Yo La Tengo is one of the all-time great American garage bands, operating out of Hoboken, NJ, for almost 20 years now without running out of ideas. Guitarist Ira Kaplan and drummer Georgia Hubley are a married couple who seem to like each other, quite the rock-world novelty. Together, they do for monogamy what the Velvet Underground did for heroin -- even their screaming feedback drones have the down-home feel of neighbors jamming on the back porch. Ever since bassist James McNew joined in the early '90s, the trio has been one of indie rock's most adventurous and most beloved bands. They do folkie ballads, they do noise, they try endless guitar jams, they play around with keyboards and drum loops, they cover any song that pops into their heads, and they were great on The Simpsons.

Jeff Mangum is a musician best known for being the lyricist, vocalist and guitarist of the band Neutral Milk Hotel, as well as being one of the cofounders of The Elephant 6 Recording Company. Mangum, along with the other members of the Elephant 6, attended Ruston High School in the late 1980s. The friends shared a passion for bands of the 1960s such as The Zombies, as well as an affinity for newer, noisier bands such as Sonic Youth and Minutemen. They reflected these influences in the tapes they recorded and shared with each other, forming the seeds of what would become the Elephant 6 Collective.

Kyp Malone is a guitarist and backing vocalist for the critically acclaimed indie rock group TV on the Radio. Earlier this year he released his first solo album under his side project, Rain Machine.

Though Mac McCaughan has plenty to keep him busy — playing in Superchunk, managing the successful Merge Records — he also spends time recording under the moniker of Portastatic. In 1993, Tom Scharpling of 18 Wheeler Records asked to release some of McCaughan’s lo-fi, four-track recordings; his request was met by the singles “Sandals with White Socks” and “Starter”. Since then the side-project has recorded (using a variety of lineups) six full length albums, several singles, and two movie soundtracks. In 1994, McCaughan released his first Portastatic album I Hope Your Heart Is Not Brittle; followed in 1995 by a second album, Slow Note from a Sinking Ship, and the “Scrapbook” EP. The Nature of Sap appeared in 1997, and the moniker emerged again with 2000’s EP “De Mel, De Melao”, which paid homage to classic Brazilian artists like Caetano Veloso and Arnaldo Baptista. In 2001, McCaughan returned with Looking for Leonard, the score to a film written and directed by Superchunk fans Matt Bissonette and Steven Clark. The full-length Summer of the Shark was released in 2003, followed closely by its partner EP “Autumn Was A Lark”, which was also made full-length by including acoustic versions of older songs.

The Clean were a band that formed in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1978. Led through a number of rotating line-ups by brothers Hamish and David Kilgour, the band (usually a trio), forged a distinctive and quirky sound that relied heavily on organ melodies and simple chord progressions. They carved out a distinctive, noisy but melodic sound, distinguished by David's screeching, distorted guitar. In 1981, a fan of the Clean founded the Flying Nun label to release their first single, "Tally Ho." A follow-up track off one of their early EPs, "Beatnik", also achieved success, as did the second single, "Getting Older". In the ealry 80s the band released 2 eps and two singles. Tally ho, Boodle Boodle Boode and Great Sounds all charted in the top 20 in NZ. Since the late 80s the band has occasionally reformed and recorded new material releasing 3 more Lps on Flying Nun in NZ and Merge Records in the USA. The Vehicle Lp was also released in Europe & the USA by Rough Trade. In April 2007 the band toured NZ and are now considering ways of writing and recording new material over the next 6 months. Touring the world is also a vague idea! Hamish lives in NYC. Robert and David live in Dunedin, NZ. All are active as solo artists (or in Hamish's case , active as a Mad Scene).

Claudia Gonson, (born 5 April 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American musician best known for her work with The Magnetic Fields. She occasionally provides the band lead vocals as well as performing the piano or drums.

Certain musicians are magic. Their voices prick up the ears of those far afield, melt the hearts of those within earshot and magnetize the attention of those souls fortunate enough to have a clear sightline. Sharon Van Etten is a singer and songwriter who trades in that caliber of mysticism. What her heart bleeds her songs soak in and offer up to those throats in need of slaking. This is what we expect from musicians who trade in the autobiographical. We hold forth empty vessels and expect them to be filled with the reflective elements of a songwriter’s soul, mirrors within which we search for some small recognizable part of the self. Sharon’s bane may be to feel too deeply, but her raw nerves, open heart and generous soul offer the rest of us a means to ease our own points of suffering.

John Mulaney was discovered sitting at a soda fountain on Sunset Blvd in the 1940s and now has some big-shot contract with RKO. He is also a comedian who appears every week on VH1's BEST WEEK EVER and has performed on LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O'BRIEN, JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE and Comedy Central's LIVE AT GOTHAM.

In 2006 he co-created I LOVE THE 30s and All-Access Middle Ages for Comedy Central's MOTHERLOAD channel. Mulaney has spent the last year touring with Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn and more on the 2007 COMEDIAN'S OF COMEDY tour as well as with Mike Birbiglia on his SECRET PUBLIC JOURNAL LIVE TOUR. Now living in New York City, Mulaney appears in clubs, theaters and colleges around the country. He is nice, kind of tall, whatever.

Robert Scott is a world-wise man. In a prolific 20 year music career he’s travelled the globe and recorded with several seminal New Zealand bands – as the bass player for Flying Nun’s original breakthrough band, The Clean, singer/guitarist in our long-serving guitar-poppers, The Bats, and lately as the driving force behind The Magick Heads.

He’s written thousands of songs (as Roy Colbert’s accompanying bio testifies) and his discography stretches over at least a dozen albums by these bands and his other projects such as the Weeds and Electric Blood.

David Kilgour is a musician from Dunedin, a city in the South Island of New Zealand. He first started playing guitar as a teenager in the late 1970s. With brother Hamish he formed The Clean, a group that went on to become one of the most popular and most respected bands in New Zealand.

Dimmer eventually arose from the ashes of Straitjacket Fits -oh god i dunno - some time last century. Our first release was a buzzy little bee called "Crystalator" which Sub Pop put out as a seven inch. It had a cool label and a big dj hole in the middle altho' I don't think djs were too interested at the time. Shortly afterwards - well a long time afterwards actually - we put out another single "Don't Make Me Buy Out Your Silence" on Flying Nun. It had a cool b-side called "Pacer" which is probably the second cousin of "Crystalator". We'll have to play that one live again sometime cos it pretty much blistered. I then retired to my shed and engaged in all manner of Pro Tools tom foolery for what seemed like, and in fact was , an eternity. That resulted in the first Dimmer album "I Believe You Are A Star" released in 2001. It was an attempt to marry the organic with the inorganic which seemed like a new idea at the time. The then Dimmer drummer, Gary Sullivan, carved out these wooden letters G-O-N-E which we propped up behind the speakers as an on going reminder of what we were going for (we couldn't think of any anagrams) - but that probably accounts for that record's woozy vibe. The New Zealand Herald made that their album of the year don't you know ? We put out our second album - "You've Got To Hear The Music" in 2004.With that album we wanted to make a record you could clap your hands to, kinda like campfire music for warped little scouts. They even gave us some NZ music awards for that one tho' i think the first album's probably better. 2006 saw the release of album three "There My Dear" which was mainly a reaction to a brief Straitjacket Fits reunion tour that served as a reminder of how direct and pure a four piece can be - especially after years of pushing musical splinters around a screen. The Dimmer band travelled extensively in 2007 with twin trips to both the U.S and Australia where we toured with the likes of Brian Jonestown Massacre and Spectrum. 2008 we came back home, sat down, wondered why our records didn't sound like we did live and put together one that did . It's called "Degrees Of Existence" and it's out now.

The Mad Scene was founded in 1990 in Auckland, New Zealand. They were originally called Monsterland but had to change the name upon moving to NYC the following year because there was already a local band of that name. They released an EP Falling Over, Spilling Over in 1992 on NYC label Homestead. Hamish's former label, New Zealand's Flying Nun released the band's debut album A Trip Thru Monsterland in 1993. After some personnel changes the band signed to Merge and a second album Sealight was released in 1996.

The band have released other singles and EPs on various indie labels (see discography below). They play often in New York City, but they rarely record. They're working on a new LP at the moment.

Current band members in a revolving line-up include Hamish Kilgour, Lisa Siegel, Brian Turner, Danny Tunick and Cassie Terman.

Brooklyn duo Coasting have accidentally boogie-boarded their way into a not-so-chill wave of ecstatic local surf-punk, adding their own distorto-crunchy twist. Less bubblegum than Beachniks, more lo-fi than Real Estate, and more jaded than Best Coast, the two gals in Coasting are more mature, more unhinged and more demented. They were raised on a steady diet of Cramps records, kiwi punk deep cuts, and Todd P shows--in fact, drummer Fiona Cambell and guitarist Madison Farmer met while they were building and managing stages and for various Todd P events. Campbell, a New Zealand native who had logged time in NZ rockers the Coolies, had been in Brooklyn for four years but was hesitant to form a new band until just recently. "I was so scared to play music with anyone because things can get serious so quickly," says Campbell. "Madison has such an awesome attitude about it: 'Lets just mess around and see what happens.'" Their de facto theme song "Coasting" is a great example of this serendipitous motto. Recorded a laptop the duo had perched on a couch, "Coasting" showcases everything this band is great at in one spontaneous burst--barbaric drum pound, playful shore-licking surf riffs, skuzzy waves of static, and an anarchic joy somewhere between vintage NYC scumfuckery and the bear hugs of contemporary nu-fi. Stay tuned for their debut 7", set to be the second release on promising, brand-spankin-new noize-surf label Group Tightener.

Rachel Feinstein's grew up outside Washington DC, the daughter of a civil rights lawyer and a blues musician, giving her a keen eye for the absurd and unjust. She developed her hilarious, character driven style by opening for her father’s blues band as a kid and doing impressions of various loud and jarring relatives.

Rachel has made numerous appearances on "Comedy Central" and can also be seen on upcoming episodes of “Comics Unleashed” as well as the “ Just For Laughs” comedy series on TBS.

She's written for "The Onion" and "Heeb Magazine." Rachel has voiced various characters on Adult Swim's "Venture Brothers," the animated Comedy Central web series, "Samurai Love God" and Spike TV’s web series "Battle Pope." She has also appeared on VH1’s, "Jewtastic" and CNN’s "Not Just Another Cable News Show."

International spots include “ Montreal Comedy Festival”, Scotland’s “Glasgow Comedy Festival,” Amsterdam’s “Comedy Factory” and a U.S Military tour in Korea.

Check her out in the upcoming independent films, “Circus Maximus” and “Turbo Charge”, a mockumentary about ‘The Cars.’ She can be seen on Russell Simmons new “Def Comedy Jam” series for Comedy Central. Rachel also just taped her own half hour special, “Comedy Central Presents Rachel Feinstein” which will air in March, 2010.