Archive for the ‘Sideprojects’ Category

Robert has revealed a bunch of Rooney news on his twitter

- Album release date set to June 8th
- They’ve had a prep day for a new video (to be shot on Tuesday)
- They’ve done a photoshoot

Also, the Rooney Street Team has tweeted that something exciting will be happening for Rooney fans on Monday – so stay tuned

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I’ve been a little pre-occupied doing a little ”project” for Taylor Locke & the Roughs with some other girls.
Check out the brand new fansite on www.tlatr.com – We have bios, pictures, lyrics (corrected by Taylor himself ) and a bunch of other stuff up.
Remember to buy Grain and Grape on iTunes.

I won’t be posting too much about Taylor Locke & the Roughs on this site, so head on over to www.TLATR.com and leave us a comment

Taylor has a new project going on.

The project is called “Taylor Locke & The Roughs”. Taylor is doing lead vocals and guitar.

The other members of Taylor Locke & The Roughs are (from left) Chris Price playing guitar and keyboard, Charlotte Froom (from The Like) who plays bass and Mikey McCormack (from Everybody Else) playing drums.

They have 4 songs up on their myspace, and I got to say that I love each one of them… Though during my first listen I fell just a tiny bit more in love with “What Have I Done?” than the rest

You can find them on facebook too.

Awesome job Taylor Locke & The Roughs

Concerts

Taylor Locke & The Roughs will be opening for Sloan at Slim’s in San Francisco on Feb 19th. The doors open at 8pm and the event starts at 9pm. 
You can buy tickets here.

Sloan is also playing a show in LA on the 21st. Seeing as Taylor Locke and the Roughs are opening for Sloan in SF – and has a concert listed on the 21st in LA, I’m assuming that they’ll be opening for Sloan in LA too. TLATR aren’t listed on the website though, so I don’t know for sure. If I’m right, they’ll be playing at King King on Feb 21st. Doors open at 8pm.

Wow, there’s quite a few things happening these days… yay

Ned

First of all CONGRATULATIONS to Sarah & Ned. Emmett Andrew Brower has been born and he looks adorable

Ned tweeted this picture from his twitter

 Ned’s been busy, he also attended the 2010 NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA, where you could catch him at the Ludwig booth

Here’s some pictures from Ludwig-Musser Drums and Percussion’s facebook

 Taylor

Taylor has been hanging out with Bleu, recording a song called Boston.

You can read more about that here :)

Flickr

Rooney is now on Flickr. See the latest pictures as they get uploaded and join the group to share your own pictures

 Robert

Robert has been talking to D.A. from Chester French. Personally I’d love to see them do something together, or at least have D.A telling Robert/Rooney a little about how to promote themselves and keep fans happy
Robert also tweeted about recording a song with Joe Jonas…
For all these juicy updates, follow Robert on Twitter

WikiName

Miranda from the Rooney street team (and Rooney-band.com) found this little thing the other day, and I found it really funny ;P

HISTORY

Rumor has it, Ed Rooney, an avid adversary of the ironically titled band, Rooney, is on the hunt for the five men who form the rock group. Apparently, the high school principal has left his Shermer home in hopes of reaching Los Angeles by the end of the week. Rooney (the principal, not the band) has been known to destroy a good time, or try to anyway. The band has declined to comment. In related news, Ferris Bueller has won the lottery.

Meanwhile, a pack of friendly guys with loose sleeves and bell-bottoms relax by a swimming pool. Never has a band been so unquestionably dutiful to a hometown. Or a home state, for that matter. Before a sun-kissed throng of Marissa Cooper’s and Summer Roberts’, with the grizzly bear flag flapping in the bonfire breeze, these guys, together known as Rooney, let the whole world know just how much they love California.

And, boy, is John Hughes insulted.

A diehard for his own home state, Hughes worked hard to convert the nation’s adolescents, in the prime of their angst, to the ear-muffed joys of the Windy City through the innocently sensual bite of Molly Ringwald’s bottom lip. (A smart man, that Hughes.) But now he scoffs at the L.A. based group that does nothing but rob this already regressing generation of what is really out there, beyond the bleached blonde shores of Southern California, to a place where sixteenth birthdays are often forgotten, where beautiful women are technologically created, and where Buzz eats all the cheese pizza. The band neglects a little place called Illinois… all in the name of a legendary 80s character.

Uniting under the mustached title of ‘Ed Rooney’ in 1999, Robert Schwartzman, Louie Stephens, Taylor Locke, Ned Brower, and Matthew Winter quickly dropped the first name, opting for a more Ferrisian effect with plain old ‘Rooney’ (hence the lack of propriety in the absence of Ed and/or “Mr.”) As harsh-weathered fans of the classic 1986 hit Italic textFerris Bueller’s Day OffItalic text, the rebellious group identified themselves in salutatory ode to the man who, in essence, made Ferris Bueller’s day off the exhilarating ride that it was.

A surprise this was not to most followers. Schwartzman, the animated lead singer and former actor, is a multi-gifted descendent of The Royal Coppolas. Nephew of Vito Corleone’s written voice, son of the shy face behind “Yo, Adrian!”, cousin of the founder of Bill Murray’s translation, brother of Max freaking Fischer; one had to only assume that his next project would somehow correlate to his insane tie to cinematic brilliance. Robert, as well as his less-genetically-privileged bandmates, often express their fervent passion for The Arts in general; whether be it music, film, sketching, or literature.

However, Rooney has established their respectable foundation based on the fact that they adore Southern California, albeit amidst a plethora of high-pitched squeals and pigtails. Such a reputation has caused many skeptics, John Hughes included, to wonder “Why not ‘Wayne‘, ‘Hasselhoff’, ‘Schwarzenegger’?”

“Why,” asks Hughes, “must you sabotage my homeland, my craft, my Ed Rooney?”

They laugh in response, their growing hair blowing out the convertible windows on a drive down Pacific Coast Highway. “Because,” they say in harmonic unison, “we’re on the trip of our lives under a California sun, and he’s still trying to catch us.”

You can find it here

THE INSIDER: ROBERT SCHWARTZMAN

Is the Rooney front man the next Robert Palmer?

Like Clark Kent (or Hannah Montana, for that matter), the musician Robert Schwartzman leads a bit of a double life. 

For some, the California native is a singer and composer for Rooney, an indie rock band that surfs between the Beach Boys’ lithium chords and the Strokes’ fuck-it-all lyrics.  For others, he’s a teen heartthrob who kissed Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries, to the jealous groans of a million tenth grade girls.

Now the musician throws a wrench in his own identity crisis with a new mission called Solo Bob.  The project is a series of synth-rock songs and hallucinogenic videos, all circling a character that Robert says, “I used to pretend to be in my bedroom late at night.”

For fans of Mr. Schwartzman’s musical skills, that sounds like a welcome dive into experimental rock ‘n roll.  For the screaming, crying girls we witnessed at Rooney’s Webster Hall concert on Friday night, the simple phrase “in my bedroom” should be enough to hook them, too.

Robert / Bob / OMG-that-cute-guy phoned us from his tour bus in Cleveland Ohio to explain himself.

Good morning!  How’s your tour going?  We’ve all just woken up on our tour bus in Cleveland Ohio. It’s the Rooney tour.  It is gray outside, like, really gray, and um, I think we’re between some buildings.  Usually the bus parks in some random part of town, so we get a really good view of the backs of buildings, air vents, air conditioning.  It’s a new kind of tourism.

What’s different about this tour?  We’re playing our new EP songs! And we got out of our label, so there’s a new sense of freedom.  Being independent has given us a new sense of excitement, and why we’re doing this, and why we’re going to keep doing it.

On the NYLON tour, the Plastiscines’ food of choice was french fries.  What’s yours?  Cereal and rolled up turkey slices! Those can go a long way.  But this is our 8th year on the road, so we get fed by fans, too.  They’re always really good about bringing us cookies.

Do your fans know about Solo Bob?  Um, mostly my friends who call me Bob.  But I don’t refer to myself as Bob unless I’m blogging about Solo Bob, because I think supporting The Bob, it’s a separate thing.

The Bob?  Is that like your version of Sasha Fierce?  Maybe? To me, Bob is character, and it’s also a very specific energy… In high school, I made demos all the time and I’d say into the mic, “This recording was brought to you by Solo Bob!” Those songs always became Rooney songs, because I hadn’t found myself yet, and the music I wanted to make wasn’t just music, it was a character.  Then in 2007 I started to write songs that felt different than what should be in my band.

How will we meet Solo Bob?  In videos.  It’s my goal to have a video for every Solo Bob song.  I’m pulling in all these young directors and exciting people to work with me.  For example, my cousin Roman Coppola is a movie director, a video director, and a commercial director, and he’s always really liked the sound of this project, so we’ve started to collaborate.

Um, details?  Well, I love Robert Palmer, the way he carries himself in his videos, and the way the girls carry themselves, and the airbrushed record covers.  So I showed his videos to Roman, and then we used a green screen with a different outfit for every shot… It’s a visual project as much as it’s a musical project.

When can we buy a Solo Bob record?  Not sure yet, most likely after the Rooney album cycle is over – our new album comes out in Spring 2010! 

Your birthday is coming up – on Christmas Eve.  Does that suck?  Yeah it’s kinda hard – I mean, it’s not hard when you compare it to real things in this world, but I mean, nobody’s ever around for my birthday, and I like togetherness.  I like family time and friend time and I don’t get that on my birthday because it’s this big holiday and… yeah, wow, okay, I’m a little bitter.  But I bought a fake Christmas-slash-birthday tree!  I will go on the record right now, I have the greatest fake tree ever. Nice shape, nice build, comes apart easily.  It’s awesome.
–FARAN KRENTCIL

Watch Solo Bob’s first video and download the MP3 “Victim” for free at SoloBob.com

CREDIT : NYLONMAG.COM

New Solobob youtube channel up – http://www.youtube.com/solobobmusic - which includes the music video for ‘The Victim’

And Robert tweeted this reply to @memo90061
“Soon, we’re still working on it, but planning on releasing an EP this year. Full album to come early next year. RS”
That’d be awesome to get an EP this year…

Bleu just tweeted this :

bleutopia playin’ tonight at Knitting Factory Hwood, 11pm, $7, bringin’ up Taylor Locke and Chris Price to do some special tunes with me…

Bleu on Twitter

From Hotel Cafe – July 14th 2009

Bleu – Dead in the Mornin’

“Sebrina, Paste and Plato” by Jellyfish performed by MOGUL

“Everything’s Fine”

Louie Playing with The Chapin Sisters

Tuesday, July 28th our very own Louis Stephens will be playing with the l.a. based folk act The Chapin Sisters at The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood at 9 PM. Also included in the band are Aaron Sperske and Dan Horne from Beachwood Sparks. Come one come all.

from Rooney-band.com