The Year: 1966
The Album: The 13th Floor Elevators, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
Who It Influenced: Television, Primal Scream, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, the Butthole Surfers, Black Lips

Anti- Records —home of old renegades like Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Os Mutantes&mdash announced last week they'd be releasing Roky Erickson's first album of new material in 15 years. Due out April 20, True Love Cast Out All Evil finds Erickson working with members of Okkervil River, and finds one of the legendary voices of underground music back.

The world was first introduced to a teenaged Erickson in 1966, with the mighty single "You're Gonna Miss Me." A minor hit for The 13th Floor Elevators in its day, the song had impossible staying-power: going on to become one of the most legendary and influential songs in the annals of alternative music. Though Erickson's band, The 13th Floor Elevators, invented the term 'psychedelic rock' and put it into practice by taking copious amounts of psychedelic drugs, they weren't couched in cockeyed flower-power rhetoric.

Instead, lead by the urgent, insistent tremors of Erickson's singing —a wail that would influence everyone from Janis Joplin to Iggy Pop— the Elevators played a striding, swirling, reverberated take on jug-band blues that still stands up nearing 50 years on.

• Full review: The 13th Floor Elevators, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

You asked for it, now here they are. Noisy New Yorker pop duo Sleigh Bells are finally taking their act beyond the five boroughs. Currently in the studio working on their debut LP, Sleigh Bells are finally capitalizing on all their good, good buzz —the kind that made them one of my 10 Bands to Watch in 2010— and heading on tour.

First, they'll spend six Eastern seaboard shows supporting dancefloor-crushing Diplo/Switch collaboration Major Lazer, then crash the Coachella party, before, finally, heading out on the road with Yeasayer for a month.

Ring Them Bells:
March 28: Atlanta, GA - Masquerade
March 30: Carborro, NC - Cat's Cradle
March 31: Baltimore, MD - Bourbon Street
April 2: New Hyde Park, NY - Starlite Ballroom
April 4: Boston, MA - Middle East
April 6: Columbus, OH - BoMa
April 16: Indio, CA - Coachella
April 17: San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore Auditorium
April 19: Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom
April 20: Seattle, WA - Neumos
April 21: Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom
April 23: Salt Lake City, UT - In the Venue
April 24: Denver, CO - Bluebird Theatre
April 25: Omaha, NE - Waiting Room
April 26: St. Louis, MO - Gargoyle Club
April 27: Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
April 28: Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
April 29: Chicago, IL - Metro
April 30: Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
May 1: Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace
May 2: Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa
May 3: Boston, MA - Paradise
May 4: New York, NY - Webster Hall
May 5: Philadelphia, PA - The Trocadero

Photo � Rob Loud

Owen Pallett, the Canadian violinst-turned-ambitious-songsmith who for the '00s recorded as Final Fantasy, has just issued his first album under his own name. It's called Heartland, it was made with Pallett commanding a Czech orchestra, and it tells a sustained narrative story of a farmer named Lewis, dwelling in a fantasy realm called Spectrum, and his relationship with an omniscient God-figure named Owen.

I spoke to Pallett about Heartland the other week; about the burden of the concept album, about the state of Canadian rock, about Destroyer lyrics. Pallett was on his cellphone, in a taxi in Toronto, on the way to the airport, where he was about to fly to Hamburg. Which is suitably symbolic, given it appears the Canadian is determined to spend the entirety of 2010 on tour.

In support of Heartland, Pallett will be playing solid 'til May. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, it's likely your city is on this list:

The Great Everywhere:
February 6: Guelph, ON - Sleeman Centre
February 9: Fredericton, NB - McCain Hall Theatre
February 10: Halifax, NS - St. Matthews United Church
February 11: Halifax, NS - St. Matthews United Church
February 12: St. John's, NL - Cochrane Street United Church
February 17: Kingston, ON - Sydenham United Church
February 18: Wakefield, QC - Blacksheep Inn
February 19: Wakefield, QC - Blacksheep Inn
February 20: Montreal, QC - Theatre Outremont
February 21: Quebec City, QC - Le Cercle
February 25: London, ON - Aeolian Hall
February 26: Brantford, ON - Ford Plant
February 27: Hamilton, ON - Lincoln Hamilton Centre
March 10: Lisbon, Portugal - Teatro Maria Matos
March 11: Lisbon, Portugal - Teatro Maria Matos
March 12: Aveiro, Portugal - Centro Cultural e de Congressos
March 13: Munich, Germany - Dachau Friedenskirche
March 15: Frankfurt, Germany - Mousonturm
March 16: Prague, Czech Republic - Roxy
March 17: Leipzig, Germany - UT Connewitz
March 18: Dublin, Ireland - Whelan's
March 20: Metz, France - Les Trinitaires
March 21: Lille, France - Aeronef
March 22: Amsterdam, Netherlands - De Duif
March 23: Brussels, Belgium - Botanique
March 25: Cardiff, Wales - Millenium Music Hall
March 26: London, England - Koko
March 27: Birmingham, England - Rainbow Warehouse
March 28: Manchester, England - The Deaf Institute
March 31: Oslo, Norway - Victoria
April 1: Stockholm, Sweden - Debaser
April 2: Malmo, Sweden - Babel
April 3: Berlin, Germany - Hebbel Theatre
April 8: Toronto, ON - Queen Elizabeth Theatre
April 10: Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall
April 11: Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theater
April 12: Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall
April 13: Columbus, OH - Wexner Center
April 14: Pittsburgh, PA - Andy Warhol Museum
April 15: Washington DC - Black Cat
April 18: Indio, CA - Coachella Festival
April 20: Boston, MA - Institute of Contemporary Art
April 22: New York, NY - Webster Hall
April 25: Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
April 27: Atlanta, GA - The Earl
April 29: Dallas, TX - Granada Theater
April 30: Austin, TX - The Mohawk
May 5: San Francisco, CA - The Independent
May 8: Seattle, WA - The Crocodile
May 9: Vancouver, BC - The Vogue Theatre
May 10: Victoria, BC - Alix Goolden Hall
May 11: Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater

Photo � Ryan Pfluger

"Not to sound arrogant, but I'm pretty sure we have a good record," says Jean Paul Pitts, 23-year-old frontman of fresh-faced indie-rockers Surfer Blood. And, well, he has a point. The Floridian outfit's debut disc, Astro Coast, is a killer collection of amp-rattling anthems; old-school indie-rock heavily influenced by The Pixies.

Surfer Blood are about to undertake a serious haul of tour-dates in support of Astro Coast, playing from sea to shining sea. In fact, their North American slate is so thorough they've lined up dates in places you may never have heard of, from Geneseo, NY, to Visalia, CA.

In mid-March, Surfer Blood'll be stopping in Austin, and, well, they're not the only ones. Thousands upon thousands of bands, band-lovers, and music-industry minions will endeavor to keep Austin weird when SXSW returns for another year of musical overload.

With the lineup close to completely cemented, I thought it due time that I put my neck on the line and recommended 10 Bands to Watch at SXSW 2010; a formguide not just for those four days in Texas, but for the rest of 2010. Read away!

Surfer Blood Cross Meridians:
February 3: London, England - Hoxton Bar and Kitchen
February 4: Kingston upon Thames, England - Hippodrome
February 5: London, England - KOKO
February 9: London, England - Scala
February 16: Orlando, FL - Backbooth
February 17: Deland, FL - DaVinci
February 18: Tallahassee, FL - Engine Room
February 19: Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn
February 20: Nashville, TN - The End
February 22: Charlotte, NC - Snug Harbor
February 23: Morgantown, WV -123 Pleasant Street
February 24: Washington, DC - Dc 9
February 26: Hanover, NH - Dartmouth College
March 1: Philadelphia, PA - The Barbary
March 2: Allston, MA - Great Scott
March 3: Providence, RI - AS220
March 5: Montreal, QC - Il Motore
March 6: Toronto, ON - Sneaky Dees
March 7: Geneseo, NY - SUNY Geneseo College
March 8: Meadville, PA - Allegheny
March 9: Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
March 11: Bloomington, IN - the Bishop
March 12: Columbia, MO - Mojos
March 13: Lawrence, KS - Replay Lounge
March 14: Oklahoma City, OK - The Conservatory
March 17-20: Austin, TX - SXSW
March 24: Phoenix, AZ - Trunk Space
March 25: Claremont, CA - Pitzer College
March 26: San Diego, CA - Bar Pink Elephant
March 27: Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
March 28: Las Vegas, NV - The Beauty Bar
March 29: Isla Vista, CA - Biko Garage
March 30: Visalia, CA - Howie and Sons
April 1: Santa Cruz, CA - Metamusic
April 2: San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
April 2: Portland, OR - Doug Fir
April 4: Seattle, WA - Vera Project
April 5: Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret
April 6: Missoula, MT - The Palace
April 8: Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
April 9: Madison, WI - Der Rathskeller
April 11: Columbus, OH - The Summit
April 12: Ithaca, NY - The Shop
April 13: Buffalo, NY - Big Orbit Soundlab
April 15: Princeton, NJ - Terrace Club

Photo � Ian Witlen