San Francisco Independent Film Festival + Winter Music Festival 2010

SMASH-UP DERBY - Imagine a band that mixes [insert well-known indie band here] with [insert famous pop artist here] sprinkled with a dash of [for intrigue, insert descriptive noun here]. SMASH-UP DERBY indeed does do all of the above quite literally. In fact, they're a totally kick-ass indie cover band except the singers think they're in a pop band. So while the band is cranking out rockin' renditions of songs by Nirvana, Franz Ferdinand, the Sex Pistols, or Black Sabbath, the singers are belting out Madonna, Michael Jackson, Christina Aguilera, or Pink - at the same time.

http://www.smashupderby.com/

GOOFERMAN - Behold GOOFERMAN, kings of klown-fi: hybridized, breakbeat-infected, hippity-hopped, groove-embossed, rockin' funkstuff, delivered via superstyled klowns. Think Oingo Boingo, Janes Addiction, Mr. Bungle, Bassment Jaxx, Soul Coughing, Prince, and Looney Tunes happily stuffed into a mini Big Top. Gooferman has shared billing with the likes of Primus, Spoon, Ween, Flaming Lips, Dave Matthews, Gogol Bordello, The Cure, and Devotchka.

http://www.gooferman.com/

KID BEYOND - After riveting hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world with his pioneering all-vocal live-looping work, Kid Beyond is taking a radical new direction in 2010: a sci-fi electro-rock-opera.

You thought grandiose concept albums went out of style with the Nixon resignation? Well, you haven't heard Kid Beyond and the Interplanetary Love Army.

"From the start, I knew these ideas were larger than just individual songs," Kid B explains. "They were scenes from a film, an overarching story. And I couldn't do it with just me and my mouth. I needed to assemble some serious firepower."

And that he did – recruiting synthesizer wizard Roger Manning (Beck, Air, The Mars Volta), mind-melting drum'n'bass drummer KJ Sawka (BT, Amon Tobin), guitar god Johnny Nails (American Idol's Blake Lewis), glitch-hop / dubstep maestro Propa Tingz (Breakbeat Buddha, Freq Nasty), and producers Chris Manning (Santana, Metallica, Thriving Ivory) and the Rondo Brothers (Dan the Automator, Head Automatica, Handsome Boy Modeling School).

The result melds the epic experimental rock of Radiohead, Muse and the Flaming Lips, the infectious electro of Gorillaz, Diplo, and Spank Rock, and the thunderous attack of Queens of the Stone Age and Rage Against the Machine.

Interplanetary, indeed. "I wanted to pour all my favorite styles into a blender," says Kid B, "so clearly I needed heads from a bunch of different planets."

Inspired by Kid B's Buddhist studies, ayahuasca journeys, and deep appreciation for sci-fi sagas like Star Wars and The Matrix, the album's story is a pan-mythic tale of love warriors on Earth and elsewhere: space monks, fembots, Iraq war martyrs, guardian wolves, goddess visitations, astral travelers in Daft Punk G-rides, epic beach raves on sand planets with 42-hour triple-sunsets – all tied together by the hero's journey of the eponymous Kid B.

And amazingly, it all does hang together – thanks to Kid B's shape-shifting, soul-shouting singing voice, which will come as no surprise to the millions of gamers who've heard him on Guitar Hero, Rock Band, American Idol and Dance Dance Revolution, delivering uncannily pitch-perfect renditions of Bowie, Clapton, Coldplay, Skynyrd, New Order, Depeche Mode, Franz Ferdinand, Queens of the Stone Age, and countless others.

The stage show brings the album into the 4th Dimension: "The visuals, the animations, the costumes, the graphic design – it all ties in with the backstory, the mythos of the album, the hidden puzzles in the songs. If you're the type of fan who wants to go deep into this world we've whipped up, we'll give it to you."

Having toured as a solo act with such artists as Keane, Imogen Heap, Lupe Fiasco, Plain White T's, Buckethead, Lyrics Born, Spearhead, and many more, Kid Beyond and his Interplanetary Love Army are ready to take their place as headliners – on this planet, and beyond.

http://www.kidbeyond.com/