Austin's Balmorhea released River's Arms last week, and kicked off their tour here in town. Their tour to support the record will follow the east coast, and land them back here in time for some SXSW gigs. Sample some of the instrumental band's lulling, hypnotic tunes c/o Western Vinyl, and check back here for a full-length review very soon....

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

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......

Photo by Marina Chavez; Image from MySpace. The Hold Steady + Art BrutThursday, November 15La Zona Rosa (612 W. 4th Street)$21 Advance, $23 Day Of Show[info] | [tickets]Brooklyn's The Hold Steady may well be America's best bar band. Their 2006 release Boys and Girls In America made Austinist's 2006 top albums list (and everyone else's) by combining sharp lyrical wit, meat and potatoes power chords, and dry vocals that the listener either loves or hates.......

In 1997, Carl Newman started a side project called The New Pornographers in Vancouver for fun. The cast of characters included the ridiculous gifts of both Neko Case and Destroyer's Dan Bejar, and an indie-pop collective for the ages was born. Now touring behind their fourth album Challengers, Newman and the other New Pornographers have somehow managed to continue the project in addition to each pursuing their solo aims. The band seems to grow in......

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Mike Doughty's name may not instantly register with you, but you have undoubtedly heard him before. In the early 90's, he founded the alt.radio staple Soul Coughing, who had hits with "Super Bon Bon" and "Circles" before disbanding in 2000. Far from the throwaway status of the Marcy Playgrounds and Harvey Dangers of the day, Soul Coughing used samples, drum loops, jazz references, and experimental producers like Mitchell Froom on their recordings. This......

Brighton, England's Fujiya & Miyagi were one of the darlings of SXSW 2007. Whether playing to a packed house at the Pitchfork Media party or drawing a sizable crowd at their own showcase, the band cut through the clutter of 1,300 acts to draw raves from bloggers and critics. With their cool Asian name (inspired by a vintage record player and, well, Pat Morita), rhythm-section based tunes, and subtle electronics, the band really sounds like......

Learning Secrets, the eclectic electro-family responsible for Thursday nights at Whisky Bar, will be tearing up the Beauty Bar tonight with Philly's dave p and Brooklyn's JDH, along with Austin's own Ian Orth. Indie remixes, 75 degree October nights, and open-minded dancefloor antics for only $3 at the door? That only happens in Austin, people. For real. [Learning Secrets Myspace] [JDH Myspace] [dave p Myspace] Death to Disco...This is Disco! Saturday, October 6th Beauty Bar......

If braving the Texas heat and wading through crowds of festival-goers at ACL isn’t your thing or you just couldn’t afford it, but you still want to get out of the house and your dancin’ shoes are beggin’ for some wear and tear, feel free to visit Emo’s Friday night. ‘Free’ being the most important word there, because it is. The Clientele, Oakley Hall and Zykos are offering a varied night of art pop,......

Dallas native Ben Kweller is an interesting tangle of contradictions. He's 26, but his first major label album was released a decade ago. Kweller is an indie rock star, but lives in a Brooklyn brownstone with his longtime wife and young son. And his music is accessible and catchy, yet it hasn't quite found the large audience it deserves. Kweller returns to the Austin City Limits Festival for two shows this weekend to bounce......

Austin-based singer and guitarist Jon Dee Graham has a gravel-filled voice that calls to mind Tom Waits. Graham's songwriting is full of salt-of-the-earth wisdom, and his style is comfortingly familiar without being overdone or unoriginal. That said, Graham's style is too high-energy to get him lumped into the singer-songwriter category. Jon Dee Graham Austin, TX Latest Release: Full, 2006 Saturday the 15th, 4 p.m., Austin Ventures Stage Ike Reilly Assassination is the project of one......

On the eve of ACL Fest, we're gonna turn off our laptops, put on our drinking shoes, and head over to the Mohawk, because Austinist is hosting Local Music is Sexy IV. An annual tradition since its inception in 2005 (back when the 'hawk was the Velvet Spade, and folks were still arguing over the smoking ban), Local Music is Sexy showcases a bunch of promising young Austin bands and DJs that we're most excited......

This one has been prominent on our radar for awhile: a great show at Emo's featuring some hot, talented girls from Brooklyn, and two of the most solid bands in our scene. Tonight at Emo's don't miss Corto Maltese and their driving, moody rock opening for local pop sensation breakouts Oh No! Oh My!, and headliners Au Revoir Simone with their gleeful casio-rchestrations. A perfect Thursday show if we do say so ourselves. [Corto......

Brandon Rhyder slings the sort of country-fueled solo work that Texas has become known for. Full of hooks and smooth, slightly twangy vocals, Rhyder's songs focus on longing for the small towns and small-town friends left behind, telling stories about football games, girls from Fort Worth, and winding backroads. Working out of Austin, Rhyder has been touring somewhat relentlessly, playing everywhere he can and releasing a live album recorded in College Station and Nacogdoches......

Stay tuned this week for full-length review of the latest New Pornographers and Rilo Kiley albums. Caribou Andorra (Merge) Dan Snaith's project formerly known as Manitoba is the realization of a degree in mathematics, numerous electronic gadgets and a nothing if not agile companionship between the past and the present. Though Andorra is the product of Snaith's deft handling of quite modern equipment, the feeling of listening is more nostalgic than expectant. "Melody Day,"......

If you learn nothing else about Brooklyn-based indie rock group Ladybug Transistor and the secrets behind their bittersweet pop, know this: their mothers are really proud. Of the three classic pearls of wisdom from mom - ‘Wait at least an hour to swim after eating,’ ‘Too much TV will rot your brain,’ and ‘Always remember to share.’ - Ladybug Transistor has at least one of those down to a mutually beneficial science. Lending their......

Michael Barnes at the Statesman is reporting that, "Austin stage star Joe York, most recently seen in "The Rocky Horror Show," passed away early this morning in his Brooklyn home." York's acting was showcased in productions including Falsettos, Forever Plaid, A Streetcar Named Desire, Ruthless, and The Rocky Horror Show. He was also an accomplished director and designer. "I had the honor to know and work with the wonderful man, Joe York. He was......

Brooklyn based The National will grace our town with their presence at the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival. The band is comprised of Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, and Scott Devendorf. (Yes, that’s two sets of siblings!) The National expertly combine catchy riffs and appropriate strings with affecting lyrics (sometimes poignant, while seemingly abstract on other occasions). Although we feel that their music is best suited for a late night,......

If the closest you come to contemporary hip hop is dodging the Spiro's crowd on your way to Emo's, then we have news for you: there IS more out there. No, you need not subject yourself to the abrasive and, dare we say, bastardized sounds of Dirty South hip hop, nor need you dig up your old De La albums (though you should anyway) because tonight Talib Kweli is at Emo's to show you......

Bishop Allen The Broken String (Dead Oceans) So, the Brooklyn-based (man, it gets tiring typing that out every week) blog band Bishop Allen are a sort of east coast Voxtrot in that they've wet the pop-frenzied masses with a series of well-received EPs over the last couple of years. Instead of releasing an album full of highly anticipated new material, however, they've polished a bunch of old tracks (and previously only available live songs)......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too—two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the city's Congonhas......

Mel Brooks strings together one liners the way that Pete Doherty strings together lines. And that's no joke. The famed writer and director from Brooklyn presents as a classic comedic triple threat: brash, brilliant and more than a little Jew-y. (Mel, it's good to be the king!) If you're a fan, you'll want to free up your Wednesday evenings for the next month or so, because Texas Hillel, located just off the UT campus, is......

They're all over the place these days. The deck at Spiderhouse: on the cover Austin Music Magazine. Eating a taco at El Chilito, on the cover of The Chronicle. Pick up a copy of XL at Jo's on 2nd: there are their sweet faces yet again. The handsome Austin quintet Voxtrot, it seems, are kind of a big deal. We already knew they've been loved up by bloggers the world over, but magazine covers?......

More than twenty years after its release, Spike Lee's debut feature She's Gotta Have It still shines as a benchmark of cinema verité filmmaking and a killer stylistic archive of box-fresh Brooklyn, circa 1986. Shot on a guerilla budget, largely filmed in black and white, and featuring an original jazz score by Lee's father, the comedy/drama stars the bodacious Tracy Camilla Johns as Nola Darling, an independent 'round-the-way-girl who prefers the pursuit of pleasure and......

Ola Podrida (Plug Research) David Wingo splits his time between Brooklyn and Austin composing the soundtrack to the Polaroid taking, scarf wearing community of slow-moving coffee sippers and film lovers. Literally. His work with director David Gordan Green (All the Real Girls, Snow Angels) has provided him with an outlet for his soft and subtle odes, but his new project under the name Ola Podrida offers a bit of a broader spectrum, at least......

In Austin, all the malt shops, arcades, bowling allies, drive-ins and wherever else the hip kids hang out these days will be empty May 13th. Instead, they’ll all be gathered at Bass Concert Hall with their hearts in hand ready to give them freely to Bright Eyes indie folk heartthrob Conor Oberst. He’s now become a coveted American musical icon, and thanks in part to the media, we have watched him mature through breakups......

What happens when you throw music, dance, poetry, photography, visual art, theatre, film, and -- why not? -- opera into a great big blue box and shake? You get an explosion of proportions that only the creative geniuses at Refraction Arts can contain. This year's Fuse Box Festival, featuring artists from Brooklyn to Portland and places in between, showcases works you've never seen before and aren't likely to see hence. Things start gearing up this......

With no less than three of the biggest afterparties at this year's SXSW abruptly shut down, it's no wonder that we've been hearing all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories. But much as we'd love to blame this year's spate of buzzkilling closures on curmudgeonly old muckety-mucks, the evidence seems to point to something far less interesting: lack of permits. At least that was the case with FactoryPeople's Thursday night rager, "La Chic Disco Boum," and......

Flyer by Justin Cox.Austinist, Gothamist, and Gorilla Vs Bear Proudly Present Gonna Gonna Get, Get Down! 2 Sets By Architecture in Helsinki (Australia) Apes and Androids (New York, NY) Nicole Atkins (Brooklyn, NY) Headlights (Champaign, IL) The Forms (Brooklyn, NY) Earl Greyhound (New York, NY) Loxsly (Austin, TX) Hello Stranger (Los Angeles, CA) The Shivers (New York, NY) Loney, Dear (Stockholm, Sweden) The Hourly Radio (Dallas, TX) Stars of Track and Field (Portland, OR)......

Originally a one-man recording project in a Brooklyn apartment, in the last three years, Grizzly Bear has picked up three talented musicians and created an album of ghostly and experimental indie rock. Their 2006 album Yellow House (which was actually recorded in a yellow house in Cape Cod) has been praised by critics and other artists the world over, and the album's big song "Knife" has been covered, re-mixed, and mashed-up several times. Even......