Thousands of monkeys are invading government buildings in Delhi, forcing employees to arm themselves with sticks and stones in case they are attacked. David Byrne and Thom Yorke on the Real Value of Music at Wired magazine. Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister, who stars as a schoolgirl in Nickelodeon's popular TV show "Zoey 101," is pregnant. She met the father at church. Reuters photographs of the year The Pirate Bay just launched their new music......

Tonight at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, music and film will be united in odd, unexpected ways. Italian musician Giuseppe Ielasi and Austrian filmmaker Michaela Grill are the guests of honor at this event sponsored by the Church of the Friendly Ghost. Ielasi has a long history with improvised music and uses “guitars as primary sound sources by integrating microphones and multichannel speaker systems in order to create complex networks for sound diffusion in relation to space” according to this event's press release. Sounds confusing, but obviously far from typical. ...

Image from MySpace Ear to the UndergroundSunday, December 9Salvage Vanguard Theatre ()$5, 8pm-12am, BYOB[info] This Sunday, The Church of the Friendly Ghost and the Misc. Music label are banding together to bring new, mind-expanding music to the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. The event, called Ear to the Underground, begins at 8:00 p.m. and ends at 12:00 p.m. Four bands will be performing; Damage Pants and Aliens from Austin, and Make Your Own Maps with the painful-sounding......

Photo by clickykbd on flickr Two state pension fends haven't yet divested from Iran, even though Perry asked them to. Kelso takes on Hyde Park Baptist Church's treatment of the Austin Area Interreligious Ministries Thanksgiving service. Mother of weekend murder victim is still missing. Drivers of both vehicles involved in Burnet County wreck this morning died at the scene. UK organization working with Texas law enforcement officers to set up Trace.com, which keeps records of......

But what if attitudes and religious memeplexes aren’t changing because adapting to social pressure is necessary? What if the new millenarianism, instead of crashing computers, will be a fight to the death with a Frankenstein version of Mother Nature? What if environmentalism is becoming the new faith? What if responsible consumerism is the new moral ethic? What if recycling, dear Green God, is the new ritual of absolution?...

Photo by debaird on flickr Austin City Council met today; they passed the LCRA water deal and unanimously approved the red-light camera contract. Councilmember Leffingwell wants to lighten the SOS ordinance to allow for redevelopment of older buildings. Two women are dead after a church van drove off IH35 in Round Rock this morning. Travis County sheriffs are keeping an eye out for shoulder-passers on Loop 360. Round Rock cops pepper-sprayed a student for taking......

The Red Sox has permeated nearly every facet of Bostonist's lives. When they're not live-blogging the games, waxing poetic about the games, thanking Curt Schilling for his splendid work, or telling Dane Cook to watch his hair, they're watching certain presidential candidates hop on the Red Sox bandwagon (sorry, Gothamist). The Sox are so branded on the local brain that people are using the Series to spice up their sex lives. Speaking of spice, Bostonist......

Cop shot in the foot during early morning shootout near Montopolis. UT student Daniel Toole fell to his death from Goodall Wooten dorm this weekend. Public universities in Texas cost more than the national average (for the second year in a row). UT won a state landscape preservation award (over a week ago) for their transplanting of live oaks during stadium renovation. Two kids in a family on their way to visit their wounded......

Austin writer, journalist and musician Lance Hahn died Sunday afternoon. He had been in a coma since collapsing during dialysis treatment on Friday, October 12th. Lance was 40. His contributions to the punk scene both in Austin and internationally are too many to list. He was the creative force behind Cringer and the prolific, self-described "anarcho-situationist pop-punk" band, J-Church. His chops on the guitar eventually landed him the job as Beck's guitarist in 1994. He......

Austin received an A grade on our traffic signals. The City Council couldn't really satisfy either side in the TLAC debate. The White Rose Society at UT wants the school to divest from companies that work in Sudan. Two area (Hutto and Liberty Hill) school district superintendents picked up some of their credentials from "diploma mills". Fishy! Man drops his blood-covered child off at Ft. Worth church this afternoon; he's now involved in a......

Well kids, it's time for another installment of the COTFG series over at the Salvage Vanguard theater. This Sunday, as visual displays grace the entire evening, the crowd will be given a special treat: a film presentation by Miss 16mm, Yellow Crystal Star from Tallahasee, and Steve Marsh's RadarCave (among other things). Do something different: go support our truly experimental local artists and musicians. Yellow Crystal Star Radar Cave Loren Dent Necessity Quebron Lori 16mm......

The Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF) is all grown up in its 20th year and it shows in tonight’s kickoff festivities. Not only is the inaugural film—Call Me Troy—a world premiere, it is also the first documentary in the festival’s history to serve as an opening night film. The schedule continues to entice with another noteworthy first: the Sapphire MojitoMartini. You can down this “aGLIFF 20 Signature Cocktail” and chat up......

Andrew Bird (5:30pm): After this set, one Austinist staffer remarked: "This guy just beamed in from planet music." And with a stage full of spinning gramophones, violins, finger cymbals, and glockenspiels, it was hard to dispute that quip. Bird took the stage slightly late due to a tardy finish by Blue October, which had the crowd snarling over their shoulders at the lengthy drum and guitar codas coming off the main stage. But when......

Drippings Springs Baptist Church has been on fire since 3:30 this afternoon . . . and 290 (in Dripping Springs) is closed because of it. Inmate dies in Travis County jail. Perry and Dewhurst visit local schools to celebrate the signing of the 'defibrillators in schools' bill. Texas Historical Commission pays $490,000 for Davy Crockett's last letter. Animal control finds 41 dogs in a Round Rock home. Man saved from rising water in Leander early......

The Church of the Friendly Ghost continues to showcase the finest Austin has to offer in the experimental scene this Saturday at the Salvage Vanguard Theater on Manor Road. The lineup this Saturday is fantastic for fans of minimalist ambient music as well as fuzzy, pedal-induced brainwave avante noise. Rick Reed, who mentioned before, uses old battered electronic devices like sine wave generators, short wave radios and a vintage EMS analogue synthesizers to achieve his......

Looks like Round Rock ISD is headed to court over their policies on organized prayers at school events. Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, representing six students and one former student, have filed suit against the district, saying that its policy of allowing school-sponsored prayer at graduation ceremonies violates the First Amendment principle of church-state separation. Every year, each of the four Round Rock high schools (Round Rock, Stony Point, McNeil......

UT Austin professor receives national award for "distinguished service to education in librarianship" A kid in South Austin gets an explosive reaction after he attempts to use real bullet in toy gun Hurricane Dean looks like it's heading to Mexico, but FEMA says Texans should still look out A Dallas man allegedly murders his mother, keeps her decomposing body in the house for days until neighbors complain about "a stench" Austinite Lynne Smith successfully swims......

The Statesman's just reported that a former pastor in Round Rock has been arrested on felony theft charges. 48-year-old Donald "Roddy" Clyde, a pastor of Fellowship at Forest Creek since 1992, is accused of embezzling over half a million dollars from the church. Suspicions were first raised by the church's accounting department, which found "questionable activity" in their ledgers. Recognizing that their Senior Pastor was likely misappropriating these monies for other non-church purposes, they contacted......

Two weeks ago, Katherine Gregor's Chronicle column discussed a recent study by professors Louise Harpman and Jason Sowell from UT Architecture, sponsored by the Downtown Austin Alliance. The study concluded that Wooldridge Square Park (between Guadalupe/San Antonio and 9th/10th Street) needs more community support, event programming, and landscaping improvements. Wooldridge Square, along with Republic Square and Brush Square, was one of four public squares included in the original grid for the city of Austin......

Try something new tonight at the Church of the Friendly Ghost: Aurora Plastics, Xathax and Clear Spot will perform a variety of noise, experimental and ambient music and Paul Baker (Astral Projections) will provide a multimedia audio & visual experience for a mere $5. Church of the Friendly Ghost Night w/ Aurora Plastics, Xathax, Clear Spot & Paul Baker Tuesday, August 14 Salvage Vanguard Theater (2803 Manor Rd.) 8 PM $5 Aurora Plastics [MySpace]......

Thursday, June 28 artOpening Reception for Whitney Lee: Power Craft at Women and Their Work, 1710 Lavaca Street (6-8pm) artOpen House Work Viewing at Atelier 3-D, 2209 Pasadena Drive (4-10pm) artArtistic License: Josefina Guilisasti at The Blanton Museum of Art, MLK at Congress Ave (Free, 6-8pm) booksAmanda Eyre Ward presents Forgive Me at BookPeople (7:00pm) comedyPat Dixon with Brendon Walsh at Cap City Comedy Club comedyParallelogramophonograph with special guests Look Cookie at ColdTowne Theater (8pm)......

FRIDAY [15] juneteenth/parade • Alvin Patterson Battle of the Bands and Drumline Competition at Congress Avenue (2pm) books • Lama Surya Das presents Buddha is as Buddha Does at BookPeople (7:00pm) comedy • Billy D Washington with Doug Mellard at Cap City Comedy Club comedy • Punchline, open mic stand up comedy at ColdTowne Theater (10pm) dance • Constellation, a site-specific dance work from Sally Jacques at Pickle & Thornberry Federal Courthouses (9pm) dance......

Founded in 1986, The Austin Children’s Choir presently boasts over one hundred members from 45 different schools. Comprised of four singing groups based on the students’ skill and age, the choir performs unique concerts throughout the year while also making special appearances as needed. This weekend, the Choir performs an interpretation of Homer’s The Odyssey: No Childsplay, headed by Artistic Director Kathleen Turner, composed by Graham Reynolds, and translated by Beverly Bardsley. Reynolds’ vast......

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when we reported that Tom "The Bugman" Delay had gone on the Charlie Rose Show and stated categorically that students should be allowed to carry guns on college campuses to protect themselves from Virginia Tech-esque scenarios? Remember how most of us laughed and laughed, writing off Mr. Delay's suggestion as just "more of the same" from another silly extremist? Well, stop laughing and put on your thinking caps; this......

“Currently, students' voluntary religious expression is being treated as second-class speech, and sometimes worse, in public schools. School children are being censored and reprimanded at school, leaving them in fear of punishment for their religious beliefs. Due to hostility toward religious expression, children are being forced to defend their First Amendment rights in courtrooms all across Texas, and throughout the nation. “School districts' practices and policies continue to violate the free speech rights of students,......

A father and son were walking home from church last night in the Capital Plaza area (around Cameron Rd. and Reinli) when they were robbed. After taking everything the immigrant family had on them, the robbers shot and killed the teenage boy, in front of his father. If you were in the area behind Popeye's Chicken and the Austin Cornerstone Church last night around 10pm and witnessed anything, please call 477-3588 (the homicide tip......

Bill Callahan Woke on a Whaleheart (Drag City) "Well, I could tell you about the river, or we could just get in" seems to typify Bill Callahan's mood throughout his official solo debut, Woke on a Whaleheart. The album's first track, "From the Rivers to the Ocean", introduces us to Callahan's new take on an old vibe by showcasing little pieces of everything he'll bring to full bloom as the album unfolds. As Callahan croons,......

Bill Callahan Woke on a Whaleheart (Drag City) "Well, I could tell you about the river, or we could just get in" seems to typify Bill Callahan's mood throughout his official solo debut, Woke on a Whaleheart. The album's first track, "From the Rivers to the Ocean", introduces us to Callahan's new take on an old vibe by showcasing little pieces of everything he'll bring to full bloom as the album unfolds. As Callahan......

Modest Mouse – We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank From the opening moments of WWDBTSES—god, even the acronym’s a mouthful—it's apparent that Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock has become a capital-R Rock Star, perhaps the oddest one since David Byrne: track one, “March Into The Sea,” finds the newly-svelte songwriter frothing and howling from word one. The man hasn't lost his knack for colorful illustrations of human nature, tossing off wry observations like......

Tony from LAist letting you know that you have a hell of a town here. Not only did we get to see Slash last night in an amazingly intimate setting, but we also ran into some Oxfam kids who were spreading the good news while everyone was getting plastered. Now that's sacrifice. Below are some LA bands that we think you might like if you wanna check out what the West Coast has to......