Melodic, post-punk, good-times band MoTel Aviv will present their debut album Post Modern Nation this Friday @ Beauty Bar. Easy to hear, easy to love, hard to do. 

–Photo by Scott David Gordon

As usual, a little too much to do this weekend…in addition to Psych Fest, there’s another installment of 101x Homegrown Live, this one featuring The Great Nostalgic, Marmalakes, Golden Bear, and The Dark Water Hymnal; Sounds Under Radio (above) plays ND 501 Studios; TV Torso, The Sour Notes, and White Rabbits are at Emo’s; STEREO IS A LIE play Skinny’s, and much more. April goes with a big local bang, not a whimper. 

Just want to note that the current poll (up there to the right) is going something fierce, with Bridge Farmers and Holy Wave neck-and-neck as we build up toward Austin Psych Fest 2011…check out the all-psych poll and cast a vote! 

Bands of Austin! Over yonder is our Open Blog, a fine, friendly location to post anything and everything about Your Band, and let us know what’s happening…we pull those posts over here to the main page all the time (most recently for Norushi Minx), where you can occupy a front-and-center rectangle to be ogled by all. So now you know…

You have three chances left to check out Echotone, a highly anticipated + acclaimed documentary about Austin’s Red River music scene. Film features some of the very best + most exciting of our tremendous local musicians…including Sunset, Ghostland Observatory, Belaire, The White White Lights, Black Joe Lewis, and many many more. Don’t take my word for it: "The Best (Free) Soundtrack We’ve Ever Seen." – Paste Magazine If you’re not fired up already, here’s the trailer. Now: get on down there tonight @ 7, tomorrow @7, or Wednesday night, 9:30. 

The Mother Falcon Seaholm Power Plant show has come and gone, but the Fusebox Festival is still going very very strong, with happenin’s all over town, lasting until 5/1. Musical performances from The Blue Cranes, How I Quit Crack, and The Mediums still to come. Get on out there and play a town lake piano. 

(photo by Sam Grenadier)

In honor of the upcoming Austin Psych Fest we’ve nominated a set of all pyschedelic bands for the current poll – check ’em out and cast a vote! And then go see ’em live next weekend, 4/29-5/1 – the Psych Fest scored the Seaholm Power Plant as a venue, which really couldn’t be more perfect. 

One of my personal favorite venues will be shutting down soon: the Ghost Room, at 304 W. 4th, is scheduled to close on June 5th. One of the best courtyards in Austin – and standout sound quality for every show thanks to Chris Payeur – makes this a place you’ll definitely want to catch a show before the end. T Bird and the Breaks are scheduled to play the final on June 4th, although they will reopen for special Sarah Jaffe and Centro-matic shows on July 9 and 10. If you want to get right on out there tonight you can catch Ethan Kennedy, Ghosts Along the Brazos, and Broken Folk. The Ghost Room calendar is right here.  

We know about The Bright Light Social Hour around here. If you didn’t before, you heard this March: they were scary dominant at this year’s Austin Music Awards, winning Band of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year. Now the rest of the country gets a close look as they head out on their first major U.S. tour, departing May 12th & returning home for a Mohawk show on June 11th. May they return with mustache in full glory. 

The second Pau Wau party is coming around next Friday 4/22 @ Hotel Vegas! All in support of Nick Cornetti’s zine devoted to some of the greatest local music, PAU WAU The Lost Tribes: A Guide to Austin Music. For the connossieur, Pau Wau pairs nicely with an Echotone screening. Free keg of Brooklyn lager will attend. Zine comes with a killer comp of 15 tracks, with both music and artwork by: 

Agent Ribbons
American Sharks
Dikes Of Holland
The Weird Weeds
Cartright
Dana Falconberry
Sunset
Field Dress
Chris Catalena & The Native Americans
Sleep Good
Lean Hounds
Missions
Traffique
My Milky Way Arms
Zorch 

Lineup for the benefit party: 

12:30am American Sharks
11:30pm Sunset (above)
10:30pm Dikes of Holland
09:30pm Church Shoes (indiana)

The dream of the 90s is alive… in Austin. The Toadies, hailing from Texas’ own Fort Worth, will be ringing in Record Store Day at Waterloo on April 16^th at 5 p.m.. Record Store Day is a worldwide celebration of music conducted by independent retail outlets. This often includes exclusive releases and in-store performances.  Cue “Possum Kingdom.” Since reuniting in 2006 (following a nearly a five year hiatus), The Toadies have released one live album and two studio recordings, “No Deliverance” (2008) and “Feeler.”  The band’s show at Waterloo is free to the public and sure to be positively rife with nostalgia and flannel.  Pick up a copy of The Toadies’ RSD limited edition 7”- “No Deliverance”/ “Someone Great.”

–Lucy Barber

These Mad Dogs of Glory took their name from a Bukowski poem, and are just about to take their coarse-grit country out on the Texas road, but just before they do, they’ll make things noisy for one night at Red 7, this Wednesday, 4/13. And that’s it.