Since 2000, King Khan has been spreading his love like peanut butter with the Shrines, a variously seven-, eight- and nine-member psychedelic soul band, with all the trappings (baritone sax, bad haircuts) to go with it. more ›

Zola Jesus played the Parish on Friday with openers Talk Normal and Technicolor Hearts. Here's our interview with Nika Danilova from the end of last year. more ›

Now in their third year, the Cinco De Mayo Downtown Block Party on West 2nd Street will celebrate the culture of Mexico with a huge, free event tomorrow evening from 5-10pm between Guadalupe and San Antonio streets. more ›

Less than a year after moving to Austin from Ohio, popular internet radio station WOXY.com has closed. The station went silent around 9 am today, and a note on the station's website read: "Due to current economic realities and the lack of ongoing funding for WOXY's operations, we've been forced to suspend our live broadcasts as of March 23rd. We're continuing to explore options to keep The Future of Rock and Roll alive." more ›

Austin 360 is reporting that Lily Allen is no longer on the ACL grid, leaving the Lady Bird Lake stage empty from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. No word on why Allen canceled, but C3 is expected to announce replacements as early as next week. more ›

Photos courtesy Chad Wadsworth. If you can't view the Flash slideshow above, an alternate version appears after the jump. more ›

What’s the Deal: Starting out with an introduction to the band through the video for “Aluminum Baseball Bat” is a great idea. It’s a longer, old school, fifties pop love song with soulful vocals, sock hop guitar numbers and spoken word about heartbreak over background doo wops. The video follows the lovesick singer down Lucy Street in Atlanta (Howlies’ hometown) as he grooves along, meets various characters, uses the occasional prop to further the lyrics. There’s even a street party breakdown complete with roller girl, robot and everyone else from the random people committee. It gets a tad obnoxious by the end, but they get major points for creativity. more ›

This week's news in art, books, music, and film. more ›

Mess With Texas during SXSW last year was a huge hit in the cozy confines of Red 7 and MWT2 promises to be an even bigger bash with a wide variety of musical acts and comedians on tap. Waterloo Park is the host this year and this year’s free, all ages show kicks off at noon on Saturday the 15th. But of course there are so many other day shows, parties, and what not going on in the town that the sponsors (including Forcefield PR, Record Store Day, JetBlue Entertainment, Fuel TV, SuperDeluxe.com, and Garnier Fructis) want to give you V.I.P. treatment if you can write a witty piece of prose. As has been the case with other stellar Waterloo Park shows, local entity Transmission Entertainment has helped organize this brouhaha. more ›

The week's news on arts, books, film and music. more ›

Austinist & Gothamist are proud to announce our SXSW day party, taking place on Wednesday, March 12 at the Mohawk. The party kicks off around 11 a.m., and the day ends at 6, but not before Shout Out Louds, Shearwater, Liam Finn and Phosphorescent perform. As usual, the party is free, open to all. See you then! more ›

The Mohawk presents a solid double bill of local pop this evening. The Lemurs have been writing new material over the last few months and a handful of those songs will be included in their set tonight. The band enjoyed a stellar 2007 -- highlights included licensing their music to NBC show Las Vegas (as well as an Australian indie flick called Newcastle) and touring with Canadian act Stars. This past Sunday, ME Television telecast a 2nd ME Live! featuring The Lemurs' shimmering melodies in concert at a recent La Zona Rosa gig. more ›

If you're interested, drop us a line (editor at austinist.com) with your basic bio (keep it short!) and a writing/photo samples (keep it short!). We'll get back to you in the next couple of weeks if there's a match! more ›

The Iraqi defense minister just said that the country will need US military help through at least 2018. That would make...oh...fifteen years of US involvement, total. Bush begs Saudi Arabia to produce more oil, help a brother out. Obama tries to stop the hatred between his campaign and Hillary's. Good luck, buddy. more ›

This weekend has to be dominated by the various Emo’s Free Week shows -- look for previews to those events on the site. more ›

There was no escaping the gravity of Austin in 2007. Three major festivals drew artists, labels, promoters and press from around the world. Critically and commercially, Spoon was an undeniably dominating force. Production power increased with the emergence of C3 Presents, a joint venture between heavyweights Charles Attal, Charlie Jones and Charlie Walker. Yet our unique universe still grows from within. Bands like Okkervil River and businesses like Transmission Entertainment continue to expand our horizons. My best of list is a celebration of what makes the Austin music scene independent and innovative. more ›

The holiday season can slow things down in town but it cannot keep you from yearning for some good, live music and busting out your new, Santa provided wardrobe. If you have not had your mistletoe and Kringle fix, Emo’s steps in with a Christmas special (literally) on Friday. Christmas Special (featuring members of Voxtrot) provide Holiday cheer and Christmas carols with support from The Black and Red Leaves. more ›

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• Schwarzenegger continues to make us weirdly like him. (But we're still not moving to California.)
• Castro beginning to show signs of willingness to retire.
• Monkeys are better at estimating quantities than Duke undergrads.

This week's news on art, books, music, and film. more ›

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,... more ›

Production still courtesy of Troma Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead w/ Lloyd Kaufman Live! Friday, December 7thAlamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (17329 Research Blvd)(7:30pm, $10)[info] | [tickets]Over the course of the last thirty-three years, Lloyd Kaufman's Troma Entertainment has produced hundreds of films, attracted legions of devoted fans, and influenced the likes of Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Trey Parker, Eli Roth and Takashi Miike. In fact, by Kaufman's estimation, the studio now owns more than... more ›

Photo by pisti on stock.xchngAustin City Council will discuss a resolution today that calls for expanding services for the local homeless population. Councilmember Jennifer Kim, citing the need for a "comprehensive and compassionate" strategy in dealing with Austin's estimated 6,000 indigents, sponsored the proposal. From what we've seen, the measure mostly calls for re-prioritizing and increasing social services funding, providing more beds at local shelters, and collecting more data on the homeless. Critics of the... more ›

Photo from ImageAfter Starting today, we'll be publishing a weekly roundup of various arts & entertainment news that we've come across. Most of these developments, whether national or international, have a direct relationship with something local, whether it be an organization, individual, or our collective culture. In any case, it's a nice chance to broaden our world view -- a definite bonus (or necessity, some might argue) for a city that revels in creativity! --... more ›

Fantastic Fest '08 Badges are on sale now! VIP badges sold out while the '07 festival was still running, but there are some new ticket options for '08 including "2nd Half" and "Daytime Only" badges. UT Professor Ellen Spiro and Talkshow Host Phil Donahue's doc "Body of War" has made the Oscar shortlist. Check out Chris Garcia's interview with Spiro here. The Belgian government has honored four Austin filmmakers for their documentary work. We... more ›

Teen Witch Sing-AlongWednesday, November 28thAlamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E 6th Street)$10, 7:30PM[info] | [tickets]Don't be ashamed. We know that you love all of those makeover shows and weep at the end when the new house/face/wardrobe is revealed and completely changes someones life, or at least their outlook on it. However, how often do those houses/faces/wardrobes come with magical powers and mind boggling musical numbers? Um, like, never, which is what makes the 80s cult... more ›

Image from Arthur Miller Collection, Harry Ransom Center Rehearsing the American Dream: Arthur Miller’s TheatreSeptember 4 - December 30Harry Ransom Center (21st & Guadaloupe)free, hours vary[info]Sometimes we think we could spend a lifetime sorting through the treasure trove of historical documents and materials in the Harry Ransom Center. From the Gutenberg Bible to the Watergate papers, from the first-ever photograph to love poems written by Ernest Hemingway from the trenches of World War I, the... more ›

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and... more ›

Photo by deJong MortifiedNovember 16th, 2007Coldtowne Theatre (4803 Airport Blvd.)[info] | [tickets]An obsession with Huey Lewis. The detailed diaries of a nerd molester. A girl's small town love of Nicholas Nickelby. True tales...ripped from the pages of diaries everywhere. Featuring a distinct lineup of local performers reading their own humiliating teenage journal entries, rap lyrics, philosophical musings and fictional shorts, Mortified makes its Austin debut this Friday night. Hailed as a "cultural phenomenon" by Newsweek... more ›

Warhol painting of Liz Taylor fetches $23 million. Proof that we started this whole campaign thing a little too early. O.J. "relies on the jury system." WWII plane appears on shore sixty-five years after it went down. Spanish is the most popular foreign language to study while in college; Arabic is quickly gaining popularity. Here's a list of the Top 10 Worst Toys for this holiday season. Careful going out this weekend, one million... more ›