After Van Halen, Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, and Jay-Z all elected to skip Austin on their spring US tours, it's not unreasonable to feel that our music-loving town seems to be off the radar of the arena pop and rock circuit. This despite a perfectly functional (if rather dated) basketball arena smack in the center in town. Thankfully, the Louis Vuitton Don Kanye West agrees with you, and has elected to show Austin some big-production love with a date here at The Frank Erwin Center in late April....

The first big non-SXSW show announcement of 2008 is here, and guess what: it's a massive dance party. Straight out of Paris, the electronic duo known as Justice will kick off their US tour at Stubb's on Monday, March 3rd. This is actually a small venue for the band - just a week after the Austin date, they'll headline Madison Square Garden. If you've not already heard Justice, start with Daft Punk or MSTRKRFT as sonic reference points, then add some scruffy beards and leather jackets. Justice also revel in the rock 'n' roll imagery, so their live show features a huge backlit cross (pictured at right) and stacks upon stacks of Marshall guitar amps to blow everyone right out of the venue. The band are touring in support of 2007 album †, which spawned the hit single "D.A.N.C.E." and was quite the critical darling as well. Their set at Coachella '07 was widely praised as a festival highlight, so this March gig should be something special....

Upon arriving around 2:50pm, we found quite a bit of chaos. An unfortunate propane tank explosion had injured four ACL staffers, so fire trucks, EMS vehicles, and golf carts were buzzing everywhere. Our tickets were stuck with a friend inside, so we found a shady tree and hung out until the dust settled around 3:15. We entered to the wafting notes of Peter, Bjorn, and John, who had attracted such a huge crowd we......

Synth-obsessed French duo Daft Punk have accomplished a lot in the past few years. They sort of singlehandedly created the sexxxable electronic dance music genre that's all the rage with today's youth. They paved the way for Air, Ratatat, and the Ed Banger consortium. They made some videos with Michel Gondry. Also, they figured out that they really, really like robots. In fact, they like robots so much that they went and directed a movie--a......

Justice † (Vice) You might have familiarized yourself with French dance duo Justice courtesy the remix of Simian's "Never Be Alone", and such an introduction wouldn't be a false start, though the album is a bit different. Justice, who have received (mostly justified) comparisons to Basement Jaxx and Daft Punk, seem to shine when given someone else's work to toy with, but seem less dynamic when working from their own toolbox. This album claims......

There was something electric in the air at Stubb's Thursday night, and it wasn't the sepia-tinged lightning to the East. Broken Social Scene was in Austin. "So what?", you shrug, "Austin gets a lot of terrific bands. What's so special about BSS?" Well, in founding member Kevin Drew's fawning overtures to the crowd, he said that BSS absolutely lurve Austin. It's their favorite place to play. In the world. And you know what? Like......

As MSTRKRFT, Canadian duo Jesse F. Keeler and Al-P first gained prominence back in late 2004 for their remix of The Panthers' “Thank Me With Your Hands," included in a Vice sampler disc. Since then, they've gone on to remix everyone from Bloc Party ("Two More Years") and Metric ("Monster Hospital") to Buck 65 ("Kennedy Killed The Hat") and The Gossip ("Listen Up"). “We like to make the songs we remix our own,” says......

After 18 bands in a weekend, Austinist is exhausted. Coachella 2006 was everything we thought it would be, only hotter, and with less alcohol (due to the scorching heat) and more drugs (since nobody could drink near the stages). We went in with no set agenda in terms of seeing particular bands - it seemed smarter to just hit whatever struck us right at the time. This strategy worked pretty well, and here's how......

· The Lord Imperial and The Young Adorable - aka DJ Starsign and John Angle - kick off the first ever Erotic City party at Nasty's on Saturday night. Dressed in silly disguises (Panda vs. Biker, and more), the diabolical deck dilettantes are spinning a night of electro-house, rock, new wave, funky disco, and hip hop, a la James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), Larry Levan, Daft Punk, Metro Area, Can, P-Funk and - that's right -......