Well folks, the annual Chicago music festival Tomorrow Never Knows has once again come and gone. Our friend Rob at Schuba’s sent over images and a short recap of last week’s event:

Now in it’s seventh year, Tomorrow Never Knows is the only event of its kind in Chicago during the bitter month of January, bringing together the best in buzzed about local acts as well as nationally acclaimed indie acts. This year featured the likes of Markéta Irglová, Mister Heavenly, Freddie Gibbs, Twin Shadow and Hansdsome Furs.

By all accounts the festival brought an appreciated reprieve from the snowy weather. Did patrons enjoy their iPhone 4 cases? Oui. Were we happy to lend a hand? Definitely. To Rob and everyone at TNK, thanks again for having us. We’ll see you again next year. Bundle up.

From January 12-16th, Schubas, Lincoln Hall, and the Metro are joining forces to bring you five nights of live music, buzzing ear drums, and tender vibes. As a sponsor of the festival we will be on hand gifting products for your iPhone 4 and generally doing whatever we can to help make this fantastic celebration of independent music and culture go down. Bundle up, bring ear plugs. We look forward to seeing you there.

Can you expect wild mayhem? Of course. Carnival games? Yes. Haunted House? Definitely. Best costume contest? Totally. Will Darker My Love, Restaurant, and The Warlocks be playing? Yes, yes, and yes. But remember: Costumes and RSVP Required! Drive safe. Drink water. We’ll see you there.

This is a fantastic opportunity to support our extended music & arts community, not just in Los Angeles or on the West Coast, but around the world. The Creative Cultivation fundraiser is guaranteed to be one of the most interesting, entertaining and delicious experiences you’ll have all year. We’re proud to support dublab and sincerely hope you’ll join us.

In association with London Fashion Week, the London Design Festival and the Anti Design Festival, Eley Kishimoto’s LONDON FLASH ON WEEK is an event celebrating and launching “Flash” collaboration projects with a select group of brands including Incase, Duvel, BMW Motorrad and Cinelli in association with the Bicycle Film Festival London, each representing the perfect balance between creative flair and simple execution.

Taking place at Shoreditch Studios in London, the exhibition is open to the public this Saturday, September 18, featuring original Flash print products on display. If you happen to be in London, make sure to check out this unique event that is yet another intriguing twist in the continuing story of Eley Kishimoto, who continue to live by their maxim to “Print the World.”

Eley Kishimoto FLASH ON WEEK
Exhibition: Saturday, 9/18
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Shoreditch Studios
37 Batemans Row
London EC2A 3HH

If you love:

1. legendary punk rock + ethereal indie pop + sheer noise terror
2. stand-up comedy
3. food trucks
4. carnival games & raffles
5. vinyl records
6. lurking in the blazing hot sun at an indie rock festival
7. all of the above

… then you probably already plan on attending this weekend’s FYF Fest. For those of you not yet in the loop here’s the low down:

Nestled between Chinatown and Downtown LA, this all-day concert will feature more than 38 independent artists on three stages, 15 stand-up comedians, a traffic jam of local food trucks, and thousands of music lovers all coming out to laze the day away in LA’s newest state park and celebrate the arts. Bands not to miss: The Rapture, Sleep, The Mountain Goats, Man Man, Abe Vigoda, Cold Cave, Titus Andronicus, The Soft Pack, OFF!, Cults, and Big Freedia “Queen of New Orleans Bounce”. That’s just eleven of 38 artist. Wild.

So how does FYF do it? Good Question.

Every year the unstoppable “geniuses at work” Sean Carlson and Phil Hoelting somehow manage to add more massive stages, more spastic comedians, more fun contests, more general mayhem and more sweaty exhausted faces to their community-based music and arts festival. After four years of sponsoring the event we can only say it just gets weirder, bigger, and better with each passing year. We’re deeply proud of the way our friends have slowly grown FYF into one of the premier independent music festivals on the west coast. Truly a community event, FYF has more heart, guts, and good will than can possibly be explained in this short announcement.

We sincerely look forward to having you with us on Saturday. As always, you bring the water, sunscreen and howls of joy and we’ll supply the shade and free Snap Cases for your iPhone. This one’s gonna be amazing.

UPDATE: Thrasher Magazine is having a contest, you can win a VIP ticket package to this Saturday’s FYF Fest that includes 2 tickets, 2 Craig Steyck Incase cases, and 2 Altamont shirts.

This past weekend, Transmission Entertainment produced Austin’s finest outdoor music event of the year. If you’re the sort of person who loves independent music festivals, the 4th Annual FUNFUNFUNfest delivered it all: four stages + 90 artists + street meat & taco trucks + GZA’s Liquid Swords + Destroyer + All Leather + Les Savy Fav + hot chocolate chip cookies + hotter antelope/jackrabbit sausages from Frank Grocery + mini ramp + stand-up comedy + The Jesus Lizard + Growing + Health + extreme weather.

After three days of preproduction, Saturday gave us brilliant blue skies and perfect 78-degree weather. Real nice. We watched bands, ate sausages, shot photos, shot the breeze, skated a wildly sloping half-pipe, and gave away almost 5,000 iPhone & iPod cases, and doled out enormous boxes of Incase products to a wide variety of performing artists.

If day one was sunny and idyllic in every way, then let’s say day two was interesting. That’s if you consider TORRENTIAL RAINS interesting. Fortunately, we do. From 11AM to midnight, first a drizzle and then a downpour.

After this 13-hour pummeling Waterloo Park was a mud pit and everyone in attendance was soaked to the bone. Several wore garbage bags and walked around in socks. Just straight up threw their shoes away. Incredibly, the bands played on and the crowd stuck it out for Danzig’s headliner set. Understandably so. This was Glen’s first time in town in 15 years. Did not disappoint either. 100% awesome/hilarious.

Austin, Texas is a special place full of fantastic music, people, and food. We’d like to thank the city of Austin and everyone affiliated with Transmission Entertainment. Graham, Brendan, Rosa, Michael, Cory, Fish, and Daniel… thanks to all of you for a truly exceptional visit. We’ll see y’all in the Spring. Enjoy our Flickr photo set.

The annual CMJ Music Marathon touches down in New York City this week, Oct 20-24th. Within a few short days thousands of bands, fans, and djs will be lurking elbow to elbow in every dank club and hipster hole throughout the city. As always, guaranteed to be mega spastic. Adding to the mayhem, Incase is sponsoring the FYFest Productions showcase at Cake Shop with Crystal Antlers, Male Bonding, Let’s Wrestle, and Ninja Sonik. Bring ear plugs and a change of shirt. GO!

MusicFest Northwest (a/k/a MFNW) is one of those regional music festivals that just sort of sneaks up and blows your mind. Sure, you could miss it and think to yourself, “No biggie.” But you’d be wrong. Yes, you could pass it by in favor of some mega-fest somewhere. But that’d just be unwise. While the faithful horde busily attended, recapped, lauded and/or guffawed their way through several of spring and summer 09’s biggest events, MFNW 2009 quietly shaped itself into one of the best booked independent music festivals of the season. For the third year in a row, (and for almost a week straight!), promoter Trevor Solomon and the Willamette Week newspaper hosted 25,000 attendees and more than 100 national and local performing artists around the greater Portland area. Logistically, my friends, this was no small fete.

On any given night at any one of the fest’s 18 participating venues, you could see artists like Om, Eluvium, Chairlift, Bad Brains, Avi Buffalo, Brother Reade, Modest Mouse, Dirty Three, Beach House, Explosions In The Sky, Love As Laughter, as well as the recently reunited Sunny Day Real Estate and the mighty Team Dresch… to name but a few…. As a principle sponsor of MFNW 2009, Incase hand-delivered product requests to participating festival artists and MFNW community participants (Hi Fasil!). As well, we sponsored the stage at The Holocene and community radio station KEXP’s remote broadcasts from the stage at The Doug Fir.

From the city’s coffee shops to its dedicated bike lanes to its positive neighborhood vibes to its great food and vital independent music scene, Portland always feels like a home away from home.Trevor, thanks again for putting on yet another great music festival. You and everyone involved with MusicFest NW should be proud. See you again next year. Enjoy the photos!

For the second year in a row Incase is sponsoring Portland, Oregon’s MusicFest NW.

That Trevor Solomon puts on one helluva festival. Though I can’t quite recall the exact figure, he’s booked somewhere in the realm of 200 bands to perform at roughly 18 venues around the Rose City.

Last year’s standouts included sets by Awesome Color, TV On The Radio, Red Fang, Love As Laughter, and the reunited Polvo. This year? God only knows.

But this much we do know, the Bad Brains will be strappin’ it back on, which is more than enough reason to go. As well, you can see Dillinger Four, Frightened Rabbit, Frank Black, Avi Buffalo, Brother Reade, Crom (holy crap!), Eluvium, Om, Team Dresch (wow!), and dozens more.

We hope to see you there.

MusicFest NW
Sept. 16-20th, 2009
Portland, OR