This Morning Benders have been getting all kinds of buzz for their brand-new album Big Echo, including being awarded a prestigious "Best New Music" honor from Pitchfork. On Friday night, they'll be bringing those songs to the cozy confines of the Crocodile.

Even better: a) two of our favorite bands around here, Miniature Tigers and BOAT are opening and b) we have a pair of tickets to give to a lucky TIG reader.

If you want to go see The Morning Benders, BOAT and Miniature Tigers (and you surely do), but would prefer spending the money that would have gotten you in the door on drinks and/or t-shirts, send an e-mail to tig@threeimaginarygirls.com before 9am on Thursday, April 1 with "morningbenders" in the subject line.  Oh and be over 21 before Friday.

Have you heard about Monsters of Folk yet? If not, it's probably because you're not lucky enough to get PR emails. Our imaginary inboxes have been full-to-overflowing with news of the project, a collaborative effort of three indie-heavyweights: Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Jimmy James of My Morning Jacket, and singer-songwriter M. Ward.

We batted the idea of who should blog the project up, without much success. We at TIG all hold our grudges, and Monsters of Folk seems to have hit on a few of them. First imaginary ChrisB chimed in. "The beard quotient seems a little low (50%) for a band called Monsters of Folk," he noted. And he has a point.

Imaginary Liz added, "Conor might be my imaginary boyfriend, but I'm not a fan when his friend Jim James takes over the vocal duties."

I sit on her side of the My Morning Jacket fence as well; however, I make an exception for this project. In fact, I had the pleasure of seeing them perform Liz back in... oh, what year was that? Let's just say 2004. The three had some special chemistry and a whole lotta talent up there together.

So it became my duty and pleasure to share all the exciting Monsters of Folk news. New record! New tourdates! Free song download! Here are the deets.

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Fathers, lock up your daughters. Jarvis is back, babies, and he has come to rock your socks (and possibly your panties) off. He emerges from Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio Studio, ribald and triumphant to present his second solo-project album, Further Complications on the Rough Trade Records Label. While playing the Pitchfork Festival last year in Chicago, bassist Steve Mackey made the suggestion they work with Albini on this album, as it was incredibly cost effective (about half the price to record stateside), and they were already in Chicago. The result is one loud, sexy, rock-n-roll album. It is a far cry from the richer, more orchestral Richard Hawley-produced Jarvis, but it is a logical and interesting direction for Cocker, one that he should continue to explore.

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Sixes & Sevens is full of light, enjoyable, stream-of-consciousness experiments which hit dead center at least as often as they misfire and even the less interesting songs have enough personality to overcome complete dismissal.

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The album feels like it is trying to be too clever for its own good. ”Couples” ends up being the sophomore slump we've all come to fear.

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The Long Blondes are coming to Neumos on Wednesday, May 28th with 17th Chapter and Ms. Led and Three Imaginary Girls is proud to be presenting the show! We'd love to treat a couple lucky imaginary readers to a pair of tickets to the big show.

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Do You Like Rock Music? is an album that is all over the place stylistically, but that is a major part of its appeal.

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For more than a decade, Victoria Bergsman was the singer of the indie-licious band The Concretes. Since she left that band in 2006, she's focused her time on her own project Taken by Trees (with a wee break to supply vocals for the worldwide hit single "Young Folks" by Peter, Bjorn and John).

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The 5 song EP is rockin’ from wall to wall ...

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Cookies could be the quintessential rock album – only it’s not.

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