Harlem and Bridez opened for Gravytrain at the Mohawk Saturday night, and Austinist contributing photographer Nash Cook was there to capture it. ...

Beerland, known for music, old school video games, and, um, beer, will host a kind and compact cluster of five bands this Friday night, with all five bands making names for themselves within the confines of our fine city. Headlining will be The Diagonals, a subtle and scratchy outfit that, despite their somewhat workmanlike stylings while on stage, carries an innate danceability. Beyond that, Diagonals vocalist Steve Garcia, in some of his more speed-speak moments, has been compared to a young Michael Stipe...you know, before Michael Stipe had that whole fifteen years of boredom thing. ...

Spoon (6:30pm): So here's the thing about Spoon: they're a studio band. And on record, they're pretty much bulletproof for this decade. But the band also have a deserved reputation as a sometimes shaky live act, and such was the case for the show's beginning today. Britt Daniel and the band emerged without opening music or much ceremony, plowing right into a half-dozen tracks from new album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. But they......

Tapes 'n Tapes are quite possibly the best thing to come out Minneapolis' music scene since Prince and Hüsker Dü. Since forming in 2003, the band has trekked across vast and distant lands with a who's who of indie rock luminaries such as The Shins, Joanna Newsom, The Wrens and Spoon. After a few adjustments in the lineup, the band recorded its debut album, The Loon, in summer 2005 to glowing reviews and a......

MONDAY [16] film • "The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico" at Alamo Downtown books • Teen Sci-Fi writers Scott Westerfield and Justine Larbalestier at BookPeople (7:00pm) books • The Harlem Renaissance, a panel discussion with Cary D. Wintz, Martha Jane Nadell, and Shirley Thompson at The Harry Ransom Center (7:00pm) film • "A Clockwork Orange" at Alamo Downtown film • Jim Jarmusch's "Down By Law" at Alamo Village food • Central Market......

THURSDAY [8] film • Austin Film Festival screens an archival 35mm print of Trading Places, with screenwriter Herschel Weingrod (Trading Places, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, Brewster's Millions, Space Jam) introducing the film, at Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (7:30pm, $4 General, Free for AFF Members, "Prince and Pauper"-style menu) books • Dalton Gang Poetry Showdown with Ric Williams, Lyman Grant, W. Joe Hoppe and Rob Lewis at Intellectual Property (6:00pm) film • Love Bites, the 80s......

In a little over a week, we're heading up to New York City for CMJ, South by Southwest Music's almost-as-hip cousin. We're skipping most of the official stuff, but we'll be throwing an afterparty in Brooklyn on the day after Halloween—right smack on Día de los Muertos. Last month, those of us at Awesome Inc—a New York/Austin collective including Austinist, Super!Alright!, Finger on the Pulse, Learning Secrets, Car Stereo (Wars), and Sparrowhead—teamed up with imeem......

WIN AN OPENING SPOT AT CMJ!Awesome Inc. -- made up of folks from Austinist, Super!Alright!, Car Stereo (Wars), Learning Secrets, Finger on the Pulse (NYC) and more -- have teamed up with imeem to throw a massive Dia De Los Muertos party during CMJ in New York City. We've already booked a handful of great acts; now, we're looking for an excellent up-and-coming act to open. Submit audio or video tracks that best represent......

This past June, American portrait photographer Arnold Newman passed away in his birthplace of New York City at the age of 88. Four months later, his acclaimed portrait photographs have found a permanent home, where they will share a room with the first-ever photograph and The Gutenberg Bible, at The University of Texas' Harry Ransom Humantities Research Center. Arnold Newman began photography in the mid-1930s as a student during the Great Depression. He spent......

Some things skip a generation. Others round the bend, never to be heard from again. Still others seem to hop in and out of mode with consistent regularity. While some fads and fashions may fall out of style, one that seems to breath new life into the dance scene at regular intervals is the original Lindy Hop. This highly improvisational and interpretive dance style was born in Harlem during the Jazz Age. The same......

"At the end of touring on a record, you're just so sick of all your songs, and you don't have any prospects for new ones, so it feels like you're in limbo. Even though that's when all your success comes, for us it's like ... old news, and we just wanted to move on and get started on something else..."...

New York City indie rockers The Walkmen made it big with 2004's Bows and Arrows, an aggressive, exuberant, and borderline-theatrical production that ended up on tons of year-end "best of" lists. Over the past two years, the guys have gone through some big changes: the Harlem building housing their personal recording studio, dubbed Marcata (where B&A was born), was bought out by Columbia University, in the school's ever-accelerating expansion north of Morningside Heights. After......

T U E S D A Y [31] » [music] Ghetto Princess, Secular End, The Total Foxes, Tomorrow's Too Late at Emo's » [comedy] Live Comedy Happy Hour at Beerland (8pm) » [karaoke] Karaoke Explosion at The Peacock » [books] Galt Niederhoffer presents Taxonomy of Barnacles at Bookpeople (7pm) » [politics] Austin League of Women Voters puts on the State of the City dinner with Mayor Will Wynn as the evening's speaker at the Austin......

M O N D A Y [19] [music] Spoon, stellastarr*, Morningwood and Alpha Rev at The Parish Room [holidays] Armadillo Christmas Bazaar with Austin Lounge Lizards at Austin Music Hall [link] [music] Trans-Siberian Orchestra at Frank Erwin Center [DJ] DJ Mel, Jahmight at Nasty's [music] Elizabeth McQueen and Jason Roberts at Threadgill's [film] Monday Britcoms Night, featuring Nathan Barley at the Drafthouse Downtown (7pm) [link] T U E S D A Y [20] [fundraiser] Kinky......

For those of you who did not hear about it, yet, one UT student got the thrill of a lifetime this past weekend when he got to play with his heroes, U2. Nineteen-year-old Arlington native and pre-med student Sunjay Devarajan had taken a homemade sign with “Angel of Harlem” written on it, accompanied by the chord progressions, in case the band had forgotten them. On the other side of the sign he had written,......