in their bathing suits on the hottest day that summer.

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In almost every documented encounter with the music of Wovenhand, what is described is an experience so visceral and so universally disorienting, that one has to take note. From the first measures of music, the taste of desert earth is on the lips; neck-hairs snap to attention as strange and unfamiliar sounds whisper just underneath the surge of guitar and the rumble of bass; clouds loom on the horizon promising either the balm of rain or the threat of judgment — it could be either. The smell of horses’ breath, like ash, carries with it messages from another place, a place that is at once very very far away and impossibly close... The music of Wovenhand is its own iconography, its own world, its own universe.

Perhaps you havent been paying attention, but Bonnie Prince Billy is clearly one of the great American songwriters to emerge in the last decade. Listen more closely, and youll see.

Over the course of five albums and countless singles, compilation tracks, collaborations, live performances and material not intended for release, Bonnie Prince Billy has become a soughtafter commodity around the free world, as well as some of the uncharted, 'evil' parts of the planet. The Bonnie Prince got his start as the featured singer with the Palace Music band. He struck out on his own in 1998. His first expression was a curious one: 'I Am Drinking Again.' When had we ever known him to drink before When had we even known him at all Here, Bonnys black humor first raised its hoary head, and belched a good one. This record set the tone for that first year: four singles on four different labels from three different countries (Domino, Lowfly, Allcity and Palace Records). This delivered the message that Bonny belonged to no one man but conversely, to the whole freaking world.

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'I Am Drinking Again' was sold to Italian audiences in March and April of 1998 during shows played with Bryan Rich in accompaniment. The mood was romantic. For the remainder of the year, Bonny appeared around Europe and the US in the company of different friends and fellow players the beginning of a regular and farflung tour schedule that continues to this day, where shows are played to reach new audiences in new environments for Bonny and his everswelling band of brothers to explore and enjoy. Thusly, 99 kicked off with more dates, this time in Ireland, Paris and Reykjavik (and England, proving that theres always an exception to the tour schedule rule) with Easy Times, an adhoc trio made up of Mike Fellows, James Lo and Matt Sweeney.

The cold dawn of 1999 brought the darkness the first Bonnie Prince Billy album, I See a Darkness was released in January on Palace Records, taking his name to the masses. This bleak and hectic record remains a fan favorite to this very day. Kids are sick like that. But they like good songs. Looking to see a bit of sunshine, Bonny spent the month of June heading west, north and east in the company of good friends Bob Arellano, Colin Gagon, Mike Fellows and Joe Propatier and stopping to play 27 shows along the way. Whew!

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It's been three years since Klaxons burst onto the music scene, injecting a dazzling and much needed moment of rave hedonism into the midst of indie tedium with the truly original and enormously influential Mercury award-winning album Myths Of The Near Future.

Now they are back with the eagerly awaited follow up. Produced in LA by US rock legend Ross Robinson (Sepultura, Slipknot, At the Drive In, The Cure) and written over the course of a three year long musical journey, it's a brilliantly diverse and engaging alternative rock record.

We were given a taster of what to expect - or perhaps what not to expect -with the teaser track 'Flashover' being streamed on www.klaxons.net last month.

Now it's time for the full sonic explosion.

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