Australian non-profit organization The Movember Foundation believes that men just don’t take care of their health well enough and has initiated an annual event (“Movember”) each November around the world to raise awareness about prostate cancer. The entity was founded in 2004 and has since raised almost US $30 million all over the world. In the U.S., Movember has teamed up with Prostate Cancer Foundation to educate the masses. As per Movember’s U.S. website, “Men lack awareness about the very real health issues they face. Many feel they have to be tough - "a real man" - and are reluctant to see a doctor about an illness or to go for regular medical check ups. The aim of Movember is to change these attitudes and make men's health fun by putting the Mo back on the face of American men while raising some serious funds for the number one men's health issue, prostate cancer.”...

This Thanksgiving, let's reflect on the imminent end in store for all of us by flocking to The Mohawk and watching the cathartic sad-core punktry six-piece O'death, a relatively new addition to the neo-gothic string of depressing but rocking performers sporting songs about murder and snap button shirts (for some historical perspective, check The Handsome Family)....

Transmission Entertainment has quite a few gifts lined up for us as we approach Christmas but the Ice Cube show on December 14th at The Mohawk might possibly be the best present we receive this December. And we want to pass on the merriment by offering an early chance to win two tickets to this concert -- enter (further) below!...

The Mohawk stacked their bill last night, giving attendees much more than their money’s worth for six bands on both stages....

The 2008 Fun Fun Fun Fest kicks off tomorrow at Waterloo Park and we hope you’ve been enjoying our artist profiles and interviews. The revelry actually starts tonight! First up, our esteemed music editor Paige Maguire leads a fantastic team of panelists for After The Jump: Following Bloggers Into Mainstream Media, presented by Austin CVB and Transmission Entertainment at Club de Ville on Friday at 7 p.m. Immediately following that, The Mohawk is the place to be for our very own Local Music Is Sexy bash. This year, Brothers and Sisters, The Lovely Sparrows, Leatherbag, and The Eastern Sea do our city proud on the outside stage before Foot Patrol (also from Austin) and a special guest move the party inside at midnight. Club de Ville hosts the soul samplings of the Waxploitation DJs after the aforementioned panel. On Saturday, finish up your day of unending live music with White Denim for a special Exposion release gig at The Mohawk....

We often hear about the traveler who visits our city for the immense SXSW festival and then refuses to leave (perhaps you, dear reader, are one), but how often does an extended or permanent visit also become the perfect opportunity to record an EP? Well, maybe the term perfect is a little off. When folk singer Tom Schraeder hit Austin for the festival, he turned it into a six-week recording process for his latest release, the Lying Through Dinner EP, and his visit here ended up consisting of not just nights on couches and floors but even a trip to one of our homeless shelters...

Local post-rock connoisseurs My Education bring expansive walls of sound to the comforts of Emo’s Lounge this Saturday. The band expertly constructs stirring atmospheric rock, patiently adding appropriate layers and a textured ambiance to their cinematic compositions via a plethora of instruments including the pedal steel guitar, piano, violin, and vibraphone. Fittingly, My Education have performed at the Alamo Drafthouse in the past, scoring films ranging from (Mamoru Oshii’s) Angel’s Egg to (F.W. Warnau’s) Sunrise, a true testament to their talent. The Dead Science headline with spastic spurts of experimental rock that seem disjointed on first listen but are impressively coherent when you indulge the somewhat eerie concoctions. The diverse instrumentation and the varying standards create quite the avant-garde ruckus; it should all make for a raucous live show. The Seattle band released their third full-length Villainaire earlier this year....

A couple of months ago, during a random discussion of various electro acts playing around town of late, an associate of ours put forth an interesting term that made us laugh and squirm at the same time. “We should have a beat-off” was the exact sentence if memory serves us well. Nothing shocking -- beat-off was a simple enough combination of two words -- that could have been interpreted differently had the context of our conversation not already been established....

Monotonix, the Israeli garage rock three-piece, have a reputation for craziness that precedes them. We’re talking drenching themselves in alcohol, pyrotechnics, extreme audience interaction, all that. It’s no surprise they’ve palled up with Athens mega-band Dark Meat, who tried to brain us with stage monitors during SXSW and who more conservatively enchanted us with glitter and a marching band months later. Monotonix have recently signed to Drag City, who released their debut EP Body Language this April. If you’ve any taste for punky, high-energy rock and roll stripped from its embellishments (and even bass!) a la The Black Lips, Monotonix have your number. ...

The 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival is finally here! We hope you’ve been enjoying our various stage previews. Even if you’re not attending the day time revelry at Zilker Park, there are plenty of options to choose from during the evening hours. (Read our ACL Fest after-shows roundup here.) Most weekend live music activities will probably revolve around the plethora of acts in town for the fest but there’s so much more going on; a couple of shows definitely merit a quick mention....

Austinist Indieroke had another successful outing last night at The Mohawk complete with stellar solo performances as well as a fair share of group efforts on stage. Holly (“The Bends” by Radiohead), Erin (“No Rain” by Blind Melon), and Alex (“Easy” by The Commodores) were just some of the standout female performers while Scott took home a brand new Indieroke shirt for his rendition of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Scott also won the “Best Duet or Group Performance” award with Claudia (“Africa” by Toto). Many thanks to The Mohawk for hosting our shenanigans, and also to Nash Cook for capturing the moments in these wonderful photographs....

Learning Secrets has been keeping busy. Founder Ian Orth reported big plans for the entity when we caught up with him in April, Learning Secrets then teamed up with Transmission Entertainment to bring us Riton in July, and we are eagerly awaiting details on their massive five year anniversary celebration coming in January of 2009....

Austinist Indieroke returns this evening at The Mohawk. We have brand new Indieroke shirts that will be awarded to the “Best Female Performance,” “Best Male Performance,” and “Best Duet or Group Performance.” There will also be an “Early Bird Prize” for the best performance between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. Yes, we want you to come down early....

Here comes another weekend and thus, the perfect time to push away those rat race blues. Rock-A-Round Entertainment brings us two days of melodies and harmonies in the form of the first annual Wild Weekend Power Pop Festival at The Mohawk....

We had an initial, brief crush during Xemumba '07 (at The Compound last September) but now Bemba Entertainment wants us to have a full-fledged love affair with Latin music. The entity presents Xemumba '08 on September 12th and 13th at The Mohawk and we’re proud to co-sponsor the fest this year. Latin and South American inspired music will take center stage, and as per Bemba Entertainment, “The weekend will showcase a wide collection of styles—salsa, Cuban son, mariachi, Brazilian baile funk, samba, rock, and hip hop.”...

Xiu Xiu are back at The Mohawk tonight, as the seminal mope-core trio and habitual oversharers are touring in support of their latest album Women As Lovers. They're on the first leg of their journey right now, which even included a show in Lubbock last night. Also: fans will want to stop by the merch table, as explained in this blog post by percussionist Ches Smith just last night: “hello, Please ask David Horvitz at the merch table for "the recorder," and record anything you want. I will make percussion/tape pieces using the material, to be posted as mp3s on this blog.”...

The emergence of Ariel Pink as a musical cult figure, mostly thanks to the release of The Doldrums on the Animal Collective’s record imprint, Paw Tracks, has fostered debate and curious wonder from fans and foes alike. His most severe detractors bemoan the inconsistency of his releases, and the very, very primitive recording ethos that informs them - but they’d be lying to deny the catchiness and strength behind some of Pink’s best tracks. ...

Austinist Indieroke had another successful outing last Friday on the patio at The Mohawk. From The Cranberries to The National, and from Led Zeppelin to Iron Maiden, we heard it all. As always, stellar renditions of The Cure and Journey classics were in the mix as well. Good times!...

Allow us to set the scene: you and your best girlfriends and/or bros are ready to get a liquored up, a little vocal, a little crazy. So you all pile into the van and head down to one of the karaoke rooms on North Lamar, bring in a Heineken mini-keg and hope for the best. The first in a list of disappointments is the song selection – mostly bygone hits, Helloween and chart-toppers from the Far East, and after warbling “Thunder Road” to your pallys, you get the big bill. Ouch. So at the end of the night, you’re right back where you started, which is singing The Smiths into a hairbrush, though you’re now poorer, hoarse, and the melancholy itch of “How Soon is Now” is ever more palatable....

Chicago’s Flosstradamus is comprised of Josh Young (a.k.a J2K) and Curt Cameruci (a.k.a Autobot), and the duo brings its exhilarating blend of beats to The Mohawk on the 22nd. Already veterans of many a festival such as Coachella, Pitchfork Music Festival, and yes, SXSW, Flosstradamus toured with Canadian retro-synth connoisseurs Chromeo in 2007. A healthy dose of hip hop and house music mashed up with rock and trance can be expected to power the dance party tonight....

We were hearing constant clamors for more weekend Austinist Indieroke events, and as a result, we offer up the latest edition next Friday the 25th at The Mohawk. Come on down and check out Buttercup and Elsinore inside at 9 p.m. but save your best for upstairs when Indieroke fever takes over The Green Room at 11 p.m. for another evening of wonderful renditions of classics and not-so-classics....

When we caught up with Ian Orth in April, we discovered that he had big plans going forward for his Learning Secrets entity. True to his word, Orth and Learning Secrets deliver a blockbuster party this Saturday in conjunction with Transmission Entertainment at The Mohawk. Besides having a stint at the DJ booth himself this evening, Orth also welcomes fellow local DJ Abominatron to take a stab at the beats. But the ace up the sleeve is British DJ and producer Riton (pronounced Ree-ton) who has wrought dance parties all across the globe and collaborated with artists such as Erol Alkan and Soulwax....

Japanese outfit Boris derives its name from the opening track on the 1991 Melvins record Bullhead and much of its down-tempo drone-rock shares a musical border with the legendary Washington area act. Boris has released a number of stellar records since forming in the 90’s; their full-length studio album count per our math currently stands at 14. Their debut, Absolutego, originally consisted of one 60 minute title-track, but the U. S. release by Southern Lord Records a few years later featured an even longer version of Absolutego and included a bonus song. Highly experimental, extremely sludgy, sometimes psychedelic, and full of scorching riffs, the band has walked the fine line between different genres over the course of its career and employed an array of noise generating devices over time, resulting in a sometimes deranged, often convoluted sound that could be the soundtrack to many a scary movie or just your everyday angst. We are licking are chops already in anticipation of a belligerent performance this Saturday at The Mohawk. Torche and Clouds open with their respective brands of raucous rock. (Buy your tickets here.)...

Oxford Collapse conjures up vivacious, noisy pop songs and The Mohawk hosts the New York act’s fuzzy textures and inviting melodies this Thursday. The band utilizes layers of vocals (courtesy of Michael Pace and Adam Rizer) to produce catchy verses and sing-along choruses, and engages the listener throughout with jittery post-rock backdrops. “Amongst Friends” is a poignant anthem that a current crop of youth could play on graduation night while “Please Visit Your National Parks” kicks off like an R.E.M. ditty before exploding with Pace’s assertive yowl and sustaining six-strings. In fact, there is an '80s college-rock feel to a number of their songs but whatever their inspirations may be, this trio’s quirk-pop compositions do more than enough to keep things interesting, and they are sure to put on a raucous live show. Oxford Collapse’s upcoming fourth record Bits is scheduled for an August release on Sub Pop. The band just got back from a U.K. tour with We Are Scientists and will tour again with their fellow New Yorkers following the current stint with Frightened Rabbit....

Shout Out Louds, Shearwater, Liam Finn, and A Place To Bury Strangers may have been some of the highlights of our day show at SXSW this year but one of the surprise packages came in the form of Jukebox the Ghost’s piano pop potions that had many in the audience at the Mohawk enquiring about the band. So what’s the 4-1-1? Comprised of Jesse Kristin, Tommy Siegel, and Ben Thornewill, the act formed in 2003 as The Sunday Mail but by 2006, they adjusted to their current moniker (probably in anticipation of erroneous Google search results!) In April of this year, the trio released their debut Let Live and Let Ghosts. (Get the scoop behind their name and more -- Gothamist’s recent interview with the band.)...

Austinist Indieroke took over The Mohawk’s Green Room this past Sunday for a night of thrills, frills, and plenty of awesome stills (courtesy of Nash Cook). We would like to thank everyone who came down and made this an incredible party, especially the early birds -- we had six songs in queue before we even had a bartender up there! Of course, very special thank you’s go out to The Mohawk for putting up with our shenanigans, and our rock star friends from Zykos, White Denim, The Boxing Lesson, and Belaire, all of whom turned in some magnificent renditions....

As you may have read somewhere, we are launching Phase Two of our almost-monthly Austinist Indieroke shindig this Sunday at 9 p.m. at The Mohawk. The event will take place upstairs on the deck -- please look for the “green light” on 10th St. and enter through there since there is a band (Colour Wheel) and a cover charge downstairs. Hopefully you have already added us as a friend on MySpace since all our nominees in the various contests shall have their sweet face historicized in our “Hall Of Mirrors.” Additionally, each winner’s mug will also be displayed on Austinist the following day. As promised previously, there will be a handful of local rock stars present to serenade us with renditions of their favorites -- Mike Booher (Zykos), Cari Palazzolo (Belaire), and James Petralli (White Denim) are all expected to take the stage during the course of the evening....

Matador records describes newish signees The Cave Singers as "folk music approached by way of punk rock," and apparently this Seattle band didn't have an inclination to work in this genre in the first place - it just worked out that way. It's moody, maudlin stuff, and the kind of genre-splicing act that fits right into the Matador roster, which includes everything from Matmos to Shearwater, Cat Power to Mission of Burma. ...

Austinist Indieroke: The Second Chapter begins next Sunday the 25th at The Mohawk’s sweet outdoor deck next to their brilliantly renovated Green Room. Fret not though because all the classic tunes you’ve grown to love in our karaoke collection are still available for you to enhance (or slaughter) with your personal renditions. But we are confident that you will love our new ideas and incentives. First off, there is an Austinist Indieroke MySpace page now. Get in there and add us as a friend -- photographs of all our contest nominees and winners shall be archived there in our “Hall Of Mirrors” because “even the greatest stars find their face in the looking glass / even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass.”...

Founded in 2000, Kentucky post-rock outfit Foxhole specialize in (largely) instrumental epics that utilize the tried and tested routine of building songs layer by layer until the desired crescendo and ensuing coda can take full effect. The band’s early compositions employed a number of instruments, some generic, others self-created, while the trumpet is heavily featured on most of their work. Previous recordings in Church settings have accentuated their sound with a distinct, spacious element and Foxhole’s intricate arrangements include exhilarating moments of clarity perfect for pacifying far reaching emotions. The act falls within the Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky family tree (relatively speaking) and their grand soundscapes should definitely appease fans of the genre. Their newest EP, Push/Pull is available off their official website as is their 2004 debut full-length We the Wintering Tree....