Every once in a while, several rockhands of such brilliance MAGICALLY appear in your inbox, from another Rockhands Soldier out there in the trenches. That someone so awesome, like Braden Deans of Vancouver, would take the time to corner the awesomely weird magicians, both Penn AND Teller, and get them …

I’m too cool for Austin and SXSW. (Truth: too broke, not enough holiday.) But BackstageRider has its spies down there, and one of them has come back with GOLD. Here’s the radtacular K Flay throwing the goats.

The Weezer Cruise is coming up and to celebrate the fact that I’ll be drunk and sunburned on this boat of AWESOME music, I’m giving away a whole whack of awesome Weezer gear to one winner and a runner up.

What’s the point of looking back? Here’s the BackstageRider Top 11 Things to Look Forward to in 2012 (so far) with a bit of back-looking, I admit, in the form of musicks I did very much enjoy as well as some guesses about what might be awesome next year.

Ask (on Twitter), and ask again, and ask again, and YE SHALL RECEIVE. Neil Gaiman, man of letters, hero to geeks everywhere, and my personal favourite wordsmith, came through in, EPIC ROCKHANDERY. He sent me this. Featuring Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, OKGo and Ben Folds, this is truly the Monster of all Rock(hands).

While the BackstageRider can’t be at SXSW in person, she has deployed a small army to track down the greatest in indierockhands. Featuring Yuck! The Head and the Heart! Young Evils! Black Angels! John Vanderslice! Esben & The Witch! Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3! GroupLove! Sleepy Vikings! They’re here.

The devil’s horns are the international symbol of rocktacularness. Which is why it is BackstageRider’s greatest goal to create the world’s largest gallery of awesome folks doing the rock hands. YOU. WANT. TO. BE. HERE.

What do you get when a former highschool bandmate of J. Mascis and Lou Barlow gets in touch and has a concept for some original rockhand artwork? Well, yer gonna have to click to find out.

Check out the most amazing rockhand, Maloik, by artist Mark Atomos Pilon. Inspired by and drawn for the BackstageRider’s very own Devil’s Horn Corner: the Rockhands Gallery, this is some seriously sexy piece of art. And if you fancy it, you can also read about my fascination with funky and rocktacular artists.