Area 51 began in July of 1996 by co-founders Xavier Mintaka (vocals and guitar) and Nathan Etana (bass), while attending King High School in Tampa, Florida. They added a drummer and guitarist and began building a fan base of their fellow students since their first show in December of 1996. During this time future band member Pat Floyd was involved with another local band, Nefulum Fes. Both bands supported each other throughout high school. James and Pat met each other this same year in the tenor section of advanced chorus and the shows pop group, in which Pat played guitar. About a year and a half after their formation the band drifted apart in late 1997 as a result of artistic differences between Xavier and Nathan, and the drummer and guitarist. Many months had passed after the break-up when Xavier and Nathan came together and felt that it was time to reform the band. Nathan sent an e-mail in the spring of 1998 to Pat Floyd, who was attending Florida State University, asking him to join on lead guitar. Pat accepted the invitation and placed a fill-in on drums. After practicing that summer and recording a rough demo in Pat’s garage, Pat had to return to Florida State for his sophomore year. Upon Pat’s return the following summer of 1999, he transferred to the University of South Florida in Tampa (graduating in December of 2001) to give the band his full attention. After a few months of searching for a permanent drummer, Joey Bottoms, a former band-mate of Pat’s, stepped up to complete Area 51. They recorded their first presentable demo I Want to Believe at USF on donated studio time. They began playing shows and quickly developed a reputation throughout the bay area. Unfortunately, after two and half years with the band Joey was let go in February of 2002 due to his persistent inability to keep his commitments to Area 51. - (Read more)

In "Cathedrals" Bel Auburn has given voice to architecture, sound to longing, and hit upon what all art strives to discover : its own way of expressing the connection between heart and light. This is poetry. It lifts you up.

About Black Tie Dynasty Any self-respecting child of the uber-days of new wave, the early 1980s, with its look-into-the-mirror-darkly synth and high drama dance tendencies, will immediately recognize the pitched personas that these Dallas lads inhabit like a second skin. Although some mistaken reviewers continue to lump them in the generic bin of Depeche Mode and the Cure for reasons unknown to me, they are a much better fit in the vinyl echoes of Ultravox and the Church, among others. The drums are subtly syncopated, precise yet not too stiffly preserved sounding, the vocals ebb and flow with dynamic tropes that Morrissey would admit to liking a helluva lot more than copycats inflexions Smoking Popes, the guitar whirls and writhes in sinewy U2 bent and fragile landscapes, and the song Tender is destined to be a big step towards a devoted following of boys with a tad bit of eyeliner make-up and girls with a tongue ready for metro sexual myopic men. Like Icelands endless days and nights, the chill is omnipresent, and the song titles brevity and directness are akin to titles for black and white photography: Midnight Sun, Antarctica, even Lakes. Each serves as a repository for both a wink at the past, when new romanticism and Goth and post-punk fishtailed into each other in pleasant dreams, and each also provides an amalgam of sounds that are both familiar and fleeting, as they should be.-Left Of The Dial

Black Mountain is a Canadian indie-rock band composed of Stephen McBean, Amber Webber, Matt Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt and Joshua Wells. Leader Stephen McBean also heads another similarly named band, Pink Mountaintops, who are the more experimental side of McBean's musical abilities. Black Mountain is the front line band for Black Mountain Army, a collective of musicians, artists and friends in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. By day, three members of the band work for an organization (Insite) that meets the basic living requirements of the chronically poor, drug addicted and mentally ill near Vancouver's infamous Main & Hastings intersection, in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, widely considered to be the heroin capital of Canada, if not North America. The name "Black Mountain" could be a reference to a large pile of hashish or simply the mountain of the same name which lies predominant on the city's North Shore skyline. " Black Mountain has released two LPs, In The Future (2008) and Black Mountain (2005), and 2 EPs Druganaut (2004) and Bastards of Light (2008) on the Jagjaguwar label. A split single with Destroyer was released in Fall 2004 on Spirit of Orr. The "Stormy High" single was released in 2006 on Suicide Squeeze records. - (Read more)

Oftentimes, a rock band is greater than the sum of its parts -- and that statement couldn't be more true than with San Francisco's pride-and-joy, BLUE PERIOD. Androgynous, fiery-haired singer Adrian Roberts brings a stylish sense of drama to Tommy Vaux's kick-ass guitar sounds, while keyboardist PF, raised on techno-pop, contrasts sharply with bassist Swirly Rat Jr.'s punk upbringing. Holding it all together is the raw power of Matty C.'s massive drumming, with the end result being a sharp mix of feverish rock frenzy coupled with hooky pop melodies. It's just the sort of energetic and passionate music that helped win the band a coveted SF Weekly Wammie award for "Best Rock Band," and has kept audiences coming back for more. Renowned for their electrifying live sets, Blue Period has garnered a sizable following in California. Their 1998 debut album, Product, caught the attention of Bay Area audiences and helped establish the group as one of San Francisco's best bands. With the release of Nightlife Casualties in 2000, Blue Period continued its mission of making the world safe for glamorous kick-ass rock 'n' roll, performing showcases in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Minneapolis. In 2001, disenchanted with the local SF music scene, the band decided to start their own monthly rock 'n' roll party, club GLITZ. There, Blue Period was the house band, holding court over a successful merger of live music, DJs, fashion, paparazzi, and art. - (Read more)