Photo of Moth! Fight! by Aubrey Edwards courtesy of MySpaceIn 2007, Le Diamant Brut sifted through MySpace, show listings and press releases, bringing you a weekly dose of information and advice on all the bands you might have missed. If you missed a week, or want more information on the bands listed here, check out the archives. Happy New Year! AUSTIN BANDS 12/18 - Ringo Deathstarr: Fuzzy, super-loud shoegaze with guitar noise and warm vocals.......

Photo by Aubrey Edwards The Octopus Project with Horse+Donkey and Cue at Emo’sFriday, November 16Emos (603 Red River St)Outside, Doors at 8 p.m., Show at 10 p.m., [info]The Octopus Project have recently been galloping across the country, showing off the material from their new album, Hello, Avalance, out on Peek-a-Boo records. Tonight, however, the gang's back in Austin to wrap up the tour with a hometown show at Emo's. The new album sounds a bit......

Image from MySpace by Aubrey EdwardsMOTH! FIGHT! What’s the Deal: These local musicians with a appreciation for all things Victorian mix keys, samples, autoharp, guitar, banjo, violin, sleigh bells, trumpet and several voices to create a sound that changes abruptly from the melodic to the cacophonous, and all the while keeps eyes and ears perked toward their performance. Every member plays at least two or three instruments. Their music is a cascading, clamourous, curious sound......

The name ‘Benko’ has been associated with a Hungarian chess grandmaster, a U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning freestyle swimmer, a young Hungarian canoe champion, a Croatian football striker, and one half of a Slovenian electro-pop duo. But Wednesday night, at Mohawk, it will be synonymous with vibraphone-lead indie pop. The Austin trio’s vibes-instead-of-guitars sound furthers their melodic tendencies and echoes their jazz leanings. It’s likely due in part to their unconventional rock instrumentation that Benko......

Heads up! The Idiots are having a party this Saturday! The fun and friendly folks at St Idiot Collective have put together quite a bash to celebrate their second birthday. Why...they're just babes, aren't they? Check out this action: The go-go famous Aubrey Edwards will be running a photobooth -- get yer pic snapped! The Idiots have erected a private karaoke booth -- croon on, good reader, croon on. Somewhere amongst all the fun......

photo by Aubrey Edwards *The views expressed in The Laurie Show are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole.* -ed. note Once again, yours truly is rushing to slide in this Austinist column of mine before The Laurie Show hits the airwaves later tonight on KUT 90.5. It's been a hell of a week, kids. In between completing new episodes of Before the Break, inviting The Lovely Sparrows to......

Austin-based Peel have been together since late 2004, and Austinist writers have recommended that you catch their show for almost two years! A youthful blend of indie pop with noisy drums, keyboards, and multiple vocalists, Peel wouldn't sound at all out of place on late 80's college radio. Their self-titled debut album finally arrives in early April. Last week, we spoke to Peel's Allison Moore about favorite bands, dive bars, and the business of......

Peter and the Wolf are a ragtag bunch of troubadours fronted by Austin's (or the World's according to Pitchfork) heralded Red Hunter. We say fronted, but Hunter tends to do most of the writing and picks up musicians as he goes, finding folks in the towns through which he tours. These strikingly hip transients are known for their colorful performances—tours by sailboat, shows in cemeteries—and their dire allegiance to the Angel of Light. The......

"The book is a riddle, it's our generation's bible, and you have to guess the title with one clue: After photoshop was used only to remove certain letters, what remained were the words FACT and CON..."...

Having played an outrageously amazing show at Coachella after winning a MySpace contest they didn't even know about, Austin's The Octopus Project are coming back to their hometown this Saturday to headline at Emo's outside, with Loxsly, Gil Mantera's Party Dream and Featherweight Burden. The trio's been busy these past few months: they played a bunch of well-received shows back at SXSW (prompting Rolling Stone's David Fricke to name them one of his standout bands......

With national gas prices soaring past that dreadful $3-per-gallon mark, most of us at Austinist have had to rework our upcoming roadtrip plans. But what about our city's vast legions of musicians? Summer's a great opportunity for bands to get out for a bit of stateside touring, but it's hard enough for most indepedent artists simply break even -- especially when you've rented a jalopy of a gas-guzzling touring van to house all those damned......