Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds (DC)

'Verbed-out rock-brut Creole glam from The Cramps/Gun Club/Knoxville Girl KidCongo Powers. I named my first (as yet unborn) child after him, so there's that. A perfect swirl, "rare as a yeti.". myspace.

 

Drones (Melbourne, AU)

They cough up a brutally melodic mix of Aussie hoodoo that sprawls & creaks like Scientists or King Snake Roost but often soars like...Springsteen? The Hold Steady without the the New Jersey bluster. A dinosaur footprint on rock'n'roll. My favorite band of the last decade. myspace.

 

Crystal Stilts (NYC)

Ultra-intelligent post-punk slathered in reverb & lysergic dread. Ladies & gentlemen, the psychedelic Joy Division.... myspace.

 

Homosexuals (London)

Messthetic dub so deep & screwed you'll want to walk away shaking your head & then walk back in to hear it again. The legendary marrow of punk. myspace.

 

Garotas Suecas (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Moddish organ & horn-driven beach-soul topped off with killer Brazilian rhythms. myspace.

 

Carrots (Austin)

Austin favorites The Carrots have burrowed so far into the 60s girl group sound that they can punch lovely ambitious holes in it from the inside & look like pretty girls cutting snowflakes at the crafts table while doing it. myspace.

 

Black Hollies (NYC)

New Paisley Underground Fuzztone Psych-punk wallop with serpentine harmonies & a particularly ominous undertow. myspace.

 

Kingdom of Suicide Lovers (Austin)

Barely contained waves of feedback, amp buzz & assorted ambient mysteries threatening enveloping poetic, tense boy-girl torment. Like The Go-Betweens or Young Marble Giants re-envisioned by Smog & Live Skull. myspace.

 

 

Stalkers (NYC)

Handclap-happy vintage pop-punk with a vocalist that sounds like the three-headed love child of Ray Davies, Joe Strummer & Joey Ramone. Pretty damn irresistable even if you're unduly cynical about such things. myspace.

 

Electric Shadows (NYC)

Crunchy Heartbreakers-style glam punk fused beautifully onto golden-era Replacements & Soul Asylum, complete with wicked-raw vocals & gnarled anthemic guitars. myspace.

 

Ex-Humans (NYC)

Unapologetic rocket-fueled blast-off punk re-animated by gory splay-legged guitar fury. myspace.

 

Coathangers (Atlanta)

Chirpy cavegirls who write blissed-out bummer odes to lost tambourines & submarines & really should be responsible for six or seven teenage dance crazes by now. myspace.

 

Golden Triangle (NYC)

Colossal overdriven Indian war chants as performed by some utterly unhinged 60s leather-clad girl group. Urban scalp-hunting music. myspace.

 

Intelligence (Seattle)

Crash & burn neolithic trash with deep-seeded complications & brash, unexpected melodic curveballs that mush the brain like a Nicer Dicer. The perfect soundtrack to R. Crumb's melting face "Stoned Agin!" cartoon... myspace.

 

Viva l’American Death Ray Music (Memphis, NYC, Austin)

Nervous, terminally wired bowery splatter radiating VU, The Fall, Dub, Ubu & anything else of value they come in contact with...All with a typically Memphian disregard for museum antiquities. myspace.

 

Mika Miko (Los Angeles)

The punk rock done with the squalling vocals with chimp-like abandon. All good things. myspace.

 

Cause for Applause (Austin)

The Fall & Richard Hell decked out in cummerbund & spats, suave-gobbing for everyone! myspace.

 

Limes (Memphis)

Molasses-soaked, shambling, pig-doctor distorto death-folk with a godless "No Tomorrow" vibe that makes you want to crap standing up. A house favorite. myspace.

 

Golden Boys (Austin)

A boozed-up living history of rock'n'roll -- really, the only way you can teach the stuff.... myspace.

 

Psychedelic Horseshit (Columbus, OH)

Unkempt Ohio fuck-all that sounds a little like The Fugs or The Monks after three straight weeks of Electroconvulsive Therapy. The soiled underpants of rock'n'roll. myspace.

 

Cause Co-Motion (NYC)

Tard-o chimp punk that pins a smiley face button to the rumpled lapels of Comet Gain, Television Personalities & Saturday Looks Good To Me. myspace.

 

Fresh and Onlys (San Francisco)

Ghosty, brilliant psych-infected garage rock with songs brazenly arranged like baroque AM pop hits from the 60s. myspace.

 

Beets (NYC)

 

New York Howl (NYC)

The Gun Club compressed into a barbed-wire frisbee of fuck. The Yardbirds skunking The Cube. myspace.

USAA

 

COCKTAIL SLIPPERS (NORWAY)

Norwegian bubblegum torch jangle serviced perfectly by two stellar female vocalists who still believe in, um, balls-out pop singing. myspace.

 

THE BREAKERS (COPENHAGEN)

100% irony-free white soul/R&B music. Do people still use these words? genuine chops. Weird hints here & there of mid-70s Rod Stewart. myspace.

 

THE HIGH TENSION WIRES (Austin)

Deliriously anthemic cavedweller punk that deliciously tosses off hooks most bands would harp on til they're blue in the face. myspace.

 

THE WOGGLES (GA)

Classic Nuggets garage rock by a bandthat's been at this game long enough to come by it naturally. The real deal in a genre sadly lacking in real deals. myspace.

 

THE URGES (IRELAND)

Mean-sounding Riot on Sunset Strip retro-garage with enough brat vox, trainwreck farfisa & raw hully-gully frenzy to keep it off your grandma's curio shelf. myspace.

 

THE HIGHER STATE (SPAIN)

Trem & righteously fuzzed fringe-leather jacket blow-outs modeled on Moby Grape & Buffalo Springfield, but fortified with war-torn guitars that violently shake the gravedust off their pretty damn inspired 60s Nuggetry. myspace.

 

LOS CORONAS (SPAIN)

Mariachi surf punk with a brilliantly heaving low end & blistering bullring horn Charts that set them well apart from the instro rabble. myspace.

 

THE HALL MONITORS (DC)

Like The Sonics with a gruesomely heavy bottom-end, a weird rockabilly tilt & some technicolor psych splatter thrown in to raise it out of the frat-house basement. If they sound like their records live you'd better watch your girlfriend... myspace.

 

THE LEGENDARY TIGERMAN * (Coimbra, Portugal)

A sexy, Euro-trash one-man masked band in a Saville Row suit who plays electro-billy that'll lift the stripes right off your cat clothes. Like Rev & Vega without the black abyss yawning beneath the surface. myspace.

 

LOVVERS * (UK)

Wow, the UK finally produce a band that could hold its own on In The Red, Boom Chick or Goner Records. Spit, jizz, history & half-blown amps are on their side. Apparently they have a live show that rivals Black Lips. myspace.

 

WOMEN (Canada)

Brian Wilson, The Association & The Turtles dorked down for garage mods. Think Jonathan Fire*Eater with nearly perfect beachcomber vocals. From the always fascinating Jagjaguwar stable. myspace.

 

JULIE DOIRON (Canada)

Do we really need to tell you about Julie Doiron? Really? The choked-up soul of Canada. myspace.

 

ODAWAS (Berkeley, CA)

Dangerously lovely orchestral folk with endlessly echoing Lady of Shanghai vocals & ambience so thick a lighthouse may be in order. myspace.

 

THE DONKEYS (San Diego, CA)

Sun-stunned, vaguely melancholic 60s hippie beach music so sonically interesting & layered you won't mind its chiming mellowness. No dark pull, no death-trip...just folks content with a sitting around a fire down a dirt road off PCH-1. myspace.

 

DEVON WILLIAMS * (LA, CA)

Breezy, irony-free anglophile baroque pop with gorgeous chamber strings & a fine vocalist that splits the difference between Paul McCartney & Harry Nilsson, depending on the song. Not for those who shrink from pristine pop, though the arrangements are audacious & the lyrics do have some viable fangs. myspace.

 

THE UPSIDE DOWN (Portland, OR)

Brilliant, crystalline, levitating space-folk & satellite throb, with some of the most astonishingly beautiful back-up vocals you'll hear this side of Pet Sounds. The band takes a breath, you take a breath, the wind takes a breath...repeat dosage as necessary. myspace.