Hard rockers know about Mastodon in concert (they’ve played First Ave and the Fine Line) but how will Dethklok, an animated band, pull off a live double bill on Oct. 16 at the Myth?

Dethklok is featured on “Metalocalypse,” an animated program on the Adult Swim channel. The band will go virtual on tour with “Metalocalypse” co-creator/composer Brendon Small supported by four musicians, performing live (darkly lit) while animation and videos of Dethklok appear on a giant screen.

Tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at Ticketmaster. �

As he has been telling fans all year, Brother Ali will indeed release the follow-up to his acclaimed 2007 disc, “The Undisputed Truth,” by this fall. Simply titled “Us,” the Ant-produced collection will land Sept. 22 via Rhymesayers. It features one giant-name guest artist who you can bet had Ali thanking Allah, Chuck D of Public Enemy, along with his new Rhymesayers cohort Freeway and Mint Condition’s Stokley Williams. Talking backstage at Soundset, Ant told me the album features a lot more live instrumentation. He genuinely sounded proud as hell over the way it turned out.

As usual for the Rhymesayers crew, Ali will head out for a tour starting with a gig at Pizza Luce in Duluth on Sept. 22 and lasting all the way through Nov. 20, when he returns to First Avenue. Click here for the pre-sale ticket info.

Two of the only shows on the books for Prince this year, his pair of gigs this past weekend at the Montreaux fest included just a small smattering of old standards, including “Little Red Corvette” and “Purple Rain” both shows, plus “Beautiful Ones,” “When U Were Mine” “Nothing Compares 2 U” and “Housequake.” He only played two tracks from the new three-CD set, “Elixir” and “Love Like Jazz.” Instead, he mostly dug deep for truly random stuff like “Empty Room” (from the “C-Note” album… remember that one?) and “She Spoke 2 Me” (the “Girl 6″ soundtrack), plus the unreleased song “In a Large Room With No Light” and the ballad he played on Leno, “Somewhere Here on Earth.” Pretty weird selections. His band lineup was regulars-of-late John Blackwell, Rhonda Smith, Renato Neto and Morris Hayes. Click here to read the Billboard review, and here are the full set lists on a fan site.

I’ve personally been having trouble keeping up with everything going on surrounding the Deep Blues Fest, so I’m sure plenty of you have, too. Some of the out-of-town artists are already in town and playing free “cameo” gigs around town to hype the event.

The action today (Monday) includes Little Rock’s Bluesboy JAG and Finland’s Black River Bluesman at Big V’s in St. Paul from 7-9 p.m., and Bluesboy JAG will also be at the Minneapolis Eagles Club about 8 p.m. On Tuesday, the Kirk Special One-Man Band plays Tatters Clothing in Uptown at 7 p.m., while Italy’s Dirty Trainload and New Mexico’s C. W. Ayon perform at Eclipse Records in St. Paul starting at 7 p.m. All those acts and more will be on Harold’s House Party on KFAI from 3-6 p.m. on Wednesday, after which they head to the 331 Club for the official festival kickoff. Yeah, this is only the start! It goes through Sunday. Click here for the rest of the lineup.

The term “feel-good” usually works better with movies, but it could be perfectly applied to the Jayhawks reunion last night. It was just a smile-inducing, cockles-warming kind of set. The smattering of rain that came and went didn’t damper anything and maybe even added to the summer-in-MN vibe. And the band sounded a tad loose and, yes, a bit like they were winging it – which is to say they were perfect. The Olson/Louris acoustic shows were nice, but it was even better to once again hear the full arrangements of “I’d Run Away,” “Martin’s Song,” “Settled Down,” etc. And the set list was hardly a basic reunion walk in the park, as they threw in several less-than-standard old gems (”Red’s Song,” “Real Light,” “Tomorrow the Green Grass”), a couple gospel nuggets in keeping with the church setting (one of which I didn’t even know), and then they brought out the Basilica choir to add to the overlapping harmonies on “Blue.” Holy crap, that was great. 

I’ll have a full wrapup review of both nights of the Basilica party online Sunday (in print Monday). Click here for a mini-report and photo gallery from Friday night. Here’s the Jayhawks set list:

Witchita / I’d Run Away / Take Me With You (When You Go) / Up Above My Head (old Sister Rosetta Tharpe gospel song) / Waiting for the Sun / Red’s Song / Settled Down Like Rain / Two Angels / ?? (another gospel tune) / Two Hearts / Real Light / See Him on the Street / Nothing Left to Borrow / Martin’s Song / Over My Shoulder / TTGG / Blue / Bad Time / Sister Cry / Miss Williams Guitar

As for the Black Crowes, I got there in time to hear the final jamming moments of “Thorn in My Pride,” followed by “Poor Elijah” and then the one-two knockout punch “Hard to Handle” and “Remedy.” No Gary Louris guest spot this time.

**UPDATE: All is fine at the club, Tom Sullivan says, and in fact this new partnership deal with a close friend of theirs could be a boon to the venue when it goes through. They’ll be dark just for a few weeks as they sort through all the licensing and financial paperwork (and take time off in a typically slow month), returning with that Biram gig on July 23. The City on the Make cancellation was over a dispute with the band.

While watching the Roots tear through “Immigrant Song” at First Ave last night, I got a cryptic email on my crackberry from City on the Make singer Mike Massey saying simply that their CD-release party at the 400 Bar tonight had been “cancelled.” No explanation. That, coupled with the fact that no shows are listed on the club’s website, of course suggests that the historic West Bank venue has gone dark.

Let’s not jump to conclusions, though. When I last spoke to Tom Sullivan a couple weeks ago (who has run the place with his brother Bill for the past decade), he hinted that there would be a “new partnership” deal at the club he would be announcing soon. There was no air of finality or regret about it. I know that the bar was late paying some of its taxes to the state last year, and it incurred a hefty construction bill when its exterior wall had to be remade following a modest crumble. But that’s the bar biz. There are a few touring shows listed there for the coming months on Pollstar, including Scott H. Biram on July 23, Slobberbone (doing a brief reunion tour) Aug. 15 and Joe Pernice on Sept. 12. Here’s hoping we’ll indeed see them there. Stay tuned.

And some good news for now: City on the Make, one of many great bands (and probably the best) that the 400 has fostered of late, was able to move its show tonight a few blocks away to the Bedlam Theatre (9 p.m., $7). Massey said of the quick switcheroo, “I’m amazed sometimes that there are good people like the Bedlam who go out of their way to make special things happen.”