Castanets
"Castanets have been lumped in with these freak folks for good reason. Namely, the lead singer has a long beard and sounds like a freak. What more do you need? Actually the instrumentation and mood created by their album are much freakier than any song about birds, trees, and precipitation. Many of the songs on First Light's Freeze are creepy. This isn't the lost soundtrack to the '60s; this is the lost soundtrack to a zombie love movie. Even though Castanets create folk music with tinges of country, this is not the same old crap. But saying whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, uplifting or depressing, that's the tricky part. The mood is ambiguous. The one absolute is that the album is consistently captivating." - Pop Matters

Warmer Milks
Warmer Milks (Lexington, KY): "Simply gorgeous, outwardly reminiscent of the heyday of New Zealand singer-songwriterisms (a la Peter Jefferies, whose plaintive, circular style of acoustic arrangement is referenced here), interspersed with almost Jandekian levels of abstract stumble. On the flip, a short ambient piece creates high-pitched, scraping, extended tension." - Dusted

Featuring live performances by Pirate Band (7pm), David Nudelman (7:30pm), Wild Breed (8pm), Resineators (8:30pm), Clap Band (9pm), Men's Club (9:30pm), Natural Fonzie (10pm), Smile God Loves You (10:30pm), 3 Stoned Men (11pm), and Wig Torture (11:30pm)
The Rot was a house in San Mateo founded (rented) in 1988 (I think) by four likeminded (drugminded) rockers ready to trash, get trashed, and form band after band after band, etc. in the name of getting f*ucked up, listening to records, playing music, being carcasses, and not taking out the trash until the blanket of maggots had to be sponged off the kitchen floor. Yes, your classic partyhouse with its own, unique, drug-eye jargon. Rotfest is a reunion of old men rockers (rockasauruses) and old friends coming together under the watchful eye of David Nudelman (in from the Big Island, bra) for a night of music and what not. Short sets will be commanded by Rot and pre Rot bands:

Three Stoned Men
David Nudelman and the Wild Breed
David Nudelman (solo)
Wig Torture
Smile God Loves You

Rot offshoot bands:

Clap Band
Pirate Band
Natural Fonzie
Mensclub

Sadly missed will be: Vanilla Whores, The Mummies, Clem, Mysterious Dr. Satan, Beardo, Tummy, and probably more.

Japandroids
Vancouver's Japandroids:

"Despite the abbreviated guitar-and-drums lineup, Japandroids' sound is anything but minimalist. The chunky power chords and hard drum bashing don't evoke punk as much as the glory days of rock riffing, with a love of giant, fuzzy melody that's part Cheap Trick and a penchant for clangorous distortion that's part Sonic Youth. Above the fray, the shared vocals are yelped, sometimes screamed, without ever losing track of the melody. It's a unique sound, and I ask King if it's in part due to Vancouver's relative isolation. "I have no context to say yes or no—I have never made music in any other city," he admits. "I assume Japandroids would sound the same if we were from Brooklyn, though we would probably dress cooler." - Portland Mercury

Weekend

Iron Age

Mammoth Grinder

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

Quintron & Miss Pussycat
"Brief research positions Quintron at the forefront of the Chicago / Detroit noise scene in the early '90s which included Wolf Eyes, Andrew W.K., Magas, 25 Suaves, Flying Luttenbachers, and The Scissor Girls. He broke away from the art/noise scene after his first two releases on the Bulb label and began developing the raw organ-driven electronic dance music he is known for now. He also opened an underground club in Chicago called Milk Of Burgundy to put on dance parties and shows for acts which were rejected by the established bar/club system which he and Miss Pussycat continue to do at the Spellcaster Lodge in New Orleans.

Quintron is probably most famous for inventing a bizarre light-activated electronic synthesizer called the Drum Buddy a kind of a lightbulb charged synth, crossed with a DJ turntable which is as breathtaking to behold as it is to hear. Often mistaken for a Detroit or Chicago native, Quintron was actually born in Germany and raised in Mobile, Alabama.

In 1996 he moved to New Orleans to join a collective called The Pussycat Caverns, where he united with Miss Pussycat (Panacea Theriac) and began touring extensively, merging her technicolor children's puppet theater with his raw inventive electronic music into one solid act. Quintron and Miss Pussycat evoke a sincere authenticity and passion that few musicians are capable of bringing to their recordings. Of course, Quintron's Hammond organ continues dominate, combined with soul-sucking vocals and his Drum Buddy invention's most electro inspired beats to date. Gospel-bop at its most sinister!!" - Midheaven

Hank IV
"Howls and swaggers and roars. It’s a kind of throaty blend of garage and full pelt punk that the dudes in Volcano Suns used to batter out. Mixed in with the skeezy instigation of all that 70’s Cleveland Ohio shit I’ve been chowing down on recently. Pitch perfect dual geetar snarl. Like if AC/DC met the Saints met Jim Shepard and they all got hammered and boisterous. All rhythm and strut and shout. All barreling kinesis and gleeful menace."

Ratas del Vaticano (Monterrey, Mexico)
Ratas Del Vaticano ("Rats of the Vatican") are a quartet hailing from Monterrey, Mexico, who assail ears with a most excellent assemblage of punk spew that can best be pitched as "KBD-like."With the addition of Violeta on bass (fresh from a quick stint as second guitarist for Los Llamarada), the band felt solidified enough to cut some tracks and, man, can these guys slice 'n' dice! Guttural, sneering, cynical, sarcastic, Ratas Del Vaticano dish it out in buckets like rancid pozole. Tack on the crude, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants recording quality, and you've got a monster to rival the likes of Sods, Mentally Ill, Guilty Razors, Sperma, or Tampax in the pantheon of Killed By Death's greatest scuzz gladiators. Album out now on Siltbreeze!

Zodiac Death Valley
"Expect plenty of rambunctious activity from Bay Area five-piece band Zodiac Death Valley. Live, the sound of this '70s bluesy-psych throwback is hard hitting and improvisational, different from its refined studio recordings." - 96 Hours

Hott Daxx

Lozen
"LOZEN are a two-women band named after an Apache warrior woman, whose spirit they attempt to channel through thunderous chug, schizoid dynamics and banshee (definitely not Siouxsie) wails. Certainly a promising premise for some righteous fury. Other, less dead and red spirits channeled here include MELVINS and UNWOUND."

Canyon Canyon
Two piece from Tacoma armed with a Telecaster, a baritone voice, and a drum kit.