Tiscali Press Release - TISCALI'S GONNA MAKE YOU ROCK

Presenting Franc, Dirty Feel & SOFX, live at Carling Bar Academy, Islington

Tiscali UK, the internet communications company, is coming out of cyberspace and getting live this week with the launch of an innovative and pioneering music showcase series designed to bring the very best new unsigned music acts to a live audience and then showcase the gigs online.

Tiscali Showcase, engineered live by partner Tough Cookie, enables three of the very best in unsigned and emerging bands to showcase their talent in a regular live venue and then make the gigs available to Tiscali UK's four million web audience at www.tiscali.co.uk/music.

The first Tiscali Showcase will be on Friday 24 September at the Bar Academy, Islington, where the atmosphere will be charged with the sound of three exciting and eclectic bands: Franc, whose first single 'Baby Your A Rich Girl' was play listed on Xfm, Capital and Virgin; The Dirty Feel a three-piece heavy-weight rock funk band, likened to legends Cream, Led Zeppelin and the Chilli Peppers, and S.O.F.X who will provide their very own brand of rock, soul, R'n'B and hip hop. The showcase will be streamed on www.tiscali.co.uk/music from Wednesday 29 September.

Tiscali UK's Music Producer Dave Castell recognised the opportunity in tapping into an extremely vibrant live music scene of accomplished bands that aren't currently exposed to a mass audience. "We see Tiscali Showcase as a ground-breaking initiative in the online music arena. We are keen to support new talent in the form of unsigned and independent acts and intend to be the first to bring new sounds and musical styles to our customers and a wider web audience".

He continues: "Tiscali Showcase will also help build on Tiscali's success within the digital music world - and hopefully project the talented bands to stardom".

Director and editor of www.tiscali.co.uk, Richard Ayers says: "Online is a fantastic environment for new and emerging acts and we can reach a huge audience without expensive record company promotion. As digital music delivery becomes even more popular, new music and live performance is going to be increasingly influential with our savvy music audience in the UK".

Tiscali has long been a pioneer in the world of digital music - supporting the likes of rock-gods, The Darkness from the very beginning of their career and presently backing breaking acts Razorlight and Keane, as well as engineering webcasts from legends of the music world - Sting and U2, and breaking news through webchats with many artists such as George Michael, Craig David and Fatboy Slim.

More recently, Tiscali was the online partner for the internationally renowned 46664 concert, providing access to the largest ever web-collaboration and charity webcast, in aid of the Global HIV/Aids epidemic, providing education about and raising funds for the Nelson Mandela backed initiative.

Tiscali was first to provide a UK and Europe-wide legal music download service, through its association with OD2 and has been instrumental in leading the digital music revolution to Europe. Tiscali's own music download service, Tiscali Music Sonicselector is now at the forefront of the official music download charts and has enabled users to stream, download and burn music from a huge digital resource - widening the music content available to customers from the limits of chart music to a global resource.

Tickets for the Tiscali Showcase are now on sale from Ticketweb - call 08700 600 100, or they can be purchased from the Box Office of Carling Academy, Islington London between 12-4pm Monday to Saturday. Alternatively log on to www.ticketweb.co.uk. Tickets cost £6 each.

Further dates for the diary are 22 October and 26 November at Bar Academy, when 6 more bands will be showcased. More dates to be announced shortly.

Partner, Tough Cookie can be found at www.tough-cookie.co.uk.