Oh My Rockness is once again teaming up with the people who started the massively popular Oya Festival in Oslo, Norway (there were 65,000+ strong at the festival in August...we know because we were there!) We're again holding our show at Emo's Jr (last year, we humbly admit the place was packed to see our show featuring Ra Ra Riot, Cloud Cult, The New Violators, The Lionheart Brothers and DataRock all played). It's on Saturday night, March 15th. And it's going to be awesome. Here's who's playing Rockness/Oya SXSW Round Two!

Best Fwends - Ft. Worth/Austin's Best Fwends are a high-energy and completely hilarious duo (reference their song, "Dump in the Dark") that plays geeked-out garage that's perfect punk party music. This is furious lo-fi fun made possible with penny keyboards, thrift-store guitars, crapped-out computers, and other random toys. These two youngsters are certainly not audiophile phenoms and aren't out to wow anybody with the musical craftsmanship. Best Fwends are not about intricate time signatures and complex orchestration. Best Fwends about making you have so much fun during their set, you'll want to barf. Fans of The Black Lips, Espilons and Team Robespierre will love these guys. They're on the wonderful U.K. label Moshi Moshi which has put out records by Hot Chip, Lo-Fi-Fnk and Matt and Kim.

Videohippos - Videohippos are one of Baltimore's best experimental-gadget-art bands. And perhaps that description of this instrumental duo might make you think of another Baltimore experimental-gadget-art guy right off Cal Ripken's bat. And you'd be correct in correlating Viddeohippos to electro-gear-head Dan Deacon (Deacon is perhaps more "party" than "experimental" though). Videohippos are not only good pals with their wacky Wham City neighbor, but are also brothers in sound to Deacon's technological debauchery. These two eclectic dudes have an album out on mighty Monitor Records (Oxxes, Yeasayer).

Shining - First things first. There are two bands from Scandinavia named Shining, which can be confusing to say the least. One is a black metal band whose singer is named Kvarforth. We're all for black metal and one-named singers, but that is not the Shining band we're writing about here. The Shining we're writing about is Oslo's exceptional experimental band that blends post-rock with jazz and psych to create something that has drawn comparisons to The Mars Volta, John Coltrane, and Slayer. Sweet! This strangely cinematic band full of modern musical composers explore all sorts of tuneful terrains when the play, and their melodies often sail far outside the scope of traditional "indie rock." Yet their songs always build (often very dramatically) to some sort of logical conclusion that is highly-satisfying to an "average" listener. So Shining is experimental, but easily accessible. On stage, they often employ three bass players in addition to their four regular studio members to make an explosion of surround-sound that will blow your mind.

Hanne Hukkelberg - Norway's Hanne Hukkelberg (pronounced Who-kel-burg) has been making a name for herself in Scandinavia and beyond for her prosaic indie-pop. Hukkelberg's seductive croon has often been compared to Feist, and the imaginative orchestration (pianos, gentle string plucks) and electronic experimentation (scattered glitchy-clicks, synths and sparse field-recording sounds) of her songs draw the inevitable comparisons to Bjork. The ruler of them all, Billie Holiday, is a name often thrown about when speaking of Hukkelberg, too. Hanne Hukkelberg may perform under her own name, but this is no solo act on stage. Live, she has an impressive backing band of six (give or take a few) to help realize the grandeur of this cerebral listening experience. This is slow-motion music made for mellow fellows who like to veer towards the fanciful.

James Yuill - I can't remember how I stumbled upon James Yuill's MySpace page. The first song I heard was "This Sweet Love." Wow. That's a hit if I ever I heard one. And then I heard "No Surprises" and I thought someone was joking with me. How could this guy be completely unknown with such instantly accessible electro-pop tracks like these? This Londoner is a one-man-band. He writes all of his songs, and performs them live with his guitar and tech tools as his only source of accompaniment. To say his songs are catchy is like saying Santa Claus is a pretty good dude. His extremely pleasant melodies sort of remind one of Hot Chip, but probably not as "club friendly." Yuill's style is more laid back. You can rock out to this, but more in a "I love life" sort of way instead of a "let's shake our asses!" sort of way. Anyway, this guy won't stay under-the-radar for long. His self-released record is too good for labels not to notice. Well, the smart labels anyway. (That requirement cuts the number of potential suitors in half.)

Team Robespierre - Brooklyn's Team Robespierre rock the super fun synth-punk, with an emphasis on the punk. Their raw, electric sound reminds me of (broken-up) bands like Q and Not U, El Guapo, and Fugazi (if Fugazi had keyboard players, that is). These five guys are the perfect band to ask to play when you want to turn your broken-down loft or vacant parking lot into an instant party space. Just have them plug in their guitar, bass and keys and watch them go for it. Fun noise will be made, with all members dishing out vocal jabs. Team Robespierre utilizes a whole mess of both machine and man-made beats, and you can certainly dance to their thumps. Just don't confuse this with dance-punk. This is more like punk-dance. You will have a good time at this show.

We hope to see you out on Saturday, March 15th at 7pm at Emo's Jr. Say hi. We'll be the ones rocking.

Best Fwends, Videohippos, Shining, Hanne Hukkelberg, James Yuill and Team Robespierre play the Oh My Rockness/Oya Festival SXSW show at Emo's Jr., on Saturday, March 15th, at 7pm.