From 2001-2006, the Chicago Blackout Festival was the first purely Midwest rock & roll festival, celebrating the yearly release of Horizontal Action Magazine.  Each year drew sold-out, international crowds to witness the wide range of unique underground performers and to catch the best in up-and-coming bands exploding out of the underground.  Last year marked its triumphant return and we’re pleased to welcome back HoZac, now a dynamic independent label that’s released 100 records in their first five years of operation to curate a fest for 2012.  Headlining the first night of the fest is San Juan, Puerto Rico-based DAVILA 666. With releases ranging in such raging tuneage as songs that go from jangly pow-wow, held together by gang-slapped hand claps in the place of the drums to sonically airy and soft tunes that ramp up an odd JESUS & MARY CHAIN vibe, these guys are an ultimate party band.  Perfectly raw and impeccably loud, the brain-blasting SPIDER FEVER features drummer extraordinaire MARIO RUBALCABA (OFF!, EARTHLESS, ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT) on lead vocals and godlike shredding guitar.  Exploding out of Denton, TX’s insanely awesome punk scene, VIDEO “end up sounding like your record collection melted into one solid album…forging a new territory somewhere between punk, hard rock and weirdo psych,” in the words of 35Denton. Described as “sensibly modern with a deranged twist on 60s pop and 70s punk,” by the San Diego Reader, PLATEAUS have records out on HoZac and Art Fag and destroy the Midwest dream of the West Coast.  Spewing crotch rocket sweetness and currently living “in the hearts of fans across the globe,” COZY just recently released their debut 7” Cola Shock Kids on HoZac Records, a raucous anthem that is sure to test the stability of our floors.  Reunited angular post punk pulverizers SCREAMING YELLOW ZONKERS and Chicago’s HAWKWINDIAN heroes E.T. HABIT kick off tonight’s festivities.

4:30pm   Doors open
5:30pm    ET Habit
6:30pm    Screaming Yellow Zonkers
7:30pm    Cozy
8:30pm    Plateaus
9:30pm    Video
10:30pm  Spider Fever
11:30pm  Davilla 666

(AV Club) (BV Chicago) (Flavorpill) (Loud Loop Press) (Reader) (Time Out)