Free week soldiers on through Saturday night, with a showcase at Beauty Bar featuring a grand total of eight bands. Headlining the evening are local shoegaze rockers Ringo Deathstarr, fresh off a tour opening for the Smashing Pumpkins across Europe. With frequent comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, Ringo Deathstarr manage to create tunes that sound fresh, teetering between melodies and fuzzed out noise. In memoriam of Esme Barrera, the group is also helping raise funds for her funeral by giving a cover of "Sailin' On" to anyone who donates to the cause here. more ›

Free week rolls on tonight with our humble offering at the 29th Street Ballroom. Five local bands for the glorious price of free - should be the perfect capper to a hilarious day of reading about the fallout from the Iowa caucus. Grimy indie-poppers Literature will headline our showcase. The band just released their debut LP, Arab Spring, which you can grab for whatever you care to pay for it on their bandcamp. The ten songs are catchy, pop-punk nuggets, distorted and besmirched by low-fidelity that would be right at home on Slumberland Records circa 1995. The album got a Twitter recommendation from Kip Berman of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who likened the sound to an amalgam of the Buzzcocks and Exploding Hearts. more ›

What better way to celebrate the 2012 Iowa Caucus than with a free show at Red 7? This Free Week showcase is bursting at the seams with local talent, ranging from scene veterans to emerging acts. more ›

Coming the first of January, Transmission-booked establishments The Mohawk and Red 7 will open their doors, sans entry fee, for what is now referred to with reference and loud exclamation as "Free Week." The list of (mostly) local bands taking part in free week is very inclusive and features all of your favorites. If we had to pick a few to spotlight, they'd be: Ume, A Giant Dog, Lean Hounds, One Hundred Flowers, Mistress Stephanie and her Melodic Cat, Riders Against the Storm, The Gary, and yeah, lots of good bands will be performing. more ›

And there’s the tantalizing two-stage treat offered up by Emo’s’s on Friday. The line-up features the perennially underrated veteran act The Crack Pipes and LMIS alumni The Golden Boys parading their soulful garage rock stylings on the outside stage while the explosive sound of Ume and exciting up-and-comers Speak’s dance inducing synth-pop will be on display inside. Don’t miss out this weekend -- quality shows won’t be this cheap till mid-March. more ›

Austin is obviously the top music oasis in Texas but towns like Denton and El Paso are normally included in that discussion. Lately, a little city east of Houston has been throwing its name in the hat as well. Beaumont, a part of the Golden Triangle (which spawned UGK), has given us Ringo Deathstarr already and is home to the Connect The Dots Festival. And then there’s this band called La Snacks that has been making some noise on both sides of I-45. more ›

Free Week wraps up this weekend but not before another onslaught of amazing acts playing live at various venues on Red River St. for $0 -- if you’re over 21 that is. The youngsters can enjoy all the music for a measly $5. The Mohawk had an unending line last Friday and Saturday and there’s no reason to not expect more of the same this weekend. On Friday, the venue hosts a legit pop-fest featuring some of Austin’s finest melody makers. Retro flavor from Dans la Lune and The Ugly Beats outside, and the talented trio of The Laughing, Moth!Fight!, and Golden Bear inside make this a must for anyone craving a bit of local magic. (Golden Bear and The Laughing also put in shifts at Clementine Coffee Bar’s third birthday celebration earlier on Friday, at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. respectively.) more ›

As we reflect on the fortune of free shows Transmission delivered to our doorstep this week, it’s with bittersweet symphony (bum bum bum, bum bum bum) that we part ways with Free Week. We are eternally grateful for the massive supply of great music and an excuse to party for seven days straight while never once worrying about having the cash for cover. But alas, there’s still a bit more to see! Saturday night includes many promising acts, but we especially recommend the lineup at Emo’s: DJ Remy Mac, The Black, International Waters and The Minotaurs. more ›

Perfect Pants performing at the Mohawk as part of Free Week, Austin Texas, January 6, 2009. Photo by Steve Hopson. more ›

Okay, so by calling the free Wednesday night lineup on The Mohawk's inside stage "intense," we misspoke. Intense doesn't adequately explain the aural assault of Homopolice songs like "Assfucker," so maybe we should leave it up to this band to set the tone for the show: "We are a noise band, not some hippie space jam bullshit." more ›

Free Week rolls on at Emo’s cozy inside area this Thursday with two of Austin’s most promising bands. Ume made many a new fan with its six-string powered assault early on day two at Fun Fest 2008. Singer and guitarist Lauren Larson is as much a rock goddess on stage as she is a sweet lass off it, and the rhythm section, comprised of Larson’s husband Eric on bass and Jeff Barrera on drums, more than holds its own, sustaining the band’s finely crafted rock explosions impeccably. We’re anticipating a landmark year for the trio in 2009. more ›

Have photos from Free Week's first weekend you'd like to share? Tag them on Flickr with "austinist" or send them to music@austinist.com. more ›

Free Week at the Mohawk is featuring both the outside and inside stages will be packed with an army of bands. From psychedelic rock to turntabalism, the Mohawk should have you covered, and less money at the door means more for booze! more ›

The original home of Free Week, Emo's isn't going to let this wonderful concept disappear from within its fabled walls. The venue, now sans Lounge but always a cornerstone of the blooming Red River music scene, has assembled quite the line-up to kick off its 2009 Free Week. more ›

Christmas might well be over but Transmission Entertainment continues to indulge in the holiday spirit and the season for giving by kicking off the recently expanded Free Week this weekend at Red 7, The Mohawk, Club de Ville, and Beauty Bar, along with Emo's, which continues to host Free Week as well. more ›

In response to economic downturns and the need for local hoodrats to save money all over the music district, Graham Williams (Free Week's founder) has announced an expansion of the annual event. Between January 2nd through the 10th, free week will also be taking place at Mohawk, Club de Ville, Red 7, Beauty Bar and others in addition to the traditional Emo's. more ›

Didn't Beerland already have Ground Zero Fest like three weeks ago? Didn't half these bands play Emo's Free Week? Well, you can't have too much of a good thing: in what promises to be another all-night blowout, Beerland and Emo's are co-hosting Megon Fest, featuring Austin garage-punk stalwarts Manikin, The Young, The Hex Dispensers, and nihilistic Latin punks Deskonocidos, with out-of-towners headlining each night. more ›

Emo’s Free Week has come and gone, but the venue and the city march on with a buffet of mouth-watering shows available for consumption tonight. Eclectic beats from Dan Deacon pace Emo’s inside stage (as a part of the Ultimate Reality Tour) while Steamroller, She Craves, Killer Crocs of Uganda, and The Banner Year rock Emo’s Lounge. more ›

Some of Austin’s most active live acts take the stage at Emo’s on Thursday evening to bring an end to the venue’s Free Week. Horse + Donkey are riding high following the release of their impressive self-titled full-length. The album finally gives us locals a chance to enjoy the act’s reverb-heavy droning psychedelia at our pleasure, at home or in the car. Still, that’s no excuse to stop playing live, and the trio has been averaging a solid amount of gigs in town over the last few months. The explosive, vivid video for Horse + Donkey’s “Magic Horse” was directed by Wiley Wiggins and can be viewed here. more ›

Free Week is still kicking -- hard. There's a veritable horde of bands to catch tonight and tomorrow. more ›

Steaming on through the weekend, Free Week at Emo's continues Monday night with a mostly local smattering of acts at the lounge and inside stages. more ›

This weekend has to be dominated by the various Emo’s Free Week shows -- look for previews to those events on the site. more ›

It’s possible you’ve been tricked into thinking Free Week at Emo’s cares not for days as fickle as Sunday, but, just in case, let’s clear things up: YES, Free Week rolls all the way through, with not a break to be seen. And not only that, but Sunday offers up some of the most compelling bands of the whole shebang, including noted acts Ume, Until We’re Blue or Destroy and that nature battle you’ve been dying to see: Bee vs. Moth. more ›

Free Week hits its stride on Saturday with three separate shows at Emo’s Lounge, Emo’s inside stage, and the outside stage as well. more ›

Emo’s Free Week bites back tonight with a smorgasbord of sounds from a variety of acts. Lions draw blood on the outside arena with chant-along chorus’ and scorching guitars. Their 2007 release No Generation allowed the band to voice their political views as well as display their rock n’ roll chops, and their live shows aptly roar with energy and fervor. Lions’ “Heavy Metal Lady” currently encourages the masses in homes everywhere to “unleash your inner rock legend” via Guitar Hero III and you can do the same at Emo's tonight! more ›

When Built By Snow contacted us via MySpace to share their love of The Beatles and Weezer, we were admittedly intrigued by what these local lads are capable of. It’s not everyday we get a message from an act about having the same two favorite bands as us. Noise, Built By Snow’s debut EP, appeared in our mail in due time and we discovered a talented act with catchy tunes that land somewhere between The Rentals and Ozma with a dash of Weezer mixed in. more ›

As Christmas approaches, good shows tend to get sporadic and good friends tend to leave town, but the promise of Emo’s Free Week will carry us into the empty canvas that is 2008. Still, we have ten days or so to find that one last good moment of 2007. more ›

The only downside of Emo's Free Week is that you have to decide which shows to attend. Some ambitious folks will move between the three venues and check out bits of several shows, but that requires, well, moving, and we're not into that. We'd rather grab five drinks from the bar, stake out a spot in front of the stage and spend all our available energy hollering "raaawwwkkk and roollllll" until we either pass out... more ›

Whether you think of it as a test run for SXSW, a belated Christmas present to local music fans, or an excuse to drink for seven days straight, Emo's Free Week kicks off today with a schedule of acts that reads like a who's-who of local punk, indie, and rock. As the showcases are all without cover, we'd recommend getting there early. Emo's Free Week January 2-8 603 Red River Tuesday, January 2 Inside:... more ›

Chicken Ranch Records extends Free Week at Emo's another night this evening, with a showcase featuring White Ghost Shivers, Willie Heath Neal, and John Schooley and His One Man Band. more ›