We don’t know Runaway Sun very well. Or at all, but they invited us to play and we don’t often pass up Friday night at Rudz. I’m already looking forward to a Rudz Burger. Or maybe some calamari.

Oh, yeah, and there will be rock.

10:30 Bright Men of Learning
11:30 Runaway Sun
$5

Our show tonight at Fitzgerald’s is currently and prominently recommended on the front page both websites. Yay!

We’re playing Monday, November 8 at the new Fitzgerald’s with one of our favorite meat and potatoes hipster-tinged rock bands, Jeff the Brotherhood. Local rockers, The Energy, featuring our pal Chris Ryan, will fill the middle slot.

It’s free show if you’re over 21. And if you’re coming to see us, you’re doubtless a lot older than that. For the over-30 crowd, you’ll be happy to know we’re playing first. Which means you don’t have to endure the comparatively more rockin’ bands that follow (even though you should).

So, you can finally hear (and buy) the new record. All of it. Go ahead and press play, then I’ll write some more stuff below while you listen.

As we’ve already said lots of times by now, we’re playing two shows this Saturday September 18 to celebrate:

1. You can either catch our FREE 3 pm show at Cactus Music (refreshments provided by St. Arnold). Cactus will have actual, physical copies of the record on sale.
2. Or you can hear a longer, louder set at Rudyard’s where we’re playing with fellow band of old guys, Orange is In. Jim Beazy opens that show and he’s apparently turning his set into some kind of video project. You can’t say we didn’t make things interesting. The show is $8, but you get a Free Download card with every paid admission that entitles you to a high-quality digital download of the new LP.

Special Guests

To make a special show even more special for us, Jonas Wilson and Jenny Gacy from The White White Lights will be joining us on several songs. Jonas recorded our record at Blue Train Studios in Austin. And Jenny sang on the record. Thanks to them, you’ll be able to hear things we normally wouldn’t be able to do with only 3 guitars.

How to buy the record

First, you don’t have to pay a dime. If you grab a digital copy here, you can name your price. Including FREE if you like. To get a vinyl record, one of only 250 copies, you have to fork over $10, but you get a digital download with purchase. As I said above, it will be on sale at Cactus starting this Saturday. We’re hoping to sell copies at Sound Exchange and Vinal Edge, too.

When you do buy the record, you’ll probably wonder who did the amazing album art. That would be Rene Cruz. We want to thank him again for donating his art and for inspiring us to change the name of the record.

Finally…

Thanks to our friends, family, and fans. We’re excited to share this with you and we’re even more excited to be done with it.

So we can write more songs. And record more stuff.

So we’re finally releasing our new record, Fired, on September 18. And we’re celebrating with two shows that day. First we’ll be doing an in-store at Cactus Music at 3 pm (refreshments provided by St. Arnold’s). Then we’ll play a late show our favorite venue, Rudyard’s, where we’ll close down a show with Orange is In. You have no excuses this time. You’ll have to come out and see us, because you can’t say it’s too early or too late. We’ve covered all the bases.

As for the record itself, well, I’ll confirm what I’ve said before. We are not making this record available on CD. You can either buy one of 250 vinyl copies or download the record in the digital format of your choice for whatever price you want to pay (including FREE, if you like). The records will be available at Cactus / Sound Exchange / Vinal Edge. Anyone who pays $10 or more for a digital copy can get a vinyl record for free (while we have them). Anyone who buys the vinyl record will receive inside a card/code they can redeem for the digital files. All the digital distribution is done through our Bandcamp site.

We’ll make the record available online starting September 15. And you can buy a physical copy the following Saturday. We’ve shared the record already with a few friends and local music writers, and early feedback seems pretty positive. We’re excited to share it with you. Thanks for listening.

Sometime earlier this year, I checked out the Myspace for Football, Etc., listened to the tracks and friended them behalf of BMoL. This is pretty rare for me, as:

1. I think Myspace is awful and try to use it as little as possible.
2. I’ve never been one to follow a bunch of randos in a foolish attempt to promote my band. Take a look at our Myspace. If we’re friends with someone, they’re probably our real-life friends. Either that, or we actually, truly like their bands.

So it was with Football, Etc. We don’t know these people, but we’re friends of friends, and we dig their tunes. Now, we’re stoked to hear them on Friday when we share a bill at Dean’s Credit Clothing, downtown. FE is launching their tour. You should come and see them off. Four bands for $5. Ride the rail and make us part of your downtown evening.

Here’s a cool poster my friend Todd made. Todd describes Football, Etc. as emo. I call them good.

Update: Here’s the Facebook event page for the show.

This Saturday we’re playing at Mango’s for the first time, and we’re excited to share the holiday weekend with two of our favorite bands, The Jonx and The Gary.

Mango’s, if you don’t know, used to be called The Oven back in the day. My first band, Wholesome Rollers, played there a lot. On a tiny little stage that had one load-bearing beam smack in the front. I think they called it the Oven because they sold frozen pizza there by the slice. Or maybe just because it got hot as hell in the summer.

Mango’s, however, is more than a name change. They’ve moved the stage so it’s roomier and unobscured by the architecture. They’ve also added an outdoor patio. Is it still hot? I don’t know. But on Saturday night, July 3rd, you’ll find out.

Anyway details are below. Even more information, including the scoop on the un-Google-able Young Girls, is available at Jonxy’s blog. And our compliments to the Jonx for putting together one of the classier posters we’ve seen. We love us some Tetris.

This Friday, we’re playing at Rudyards with two well-known Austin acts, The Gary and Arthur Yoria. Both have Houston ties so it should be a great show. We’re especially excited about playing with our pals in The Gary who are promoting their well-received new CD, Logan. You may remember the guitarist Trey Pool who played in the venerable Houston bands Celindine and Sad Like Crazy. Here’s some review snippets of the new record:

"What The Gary’s first full-length album is is an undisputedly tight, exuberant chunk of rock. Check back in a year and Logan is likely to be in a lot of ‘best-of’ lists, CD collections, and mp3 players." – Austin Sound

"The Gary’s still-untitled debut full-length, due in November on the same label, deserves to be one of the most anticipated of the year. Intelligent, honest, unpretentious, stirring, grassroots indie rock like this doesn’t come along as often as PR reps would like to have us think." – Ink 19

“The first half-dozen songs are fantastic; the last four don’t slouch either, especially "False Sunrise." It’s a bit of that tried-and-true Dischord formula: Loud, primitive music can be enlightened as well." – Austin Chronicle

And here’s the record, which you can stream straight from this page.

Well, did you listen? Good. Now, here are the details:

Show is on April 30 at Rudyard’s

10:30 pm Arthur Yoria
11:30 pm The Gary
12:30 am BMOL

I somehow missed adding a note about our show last Saturday with Miles Kurosky, but if you didn’t make it, you missed a really great show from the former Beulah frontman. He was generous with his time, talking with fans, before, during and after the show. I urge you to get his new record and his old ones, too.

Now for this week’s Saturday show at Rudz, we’re are stoked as hell to be playing with two Austin-by-way-of-Houston bands: Tody Castillo and The Sour Notes. Both bands offer some seriously hummable and sophisticated pop music, so if that’s your bag, you won’t want to miss it.

We opened last Saturday’s show, but we’re going to headline this one. So here’s what to expect:

10:30 pm Tody Castillo
11:30 pm The Sour Notes
12:30 pm Bright Men of Learning

Not at all sure what the cover is. Prolly $6.

Please note: Ben Murphy, one of our guitar players, also plays with Tody Castillo. He’ll be pulling double duty. Get there early and stay late to cheer on his ever-tasteful heroics.

On Thursday, February 25, we’re stoked to be playing a show with one of my pals from law school, Erin Rodgers, and her band, Kennedy Bakery. Also on the bill is Christian Staehely, who I’d never heard of, but who turns out to be kind of interesting: he’s a Princeton graduate who was also a 39th-round draft pick in the 2008 MLB draft. Now he plays minor-league ball for the Seattle Mariners. The above link to is for his Myspace, so you should check out his tunes. Fair warning: one of them is a dead ringer for Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So.”

Details:

2/25 | Rudyard’s Pub | 10 PM | $5 cover | 21+

 
Final note: I’ve updated our show listing. We’ve got two shows at Rudz in March, including an exciting opening gig with the dude from Beulah.