Vortis

With nods to KRS-One and the MC5, the Chicago quartet VORTIS practices what it calls "agitainment"-celebrating life via the raucous energy of its genre-defying rock 'n' roll, while simultaneously challenging listeners and provoking thought.

GOD WON'T BLESS AMERICA is the group's second album on THICK Records, and most of the songs were written in the period between 9/11 and America's invasion of Iraq. The disc was recorded live before a crowd of fans at ?erstudio Chicago on December 14, 2002, and all of the performances were first takes-the better to capture the energy of the vortex.

The band formed in mid 2000 and took its name from the pre-World War I Vorticist movement of James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Wyndham Lewis. The lineup solidified several months later with singer F.T., the Fellow Traveler (a.k.a. Mike Weinstein, a political philosophy professor at Purdue University, a respected photography critic, and the author of 23 books); guitarist G. Haad (the band's true musical engine); bassist Johnny Los (a graphic artist who designs the group's provocative poster art - see www.vortisrock.com), and drummer Jim DeRogatis (whose day job is as the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times; he is also the author of Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic).

As the group's performances in and around Chicago became known as true events-nudity, spontaneous crowd flag-burning, and the occasional punch thrown by a dissenting listener have all been part of the Dionysian revelry-VORTIS released its debut album on Thick in August 2002. The reviews that TAKE THE SYSTEM DOWN generated in the underground and in the mainstream press were nearly as intriguing as the band's music, and it began to attract fans and fellow travelers from across the U.S. and as far away as Europe and Japan.

GOD WON'T BLESS AMERICA is a major step forward, benefiting from the experience of continued performing (the band will launch the album with a summer tour of the Midwest), and featuring songs such as "Fight the War Again," "Black Block," "Suicide Skyjack," and "God Won't Bless America Again"-an inspiring responses to these troubled and turbulent times.

If you believe that God won't bless America, now more than ever, you need agitainment. Now more than ever, you need VORTIS.

"Fucking insane, crazed punk in the Crucifucks vein, with a 59-year-old Purdue University philosophy professor on vocals. Un-PC, unrelenting and unbelievable, this pro-Unabomber band just plain rules." - PUNK PLANET

"Academic art-punk from Vortis, here, a hugely entertaining anti-capitalist and anti-technology four-piece dedicated to, well, taking the system down." - INK19

"To put it simply this band blew my mind in just the first three songs... think of the Dead Kennedys meet Wire and the Butthole Surfers, with elements of Public Enemy and the Big Boys..." - PUNKNEWS

www.vortisrock.com