FYI

The Whigs, The Dead Trees and What Made Milwaukee Famous play the b.side Lounge Thursday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10-12.

T he Whigs are on a mission. The Athens, Georgia band is in town to promote its new CD "Mission Control" and to kick off the opening week for Boulder's new b.side Lounge.

Thursday, the triple-threat, indie-rock bill of The Whigs, The Dead Trees and What Made Milwaukee Famous will initiate the b.side Lounge's "back room" schedule of national touring acts. The new concert venue resides at the former Trilogy Lounge location and it officially opens for business Monday.

If you're going to launch a business, you might as well go with a band that's on Dave Matthews' ATO Records. The Whigs have been signed to the label since 2006, and the group has been making a name for itself with its edgy brand of garage/pop rock.

"We're from Athens Georgia and it's a great music town," said vocalist/guitarist Parker Gispert. "There's plenty of bars there, rent is cheap and Athens attracts lots of musicians. We all went to school there and we started by being friends. Our intent was always to write concise songs that contained no fat. Each part of a song should have a purpose and it should be straight to the point."

From the beginning, The Whigs set out to be a lean, mean music machine. The power trio's music captures essences of twang, punk and garage rock -- but the band infuses enough catchy hooks and raw energy to make them a powerful force on the college rock scene.

The Whigs are also savvy businessmen. The band was short of funds, so it recorded its debut CD "Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip" in an empty frat house. To pay for the recording expenses, The Whigs bought their recording equipment on eBay. Once the CD was done, the band sold it back to the website.

"If you buy good, vintage equipment, it doesn't depreciate at all. So, we sold it back on eBay when we were done," said Gispert. "We made a nice little profit."

The Whigs released the debut CD on their own label, but it wasn't long before Matthews' ATO Records came calling. The national label re-released "Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip" in the fall of 2006.

"We were playing New York when one of the guys from the label came to see us," said Gispert. "After we played the Mercury Lounge in New York, they approached us and offered us a deal. ATO has been unbelievable with our career. We looked at a lot of labels, but this was the only one that made sense."

The Whigs have spent the past two years touring with their ATO release and turning fans on to their energetic live show. Gispert says his trio plays the music "louder and faster" during its live performances.

The band has also been busy in the studio working on its second CD "Mission Control." The Whigs came out full force for the new record and the group honed its sound for the 2008 release.

"We didn't want to do anything really different, so 'Mission Control' has a lot of the same elements," said Gispert. "There's not too much fat on the songs, there's a lot of diverse material, and we threw in some slow songs. We wanted 'Mission Control' to be more indicative of our live show