Rooney

• Genre: Power Pop
• Hometown: Los Angeles
• Rooney Website

About

Like Rilo Kiley or Jonathan Fire Eater, Rooney is the name of a band, not a person. But if you happen to watch Fox's The OC, you may already know this: there was an episode in the first season revolving around the kids attending a Rooney show with a sketchy cocaine dealer. Not that the band, one of L.A.'s A-list alternative acts, needed the product placement (although it certainly didn't hurt). Rooney's sound comprises a healthy chemistry of power pop influences that pull from a balanced diet of the old (Electric Light Orchestra, the Beach Boys) and the new (Blur, Superdrag) to create infectious melodies dressed up in twangy Fender guitars, retro Moog licks and waves of West Coast soul. Rooney are often mentioned in the same breath as the band Phantom Planet: Rooney's singer/guitarist Robert Carmine is the younger brother of actor Jason Schwartzman, who played Max Fischer in the Wes Anderson film Rushmore and who used to play drums in Phantom Planet, which provided the theme song to The OC. See how incredibly incestuous Hollywood can be?

- Eric Shea