Texas boys Best Fwends are back at SXSW this year, bringing their video game-centric melodies and hurried electronic downbeats to old fans and new ones. Call them out on their tongue-in-cheek approach to music making if you must, but these cats know exactly what they're doing, and manage to make three-dimensional songs that also know how to get down. Does Antony know how to get down? No, he really doesn't. Via email, Best Fwends Anthony and Dustin talk with us about their storied history, SXSW, and Daryl "Fucking" Hall....

ACL Previews Interview: Midlake Interview: The National Preview: The Wonderful Harmonizers, Loretta Williams Gurnell Preview: JJ Grey & Mofro and Charlie Musselwhite Preview: Young Love and the Dynamites Featuring Charles Walker ACL Band Clash, Round 1: Spoon Vs. Queens Of The Stone Age Snapshots Lollapalooza 2007 Snapshots: Summer Extrav-O-Ganza 2 Weekly Features The Argyle Academy New Release Tuesday: Art in Manila, Flight of the Conchords & Marissa Nadler Feature Review: Okkervil River's The Stage Names......

Best Fwends generate energetic bursts of post-punk mayhem complemented heavily by assorted electronic output as well as random keyboard and video game noises, among other things. The band’s sometimes annoying but often catchy everything but the kitchen sink sound can be found on their album, Alphabetically Arranged, available for purchase at pure groove. The band states the album "contains some of the best and worst songs we've made over the past four years" while their......

Attention local bands: SXSW 2008 is accepting your applications to be showcase performers during the week long festival come March. The deadline is November 9, 2007 for stateside applicants. If your band has a Sonicbid membership, you can register using that account. Otherwise, register online. Future SXSW attendees can register online to attend, too: music badges are a mere $500 through September 28. Paper Thin Walls feature Austin's Best Fwends: "It's a very mixed......

WEDNESDAY [30] booze • "Sir Chris" and "Lord Gates" from Car Stereo Wars and Learning Secrets guest bartend at The Mohawk (5-8pm) music • Locals @ La Zona Showcase Two wih AM Syndicate, The Drawing Board, Jets Under Fire at La Zona Rosa music • Hawnay Troof, Best Fwends, The Carrots at Emo's music • Pompeii, Ryan Lindsey, Gazelles, The Heirs at Emo's music • Tribute to Sublime with Badfish, Indofin, Under the Gun at......

There's really no way to talk about just one of the bands that's playing tonight at Emo's. Though not widely praised in Austin's rock-loving community, we think they're wonderful, each with its own fanciful and individual personality. Come early. Be loud. Stay late. Avoid the bathroom. Headlining the show are locals The Boxing Lesson, whose lo-fi and indie sounds "deserve more of a following" says The Chron. Also, you'll get another chance to see Tussle,......

TUESDAY [22] film • The Unnecessary Sequels Contest at Alamo Downtown music • The Boxing Lesson, Tussle, YACHT, Best Fwends at Emo's music • Ours, April Bauer at Stubb's music • Voxtrot at Waterloo Records (5pm, Free) music • Dialtones, Everyday J, Sanfu Kitties, The Seas at Beerland music • Clifford Antone 1 Year Anniversary at Antone's music • Mohawk Residency with White Denim, Cocker Spaniels at The Mohawk film • AFS Essential Series......

WEDNESDAY [18] lecture • KLRU's SPARK Series Welcomes Douglas Rushkoff at The Paramount (7:30pm, Tickets are HALF OFF from Noon-7:30pm!) benefit/film • Friends of the Festival Anniversary Celebration (Cine Las Americas) at 2308 Fortune Drive ($100, 6-9pm) books • Poetry on the Plaza: Living Poets at The Harry Ransom Center (12 Noon) books • The Intimacies Group with Karen Kreps at BookPeople (7:00pm) books • Stephanie Elizondo Griest presents 100 Places Every Woman Should......

Stylists from Austin's Birds Barbershop will compete in tomorrow night's debut episode of "Tease," a new reality series on the Oxygen Network. Hosted by actress Lisa Rinna ("Dancing with the Stars," "Melrose Place," "Days of Our Lives"), each episode of the "hair competition series"—like "Iron Chef" but with clippers—pits two up-and-coming stylists against one another. From a network press release: The aspiring stylists will put their skills to the ultimate tress test in front......

FRIDAY [27] party/music/awesome • Car Stereo (Wars) and Austinist host a Halloween Bash with Clap!Clap!, carnie games, face painting, fortune tellers, free fangs, "killer" drink specials, a costume contest judged by the fashionistas of Team Fabrication, and more at Beauty Bar (10pm-2am, $3 with, 4 w/o costume) zombies • Zombie Flash Mob at City Hall fashion • Beauty Bar Blowout with complimentary 'dos by Birds Barbershop, makeup applications by MAC artists, DJ Robbie Hardkiss......

Whether it's because it's Friday the 13th or because folks are getting antsy over this cold front, everyone's throwing a block party this weekend. We know of at least four fun (and free) things happening around town. If you hear tell of another, let us know. Friday The indie shops on South Lamar are throwing a massive collective get-down with DJs, bands, beer, and food, stretching from Bluebonnet to Heather. Participating stores include Strut, Irie......

TUESDAY [3] music • Viva Voce, Silversun Pickups, The Kingdom (Inside) at Emo's ® music • Sparta, Soundteam, Lola Ray (Outside) at Emo's ® music • Alice in Chains, Hurt at Stubb's music • HAAM Benefit Concert with Carolyn Wonderland at The Parish Room music • Citizen Cope at Waterloo Records music • HAAM Benefit Day - 5% of store proceeds go to the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians - at Waterloo Records music......

SXSW.com released an updated lineup for this year's SXSW Music Festival earlier today, and it's one hell of a list. The SXSW committee hastens to note that "This is a partial list of performers confirmed to appear at the 2006 SXSW Music Festival. This list is current as of 1/13/06. All of this information is subject to change." International acts include: Masahiro Nitta, DMBQ, Ellegarden, Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re, PE'Z, The Emeralds (Japan)......

LA's Mae-Shi are dilettantes of experimental electronic-noise-funk-rock, employing all manners of instruments - "guitar, bass, drums, tamborines, noisemakers, computer programs, omnichord, glockinspiel and voice", among others - and "staccato bursts of rhythm" to create something wholly original and, well, unsettling. Unsettling in the sense that listening to these guys in our little monkey boxes makes us want to run outside and set a trashcan on fire! Or deliberately misfile our weekly status reports or......

This Saturday, Church of the Friedly Ghost (209 Pedernales), everybody's favorite former chapel-turned-basilica-of-rock, is hosting a Pink Party. What is a Pink Party? We don't really know and we don't really care. All we're sure of is that we finally have an excuse to flaunt that Hanes t-shirt that was assaulted by gang of red socks a few months ago. Helping to ensure this "Pink Party" is also a dance party is a triple-feet-shuffling-tag-team-lineup which......