Louis XIV

The core unit of San Diego’s Louis XIV had originally played together within the rootsy, alt-rocking Convoy, which issued an album called Dark Licorice in 2001. Having shifted by 2003, vocalist/guitarists Jason Hill and Brian Karscig and drummer Tag Maigaard installed with bassist Jimmy Armbrust and started fleshing out the Louis XIV idea — irreverent, oversexed lyrics and songwriting that channeled glam, scratchy punk, and classic Rolling Rocks. A self-recorded EP triggered quite a mix locally, MP3s helped pass on that hype to Britain, and Louis XIV released even more material to maintain with the developing demand. That springtime and summer months they performed the 2004 South by Southwest celebration, toured the U.S. using the Killers and Von Bondies, and agreed upon with Atlantic Information, which released the introductory EP Illegal Sensitive in January 2005 as well as the debut full-length THE VERY BEST Small Secrets Are Kept the next March. After period spent touring — and becoming prohibited in Alabama for the type of the lyrics — the music group came back in 2008 making use of their second recording, the decidely even more somber and world-weary Slick Canines and Ponies.