Image from MySpace Dinosaur Jr, Awesome Color, Grand ChampeenFriday December 7Emos (603 Red River St)Doors at 9, programme at 10[info] | [tickets]There are three kinds of Dinosaur Jr fan: the 80s scenesters with a Deep Wound cassette and fond memories of J Mascis & Co doing sloppy Peter Frampton covers at the Elks Lodge; children of the '90s who thought "Feel The Pain" was probably a Foo Fighters song; and kids who read Pitchfork often......

You might have thought that our former governor and current President was too busy defending his stance on Iran yesterday to do much else. But you would think wrong! Dubya made time to talk to daughter Jenna as she recorded her appearance on Ellen Degeneres' show (the show will air today). It seems strange that at a time when his approval numbers are so low the audience would be so excited to hear from him.......

Photo of Rick Noriega by Matt Wright on flickr After the muggy weekend, some Central Texas counties (not Travis) are under freeze warnings tonight. Today Rick Noriega officially launched his campaign against Cornyn for the Senate seat. Cedar Park police going after drivers who skip out on paying 183A tolls. House State Affairs Committee to review TxDOT's "Keep Texas Moving" ad campaign. Gov. Perry is now heading up the Republican Governor's Association. AT&T is leaving......

Le Loup will just have to quell the audience’s hunger for Friday night indie pop with their ever-expanding experimentalism, as Saddle Creek’s Georgie James have canceled due to illness. But, any void caused by a lack of shimmering girl/guy harmonies at Mohawk will be quickly filled with handfuls of banjo, keyboards, toy instrument sounds and digital assistance. Echoey and breathy vocals entwine as hand claps overlap and the computer age openly embraces the simple, earthly......

If it doesn't thrash, it drones: this appears to be the motto behind which Japanese noise-mongers Boris engage in all their creative affairs. Last year's underground hit Pink serves as a good introduction to the Boris aesthetic, switching gears from heavy-dreamy shoegaze to balls-out punk rock to apocalyptic doom-noise while maintaining an overall tone of singular Boris-ness. But let's not forget this is a band that thrives on curveballs: whereas their debut, 2001's free-noise blowout......

Austin's PBS affiliate KLRU-TV received a record 21 Emmy nominations from the Lone Star Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The awards dinner will take place in Dallas on Saturday, October 27th. The complete list of KLRU honors includes: KLRU producer Elena Ramirez (Public/Current/Community Affairs Feature Segment category), for her story "Getting By in Austin." This documentary, which aired on Austin Now, focused on the difficulty of families making minimum wage......

If you are worried about your privacy and tend to run red lights, stay away from the intersections of MLK and IH35, as well as 11th Street and IH35, in the coming weeks. Red light cameras have been set up at these two intersections for the city to test their effectiveness. While in the testing phase, the cameras will snap photos of the offenders' license plates, but the offending drivers will not be informed......

United Abominations – MegadethMegadeth (AKA Dave Mustaine) follows up 2004’s politically charged The System Has Failed with, well, the politically charged United Abominations. Due to contractual obligations, TSHF had to be released as Megadeth, although it was primarily a Mustaine project. No report indicating why the new album also falls under the Megadeth moniker, but it does contain all the staples of a typical Megadeth record: Mustaine’s trademark vocals, soaring six-string solos, and insistent drums,......

In response to yesterday's killings on the campus of Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, The Univeristy of Texas will darken its tower starting tonight through Thursday, April 19. All flags on campus will also be lowered to half-staff through Sunday, April 22. In addition, UT Student Government is currently planning a candle-light vigil to take place on Monday, April 23. Although the time is yet to be determined, plan on it starting sometime......

Over at Gothamist we have a thing called Tourist, where bands from New York keep tour diaries for us. My Brightest Diamond is one of the bands doing this for us throughout SXSW, check out Nate from MBD's first entry here. And here's an excerpt. Three days before flying out from NY to Austin for the South by Southwest music conference, I had a rather ominous dream. It was the sort of dream you wake......

One of Austin's best homegrown success stories, Public Strategies Inc., has been purchased by the second-largest media and advertising company in the world. WPP Group, PLC of London purchased the consulting firm for a reported $90 million. WPP had apparently been eyeing Public Strategies for years. "I've been trying to buy Public Strategies for years," said Howard Paster, WPP executive vice president for public relations and public affairs. "It is a different public affairs firm.......

The Seton Family of Hospitals, Central Texas' largest healthcare provider, is going to get even bigger by the end of next year, when the new Seton Medical Center Williamson opens its doors. The state-of-the-art facilities will sit on a 74-acre spread in Round Rock; the 320,000-square-foot complex, when complete, will house several medical office buildings, an ambulatory surgery center, diagnostic and imaging centers, and over 300 beds. "The new medical campus, including the hospital, professional......

After 16 weeks of testimony, the jury has come back. And fairly quickly. The Smartest Guys in the Room now know their fates. Jeff Skilling (28 counts) Guilty on Conspiracy and all counts of Security Fraud charges. Not guilty on charges 42-51 (insider trading). Ken Lay (6 counts) Guilty on Conspiracy and all counts of Security Fraud charges. Experts think the two men will receive close to 20-25 years for their misdeeds. It is......

Back in the 30s – you know when everyone was broke – some group of bleeding hearts decided that all those starving artists needed something to do, and came up with the Federal Theatre Project. (Smells a lot like socialism – but don’t worry, they’d all pay for it later) Then, just to add insult to injury, this group of lazy, welfare-induced pricks started writing about current affairs (all the naughty stuff) – almost......

Treehugger.com is a fast-growing web magazine dedicated to "everything that has a modern aesthetic yet is environmentally responsible," according to the site. Currently on the site they are running a survey, asking readers what they think about the enviro-friendliness of towns around the country. The survey started with Portland, and this week, it's our turn, Austin. Treehugger wants you to send them feedback on a variety of green-related issues: What is the general level......

It's just been announced that President Clinton is coming back to Austin. He's scheduled to deliver the convocation address at UT's LBJ School of Public Affairs on May 20. UT President William Powers had this much to say: "The LBJ School was formed as an expression of President Johnson's faith in government to serve democracy by building a more just society. It is fitting that this year's convocation speaker at the LBJ School is a......

Austinist kicked off our visit to the Toronto Film Festival last fall with Battle In Heaven, a new effort from Mexican director Carlos Reygados (Japon). The premise in the festival program sounded intriguing: a lonely chauffeur has affairs with his employer's daughter and gets involved in a horrible crime with his wife. Despite this and the fact that the opening sequence features a disturbing and frankly ugly hardcore sex scene, it didn't take long......

We are big supporters of our local Public Broadcasting Station KLRU. From Charlie Rose to Austin City Limits, we constantly find engaging, informative and entertaining programming to satisfy our television fix. But KLRU is more than just a television station; it is a part of the community. Exhibit A: Spark: KLRU's Engaging Speakers Series, formerly known as the Distinguished Speaker Series. We have been fortunate enough to attend a couple of these speaker events......

In Small Town Gay Bar, director Malcolm Ingram explores the lives of members of the gay community in the Backward South. A place where many people consider homosexuality a vile lifestyle choice at the least, and often a contemptible sin against God. The people featured in the movie do not have the luxury of myriad gay bars and gay-friendly townsfolk. Sadly, they are forced to hide their ‘sin’ at night in the small bars......

Our sacrifices to the Muses have worked: Margaret Atwood, the high priestess of literary wit, is back and in fine form, putting the mistake that was Oryx and Crake behind her. Atwood's latest "novel," The Penelopiad, one of the inaugural stories in the Canongate myth series, is a retelling of the Greek classic, The Odyssey, from Penelope’s point of view. According to Greek myth, Penelope was the cousin of the infamous Helen, she who launched......

M O N D A Y [20] [art] Sex Workers' Art Show comes to UT-Austin at Texas Union Showroom (RM. 2.208) at UT-Austin (Free, 7pm) (link) [music] Tammany Hall Machine, Impossible Shapes, and Red Hunter at Stubb's (link) [film] "The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat and Beers" at Alamo South (Monday-Thursday, 10:05pm) (link) [film] "Penitentiary" at Alamo Downtown (7pm) (link) [film] "930 F" (a documentary about DC's 9:30 Club) at Alamo Downtown ($1, 9:45pm) (link) [film] "The......

State Comptroller and aspiring GOP candidate for the Governorship Carole Keeton Strayhorn went on a rampage earlier this week, furious that the Texas Residential Construction Commission is useless when it comes to forcing homebuilders to repair defects in new-construction homes. The commission, according to their website, serves to "provide Texas homeowners and the residential construction industry an opportunity to resolve differences through a neutral dispute resolution process and ongoing education," though lately they seem......

We told you last week about a UT student who died tragically while boozng it up in a house that was being commandeered by a fraternity. Well, today the hammer dropped on those rowdy frat boys over at Lamba Phi Epsilon. The fraternity, which is not registered with the university's office of Greek Life, has been charged with hazing and lost its charter. Sounds like a slap on the wrist to lose frat status......

The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin and Austin's Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority are set to receive $4.35 million in funds from a newly-passed Congressional appropriations bill. The LBJ Library will receive $1 million to make repairs and to tie it to the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has received some heat lately from Democratic challenger Barbara Radnofsky, set the bill in action. Cap Metro will get $3.35......

A founding member of The Velvet Underground, among the most visionary and influential bands of all time, John Cale is a master craftsman of "chords, tones and textures" whose work on The Velvet Underground and Nico documentarian Joe Harvard beautifully described as "assailing the boundaries confining rock's instrumentation, his arrangements and textural palate so accomplished that afterward all maps had to be thrown out and all borders redrawn." In the four decades after the......