It's only sound check and The Crystal Method's Scott Kirkland is already pissed at his keyboard.

He's swinging it violently from side to side with a sick grin on his face. The punishment seems to be too much for the instrument to handle. It shrieks like some ancient piece of machinery coming back to life, spewing distorted drum loops at 160 beats per minute and ripping out fat guitar riffs.

Ken Jordan, the more peaceful half of the duo, is diligently twiddling the knobs of his keyboard and appears to be unaware of the carnage taking place at the foot of the stage. Surely, if he knew he would come to the aid of the pained synthesizer. As Kirkland flogs the keys, segueing into "Busy Child" from their new album, Vegas, I begin to notice that the keyboard itself hasn't really moved from its tripod, despite the awful beating it was taking. Like Marv Albert's hair in a high wind, the device remains motionless on the flailing stand. I begin to suspect that Kirkland tapes his keyboards.

"I don't tape my keyboards!" Kirkland laughs. "I don't wear a sock in my pants and I don't tape my keyboards!"

Tape or no tape, the display is quite a thing to behold. Their energetic live performances have helped the band distance themselves from the glut of electronic bands currently on the scene. They work their asses off to draw the crowd out of their shell and into the music.

Provoked by the reference to his frenetic style of play, Kirkland relates a harrowing tale from the night before in Pontiac Michigan. "Actually last night I dropped a keyboard and broke a key right off," Kirkland offers. "I've been doing really well (lately). I've been throwing it around, but I haven't dropped it. Last night the incredible streak came to an end when I moved it in some strange way and it fell right on its keys. It made all kinds of crappy sounds and I walked away from it and said to Dave (their road manager), 'my keyboard has fallen and it can't get up.' They came to the rescue in time for me to play my next part."

Kirkland's furious fingers are now clutching a breakfast wrap as he and Jordan enjoy a pre-show nosh at Diesel store on Rush Street in Chicago. It's been a long journey from spinning strip bars in their native Las Vegas, to the club scene of L.A. and now to a headlining spot on the Electric Highway Tour. The caravan of top-notch electronica acts have docked for the evening at Chicago's historic Navy Pier. In between bites of grilled vegetables with smoked gouda, the two are eager to talk about the success of their new album.

"Oh, yeah, we couldn't be happier," Kirkland quickly offers. "We had time to make the record that we wanted to make and we couldn't be happier with it. It was just the two of us. We did everything from writing and mixing to engineering, producing and recording. Everything was done in our studio. We're also happy with the way that our label, Outpost, has been handling it, pushing it so that people know that we're out there. We've played fifty shows across the country and when we get home, we get e-mails from kids that are like, 'we saw your show, but we can't find your shit anywhere. Where can I go pick it up?' So now that we have a record out and the people in place to promote it, we're making an impact."

And making an impact fast is crucial for contemporary electronica bands. The industry is blazing down trails created for them by bands like The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy and Orbital. The pace is blistering and bands are trying hard to define themselves.

"It's hard not to notice how fast things are moving," states Jordan. "We thought, 'this is great! People are talking about this being a viable music.' We've been saying that the real test will be when the Prodigy album (Fat of the Land) comes out, wait to see if America accepts it. Then it debuts at number one and we're like...fuck it. It's all over."

The night before our meeting, the MTV Music Awards held the country hostage with hours of pomp and circumstance that would have made P.T. Barnum proud. During the ceremony, Prodigy was awarded the coveted Viewer's Choice Award -- a first for an electronic artist. Prodigy is a lightning rod for criticism and a proven platinum-selling artist. Their style is abrasive and confrontational and they put dancer/singer Keith Flint up front, which is something that many hardcore ravers resent, because one of the tenets of rave culture is to keep attention focused on the music, not the artists. When the topic of this sort of criticism is breached, the band is quick to come to their defense.

"We really like that album," remarks Jordan. "Yeah, that's a great record," Scott adds. "And they've made some incredible videos as well. So we're happy for their success and we're happy that bands like the Chemical Brothers can open doors for us and a lot of bands like Uberzone. Hopefully there will be other bands that break in the next six months because of the success of these other bands."

Some see the idea to bring dancers to the forefront in Prodigy as a calculated move, shrewdly manipulating established (and profitable) band formations.

"I don't know if it's that calculated," counters Jordan. "I mean, how long have they had Keith? He was a dancer before all of this and just kind of fell into the scene. I think it might be more calculated on another end. Maybe the record label saw it, or marketers, or promotional people saw that it could happen. But one thing people don't realize is that the people who buy records aren't dumb. People don't need to be talked into anything as much as most people think they do."

Whether or not the industry is trolling for the next cash cow by astutely positioning bands, The Crystal Method seems to be creating their music in a vacuum. They seem unaffected by the mountains of hype that are being generated -- a band completely with out airs and completely relaxed. Their sound is wrought on a traditional rock framework, with chunky guitars, ingenious samples and, get this, a beginning, middle and an end to most of their tracks. No endless patterning and few protracted trance grooves. When I talked to Kirkland on the phone a few days later, he explained how they fit into the "electronica movement" as a whole.

"I think we're doing something exactly the same, but totally different," says Kirkland, laughing at the contradiction. "On one level it's very similar. There's an opportunity right now for the music that we've all been involved in making and listening to over the last ten years. It's great to finally get a chance to be heard by a mainstream audience."

"We definitely feel like we're involved in a movement if you want to call it that," explains Kirkland. "But on a different level, our music is different from some of the other acts. I don't think we sound like anybody else, or anybody sounds like the Chemical Brothers or Prodigy or Left Field or Underworld. There have been a lot of unique bands to come out of this genre in the last five years. We definitely feel a part of that, but we don't view ourselves as electronic rock, or anything like that. We're just a different version of electronica."

The main point of departure from the larger scene for The Crystal Method is that their music sounds familiar. Their songs are like quilts -- little pieces of shared musical history bound together by breakbeats.

"I guess we've never really been afraid to let the influences that we grew up with come through in our music," explains Kirkland. "We don't just listen to electronica, or techno, rave, or whatever the hell you want to call it. We listen to different things. When I was growing up, my parents were listening to different music all the time. They were listening to K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Led Zeppelin and stuff like that. The idea of the 'song' has been with me forever. The sort of bridge-chorus-verse structure that takes you back to those parts of the song that are hooks, or have some structure in some way that makes sense."

After a brief pause, Kirkland continues. "Not that we always follow that. I mean, if we come up with a cool guitar hook or keyboard hook, we like to come back to it. You always go back to the hook. You play something two or three separate times and that's the rock/pop structure. If the song is going in a different direction, and we feel it doesn't follow that format, we'll let it do that. We'll just do whatever sounds good."

The record industry is fraught with bands and labels pissing on their own trees, claiming to be exclusively "techno," "rave" or "trance." It is clear that the struggle for nomenclature supremacy does not sit well with the band.

"You know, it's so stupid. For us it doesn't matter what it's called," bristles Kirkland. "Nobody will be able to come up with a name that suits everybody. "Electronica', or 'electronic' is fine with us because, as Ken once said in an interview, we make music with electricity. If they want to categorize it, it really doesn't make a difference."

"The people who make a big deal about it are the kids who have been going to raves for a while and they feel like this is their special thing," Kirkland continues. "It's like the only thing in their life that they've discovered on their own and when the big, bad press comes in and names it something, these people realize that they don't have a part in the decision and they freak out. They're like, 'how dare these people come in and label this!' But the thing is that if artists don't continue to develop, then it won't matter what the fuck it's called. I just wish that people who were complaining about all the naming would just accept whatever people call it and go back to helping the scene develop as a positive, inclusive force."

"Artists spend so much time and effort making these records and then for someone to say, "oh, this is mine" is absurd," Kirkland says with conviction. "More artists go bankrupt than most people understand and it's sort of sad in a way that this happens to groups and artists that work so long and hard. That's just not the way Ken and I view music."

No matter what people decide to call it, electronic music has reached the point where it cannot be overlooked. The industry machine is chugging steadily behind it, and doing it's best to smother it in it's own momentum. Terms like "next big thing" are common currency in music magazines these days, and the pressure that statements like that create is overwhelming.

"One thing that doesn't need to happen is for the media to start telling people that this is 'the next big thing,'" remarks Kirkland. "People will discover this music on their own whether the music industry likes it or not. We don't like the fact that (electronica) is being hailed as the savior of the music industry. You know, everyone is being spoon-fed -- 'here's the Prodigy, you better like it.' I think it's really cool when kids discover something on their own. That's the spirit of rave culture -- kids discovering something on their own and falling in love with it."

BRANDON BARBER