With less than three days before the start of Sunday's Rogers Picnic at Fort York we've found ourselves with a pair of tickets to give away. And in the spirit of time-based, rapid fire contests we're going to award them to the first person to place a comment below at or after 5pm Toronto time.

Led by an eccentric and electrifying front man (who was born and raised in Quebec and later moved to Germany at the age of 22), King Khan and the Shrines are a garage rock/psychedelic soul band that puts on one hell of a live show. Anyone that was at their NXNE show in Toronto back in 2006 (pictured above) can surely attest to this.

On July 23rd and 24th, King Khan and the Shrines will be rocking the Horseshoe, and we want you to be there.

In this installment of "10 things" we talk with Jennifer Castle, otherwise known as Castlemusic about Lansdowne and Bloor, water towers, Toronto Island, patience and impulse shopping:

This Sunday July 20th, Rogers Picnic has some seriously stiff competition in the famous traveling summer Hip Hop all-star tour, Rock the Bells.

Rock the Bells music festival has grown into the premier hip hop festival in North America. Every year, since it's inception in 2003, the festival keeps growing into a stronger community, showcasing the best in new and old-school hip hop.

This year the most anticipated headliners on the tour are A Tribe Called Quest and West Coast troupe The Pharcyde, who re-united this year for the festival. This shows the caliber that this festival has to offer, when someone like Mos Def is not considered a headliner.

Oh, how the mighty fall! It seems Steven Page, squeaky clean front man for the squeaky clean Scarborough band Barenaked Ladies, ran afoul of the authorities in upstate New York and has been charged with possession of cocaine.

As luck and irony would have it, the arrest comes as BNL celebrate the release of their first full-length album for children, Snack Time. There's no word yet from Disney whether this will affect BNL's participation in the Disney Music Block Party / PLAYSKOOL Play Aid Benefit Concert on Long Island later this summer.

Thanks to Howard and Christian of Partyshank, I finally have a term to use when describing the glitchy bleep-bloop technoise used in their music... but what on earth is 'circuit bending'? NIN, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Portishead, Venetian Snares, ec8or, and exemplified by Partyshank... circuit bending is behind the some of the best 'tech' noise in my collection. So what is it?

In this column we talk to musicians; sometimes about the music they make, sometimes about whatever tangent they happen to go off on. And once in a while we may talk to non-musicians as well, just to keep you on your toes.

In this installment, we talk to local DJ/producer Eric Downer about life, beats, camping and soul destruction (among other things).

The other day, the short list for the Polaris Music Prize was announced, and even though there's been some heated controversy over who got snubbed when the long list was announced (Sunset Rubdown, for instance), it's nice to see that one Toronto band made the cut. Holy Fuck go on to the next round of judging, where the 178 member jury will pick one deserving artist to win the grand prize: $20,000 to put towards recording another album.

The local electronic outfit's album, LP, will be competing against Vancouver's Black Mountain's In The Future, Montréal's Plants and Animals' Parc Avenue and Stars' In Our Bedroom After The War, London's Basia Bulat's Oh, My Darling and Shad's The Old Prince, Dundas' Caribou's Andorra, Ottawa's Kathleen Edwards' Asking For Flowers, Charlottetown's Two Hours Traffic's Little Jabs and Winnipeg's The Weakerthans' Reunion Tour.

Scarborough in the house! DJ Barletta is the latest local DJ/producer to make a splash on the new electro scene. His rap-influenced productions and remixes have been blogged about to no end, and they've attracted the attention of big name DJs like Italy's Crookers.

In addition to remixing international acts like The Beastie Boys and Rihanna as well as local talent like Kardinal Offishall and Syntonics, Barletta also has a growing collection of solid original material. When he's not producing popular club tracks, he also writes his own music blog called The Factory Press.

DJ Barletta headlines this week's edition of REMIX THIS! alongside resident/host DJ Medley. Why Barletta? What does he use to make his tracks? Who's spinning them?

Keep reading for the complete interview.

On Thursday night, Akon, Sean Paul, Wyclef & (Scarborough-native) Kardinal Offishall will be dropping in on Toronto for a big show at Molson Ampitheatre, and the folks over at the Offshoot Blog want to send a blogTO reader and a friend to the show.

Continue reading for event and contest entry details.