Plugged-in music headz know that the Specials have reformed and are playing Coachella this year. That's old -- but incredibly exciting -- news. What's surprising is that the band has been allowed to circumvent Goldenvoice's dictate that prohibits a band from playing the Los Angeles market in the month leading up to and after the three-day desert fest; they perform at Club Nokia the night before their Coachella gig.

Yes, that's right: the Specials, the greatest of the second-wave ska bands, are gigging Club Nokia on Thursday, April 15, one of only four North American shows (excluding their April 13 Jimmy Fallon appearance).

After the jump: a few Specials tracks to lift your Wednesday.

Somebody from the Coachella message board just posted this flyer, which closely resembles the flyer that the annual musical festival designs every year. It looks incredibly convincing, band-wise, created either by Goldenvoice, or -- JUST AS WAY MORE LIKELY -- by some joker looking to have some fun. Every year some obsessive fan posts something like this.

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So take this for what it is: an Internet-discovered pre-announcement flyer that is probably fake.

THAT SAID: Coachella's official Twitter page definitely tweeted: "Yes, tuesday" today, suggesting that an announcement may be imminent.

After the jump: a less-convincing fake

The Coachella message board is doing a good job of tracking the upcoming Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio. Now's the time that bands begin leaking confirmations, revealing their hands on MySpace, Twitter and Facebook, and basically spilling the beans one way or another. For example, this from Phoenix.

That said, this is not an officially confirmed list. This is a pre-list of sorts, one that looks very very reliable based on the message boards.

Muse
Phoenix
The xx
Devo
Pretty Lights
Zoe
Miike Snow
A Place to Bury Strangers
Big Pink
Craze and Klever
Hockey
Busy P
Corinne Bailey Rae
Bassnectar
Mayer Hawthorne
Aeroplane
El Gran Silencio
As Tall As Lions
Kevin Devine
Caravan Palace

After the jump, the oddsmakers at the message board list other "heavily rumored" acts.

Videothing does it again. After helping West Coast Sound with an ace tour of Michael Jackson's Cancelled Neverland Auction, the LA-based video site went stealth at Coachella and got some great footage. Quote of the video: "I got so fucked up last night that I fried balls until I cried."

Timothy Norris

Fans during Tellier ...

On a Sunday bookended by ear-splitting distortion (No Age and Fucked Up at one end, My Bloody Valentine at the other), Sébastien Tellier was an oasis of funk and sex. After some minor technical difficulties sorted out by his band, the bearded Frenchman arrived wearing shades, a loose tunic and a panama hat, holding an angular guitar and acknowledging the audience with but a mere nod and wave.

Timothy Norris

The pit at the Mojave Tent on Sunday; keep in mind it hit 100 degrees that day.

Sunday was a good day for the noiseniks. Coachella-goers who arrived early enough were greeted by boxes of complementary earplugs as they piled through the gate -- vital accessories for a My Bloody Valentine showing, but also for the early afternoon tent performances.

Slowly, my brain is slinking its way towards sensible shape. Three days of Coachella are not for the faint of heart -- if nothing else it requires a quarter-ounce of weed, an array of narcotic edibles from potcorn to cannabis cakes, several brightly colored pills of indiscriminate origin, copious spending money for wine, water, and whiskey, plus the heart of a three year-old Labrador to handle the strain.

So who am I to knock Coachella? It puts you in a position to win, and that's all you can really ask of a coach or a festival. Even if the Clipse cancelled at the last second, that's the brothers Thorton's bad. Abandoning throngs of people waiting for Pitchfork-approved trap-rap is an unwise move. Is Lupe Fiasco supposed to provide the kids with minimalist nihilism?

Or maybe Clipse know that no matter how many new bad puns they devise involving the word, "brick," they can't match the freak show promised by Throbbing Gristle. After all, lead singer Genesis P-Orridge wears gold grills. She used to be a he. He once nailed piercings through his dick. That's either the most incredibly hardcore gesture possible, or the dumbest. Either way, Genesis is a better rapper than Paul Wall.

Anyone who's ever been to Coachella knows it leaves you with a special brand of Monday morning pain. This 3 day monster will test even the fittest, most fervent music fan. For most attendees this was a call-in-sick day, a day of rest and merciful silence. Or, if you did the weary drive home today like we did, a Coachella-band-iPod-shuffle-mix-on-the-car-stereo, come-down kind of afternoon.

The last day of Coachella was tough (and not just because we were burnt every which way). In terms of deciding what to see and how much, choices had to be made. Leave Yeah Yeah Yeahs near the end of the set for Paul Weller? We did. The Kills or Public Enemy? Went for the later. Get brutalized by My Bloody Valentine or check out some equally dark UK faves (The Horrors) we've never had the chance to see? Again, we did the later and now have a full-on new band crush.

Chuck D. and Flavor Flav know what time it is..

Timothy Norris

Even the machinery was flashing the horns.

Nothing says "I love you" like a cover song. Artists at Coachella like to acknowledge their influences, love to thrill the crowd with a surprise singalong. This year bands drew from music of many genres, from ragtime to post punk to hip hop. Here were ten to remember:

View more Coachella pics here: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Half-Dressed People & Scenes from the Desert

Timothy Norris

Coachella 2009, at the awards ceremony

Weirdest Between-song Banter: Paul McCartney, bless his heart, played an epic set, staked a claim on a body of work that only fools would ignore. But between his songs, when he was trying to communicate with us, he talked like we were little children, uttered the word "Coachella" a few too many times, then said, "Woo!"

Best Brush-With-Fame Moment: Chris Holmes used to play in a Chicago band called Yum Yum. Then he started DJing and producing. Paul McCartney heard him DJ in South America, called him up, asked Holmes to do something prior to his Friday set, and suggested the Stax Does Beatles collection of Memphs r&b artists covering Macca's former band. Holmes dropped a nice mix of old Beatles' covers, mixed in a little bit of Macca's "Temporary Secretary," and basically made the preamble party-ready. If you're wondering why there was an "Ashtar Command" logo on either side of the stage prior to his Friday warm up for McCartney, it's because Holmes' long-incubating Ashtar Command project is apparently coming to fruition.