Denis Malloy & Stanley “Z” Ng – Surprise Five
The Lucky So And Sos – Costa E Sol
The Greatest Hoax – Bound Nature
Sound of the City – Waiting (Sumthin 2 Ride 2)
Redline Graffiti – Two Face
Sam Hesh – Tightrope
Ken & Brad Kolodner – Grub Springs
Dammit Eugene – Said My God
Matt Rippetoe – Revisiting
Judah – Liv’s Theme Music
Sri Rama – Beastles
Pan American Symphony Orchestra – A Tiempo
Diggs Duke – A Private Island
American Television – Sorry Sara
Suzanne Brindamour – Barnstormers Approach
Jon Miller – Toll Booth Blues
Anchor 3 – False Start
Jeff Cosgrove, Frank Kimbrough, and Martin Wind – The Owls
Sara Curtin – A Little Again
The_Acorns – X-Country Skier

This weekend the two musicians, who play in Northern Virginia pop-punk band American Television, are putting on the inaugural Breakin’ Even Fest at Songbyrd Music House & Record Cafe in D.C.

“As we’ve gotten into our 30s and life has progressed,” Flowers says, “it’s gotten harder and harder to do some of the touring and other things that bands do.” But that doesn’t mean they’re bowing out of music altogether.

Taking place March 4 and 5, Breakin’ Even Fest will feature more than a dozen bands from across the D.C. region, including local favorites Lilac Daze and Loud Boyz, as well as New York rockers Iron Chic and Timeshares.

The fest focuses on tuneful punk rock, a style Flowers says he doesn’t encounter enough in the D.C. scene.

“There’s a lot going on in D.C. already,” the drummer says, “but we saw a little bit of a void in the music that we really like — melodic pop-punk with a little bit of a hard edge.”

D.C.’s biggest punk festival, Damaged City, specializes in a faster and more aggressive side of the music. Flowers says that fest “is really great, but it’s not really the music that Steve and I like.”

To help pay for the event, Rovery and Flowers have arranged a number of local sponsors, including Mobius Records and vinyl-pressing company Furnace Manufacturing, which have each donated merchandise to be raffled off over the course of the weekend. Rovery says each “mystery merch pack,” given away a few times each night, will be worth around $200.

In addition to the ticket prices — an affordable $27.50 for the entire weekend — proceeds from the raffles will go directly to the bands. Rovery and Flowers won’t be taking any for themselves.

“We came up with the name Breakin’ Even is because our goal is to break even,” Rovery says, “but first and foremost we need to make sure the bands get paid.”

Breakin’ Even Fest takes place March 4 to 5 at Songbyrd Music House and Record Cafe in Adams Morgan.

American Television is a pop-punk band. That will be clear from watching this video, even with the sound turned off. It’s got jump kicks, NOFX T-shirts in youth large, old-school Vans, a burrito, gang vocals and a singer — Steve Rovery — who appears to have earned his doctorate degree from the Milo Aukerman Institute of Advanced Pop-Punk Studies.

Helmed by Mike Watkins, the quirky video smacks of the kind of pop-punk schtick that hasn’t been around since people were buying Bowling For Soup records. In it, American Television books a show and charges into an intense regimen of preparation and promotion. The band’s members hit the gym, practice obsessively and crush Tex-Mex food — only to wind up playing to an empty room. No one shows, even though the gig’s both all-ages and free.

Perhaps that’s the picture of true optimism: perfecting songs only to play them in a void.

“Optimist” appears on American Television’s forthcoming digital-only EP, Let’s Play Two. The band plays Aug. 15 at St. Stephen’s Church with Boardroom Heroes, The Rememberables, Canker Blossom and Six Foot Machine (and hopefully people show up).