Rooney Comes To Emo's Sat 7/5!

Rooney is a five piece band of Los Angeles natives that formed in early 2000. After self releasing two EPS and establishing a loyal following around L.A. and Orange County, the band signed with Geffen Records in 2002. The band toured relentlessly behind their self titled debut until the end of 2004, when they returned to L.A. to make another record. After many delays through '05 and '06, the band recorded the highly anticipated follow up, "Calling the World” with producer John Fields (Andrew wk, Switchfoot, Har Mar Superstar.) The sophomore album was released world wide on July 17th 2007 and features the melodic songwriting and dynamic playing and singing the band is known for. Rooney will now come to Austin, Texas for a show at Emo's Sat 7/5.

Click Here For Tickets

Upcoming Shows in the Austin Area

Check out these upcoming featured shows:

Jeremy Jay w/ {{{ Sunset }}} and Nic Armstrong - 7/3/08 @ Emo's

Jeremy Jay draws on such esoteric yet melody-minded songwriters of the past as Harry Nilsson and Bill Fay (with a little bit of post-punk disaffection thrown in for good measure). And while he's no throwback act, it's not hard to imagine a tune of his gracing the same classic film soundtracks populated by Simon and Garfunkel and Cat Stevens. - Pitchfork

Click HERE for tickets




Peter Murphy w/ Ali Eskandarian - 7/11/08 @ Emo's

Thin, with prominent cheekbones, a rich voice, and a penchant for gloomy poetics, Murphy is often called the "Godfather of Goth". Focusing on dark, spacey sounds and a penchant for haunting metaphysical lyrics, Murphy has created a following from a career that spans over several decades.

click HERE for tickets

Islands are forever...especially on June 23 @ Emo's

Let me begin by saying, in my humble opinion The Unicorns were a good band. A good band but not a great band. But music history shows us that usually when a good band breaks up, something resurfaces from members of the good band that exceeds the successes of the original band. This is not a rule of music, but is very common.

In the case of Islands, they follow this pattern exactly. After The Unicorns disbanded, two out of the three members formed a new project. Calling it Islands, Nick Diamonds and J'aime Tambeur Diamonds decided to move their music into a more unique and diverse form of music. Diamonds himself has described the group's music as "F-14 Tomcat blah, blah," which we're told is "French Canadian slang for fiery, shiny, and shimmering madcap pop." Be that as it may, it is hard to quite put your finger on what Islands exactly is. Combining bouncy calypso rhythms and hip-hop bursts Islands never stays in one genre long enough for the listener to get bored.

Their new album, Arm's Way, continues to push their musical borders by turning quirk-pop into wonderfully shambolic arena rock — for an arena of 5,000 people. Guitars mingle with viola, clarinet and piano, hopping genres and tempos with an Of Montreal-style theatricality. While their lineup has been through a few changes here and there the core energy and essence of Islands as the band says is...forever. Therefore on June 23rd @ Emo's you will not want to miss a performance that will be hard to forget.

for tix check out www.ticketweb.com

Mate's of State Come to Emo's Friday 6/13

Ok, I'm assuming most people here know a couple that is romantically engaged. This could be your father and your mother, or it could be your best friend and her boyfriend, or maybe it's yourself and your significant other. Regardless, of the combination we all know people who spend their every waking moment together and become nearly inseperable once they become intertwined in their relationship. Now, imagine if this said couple, whoever that might be to you, decided to make music together. Just the two of them. And mind you this is not a karaoke group or a Sonny and Cher tribute group, they are actually going to make real music. They pack up their belongings, move to the west coast and start touring across their country singing songs about love, life, and everything in between.

Well, that my friends, is exactly what Mates of State did. Kori Gardner and Josh Hammel met in Lawrence, Kansas while they were involved with other people and other musical projects. Although they exchanged daily e-mails, they didn't get together until three months later when they were both single again, and were inseparable from then on. Instead of adding members to fill out a full lineup, they decided to create a new sound in indie pop rock that is hard to imitate. Consisting of only a few keyboards and a drum set MOS has been creating jittery, scatter-brained, multi-vocal pop songs for over ten years now. Which brings the question, after so many years of just being two people in the same band, why should anyone expect something new from these guys when they roll into town.

The answer to that is one word: offspring. After becoming parents in the recent years, Mates of State's sound has grown and matured in a positive direction. In a recent article in New York Magazine examines the difference in their latest album compared to their older material, "the vocals are breathy and sweet instead of antsy; the orchestral textures and multipart harmonies evoke the Beach Boys’ 1966 landmark, Pet Sounds, with Gardner a long-lost Wilson sister. Mates of State admit that suburban living has helpfully mellowed their music. “I want to make sense,” Gardner says. “I want people to relate to us. It’s way harder to write a concise, meaningful pop song than it is to write chaotic rock songs.”

So in short, when you go to Emo's don't expect to see a version of Donnie and Marie Osmond singing pop ballads. Rather, anticipate to see/hear intelligent, progressive, positive, jittery indie rock that would bring a smile to the most miserly of people. But also expect prepare to see a married couple growing musically and romantically. The latter half which might make you groan from time to time, but hey at least it's not your mom and dad up there. Gross.

Click here for tickets!

Video for Get Better the lead single off their new album Re-Arrange Us:

Ladytron Friday 6/6 at Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater!

In the world of music there are certain holes that must be filled by certain artists. We need a band like Metallica to bring us the thrash metal. We need a band like Death Cab For Cutie to bring us sentimental-indie-pop-rock songs. And we need a band like Slipknot.......well maybe we don't need Slipknot. But if all the holes in music are already filled, who will fill the void of female fronted electro-synth pop rock??????

Well that void my friends is filled by none other than Ladytron, who has been rocking the synth pop for nearly ten years. What could easily have turned into a novelty item, Ladytron has risen to the top of the electronic rock genre by creating dance-pop art rock that continues to blur genres. This is the type of music Fembots would listen to, right before they executed somebody. This is the type of music programmed for androids, but can easily be enjoyed by us regular humans. They have proven to be an act that can stick around by touring often and perfecting a live show that brings the proverbial 'rock'. Over the years they have produced remixes for artists such as Placebo, Blondie, Gang of Four, David Gahan, Goldfrapp, Bloc Party, Kings of Convenience, Indochine, Apoptygma Berzerk, She Wants Revenge, Soulwax, Nine Inch Nails and Simian. A nice resume to say the least. Despite several record label problems, they have managed to build up an impressive back cataloge including their third album, Witching Hour, which saw an augmentation of their sound, prompting Pitchfork to describe the album as a "quantum leap record".

So come tomorrow night, a new entity will be present in Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater. A machine finely tuned to make you dance to the sound of heavenly female vocals combined with analog synth pop rock. And I assure you, if you go, you might as well give in to Ladytron's demands of dancing, because resistance is futile! Click HERE to buy your tickets now!

Ladytron - Ghosts