It’s time for the 4th Annual PRF BBQ. This years event, PRFBBQ2012 is sure to please with something like 40 bands from around the world.

Thursday night kicks off with a free mellow party at kitchen sink.

Friday night brings seven bands to the stage at Quenchers Saloon.

The Two Main event days will be held at Helium. These two days are BYOB and BYOF, though there may be both of each available there. The music will start at noon and go very late each night.

We are holding this event in memory of John Grabski of the band Teeth who lost his battle with cancer this year. Plans were in the works to fly Teeth to this year’s BBQ and to have them perform. He was robbed of the chance to do this. Ben Grabski and Brent Mix from Teeth, joined by Chris Besinger, Jeff Fox, Brian Pennington and Liz Bustamante formed Miscreant Seeds to perform John’s songs and close out the BBQ Sunday night.

More info can be found, added, speculated on, fawned over, and/or flamed over here. If you are on the facebook, check out the PRFBBQ2012 Facebook Event and PRFBBQ on Facebook.

We have put together a free compilation of the bands that are performing at this summer’s PRFBBQ2012 which is being held Thursday, June 27th through Sunday, July 1st, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois

Currently there are 34 songs available for free online streaming, with most of them available for free download also. Check out a preview of what is surely going to be a weekend to remember.

Your friend, and ours, Heather Smith of Bone and Bell made the journey down to Rock Island, Illinois last year to record a Daytrotter Session in their recording studio lovingly titled The Horseshack.

These daytrotters approach music, and recording in a new and interesting way. Located between cities on an often traveled path, The Horseshack has become a hot spot for a touring band to stop for a few hours. Daytrotter’s approach is simple, record 4 songs live to tape and move on. There are no overdubs, no studio trickery, no massive mixdown sessions, just an honest recording of musicians performing live.

Bone and Bell’s Daytrotter Session is no exception. Heather, alone with her baritone ukulele, ran through favorites Sweet Queen Regina, Death of The Caspian Sea, and The Lights. She then moved over to the piano for Counting Pennies.

Daytrotter is an advertising free membership site that costs a merely $2 a month. With that membership you get access to thousands of unique Daytrotter Sessions, unlimited HD streaming to your web browser or mobile device, free session downloads, and access to Daytrotter Barnstormer concert videos. Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Recording engineered by Mike Gentry, Illustration based on a photo by Kristy Ralston.

For more info on Bone and Bell, please visit www.boneandbell.com.

Austin, Texas’s favorite sons, The Gary recently performed a HARDLY SOUND Session for non-profit audio/visual magazine STUCK. Joined by their friend, Henna Chou on cello, the band burned through Monozona, Lost Art, Lungfish’s The Evidence, and Call the Dogs..

Check out the stunning video, in two segments below, and don’t forget to download the high quality audio of the set.

The session is also available to download as a FREE EP on STUCK’s Soundcloud:

For more information on The Gary, please visit http://thegary.com/.

This was our first show with new bass player Brent Mix and a batch of new songs. We opened for Nonagon’s record release performance, and surprised them by covering one of their (awesome) songs that they refuse to play live (because they are bastards):

If you haven’t checked out the recent Caffeinated demo ‘Black Friday Session’, you can still listen to that and much more at our Bandcamp page. The song “Lead the Way” will be featured on their 2011 compilation that should be completed very soon.

http://radiantrepublicoftexas.bandcamp.com

Check out this great video shot by Pan Bagnat from their show at Le Volume in Nice, France. If you don’t know them, they are a 2 piece band from Nice, France made up of two guitars and a drum machine.

Find out more about the band at Stella Peel Site Official, Stella Peel Bandcamp, and Stella Peel Facebook.

Wereworm performs live at Quenchers Saloon in Chicago, IL on Friday, February 10th, 2012 to help celebrate the release on Nonagon’s People Live Everywhere Record Release.

For more info about the band, please visit http://www.stackmatic.com/wereworm.html and Wereworm Facebook.

Ideal Cleaners – Far As You Know (SPEED! Nebraska Records – 2011) 9 none-too-shabby songs. This and other recordings can be purchased HERE.

Live versions of a few of the songs below:

“Here is no water but only rock.” – T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Ideal Cleaners is in Lincoln, NE. Over in the Eastridge neighborhood.

About the band: We’re open minded enough to appreciate both expensive Belgian Ales and Miller High Life, although we disagree on which is preferred. This inner band conflict comes out as loud, aggressive rock music. We are loud, we are weathered, and we are sexy. We want to rock you. (But only for about 35 minutes.)

I’ve got a few things to say about this self-titled elpee from Oakland California’s Hurry Up Shotgun, so lemme just ramble here…

Somehow, and don’t ask me to quantify this, but somehow, Hurry Up Shotgun’s traditional (yet super fresh sounding) song structures throw my brain and I back to the seventies, when everything was hairy and smelled like gasoline. I haven’t figured out why as of this writing, but I believe I could play this for some friends my age who gave up on listening to anything new twenty years ago (at least) and score Hurry Up Shotgun a few new fans. Their music in this current batch o’ tunes FEEL like they are NOT OF THIS TIME, which is to say, these songs do not fit into any current genre bin. Hurry Up Shotgun STANDS ALONE.

Austin Pitts’ guitar playing abilities are STAGGERING. I hear Roger Miller No Man-era shredding, and I know that’s not congruent with my previous seventies statement, but there you have it.

Austin Pitts is one hella howler, completely congruent with my previous seventies statement. Had he been around back then when COCK ROCK WAS KING and flashy vocal gymnasts were all the rage, Pitts would’ve found himself at the epicenter of an old-fashioned major label bidding war. Every day would’ve rained hookers and coke on him, forever and ever, amen.

Austin Pitts would’ve turned all major solo deals down, would’ve kept his bandmates Craig Eastman (on bass) and Adam Kayne (on drums) and found an even bigger record deal, although the label would’ve made them shorten their name to “Shotgun.” They would’ve been initially forced to tour with Molly Hatchet and Blackfoot, but they would’ve survived that indignity and gone on to be SUPERSTARS, and you never would’ve had yer ears filled with loose shit like Journey or REO Speedwagon. Ever.

Also, Hurry Up Shotgun sounds like California. Again, don’t ask me to explain, just hurry up and buy this record. If you think I’m wrong about any of this, let me know.

(But you won’t, cuz I’m not.)

New photographs of the band WHALES, including a somewhat terrifying composite image…