Spectrum
Headliner SPECTRUM will be releasing a new album and making their first U.S. trip in over four years.

Spacemen 3's Sonic Boom aka Peter Kember and his prolific band Spectrum will finally tour North America unleashing his long-awaited new album as well as performing favourites from Spacemen 3 & E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research).

Spacemen 3 formed in 1982 by Sonic Boom (Pete Kember) and J. Spaceman (Jason Pierce), producing such classic albums such as 'The Sound of Confusion' & 'The Perfect Prescription', short listed for every "greatest ever" list from Q magazine's Songs You Must Own & Rolling Stone's Greatest Song writing Duos of All Time to NME's Greatest British Albums Ever; twice in Pitchfork''s Top 100 Albums of The 1980's.

Triclops!
San Francisco quartet TRICLOPS! began in 2005 when former members of VICTIMS FAMILY, BOTTLES AND SKULLS and LOWER FORTY-EIGHT joined forces with FLESHIES (Alternative Tentacles) vocalist John Geek. Combining the velocity of DRIVE LIKE JEHU with the mania of THE JESUS LIZARD and the psychedelia of THE MARS VOLTA, TRICLOPS! immediately became a local favorite and their energetic shows began attracting attention virtually overnight.

T.I.T.S.
The T.I.T.S sound is underpinned by Mary Elizabeth's black-metal bass lines and Wendy's totally animal drum pound. Abbey's guitar lays down a simple rock riff, while Kim's emits a subtly oscillating sheet of feedback. Over the top, all four harmonise with a kind of semi-operatic, fantasy whisper. The effect is this inexplicable feel of time-travelling castle metal – of four ladies of the lake casting forth a single Excalibur, sinking it into stone so deep, no Arthur shall ever wield it. Ever.

Los Llamarada (Monterrey, Mexico)
"Like 'Forming'-era Germs meets Earcom-era Prats." - Siltblog

"The debut album from Monterrey Mexico's premier primal noisesmiths, Los Llamarada has just been unleashed on SS Records. If you're even slightly intrigued by the possibility of weird sounds emanating from south of the border that could evoke the same curiosity as the Nao Wave compilations recently rendered, you should quickly seek out this album and drown yourself in it's murky noise-scapes that pull stringent and ominous tones out of the most mundane instruments available to these demented students. As a part of the colorful, yet underexposed Monterrey lo-fi psyche/punk movement, they are building a name for themselves alongside other regional curiosities like Taladro Supremo, Los Margaritos, Ruidos en el Techo, and Los Fancy Free. Despite their lethargically submerged fidelity quotient, Los Llamarada bend their minds and instruments in such an evil, earthy fashion that your own sober mental state grows instantly muddled and disoriented with each passing track. While not everyone is capable of dreaming up this nightmarish crowning stroke of Mexadelic minimalism, the release of their debut album, The Exploding Now, will easily draw attention to their creative juices as they run all over the mountainous landscape of their homeland, seeping into the cracks and opening unseen doors. Is something going on here that's worth taking notice? You bet." - Victim of Time

Lou Lou & the Guitarfish
"Spiritual heirs of 60’s British Invasion and literal heirs of 70’s San Francisco punk. Propelled by songwriting siblings, the Guitarfish deliver quirky lyrics, addictive melodies, classic trash guitar riffs, skittering bass lines and dance-with-me drumbeats."

Nothing People
"Bit by bit, real psych moves are creeping into the garage-punk scene, and this EP is another herald that the wide-open days of the early 90s are moving back into a position of negotiable influence. I assume it's because the government is obsessed with their Iraq adventure, or this would've been stomped forthwith. There are two flat-out great songs on here, Twinkie Defense and I Can't Find My Monkey, both of which utterly nail the guitar-churn-drone that made Flying Nun the TMOQ from 82-91. The songs remind me simultaneously of late 80s Dead C (before they journeyed deep up their own asses in the mid 90s) and those great early Bailter Space EPs (before they followed Dead C and closed the door behind them). The other two songs are only a notch below in intensity, and that's me getting greedy. This is one the best EPs of the year. Ya know, if you like Dead C's Eusa Kills 'n stuff, I dunno… --" - Ryan Wells, Z-Gun Magazine

Static Static
"Electric paranoid punk crunch & buzzsaw drone-throb done just right by one of the only saving graces of Los Angeles, Static Static. Now with Leslie of the Red Aunts on drums, these two SUICIDE bomb-style tracks deliver surprisingly sparse and demonically danceable hits for the soundtrack to that gothic slaughterhouse you were always afraid to peek into, but now
are left without option. Sliding into the same smog punk-layered territory as HoZac heavy hitters VOLT and SPIDER, and recorded with ratchety home equipment under similar circumstances, it's no wonder LA is looking a
little brighter today."

Lebanon
Lebanon is an Israeli four-piece mainly instrumental group playing a blend of metal, math rock, post rock and psychedelia.

The King Hen
In the course of a normal work (*cough*) week, the Hemlock booking department's intrepid duo, Promotheus and Hyperbolus, must read several hundred Folder Rock band biographies. This bio, courtesy of the savants in The King Hen, is either one of the most devastatingly hilarious piss-takes in the Anals of Booking, or a cry for their captors to finish them off once and for all. But what does it really matter? It got them booked, didn't it?!!!

"erik met garrett but neither of them played anything. erik met dave thru garrett and by that time garrett had started to play. erik started to play a little later. Seeing how erik dave and garrett hardly like the same kind of music they thought it best to start playing together and form a band. nobody wanted to sing so erik did. tim came along during all this and played too. dave left for a bit and tim took over the throne, and all though he was nowhere near as good as dave. tim, garrett and erik kept on. something happened when dave left and erik, garrett, and tim got knocked up and out popped the king hen. later dave wanted to come back after he heard the new mating calls of the king hen and we let him because well, he’s pretty damn good. we played and played and went mobile for the first time and then tim left because his girlfriend made him. then garrett left because he was tired or his fingers hurt who knows. then it was only erik and dave. erik and dave dated with other people trying to find a match and found aaron. aaron wasn’t what they were initially looking for but aaron seemed nice and was into it. garret came back a little later and we made him pay us to join up again. I bought a new camera then. There are four of us. We are legal to drink bourbon. We are from Portland, Oregon. Drums, bass, guitars, vocals, that’s what we do. We are all over the place like prepubescent junior high kids trying to get laid. We hardly ever agree on anything, it’s amazing we get anything done at all. We will entertain you like your favorite pasta dish. Day jobs are dumb, help us quit ours."

Film School
Hot on the heels of their appearance at yesterday's Treasure Island fest, FILM SCHOOL return to the Hemlock, the scene of their first ever show. This one's from Krayg to you, the hardcore fans, so spread the word and come down early for what promises to be a most very special episode.

The Blacks
'Like a misanthropic Patti Smith fronting Love and Rockets."

Punk Rock Sideshow w/DJ Tragic & the Duchess of Hazard, every Monday

Samara Lubelski
"An accomplished violin player, guitarist, recording engineer and vocalist, Samara Lubelski has proven to be one of the most unjustly unheralded musical contributors to the American underground. A member of free-folk's merry pranksters Tower Recordings, most recently she was midwife to Thurston Moore's return to the pop dirge on his new album. Her recent solo work blends folksy picking and exceedingly melodic hooks. The result is lilting pop akin to (and on par with) Pink Floyd circa 'More' or Donovan's 'Colours.' - SF Weekly

Giant Skyflower Band
Bummer-psych supreme from Glenn Donaldson (Skygreen Leopards) and company.

"Exotic, crumbling new age / toytown psych / prog / folk / pop project. With Gong's Magick Brother and early Genesis as starting points and with a sitar close at hand, the duo created a peregrine pop record that references everything from Tori Kudo to The Cure to Alice Coltrane to The Hidden Cameras to Television Personalities. Giant Skyflower Band shifted from insular home recording project to a fully-functioning live experience in April 2007 with the addition of Jason Quever (Vetiver, The Papercuts) and a Univox drum box to the fold." (bio)

James Goode
One of the major influences on my music of the past five years has been synesthesia, a condition that affects approximately one in 25,000 people. It is experienced as a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to that of another, as when the mating call of an elk induces the visualization of a translucent latticework of electric blue lines before the viewer's eyes.

My work sets out to integrate the personal experience of both musician and audience with the scientific process of interpretation, fusing performance and perception. (James Goode)

The Dilettantes
"The Dilettantes are a band whose rock and roll ideal is often expressed in the language of Byrds-ian guitar jangle, driving drumbeats and psychedelic pop landscapes. Led in part by Joel Gion of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Bay Area band revels in indulging their retro influences and with their debut LP, confidently present twelve tracks full of enthusiasm. Tracks like the soaring “Don’t You Ever Fall” and “Ready to Go” showcase the band’s ability to transmit the spirit of rock from days gone by with skill and aplomb." - Pop Matters

Sky Parade
Verve-style Brit-psych

Magic Mirror

Cuchillo

Luther Russell

The Howling Hex
The Howling Hex are being joined by members of Sic Alps for a two-hour long (!!) jaunt/romp/excursion/Bataan march concert through the Howling Hex catalog.

"Neil Michael Hagerty's third proper release with his new band, in which he plays bass instead of guitar, kicks off with a traditional-enough number, Hagerty-wise. That means "Keychains" has a riff Trux fans will dig. "Fifth Dimensional Johnny B. Goode" has a chorus Trux fans can dig — in fact, everything about the song screams Veterans of Disorder (Drag City, 1999). So anyone who's been scared off by the fact that Hagerty isn't playing guitar anymore can relax. The guy is bored with playing guitar or something. It's OK. Maybe he got tired of all the so-called cool-dude man crushes on him.

Regardless, the change has inspired a creative explosion in the dude, as pretty much all of the Howling Hex's material has shown, and XI is no different. Chugging past with the classic rock moves, country touches, and woozy saxophones that have marked the band's late-night, small-stage sound from the start, the album offers a solid, one-note sort of comfort. The guy playing guitar has listened to a lot of Sonny Sharrock, the saxophonist is decidedly un-SNL-ish, and as it is a collaborative effort, the group even gets away with some spoken word. Hagerty is done with Trux, and he's done being Neil Hagerty, in fact. He's Neil Michael Hagerty now, and he plays bass. Deal with it." - Mike McGuirk Lives in Thailand and You Don't