Transistor Six is a local company with an old-school aesthetic but new-school aspirations. Inspired by the famous BBC Peel Sessions, the company is hosting its first session tonight at Frank where they'll 1.) record bands on an analog board 2.) film bands using Super 8 and 3.) photograph bands using a 35 mm Lomo. more ›

The career arc of Mission of Burma reads like a music critic’s failed screenplay: A group of Boston music vets—with a noted affinity for experimental composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen—form a punk band that toils in relative obscurity, releasing a few singles, an EP, and a hell of a debut album before breaking up due to the guitarist’s painful tinnitus. This could have been the band’s epitaph, but thanks to reunion tours, a cult following, and the internet, Mission of Burma have now been elevated to Important Band Status—and rightly so. Now a new generation gets to rub elbows with those original fans and that original sound tonight at the Mohawk. more ›

Shoot Good Media continues their profiles of Austin producers with this short piece on Frenchie Smith, The Bubble co-owner and sound manipulator behind records by Ume, Smog, and many more. more ›

Ume’s explosive live show is always impressive but we’ll admit that we’ve been getting a little impatient for new recordings. There’s good news on that front though. We’re pleased to report that they have indeed been in the studio for the last few months. Larson reports that they have tracked eight songs with Frenchie Smith at The Bubble here in town. There is no tentative release date for the full-length yet. However, per Larson, they hope to “have at least something out by the time we head up to CMJ again this October. We're currently talking with a few folks about finishing and mixing the entire album. We're still very much a DIY indie band, so right now we're in the challenging process of finding ways to record and share our music with very limited resources.” Fingers crossed here. more ›

Happy birthday, Austinist photographer and notable Austinite Aasim Syed! No longer content with a round of birthday drinks or a nice dinner at Bagpipes, Mr. Syed is instead having his own mini-festival at the Mohawk this Saturday. more ›

Unassuming, unnerving and unsigned, Haunting Oboe Music is ready to, as they say, take your face by storm. The Austin indie experimental rock outfit is so obsessed with music making that they released 12 EPs in 2008, one for each month of the year. The band said the experiment sent them in many directions and provided many ups and downs, but turned out to be the best thing Haunting Oboe Music could have possibly done. The project gave them a deep catalog of songs to choose from for live shows. A live listening is the best way to experience the mystic madness, since the recordings don't quite do the Oboes justice. more ›

After the dreary, drizzling Thursday, day two dawned sunny and beautiful in Toronto. Having missed the explosive rock of Austin's Ume the previous evening due to a schedule conflict, we made it a point to catch the trio's taping for a few blogs at some very interesting locations near the intersection of Spadina Ave. and College St. First up, the band performed a couple of songs in the basketball court of a nearby school, eventually amassed a crowd full of enthusiastic kids very eager to learn more about what was going on. "Who do you work for?" quipped one inquisitive girl. Another brought her guitar down to the court and started mimicking Lauren Larson's guitar chords. The boys were content in teasing their female classmates but eventually garnered enough courage to join in, dribbling the basketball in unison to the beat. more ›

Why is Austinist giving away tickets to Toronto's North by North East festival, you ask? Well, if you're paying close attention, you already know that the festival -- now in its 29th year -- has enough Austin in it to justify our excitement. Not only have they created a sustainable festival that covers music, film and conferences patterned after our own love-child SXSW, they also work hard each year to represent Texas well in their lineup. more ›

The unassuming Sunshower EP from power rock trio Ume is winning hearts over left and right. And we're not here to say any different. All the hype and praise received over the past few months is completely warranted. Meet the musicians responsible for the buzz: Lauren Larson (vocals/guitar), Eric Larson (bass) and Jeff Barrera (drums). more ›

Cheers to solid shows at the Parish! An ample bar stretches across the length of the East wall providing easily accessible drink-receipt stations, making transactions painless, even if you're as drunk as Lucinda Williams at jury duty. Moreover, the sound is spot-on and the woman behind the board is a complete mensch. If you're lucky enough to nail down a good lineup, you're sittin' pretty ATX-style. more ›

As usual, there’s a fortitude of great music to catch this weekend. But tonight’s lineup at the Parish has got us itching for the work week to end. Three promising acts — Ume, Corto Maltese and White Denim — are teaming up to bring some local flavor to music overloaded souls. more ›

The Integrated Media Community, a "collective group of Austin-based film, music, interactive and arts professionals working to create a sustainable media economy in Austin, Texas," is throwing their second annual ATX Emerge party, which combine the talents of local filmmakers, artists and musicians. Tomorrow evening's party at the Mohawk features Belaire, Brazos, Foot Patrol, Freshmillions, Harlem, Sunset, The White White Lights, Ume, Zeale, and DJ Blissom. They'll also have a media room set up where you can see new video game and film work being presented. The event is free, but an RSVP (see box) is required. more ›

Built By Snow and Ume, two of Austin’s finest bands, celebrate CD releases this Saturday -- the former at Club de Ville, the latter at The Mohawk. We chatted (and played video games) with Built By Snow this past Monday at Arcade UFO -- watch it via Roxwel’s site. You can read our recent interview with Lauren Larson from Ume here. 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 ›

Today we're checking in with guitarist and vocalist Lauren Larson from Ume. Her guitar chops and classic rocker voice have been impressing Austinites for years, and we very much look forward to the band's upcoming album, an as-yet-untitled EP recorded at The Bubble Studio by "Frenchie" Smith. Check it out: "The Conductor" (mp3). Here's what had her spinning this year: more ›

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

The three bands in this pictorial took a different route: the neo-psychedelic Ume work on their songs in an office enclosed in a business park off of 183, Brothers and Sisters rent a storage space in north Austin, and the Pillow Queens practice in a warehouse off Burleson road. While different, the unifying factors of sweat, inexpensive beer, clutter and a getting-shit-done mantra were there for all three. more ›

The last time we witnessed Brooklyn band A Place To Bury Strangers live in concert, they were one of the highlights on the inside stage at our Gonna Gonna Get Down day party this year during SXSW. The trio’s vociferous sets are chock-full of wall to wall guitar heavy soundscapes, complete with the requisite reverb, dizzying distortion, and tormenting textures. We’re still surprised that the walls of The Mohawk withstood their raucous assault that afternoon. more ›

Some of us out there long for the days of lo-fi, before everything was digital and silky-smooth, when tape hiss roared in the background and the vocals were scratchier than anything a real human voicebox could create, and guitars were crunchy and ugly—you know, the time when the technology of recording music was so unrefined it lent the music a spontaneous kind of character, roughing up the sounds rather than prettying them. For years, those of us who missed the days before Danger Mouse flocked to deliberately lo-fi acts like The Mountain Goats, The Moldy Peaches' Kimya Dawson, and M. Ward, before all of them decided the lure of 21st century recording was too much to ignore. But the good news is, there's a new hero on the lo-fi block: Columbus, Ohio's Times New Viking write catchy rock music that just so happens to be covered in a delightful veil of recording ugliness. They have garnered praise throughout the music community for their tunes, and their loud, unpolished studio work brings to mind DIY punk and the days of audio cassettes melting in the front seat of your car. And you can witness their refusal to go pretty tonight at Emo's. more ›

The Black and White Years are not merely a group of affable gents - as Austinist discovered in a recent interview - they're also way into creating compelling pop morsels that eschew immediate categorization and confound otherwise severely judgmental blog-journalists. more ›