In an era of invisible student bands, Crimson Arts is teaming up with the Advocate and English Muffin Records to present Blast!, a four-band performance to be held at the Advocate building on Friday, Dec. 17 at 8 p.m. It promises to rock, so kick back and enjoy the last weekend of the school millennium. The $3 event will feature these four promising Harvard and Harvard grad bands:

Lockgroove

Lockgroove was described by the Boston Phoenix as "the most astounding rock band to emerge from Boston in quite some time," and has received accolades from the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, Stuff@Night, Billboard and other publications. Their heavy, dense sound, while full of feedback and distortion, is at times almost blissful. It's an interesting sound, a mix of the dramatic and tender, full of sonic experiments but still ready to rock.

Lockgroove comprises twins Marty and Ryan Rex on drums and guitar/vocals respectively, as well as Adam Brilla (guitar), Daniel Finn (keyboards) and Dave Goodman '98 (bass). Lockgroove has just released Rewired, a six-song EP, on indie label Krave Records.

The Red Essentials

The Red Essentials features Luke Fischbeck '00 on guitar and vocals; Brendan Greaves '00 on bass, harmonica, banjo and vocals; Pablo Colapinto '00 on keyboards and a G3 laptop; Mike Colin on drums and hngoura (a Senegalese hand percussion instrument); and Gary Johnson doing live video mixing. Oh, and Patrick Swayze on vocals. Or so they claim.

The Red Essentials promise "an evening of manicured sonics and tell-tale coiffure in the tradition of club-circuit Berlin circa 1980," with themes of repetition, exaggeration and anachronism in sublimated soul music. The band will be selling their Christmas 7" at the show and a live CD and LP, out on English Muffin/Swill Records, is forthcoming.

The Magic Number

The Magic Number is a project that exists only in live, improvised performance. During each performance, the three musicians (Hatim Belyamani '99, Shawn Feeney '99 and David Horn '00) communicate with each other through visual symbols that correspond to musical parameters and instructions. Every performance is a continuation of the last and uses audio and sometimes visual recordings of previous shows as raw material to be recombined. The musicians incorporate these samples with new, acoustically-produced sounds using a variety of instruments (including guitars, cello, slide whistles, digeridoo and sheet metal). For the show, the group will be playing with two guest saxophonists, Jon Natchez '99 and Adam Schneit '98.

Kick the Chemist

This recently formed band includes Michael Bernstein (drums), formerly of Corduroy Brown and Fahreinheit; Scott Pagano (bass), formerly of Fahreinheit, JENR8r and Portfolio Seven and currently also a member of Luksuosowa and Polaroid; Barry Moon (guitar), an electronic music professor at Brown, and Rebecca, the lead singer.