Guerilla Union has announced initial details for the 2009 installment of the critically acclaimed festival series ROCK THE BELLS--North America’s only hip-hop festival. Teaming with Budweiser for this year’s ROCK THE BELLS 2009 FESTIVAL SERIES, the festival features such headliners as Nas & Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, The Roots, Big Boi and Common plus many more major hip-hop artists.

In New York in the mid-‘80s, four veteran New York musicians united to form the Del-Lords: Scott Kempner from the Dictators, Eric Ambel from Joan Jett’s Blackhearts, future Cracker drummer Frank Funaro and thundering bassist Manny Caiati. Key songwriter Kempner said his vision “was to create a band that would feature four singers performing my songs — an East Coast Beach Boys if you will.” But rather than singing about girls and cars, the Del-Lords sang about things that mattered to them: the everyday grind of life and how it affected the band and those around them.

Two SONIC BLOOM Festival Pre-Parties set for Boulder and Denver will give fans a lot to dream about in the two months leading up to the actual festival, where the magic of music, dance, art and human performance will meld into a three-day never-world of electronic music and camping. The first installment of this year’s festivities will descend on the Fox Theatre April 24, with the party moving south to legendary Cervante’s Masterpiece Ballroom the next day.