In celebration of the upcoming Weezer Cruise (seriously, why aren’t you going? You still can! It’s January 19-23rd. Get tickets/info here), I’m pleased to offer some lucky people a whole bunch of Weezer gear.

And all you gotta do is send me a pic of you throwing the rockhands! Extra bonus if  your picture of the rockhands has any nautical/water/boat/Cruise/Weezer-themed elements in it. The more effort you put in, the better chance you’ll have to win.

Winners will be selected by me and maybe even some of the band members who are on the Cruise! (Can’t promise but will try!)

ONE LUCKY WINNER WILL GET ALL OF THIS:

• 1 Limited edition (of 900) screen-printed Weezer Pinkerton POSTER
• 1 Large Weezer Memories Tour T-SHIRT
• 1 copy of the double-album Weezer “RED” album on VINYL
• 1 copy of the Weezer “Raditude” album on VINYL
• 1 copy of the Weezer “Maladroit” album on VINYL
• 1 Weezer Cruise POSTER
• 10 Weezer Cruise rubber wristbands
• 10 Weezer Cruise temporary tattoos

ONE RUNNER-UP WILL WIN:

• 1 Limited Edition (of 900) screen-printed Weezer Memories Tour POSTER
• 1 Medium Weezer Memories Tour T-SHIRT
• 1 Weezer Cruise Poster
• 10 Weezer Cruise rubber wristbands
• 10 Weezer Cruise temporary tattoos

TO ENTER:

• Send a picture of yourself throwing the rockhands/devil horns/goats (see the Rockhands Gallery for examples)
• You MUST be in the picture and by entering you consent to let your picture be used on BackstageRider in the Rockhands Gallery.
• Provide the following, along with your picture: Your name, location and if via email, your mailing address. Do not put any detailed address information up in public on Twitter or Facebook thanks!

HERE’S HOW YOU SEND IN THE PICS:

• Email to Mikala@backstagerider.com – subject line: WeezerRockhands
• Twitter: twitter.com/backstagerider (@backstagerider) – hashtag #WeezerRockhands
• Post on our Facebook wall: fb.com/backstagerider - add hashtag #WeezerRockhands
• Pics can be via your phone, point-n-shoot, or pro, doesn’t matter.

Enter between January 6th and 11.59pm pst on January 23rd (the last day of the Cruise). The winner and runner up will be selected and contacted within 10 days after that. Prizes will be shipped out ASAP after that. Please help us spread the word via blogs or your FB and Twitter pages – all entries will be added in time to the Rockhands Gallery, woo!

ENTER NOW AND ROCK(HANDS) ON! \m/

This year was good for music, sure, but there wasn’t a ton that blew me away to the point of drooling obsession. There were drool-worthy MOMENTS (meeting Matt Berninger of the National for a brief, shining second being one, crossing the border into Canada on the Dinosaur Jr. tourbus with Henry Rollins, being another, doing an exclusive photoshoot and meeting Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer for a third), but not a lot changed my life.

Still, let’s hear it for the really, really most excellent albums released this year, and the ones I played the most:

• Wye Oak – Civilian
  
• WU LYF – Go Tell Fire to the Mountain
• Austra - Feel it Break
• Duran Duran - All You Need is Now
• Girls – Father - Son, Holy Ghost
• Mike Doughty –  Yes and Also Yes
• Pack AD - Unpersons
• The Antlers - Burst Apart
• Yuck - Yuck
• Baxter Dury – Happy Soup

…but that’s getting rather list-like, innit? There were also some  lovely chilled offerings from Dan Mangan, Richard Buckner, Kate Bush, Kurt Vile , Thurston Moore, Wire, Bon Iver, M83, Beirut and on and on. Lovely albums, yes. Mind-blowing? No.

So I’ve decided to look ahead. Be positive. Future-thinking. Buck the trend, etc etc.

Here’s the Top 11 things I’m looking forward to in 2012, yo:

1. WEEZER CRUISE – I will be drunk on a boat for a week in January cruising from Miami to Cozumel with Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr, The Antlers, Nervous Wreckords, Yuck, Wavves, Gene Ween and, yeah, Rivers Cuomo et al on the Weezer Cruise. Even Andy Stack from Wye Oak will be joining us on board for fun. How can this not be absurdly awesome? Note that I will also have the mother of all Weezer prize packs to give away in January. Stay tuned.
2. THE ELDERS OF BRITPOP RETURNETH – Apparently Blur will be meeting up over the hols to decide whether Alex can leave his cheese farm long enough for the guys to make some new music. Hmmm. Add to that, the car-crash?/amazing? news that the Stone Roses have reunited for a tour and new album (this was one of my fave columns written this past year). PLUS possibly/definitely more car-crash from Shaun William Ryder’s Happy Mondays reunion or the La’s playing New York’s Sound City? Let’s see how this all turns out, shall we? I’ll be pulling up a chair to watch.
3. GENTLEMEN, RE-START YOUR ENGINES– please dear gods, let this one stick. The Afghan Whigs mighta broken up 10 years ago, but announced in early December that they will be playing ATP festivals in New Jersey and England in 2012. Praying for news of a complete tour that comes close to where I live. I’d really like to hear ANYTHING off of Gentlemen come out of singer Greg Dulli’s mouth again. And new music? Uh, fuh yeah.
4. BOLDLY GOING TO GIGS I’VE NEVER GONE TO BEFORE – tons of bands touring next year that I’ve never seen live: Kasabian, Gotye, Bombay Bicycle Club, folks tell me I should like Fanfarlo, and more. Hell, I’ve never seen the Kaiser Chiefs, which is weird. Look forward to lots of “Huh…they were better/worse than I expected” posts.
5. LIKE A MONKEY WITH A MINIATURE CYMBAL- My favourite show of almost all time happened back in 2008, and was Hot Chip. The band itself even rated Vancouver’s gig as the best of their entire North American tour. But they’ve not been back and the five-piece’s now in total side-project mode. I’d really like to have Hot Chip back, please. At least live? Maybe this year? Al from Hot Chip told me a few months ago over  Twitter that the band were aching to tour again and hadn’t forgotten the Vancouver show.
   
6. GIMME MORE INDIE ROCK… – A new Sebadoh record? YUP. Their last album happened in 1999, but after a series of pretty rad “Bakesale/Harmacy Remembering Time” tours last year, the addition of an amazing new drummer Bob D’Amico, and a new lease on indie rock life, it looks like the band that never really broke up is gearing up to put together some new music in 2012 as part of a fan-funded project. Expect Jason, Bob and Lou to record in March with hopefully an autumn release and all sorts of goodies if you help them make it a reality. I’m pleased to announce, too, that I’ll be involved this project, too…which may be unsurprising to anyone who reads BSR regularly and saw the umpteen posts about how I went on tour this past year with Sebadoh in the US and Germany.
7. …AND MORE GOTH: Rumour has it that when The Cure recorded their 13th album 4:13 Dream (which was wayyy more poppier than any of us’d like), they also recorded a batch of suitably gloomy stuff for a possible “Dark Album”. And rumour ALSO has it that that album may show its birdsnest-hair-head in 2012. I will weep tears mixed with gothy black eyeliner if not.
8. BRONZE SLIPPY – electro duo Underworld were named musical directors of the London 2012 Olympic Games’ Opening Ceremonies, and are teaming up up with Slumdog Millionaire/Trainspotting director Danny Boyle to direct this big insanity, happening on July 27th. I reckon this could be interesting, ‘cos there’ll be lots of cool folks involved. Am I curious? HELL YES. I mean, Vancouver had Bryan Adams. SO TOP THAT, KARL HYDE!
9. RECORDS BEING SET STRAIGHT - Mike Doughty has spent the last, oooh, millions of years dissing his former band Soul Coughing and talking openly and honestly about life as a drug addict in the 90s. His very first book (not including Slanky, his poetry collection) is a memoir called The Book Of Drugs, and will reach deeply into how Soul Coughing came together, then fell apart and also look at the anatomy of a musician addict. Doughty’s a superb writer and I’ve got an advance copy going beside my bed. It’s brilliant, honest and really bolshy. Pre-order The Book of Drugs now, it’s out on Jan. 10.
10. BORN TO DIE OF OVEREXPOSURE? – Fascinated by how mainstream media glommed on to quirky Florence and the Machine a year or two ago, I’mma gonna be watching as the squeaky and annoying wheels of MAJOR MARKETING continue to spin around Lizzy Grant, aka Lana Del Rey. I’m not really buying it – though clearly everyone wants us to. Lizzy will be playing SNL before her first album comes out and she’s got mega bucks invested in her. I’m guessing they wanna fill the void of Lady Gaga/Crooner Girl hybrids? Should be fascinating to watch this THING explode.
11. THE BEST ROCKHANDS ARE YET TO COME – I’ve got my fingers in so many pies that I feel like a really sticky octopus. There might be some festivals, too (though I’m broke), some partnerships with the coolest of the West Coast music scene, and there will DEFINITELY be a lot of surprises coming up on BackstageRider. One thing I can guarantee that I will look forward to next year: knowing that you’re reading me, tweeting me, FB’ing me, Google+’ing me, and supporting this one-woman show. So keep talking to me, okay? And in the meantime, seriously, why aren’t you on the Rockhands Gallery? Send in your pics of you and friends throwin’ the horns for our gallery now.

Have yerself a merry little holiday and a groovy 2012. Rock on! \m/

I love writer/darklord of awesome Neil Gaiman (author of The Sandman comic series, American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Neverwhere, Coraline, and my fave (heh), Duran Duran – The First Four Years of the Fab Five, so much it hurts… but in that good way.

The thing about Gaiman is not just his amazing way with words, or that he’s married to the incomparably rad musician Amanda Palmer (I seriously enjoyed watching their relationship bloom on Twitter), or that he has wicked white wolf-like dogs, or that his kids seem ridiculously cool, or that he’s a charitable soul, or that – did I mention his books? – he’s as rocking as a writer can be.

The thing that also makes Neil Gaiman so positive-adjective worthy is that he’s a man of his word, has a great memory, aaaaand SENT ME THE BEST-EVER ROCKHANDS PIC. IN THE HISTORY OF EVERNESS. PLUS 666 EXTRA YEARS.

I’d been bugging Neil on Twitter for a long while. We’d tweet about a shared love of Magnetic Fields – he’s mates with Stephin Merritt – he’d correct me when I called him a liar over when his EP of Doctor Who was airing (this weekend), and sent me a totally bonkers website brimming with rockhands to check out.

He said – nay, PROMISED – that he would, when a time seemed suitable, deliver me a rockhand pic, if I kept reminding him. So I did. And then, literally 15 minutes before I was going to get a new tattoo of epic rockhands (made for me by another genius, my fave artist/designer Pete Fowler), a photo of epic rockhands arrived.

“How’s this? Hands from me, @benfolds, @amandapalmer & Damian from @OKgo“. (And any of you whom cynically think I just found this on t’interwebs, have a gander at Neil’s website…where it’s actually addressed to “BackstageRider” below.)

UMmmm, HOW’S THIS? HOW’S THIS? It’s bloody rocktacular, Neil. You, and the gang of musical genius assembled around you, have my undying love. It was also taken during the recording of Nighty Night, an “8 in 8″ project, Neil explained to me, whereby the four above got together and wrote and recorded 6 songs in 12 hours. Buy the EP for a whopping $1 here. Amazing. \m/

In this case, kudos go to my favourite US roving rockhands reporter Shelly Corbett. Shelly works with the ab-fab gang at Seattle radio station KEXP, who’ve this year nabbed some pretty shit-hot bands for their live SXSW broadcasts, and is a friend to the BSR. She’s also an expert at getting the most awesome in indie rock to raise their two fingers for her camera. So I’m thrilled to present the SXSW Rockhands Edition, starring BackstageRider favourites Yuck and Black Angels, Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3, plus GroupLove, The Head and the Heart, John Vanderslice and the Young Evils.

But that’s not all! Vancouver indie-rock gig-obsessive Giselle Larcombe is down in Austin, too, and in the run-up has been waving her arms around and shouting about a band called Sleepy Vikings that’s she’s into. She insists they’re cool. So naturally, I asked: “Rockhands?” She also managed to corner my fave new gothband Esben & The Witch. During the day. Goths come out in the daytime! Who knew?

Are you down at SXSW? It’s not too late to SEND US YOUR rockhands! IT’S FOR THE GREATER GOOD! Snap a pic on your phone, tweet it to @backstagerider, upload it at fb.com/backstagerider or email mikala@backstagerider.com and we’ll add your pics to this feature, as well as to the main rockhands gallery.

Yuck – a four-piece from London (and points beyond) are what those irritating “industry” types call “a buzz band.” And for good bloody reason. Yuck’s debut album, called “Yuck”, ticks off some serious I Love SO MUCH musical boxes. Think fuzzy Sebadoh, Sonic Youth and some harmonic Teenage Fanclub. This is Daniel Blumberg (who’s also got a solo project called Oupa.) Serious hair. Serious indie cred.

Here’s Mariko and Max of Yuck. Extra points to Max for living long and prospering. He’s got…SPOCKHANDS! Way to mix SXSWi and SXSW, Max! Oh, and you wanna a ton of tracks off their debut? Okay: Yuck by Yuck.

OH MY GODS I LOVE THE BLACK ANGELS! LOVE LOVE LOVE PSYCHEDELIC SWIRLIE LOVE! They’re practically SXSW’s house band, and here’s the whole lot of ‘em with Cheryl from KEXP (at left) giving me (via Shelly) the horns. To understand why I love the Black Angels – plus, to see amazing live shots of ‘em by Kris Krug, taken last year – click on this link here.

Seattle-y The Head and the Heart are a bit less rock, a bit more soaring folky feel-goodness. Think Mumford & Sons with more piano, performing at a olde-timey general store. They get full marks for seemingly praying to god while throwing the devil’s horns. Sign up over at their website (link is …uh, in the last sentence) and you’ll get stuffs AND a free download.

Rock, boy-girl harmonies, bit of a psychedelica and some typical Hell-A sunshine are GroupLove. That’s Sean and Ryan above. The rapscallions. Hey, are rapscallions like green onions that do hip-hop?

It’s RITZY! It’s a  Joy Formidable! (A band Passion Pit love!) So cute! Wearing J. Mascis’ favourite colour! And holding a Dos Equis! This is INDIE ROCK, my friends!

Please won’t you gimme indie pop? Seattle, WAh’s The Young Evils are a twosome made up of guitar and drum girlguy ditties that are stripped down n’ pretty. Mackenzie’s the cutie on the left, while Troy is tag-teaming.

Here’s who Shelly calls the “nicest man in rock”, John Vanderslice. He looks nice, doesn’t he?

Had to nab Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3 before they pedalled off…you remember Dream Syndicate, right? Yeah, Steve (2nd from left) lead them. He sort of mostly rocks. A lot.

It’s a Viking! A sleepy Viking! It’s a common misperception that Viking helmets had horns. But as they used to drink outta them, and maybe  Tampa, FLA-based Sleepy Vikings understands the importance. That’s Ryan, drummer with the minor-chord, Brit-soundin’ indie rockers, on the left with some nameless friend looking concerned. I dig the Sleepy Vikings even more since I learned that they had to collect donations to get down to Austin.

Goths! From Brighton, UK! During the day! With an ice lolly! This slighly narked-off looking threesome is my faves, Esben & The Witch (Thomas, Daniel and Rachel) whose new album Violet Cries, is beautiful moody darkness. Giselle apparently had to teach them what rockhands were, bless. See a few pics I took of ‘em when they were on tour with the Foals

Thanks to all the bands at KEXP who were jolly good humoured enough to throw the goats and to Giselle for drinkin’ beer with Vikings and startling goths during the day. But there’s room for more rockhands, SXSW! Get out your fingers and show us what you’re made of! Join us on this special edition gallery, like, NOW! \m/

• Twitter: @backstagerider
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/backstagerider
• Email: mikala@backstagerider.com

IMPORTANT NOTICE: The pic has to be of you and/or your mates and not something you found elsewhere on the Interwebs. And I’d prefer to see faces. But hey. This is CUSTOM, people, and all these photos were taken (or sent to me) specifically for this gallery. Rock on! \m/

Every once and a while, the BackstageRider likes to crawl out from under the piles of  twitchy and dirty alt-somethin’-somethin’ music and swat at the light.

And while the interior of the Snow Patrol-early U2-Editors triangularium isn’t a place in which we typically dwell for too long, sometimes it’s good to get clean. Factor in swoony vocals, earnest love songs and anthemy choruses rooted somewhere near the good parts of the late 1980s, and you’ve got July’s Rockands heroes: introducing The Republic of Letters.

Made out of bits of Chris Venti (lovely vocals),  brother Nick Venti (drummer and chap with excellent chain below), Martin Niwinski (bass guitar) and Adrian Thorstensen (guitar), Republic of Letters are derived from San Diego, CA. Their first full-lengther is due out this autumn, produced by good friend to BSR, Louis XIV/Nervous Wreckords’ Brian Karscig. For a taster now, however, they’ve got an EP called Painted Hour (also the name of the best song on there). Have a listen to them on MySpace. They might be pretty, but they’re also cheeky devils’ (horns). \m/

A Woodhand! Doing a Rock Hand! GEDDIT?

All hail Paul Banwatt from Woodhands, throwing the horns, just for you. The sweat on his Star Trek shirt evidence of a night of carnage as Toronto’s finest 80s/electro danceband played to a lustful Biltmore crowd in Vancouver this past weekend, the first show of their Canadian/US tour. Q Magazine last year anointed them (“them” being Paul and Dan Werb) among the best new bands in the world, and that’s saying something because Q Magazine is printed on nice, glossy paper and comes from London, England.

In other words, they are the shit.

The duo are like a little less than a third of Hot Chip (a Hot Chip off the old block. GEDDIT?), all Revenge of the Nerds-stylee. They know how to rock a keytar, insert “It’s Tricky” and Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” into dance songs and make you want to shake your ass. Which you want to do, right? Go see them, they’re on tour now: www.myspace.com/woodhands \m/