What exactly is post-punk laptop rap?

Stanford University senior MC Lars, founder of the genre, wants Penn State students to keep an open mind, and come to the show to find out.

MC Lars will perform with last year's Movin' On headliners, Bowling for Soup, when the band returns to State College on Monday night for an all-ages show at Crowbar, 420 E. College Ave. The show will kick off at 8:30 and also feature performances from American Hi-Fi and Riddlin' Kids.

MC Lars has recently been receiving radio exposure with the second single from The Laptop EP, which he self-produced and created using his laptop. "Signing Emo," features hip-hop verses with a catchy pop-punk emo chorus that makes fun of the record industry's habit of following trends by signing a dozens of copy-cat acts, in this case in the emotional punk/hardcore type music that has become so popular in the past couple of years.

"I think the main stream music industry is very formulaic because it's a business, and trends come in groups. There was the boy bands, the latin music, the swing trend," MC Lars said. "One band does something successful and then other bands try to emulate it. Emo is blowing up and then genre is really interesting with a lot of great bands, but there are also a lot of bands that are replicating that whole scene."

MC Lars said that he used to be in a pop-punk band and was doing some hip-hop on the side, until he became bored and abandoned the band for his hip-hop side-project.

The contacts he made while playing around in the punk scene proved to be quite useful however, allowing him to perform his new, and not-so-punk laptop rap to punk audiences that were already somewhat familiar with him.

"While I was studying at Oxford I would play with those kind of bands and I would always stand out, which I think has actually helped me," MC Lars said. "If I was trying to do rap tours or trying to be on the cover of the Source, I would just get laughed at."

MC Lars said that he typically tours with a bassist and another friend who runs the laptop.

Despite this, MC Lars will be performing by himself for this tour because his band mates are still in college.

While not technically a student at this time, MC Lars said he has taken a leave of absence from Stanford in order to focus on his music and touring, and will graduate with a degree in English literature when he finishes his last quarter this summer.

"It's almost like I've been living a double life," MC Lars said. "It's so weird to come back from playing at big festival shows, and then having a paper due. When the EP came out, I had to balance my time and it got so hard, but it's cool since I'm able to take time off and finish this summer and still get to tour."

Austin Davis, a DJ from WUBZ-FM (105.9), The Buzz said that he thinks the line-up for the show is great and that he enjoyed watching Bowling for Soup at last year's Movin' On.

"They are funny, outstanding performers. I'm also very excited to see American Hi-Fi," Davis said.

"[American Hi-fi's] new single is doing very well and we got lots of requests for it," he added.

Davis said that he has attended a few shows in the past couple of months at Crowbar, and thinks that the venues intimacy will make Bowling for Soup's performance even better because of their ability to play off of the audience.

Crowbar operations director Dave Wells also feels that the show features a strong line-up and said that people planning on attending the show should get their tickets soon because he is expecting the show to sell-out soon.