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I'm just gonna put it out there. I'm not much of a fan of the whole industrial, goth-like rock. There are some bands I enjoy like The Birthday Massacre, Dommin and of course, the obvious Nine Inch Nails but usually I don't seek out that type of music. Those that know me know what can be categorized as a "Sarah band:" pretty much anything that makes me want to shake my money-maker or covered in so much sugar coated goodness that it makes people want to gag.

I stumbled onto Art Versus Industry when vocalist Avi Ghosh added me on Facebook. I'm very selective about who I friend on any social media (except Twitter, of course). So when I got the friend request, I was like "Who is this guy? What is he about? Why is he adding me?" And like what people normally do, I checked out his profile. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see as most of it was private, but I found a link to his band's website. I took a listen and really enjoyed what I heard. It was very industrial, however, there was something more to it.

I sat down with Avi and his bandmates before one of their shows at Elysium a while back. I stuck out as I wore a pastel pink shirt with pastel polka dots in the venue with the unofficially dark tones only dress code. This band is somewhat new to Austin but I've noticed more people are starting to take notice. With the accompany light show at their performances, it's hard not to.

Instead of rehashing their background and what they sound like in this introduction, let's just get straight to the interview. And by the way, after accepting Avi's friend request, he's turned out to be more than just a dude with a band. He and his bandmates are pretty cool and HUMBLE. That's important.

You guys are a fairly new band. You formed in March '09.Avi: Yeah technically.

So how did this line up get together?Avi: Long story. Ok, I'm gonna let Matt explain how he got involved with this and I'll talk about how that happened.

Matt: Ok, well Avi has been doing music for about seven or eight years.

Avi: Way too long.

Matt: Releasing albums under Defy and Avi Ghosh and I first heard him back when I was in high school. I was probably a junior. I was amazed by his music and I sent him a message and we just kept in touch. Long story short, I was finishing up school. He offered me to audition for the band and I couldn't pass it up.

Avi: And you moved all the way...

Matt: And yeah, I moved here from New York Jersey, right outside of Philadelphia.

Because of the offer?

Matt: Because of this offer. Because I was such a huge fan and his art always inspired me. It's exactly everything that I've always wanted to do with my own art so it was the perfect opportunity. I couldn't pass it up.

Avi: It was one of those things that I wanted him to finish his degree. so like "You're not fucking moving out here until you get some sort of education." And after that, I was like "Fuck it. Pack your shit." I think the day after you graduated.

Matt: Literally, the last day, my last class, the following day, I moved. I even missed out on Nine Inch Nails to come down here. That's what happened

Avi: That's commitment.

That is commitment.

Nick: So then we got together. I moved to New York after I graduated from college and to be a big drummer out there. Whatever, try to make it. Didn't work. Came back. So I've been in a couple of bands and nothing was really sticking and nobody's really committed. Nothing was new so I wrote this long thing on Craigslist and this guy responds. So that's how we found each other. On Craigslist. We got together, he was still living in Arkansas?

Avi: Well technically, I was all over the place. I wasn't living in Little Rock at the time because I was living in Little Rock, Chicago, and somewhere in New York in Queens. I was traveling all over the place so I didn't have a place to live but my girlfriend lived here. She's like "Move to Austin" and I'm like fuck, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm not going to have a band. I don't have that. I don't know what I'm going to do. So get on Craigslist, see this kid's ad and I'm like hmm, this seems interesting. So I messaged him and we go and meet in this odd sort of Hooters-type situation.

Nick: Twin Peaks. It was awesome.

Avi: And I typically wouldn't never be found in a place like that.

You don't seem like Twin Peaks kind of guys.

Nick: I am. I kinda like it. What can I say? But yeah, so became really good friends. Actually he had me join the band and hadn't even played. Haven't even heard me play. Never. It was like done.

It was just from the ad.

Avi: When you met somebody, you have that sort of love at first sight moment and one thing lead to another, met him and it just love at first sight sort of thing. It's totally heterosexual, but we got along and before you knew it, it was magic.

Matt: I think my favorite part about having Munoz in the band aside from the fact that he's Munoz and that's awesome is that his musical influences are very drastically different from me and Avi. So it was great to have a completely different viewpoint coming in on this so that's pretty great.

Yeah. I think I read in an interview of Nick's, you said the album that made you want to be a musician was Thursday's "Full Collapse."

Nick: Yes. Oh yes.

I like that album too.

Avi: I love Thursday too.

Because obviously this music isn't Thursday...

Avi: Yeah, Not at all.

How did you get from that band to this?

Nick: It was really interesting. It was all because of (Avi). I was looking for something really different. I was really tired of playing drums with that sort of genres, looking for something new. And this was really a challenge because it's so different, so it pushed me out of my comfort zone. But I feel like I've grown a lot as a musician. And yeah, he loves keyboards so it kind of took place of guitars for the most part and it's been awesome.

And for you two, are there any bands you listen to that's different from this genre that people'd be surprised you listen to?

Avi: I personally love the Bee Gees. I'm serous but I love all kinds of music. If it's Elvis or... It's so weird because most people love the electronic stuff, but I like hip hop like old NWA records. Those are probably a bigger influence on anything out there to me. Like old Dre, old Snoop Dog, love that shit but I also like Thursday. And Green Day, one of my biggest influences growing up. I know it's scary to say that nowadays but it's kind of what they do now. The Offspring, all those punk rock spirit, like Amen, so I love music all across the board.

Matt: I'm trying to think of...

Avi: Ace of Base. Always. That's a whole influence. Don't forget Ace of Base.

Matt: I'm trying to think. I'm a very picky listener as far as what I actually have on my iPod so as far as anything that's really personally influenced me, I guess you could say... I mean this isn't too big a stretch like outside of what we do but lots of 90's alternative rock and some grunge but that's still, we have elements of that in our music.

Avi: We all like Nirvana. I like Nirvana.

Matt: But I mean Early Smashing Pumpkins when they were a grunge band. It was just the stuff I was listening to growing up. I didn't actually give this kind of music until around middle school and from there on, it will more my addiction(?). I can't really think of anything really outside of the box. Maybe old David Bowie when he was just awesome David Bowie.

Avi: Awesome.

And we'll talk about the music. I know people are set in their ways when it comes to genres and this genre has always been difficult with music fans. Not like music fans in general because those are the ones like "Whatever, I'll take it all in," but it always seems like this genres like "Eh, no."

Avi: It's definitely avant garde. It's kind of like how do you categorize a band that has wierd sort of rock and roll mixed with dirty hip hop, dirty south hip hop, mixed with I don't know industrial electronic 80's pop?

Matt: I think it's always a challenge because you don't want to be pigeonholed into something. As an avid listener of industrial music myself, I do understand that it is one scene some people may have a hard time getting into it or accepting things but that's not to put anyone down. I mean, I love it but I think one thing that really excites me about this is just certain different combinations and elements musically ranging from like he said dirty hip hop and rock and electronica all mixed also with great melodies and great vocal lines that's not always so prevalent in this type of genre. So that's one thing that I think might be able to open up to more people what would typically just look at the paper to try to find something like this.

Nick: I feel like this genre, and I'm not as experienced in it, needs like a little kick in the butt maybe. Hopefully, we'll do that.

Avi: It's weird to call that any genre because right now, everybody with a laptop is a rockstar and you need to be able to do something. How do you do something that hasn't been done? How do you do something that is engaging and creative? And with a name like Art vs. Industry, you have to do something that is outside of the norm but still is tangible and has sacren(?) enough that somebody can into it. So we want to do something interesting and innovative but at the same time, we don't want to alienate people like most industrial music. Somebody that listens to Thursday might never listen to Common Christ. They're like "What's this?" But you listen to The Birthday Massacre so you understand there's that cross genre capacity. Hopefully we'll do that.

How do get people to pay attention? You know what I mean? How do you sell it? Or how has the crowd reaction been with fans who normally don't listen to this type of genre? Have you ever had that crossover or personally?

Avi: In the past I've found that people that listen to what I was doing ranged from David Bowie fans right up to Rammstein fans so I don't know. I think the amazing thing about the Internet is that it gives everyone a chance to experience something. It's one of those things like there's so much. How do you stick out from everyone else? But I feel with the amount of effort and care we are all putting into this, we don't want to be just every band that you see with a guitar, a bass and a drum set. We wanted to do something. Our approach has been so different. Our light show is all of us, all of our production together. We don't even use any guitar amps for guitars. We use computers and run guitars through them and they sound better than any guitar amp we've ever used. So our whole approach has been hopefully showing people that you can do music in an interesting, innovative manner and still reach out.

Nick: The crowd response has been really really good. Anywhere we played I feel people have been into it. We get invited back and get bigger and better shows. It's been going really, really well so far. I'm excited to see where it goes.

Matt: I think the most interesting reaction for me was the really positive reaction we got from when we played Shreveport, Louisiana because the other bands we played with we sounded very drastically different from them. They were all really great but they were more alternative.

Avi: Metal. Southern rock.

Matt: A little southern rock influence in there and I was kind of concerned to see how the people there... Good portion of them had never heard us before but I was taken a back by such the great response we got. It was interesting to see by the third or fourth song in how many people suddenly all had video cameras up and were filming it. It was just like "Wow. This is really really interesting."

I saw the video you did at Red 7 with the lighting stuff. How did you developed the whole live show vibe? When you first got the band, was it like "All right guys, this is what we're gonna do. Let's plan this out." How did that idea come about?

Avi: Well for me making music, it's like I like presenting a show. I don't want it to just be, like what I was getting at, just the average thing. I've always wanted to do something more, so my approach with it is like how do you separate people and make it entertaining and something different? Luckily, these two are fully on board with that theme so it was a collaborative sort of idea. Lot of the vision I would say is Nick who surprisingly has never done light direction but it's just odd how all of this worked together. We have input of how it looks but at the end of the day, the monster gets behind it. We develop it.

Matt: At the end of the day, it's Munoz spending hours and hours and hours programming, programming. Every once in awhile, maybe one song out of 10, I'll go and I'll be like "Maybe you should try this" and I'll be like ok. The most important thing, like Avi was saying, is presenting a show. I've always been fascinated growing up by just going to see bands that put on an amazing show whether it's either lights and visuals or bands that are super high energy jumping around going crazy, going nuts. I've gained a lot of respect for a lot of bands outside of genres that I listen to. Just be seeing them and being blown away by their live performance. So that was one thing that I wanted to make sure we're putting on. Something that even just visually. Even if people aren't maybe be in that in to the music, they're at least having a good time watching.

Then you have albums coming out. It's like a 2 part movement. (Editor's note: They have since then released the first album. I'm late in the game. Whoops.)

Avi: Our first part...we're just gonna give that away. It's kind of like a ying and yang because the first part's very... I don't know even how to describe it. It's a very artistic in your face brutal sort of experience. And the second part is a little bit softer, a little bit more gentle and being cohesively worked together. The idea is to release that first part in August and have the second part by October/November. They all work together as a cohesive record.

And you mentioned you're giving it away for free. Why the free route?

Avi: Well music is free right now. I feel like you can sit there and be like "Look, you have to pay this money and get this record," but if somebody really wants it, they'll find a way to get it for free. So you might as well give it away. Let people experience it. Hopefully will come to the shows.

Nick: Exactly. If you give them a free cd, I feel like they're more inclined to come to the next show.

Avi: As long as they're impressed.

Nick: Yeah for sure.

Avi: Of course. I think we're confident enough in our material that we're doing that. We're willing to give it away for free because we want people to come to our shows. We're very proud of our studio record but I feel like this is the arena where we really excel.

You're a live band.Avi: Yes.

The album is just to prepare you for the live show.

Avi: Exactly, exactly. So, you have anything to say about that Matt?

Matt: Well no. I mean I agree. If you go as soon as you release something, you don't have to be the biggest band in the world, a week later, there's probably been a bittorrent somewhere of your release. So as damaging as it is, there's ways you have to work with it like he said.

Avi: I think hopefully embrace it.

Matt: Yeah, you can accept the fact that, that's what gonna happen. If you can utilize that though to get people interested and actually come out, there's other ways to keep yourself going to as a band so I don't know. It's one of those things that's always... it's kind of tough to talk about just how it is.

The state of the industry.

Avi: Yeah it is.

What else is coming up besides the releases?

Avi: It's really this. We are committing our entire lives to this for the next hopefully who knows how long and it's gonna be relentless work. Once we get this record out, we're not gonna stop and we're gonna play, play, play, play. It's just really now like you said we're kind of like a secret. Nobody knows what it is. They see the flyers. What the fuck is Art Versus Industry?

Well I didn't know about the band until you friended me on Facebook. I heard the music when I friended you. Well his music's good so I'd add him for that.

Avi: Well, that's good. It's really, like I said, it's in the hands of people like you that are tastemakers. That can hopefully get it out there to a larger audience because right now living in Austin, TX everybody's in a band. Right?

Or they work in the music industry somehow.

Avi: Exactly. It's like "Ok, you're in a band? *shrugs* All right. Well, I'm in a band. Who cares?" Hopefully because we're so proud and confident what we're doing, reaching out to people like you and playing as hard as we can and hopefully before you know it, I'm a big believer that if you do something good, people will catch on. So hopefully, I'll be proven right. We'll see.

Imagine this scenario: A guy walks into his usual hangout one night and notices a cute girl he's never seen there before. What better way to get her attention than by performing one of his swoon-inducing piano ballads?

That's exactly what frontman Michael Grubbs of Wakey!Wakey! did when he walked into Bar 4 in Brooklyn, New York, and saw a girl who grabbed his attention. He asked his friend who was running the open mic night to put him on the list. After impressing the girl with his song, he found out she was a writer for the CW TV show, One Tree Hill. The writer then recommended Grubbs to One Tree Hill creator Mark Schwahn.

Schwahn became so impressed with Grubbs that not only did he use Wakey!Wakey!'s song "War Sweater" during the season six finale, but he also wrote the loosely-based reoccurring character "Grubbs" for season seven. Since then, season seven's last episode aired in May and Wakey!Wakey! released their latest album Almost Everything I Wish I'd Said The Last Time I Saw You... in February.

Grubbs sat down with Red River Noise before his show at Mohawk to discuss how One Tree Hill helped his music career and also shared the unexpected music genre Grubbs has a sweet spot for.

Click here to read the rest at Red River Noise.

Most of the musicians I've come across all seem to share the same goal when it comes to their music. They want to be rock stars. They want to be successful. They want to be able to quit their day jobs and just tour the world, share their music to the world and sell millions of records. But when it comes to meeting this goal, that's as far as they go. They want to get from point A (forming the band) to point B (becoming a famous mega-millionaire rock star), but never think about what needs to happen in between to make that happen.

And most times, when you mentioned the business aspect to a musician, they are immediately offended that you would even insinuate compromising their art for money. But let's get real people, in order to be successful financially in any given career, you gotta have some business smarts.

Meet Mike Groener, lead singer, guitarist, front man, manager, main songwriter, the brain of Austin band Love at 20. With every step carefully planned and articulated, Groener has worked very hard in the short amount of time the band has been around to get Love at 20's name out to the masses. So does all work and no play make Mike a dull boy? Does it take away from the fun creative aspect of performing and producing music? Well with the numerous shows, press coverage, and blog posts Love at 20 has been receiving, I think it's safe to say that this guy is on to something.

I interviewed Groener a little bit before SXSW 2010, but life has been a little crazy since then for me to publish this in a timely manner. So some of the information might be a little dated or has changed since this interview. However, there are still some nuggets of information that just need to be shared.

All right, let's start by introducing yourself.

Mike: My name is Mike G. Been in Austin a really long time. Played with Clap!Clap! Then until now just a bunch of other bands. Nothing but a lot of great people in Austin and the latest project Love at 20 is the combination of all that stuff. So everything I've learned is kinda like a memoirs of such which I think I've mentioned before but the things that you learn about yourself, the things that you learn about music and how to write songs and all that that all comes to a head and that's what the Love at 20 record is. So done completely at my house. I flew my friend Ed Davis out and he plays with Juliette and the Licks, did for awhile played with Dave Grohl and stuff like that and he just did the drums two days. The rest of the record was recorded in two weeks, I think. I've been sitting on it for months and giving it to people seeing what they think and turns out that it works.

And you put the album free for download.

Mike: Yeah.

What kind of reception have you gotten?

Mike: It's been really, really interesting. It's everywhere you want to buy records. It's on iTunes. It's on Amazon and all that stuff but the thing is that unless you're a really large band, Muse, U2, Rage Against the Machine, something like that, it's really hard to get people to buy music that they've never heard of. So the benefit of having a record for free is that you can give it to anyone anywhere and they're still relevantly open to listen to it. So for example, our Twitter account, I'll just go and pick people that are tagging #nowplaying with bands that are similar to us, start a conversation, say "Hey, do you want to check out this record? Think you may like it." and just by that alone, we've managed to get what I would consider about 30% more downloads for the free records from everywhere around the world and they give me feedback. It's just really nice. I get to find out what songs they like, where they are. They spread it to friends. There's retweets, all that so Twitter's been a very good avenue for spreading the record and being able to just reach out to people and ask people to listen to it because there's no risk factor, just downloading a record. It's been highly positive thus far with people that really really like music and enjoy pop structures and melodies and all that kind of stuff. However, it's in some cases when I feel it's really pretty accessible that doesn't appeal to certain bloggers which is fine. It's not what they're about, you know, but that's been the group that's probably the most resistant to early adopting the record and post about it and stuff like that but for everybody that we can just consider regular people who likes music really pretty much enjoyed it. We're talking like worldwide so people from Greece, people from Spain, Mexico. There's a lot of people from Mexico and Brazil that have check the record out. It's really interesting. Just a really eclectic group of people and Twitter really is that one glue that brought everybody together.

Yeah, I checked out your Twitter before and I've noticed there's like "Hey, this person, you should check out this album." which is one after another. Some people might think that's annoying but considering I don't see that on my feed, I didn't know that was going on.

Mike: Yeah, that's the thing. If you're following us, I don't think you see the at-replies which is good.

Unless I've followed that person you've at-replied.

Mike: Right, yeah. Exactly but unless I forget, I would never hit them up multiple times. Usually it's always calculated out at a time or I'd do a max of 10 a day at once and it's usually no more than five because I don't want to spam people and make it look like that's all I'm doing. But it's really me and I'm actually out there trying to communicate with people and build those relationships. I always ask everybody that downloads the record if there's anything we could do for them because it is a mutual thing. I want to build those relationships to the fans anywhere and anyway that I can.

Can you imagine how that would have been without Twitter?

Mike: It would have been difficult. So we've been through the Friendster era and music industry didn't really embrace that because it was just learning how they could adopt social networking to use as PR. Then MySpace came and that was a really great source of music, PR, endless conversations and that kinda really tapered off so if it wasn't Twitter, I think it'll be something else whether it was on Facebook which has worked very well too. Though now that's a main source of information for everybody. There will always be something and you could say Google Buzz is the next big thing but yet that's not yet proved it's it's reason to be. It's interesting and I know what Google's trying to do and it's merely just a stone in the big large footstep for them to get into more media outlet so it makes sense.

I noticed at your debut show which was at the Independent with SPEAK and missions, you had a full band performing. How did you get that line up and why did you decide to get a full band?

Mike: Yeah, that's a good question. To preface this, I didn't know it would work live. I overlaid so much stuff. So for Smashing Pumpkins "A Midsummer Night's Dream," there's 60 guitar tracks. My Bloody Valentine, so much guitar stuff and you wonder if (live) could really be translated into that organic, simple, just dynamic live performance. I didn't know that it could. I didn't think it could. So I finished it and I just had the hopes that I would be able to adopt it to a live setting. Louis plays bass, knew him from Clap!Clap! We're good friends and he's just improved so much as musician in the time that I've known him. It was immediately the first choice and he was doing the Always Already and all that. This was "I don't know if this is gonna work." Louis is playing. Scott the guitar player, been in previous bands with him. Mark, all that stuff, you gotta try it. I didn't know if it was gonna work. We sat in a room, taught the guys four of the songs. We started playing it and I was thinking "Well this is different. This doesn't feel the same" but then the tighter and tighter we got, the more than it just translated perfectly. It became that kinda cathartic outlook for me that I was hoping that it would be versus sitting in a room recording vocal time and time again until you get it right. So I thought it wasn't gonna work but once we actually did it and jammed it out, for lack of a better word, that really worked out well. The show was exactly what I wanted to be from first note onto the record just all by myself in that little cerebral environment to doing that on stage. Was perfect really so I dunno if people liked it but got relatively good feedback about it.

I thought it was good because I heard the album so many times. It sounded like you said pretty close to the record for a live setting. I mean there's obviously some things you can't pull off just with the amount of people that you had.

Mike: Yeah, it's hard you know. For "Time to Begin," the track on there the chorus had... we recorded almost six to eight people in a room singing this chorus. That's very not feasible live but as I've been motivated by Radiohead and the Grammy's last year when they brought I think the USC band on stage with them to perform, I would like to bring in a little choir to perform that chorus. I think that'll be really cool if we could do that.

So with the other members, is that gonna be a permanent thing or was it a live setting type thing?

Mike: It's hard to determine. I'm a very very flexible person. I like having conversations about music and I'm open to people's ideas but at the end of the day, I'm very very focused about what I wanna do. So right now, the way things are working out, Mark is a wonderful drummer, exactly what I want. Louis is a perfect bass player, exactly what I want. Scott's a perfect... everything is exactly the all-star team that I wanted in the first place. So schedules permitting and the larger that we perhaps will get and more press, if everybody's able to make it work with the current variation, then we're definitely gonna keep it that way. But some of us have families... Not really but some of us, we're married. Some of us have full time jobs, all this stuff and so it's really really difficult to coordinate all that stuff.

And with the future albums, will it still be you as the main songwriter or do you think they'll be helping out with contributing as well?

Mike: It is a good question. A good idea is a good idea. So if Scott said "Hey, I got this guitar part that's really good." That's where his strengths is. We've talked about many times, he doesn't feel as a songwriter. He writes great parts so if he had a great part, it could somehow spawn a really really great song then of course, I'm gonna do it. So I'm open to it of course, but I think at the end of the day, it still comes down to me. Put my food down unfortunately.

Well yeah, it was your...

Mike: Yeah, it's my baby, you know. Every piece of it has went through what we could consider rigorous quality control to make sure it sounded a certain way or that it came off a certain way, that it was pitched a certain way. Even our emails, the way we write them to people. I mean I'm very particular about how we write. This is a business. This is a brand. So gotta control those things.

I saw at the debut show also you guys were all dressed up. Was that for Valentine's day or is that gonna be a reoccurring thing?

Mike: No, that's part of it for me. In addition to me feeling that treat a band like a business and of course, art's hard because you don't wanna make art a commodity but there is a good balance between being creative and taking things seriously and being professional. I like to dress up. I think everybody looks really good when they dress up. It creates this kinda formality to it in a different kind of tone for us. So it's absolutely my intention to all photo shoots will be black outfit. It's definitely the way that I wanna carry on. I kinda think of it as a neo-Madmen look. So when we do the albums and what we talk about and all that, I think it should reflect how I feel about martini's, women, modern music and all that.

So you'll be doing photo shoots with the band?

Mike: Um, so that's another good question. There is a line. Everybody that I'm working with I really appreciate and they're really close friends. However, sometimes I think that the idea of the band and having people try to post in pictures and coordinate all this is incredibly passé. I just don't like it and in the sense, it clouds what the brand can be for the band. So it's possible that I'll just do all the photo shoot stuff and it's not me being egotistical or be wanting to have more control of the things. I just don't want to clog up what I consider a very right now pronounce brand name that hopefully will be larger and will be able to get control on it's own. So it's an interesting thing. Some people might think I'm being really self-centered about it but it's not that. There's different reasons, motivations behind it.

You gave me one video to post on the introduction interview and then there's another one that was posted. I think the plan is overall four?

Mike: Yeah four. So the idea is that there'll be four vignettes short films that are part of an overall larger short film that hopefully for SXSW next year, we'll have a short form short films filmed, edited and then submit that. But it's again, music video performing in a video dancing around singing with a guitar being again what can I possible have to say on the subject, you know? I'd rather just pay homage and film a little short film that has a little tiny plot than dance around with a guitar and sing around.

Who are you producing those videos with?

Mike: So a couple of my close friends, Charles, Matt and Kevin, not musical guys. They're never really musical guys but they were always really keen on aesthetics, design, and film so Benberry Media which is this other group that I play a role in for however I can help with the multimedia for clients, but essentially what it is we film events, we write scripts, we film movies, we do live sound, all those kind of multimedia things. They're good friends. I trust their tastes so it was really easy to bring them in and say "Hey, let's shoot these videos." and at the same time, hopefully bring the Benberry name in a little bit forward too. So I directed two of the videos but the rest of the people are film fans that understand old stuff and they like it. They appreciate film and all that. So close friends you gotta always take advantage of, cooperating with the people that you love and their talents and catering to those. So that's why we didn't have to spend thousands of dollars doing videos because we just "What are you doing tonight?" "Nothing." "Well let's go take the camera and let's go and shoot." It's really fun too.

It's kinda like a spontaneous thing?

Mike: Yeah.

Well the first two I saw came out really well.

Mike: Oh thank you. Yeah. Well the cool thing too if you're in Austin, Spiderhouse has three different, distinctly different landscapes and backdrops and the coffeehouse so we filmed there. We filmed behind the Paramount Theater. Just random places around town and somehow, we managed to get timelessness and modern settings and obscure looks and very direct looks. It's really cool. Austin is such a very varied place. I like it. I love it here. You can always find someone to rally with and "let's write a song." "Let's film a movie." It's a great place to do that.

What else is in the future for Love at 20?

Mike: I look at Google as a source of innovation as I do with Apple and Amazon and things of that nature. But lots of people that I talk to that play in bands, they don't think that those conservative models to develop your own strategies as a band, but it's quite contrary. For example, Google developing these other technologies. Google Voice for example. The Buzz. They're going to at some point start being their own cellular provider. I don't know if they've ever said that but I feel it's gonna happen. But anyways, they're really divesting their talents into other areas and so for us, I kinda wanna use their advancements to think well how can we adopt this new technology too? So for me, what the immediate plans are in a general sense is to incorporate Google Voice into our relationships with our fans in effect be able to text one another, not like mass texting but one on one relationship building. I wanna do that. I also want to develop more fan interaction about where our shows will be, what songs we'll play in a sense like they would be voting for what we do so that they feel that they really have a say. Because there's nothing more frustrating... Here's an example, Fugazi played back in I would say 2002 - 2003 at Emo's outside and they're a very spontaneous band but they are completely isolated from the audience. Now they have this great energy but it's hard to say that they really engage the audience. And that's something that, although I loved the way the show sounded and I loved performance, I just didn't feel like I was part of it. Whereas conversely if you look at Dave Bazan for example, Pedro the Lion, those shows, it's almost uncomfortably personal in that connected with him. So I want to have a nice balance between those two things that if you like the music and you have something to say, you have a suggestion that I want to hear it. I'm not better than you because the only reason the band would exist, our art would exist is so that we can share something with people. They don't like it and they think we're being too pretentious or too self-centered, then we need to do something about that. So it's more immediately about getting larger fan base and really engaging them and asking them what what they want.

I saw you had a song on the Real World?

Mike: Oh, so one of the nice things you can do with a PR release is since I've and Louis had been in Clap!Clap! too is that you can incorporate some of those other milestones that you had in previous acts and that was something that Clap!Clap! had played on The Real World.

Oh yeah? The Austin one?

Mike: The Austin one. Yeah, they played at the Coldtowne Theater, whatever is next to I Love Video on Airport. Yeah, I don't think it was called that at the time but yes, they played there. So it's an interesting bullet point and I also feel it counts because you really do have to inflate your PR press. You just do and it's not like we couldn't do it now. Still could if we wanted to but I've worked with people that are Top 12 American Idol finalists. The Sword is, you know, we're good friends with them and they went off to do bigger and better things so you meet people and say this is who I know and this is who I've worked with. I'm really proud of that so it's a nice accomplishment.

That's all I needed to ask you. Anything else you wanna add that people need to know about?

Mike: So SXSW is interesting because we had started talking about the record, I think I sent it to you in October and it wasn't released until January for all intensive purposes. So it was pretty big block there for three months and we had show offers for Free Week at Emo's but we weren't ready yet. We'd just been practicing. So it's hard because there really is this demand, if you will, for music in Austin for a time that would be appropriate to really ramp up and hit the most exposure and SXSW may or may not be that opportunity for local bands. But I think it's really hard to say, it's like I wanna see Soundgarden. I wanna see Muse. All the rumors. That I can catch any of these local bands, I think you mentioned this awhile, I can catch them any other time. So I think for us although, we just missed that momentum that really launched into SXSW and playing a lot of shows. We met a lot of good people in the past few months and I think that the next six months to 12 months that's really where we're gonna come through and you'll start seeing more about us. So we've already had a really good blog coverage already. Probably like four major blogs have covered it and then with this 3rd video, another blog will be releasing that interview and stuff so it's planned. It's just you gotta go at it but I hope that people enjoy the shows and they realize that we wanna share the music. It's not about creating this veil of pretension or acting like we're too good. It's not about that.

Well I saw that debut show after you guys were done, all of you went out to the crowd "Hey how was it?" or "How you doing?" You were out and about meeting everybody.

Mike: Yeah, I mean it's hard to create art and not want to know what people think about it. Maybe that's the being insecure or feeling vulnerable or whatever but whatever it may be there's no point in doing it unless I can share it with someone else. If someone says "I get that. That makes me feel the same way." That's good because I thought I was the only one and that's really what's important to me. So I hope that the way we view the band, the way we view our strategies trying to move forward is different than our peers and that our music can break the not any like political boundaries or emotional boundaries or anything like that but maybe different types of people can like it. So that's probably the most important thing for me. People actually listen to it and don't judge it beforehand. We're used to doing that.

In the corner of a quaint neighborhood in East Austin stands a bright red and yellow building. What was once a church and former home of Church of the Friendly Ghost, now is home to Esquina Tango, a nonprofit organization that offers a variety of Latin American cultural activities.

As implied by the name, Esquina Tango started in 2008 as a simple solution for the lack of places in Austin that offered tango classes.

"There's no place where the heart is tango," said Monica Caivano, one of the owners of Esquina Tango (pictured below).

Caivano, with her proclaimed partner in crime, Gustavo Simplis, chose the church on East 3rd and Pedernales to open a place for Austinites to learn tango. Caivano has taught the sensual Argentine dance style in Austin since 1997, while tango has always been a part of Simplis' life.

Click here to read the rest at Austin Vida.

Giant Steps Productions is celebrating five years tomorrow in true Giant Steps fashion at Red 7. James Taylor, the man behind Giant Steps Productions and one of my good friends, has been providing Austin with some epic line ups around town.

I've attended many Giant Steps Production shows. I've been to day long shows like Sweat Fest 2 (the first one gave him his first official booking gig) bouncing back and forth between Red 7 stages with in-your-face rock and metal bands. I've been to Free Week shows where I stumbled onto adorable indieness. James always pull through during SXSW with not only free day long shows but great bands from all over the world in the intimate crowded Plush. But what really makes me appreciate what he does is that a lot of the bands I've covered were introduced to me at a Giant Steps show. That guy spends hours after hours weeding out tons of mostly unknown bands to play in Austin.

In other words, James knows his shit.

Now, he didn't start off booking shows. In an email interview with him, he mentioned that this whole idea just kind of spawned off during his time playing drums with his former band Consider the Source.

"In a lot of ways it did just sort of happen. Two things happened: about five years ago, Consider the Source was taking off and getting asked by a lot of touring bands if we would play with them when they came through town which REALLY means 'Will you help us a book a show... oh and you should play too,'" said Taylor. "Well -- we couldn't play every show but I realized I knew the people doing booking at various bars so I COULD still help them get shows. So that started things on a real small DIY level."

However, a year later, he received an email from Suburban Home Records that pretty much changed the direction of Giant Steps Productions. The label was searching for places to perform during SXSW 2007 for two of their artists at the time, Jonah Matranga (Far) and Frank Turner.

"I was a huge fan of Far so my jaw literally dropped," said Taylor. "I booked an unofficial SXSW show at Plush, had NO idea what I was doing. First time I had dealt with contracts, guarantees, riders, all that but thankfully Jonah and Frank were great and have since become good friends of mine and we reached capacity and had a great time."

And I guess they say the rest is history.

As for the show tomorrow, there are nine bands performing as a sampler of genres James has booked through the years. You can find details of the line up at the Facebook event page.

If you are on Facebook (and let's face it, who isn't?), Red River Noise is giving away free tickets to the Giant Steps Production show tomorrow. So all you have to do is click "like" on the Red River Noise page. So easy right? The winner will be drawn and announced some time today so if you want in on this, better make it quick.

Click on photo for more readable photos of the article.

Click the photo for more readable photos of the article.

Click on the photo for a more readable photo of the article.

Click on the photo for more readable photos of the article.

Frank and Derol is an adorable indie electro-pop duo often described as Wilson Phillips meets the Postal Service. After a quick glance at the band's roster, one name sticks out: that of guitarist Brandi Cyrus. In case you're wondering, yes she is the sister of Disney queen Miley Cyrus. It's no secret that the Cryus family is musical: father Billy Ray's had a '90s hit single with "Achy Breaky Heart," Miley reached huge success with Hannah Montana and brother Trace has his own band Metro Station, it only seemed natural that Brandi had a band of her own.

However, the first time you meet Frank and Derol, Codi Caraco and Ms. Cyrus both are friendly and approachable, never once namedropping the famous connections nor expecting the red carpet to be rolled out for them. The duo sat down with me to discuss their band as well as the upcoming album they are working on.

Click here to read the rest at Red River Noise.