The Keep Austin Loud Project announces

Spots are still open for shredding axemen/axewomen to participate in the Texas National Hardcore Guitar Solo Contest - show off your chops and compete for the title! Click HERE to sign up.

In late 2006 Mike Reynolds, the founder of the World Gone Mad Drum Corps, underwent 15 hours of emergency surgery. His life depended on a supply of blood equal to 45 individual donations - as a whole enough to support three healthy adults. With the help of their rock star comrades, the members of Austin's loudest drum corps have decided to restock that blood.

"After a lot of debate we figured a benefit concert would be better than me just giving the blood back all at once..." Reynolds said between bites of a Zag-Nut bar, "because I'm still using, like, a third of it."

The vain and ungrateful rockers of New York, Los Angeles and Tulsa are in an uproar, concerned that actions like those taken by the musicians of Austin could damage the longstanding reputation of local rockers as renegades, anarchists & mayhem loving ne'er–do–wells.

Long term consequences are difficult to predict, but may become more apparent following the May concert being held to benefit The Blood And Tissue Center of Central Texas, the organization responsible for inspiring this subversion of traditional ROCK values.

The lineup for this year's show features Barracuda, Bullitt, Cheap Sunglasses, Diggin' Up Grandpa, Sarah Pierce, Sometimes Salvation, The Anti-Scene, Ugly Elephant and of course World Gone Mad.