Austin Style Watch shot this footage from last Sunday's Silent Dance Party flash mob in the Capitol Rotunda. Related: DJ Orion's Civilized Disobedience Mix (mp3) John Kelso: iPod dance party lends something new to Capitol: actual fun Check out the original web flyer, after the jump.......

A popular dance-workout phenomenon that's been getting asses in shape in New York City and Chicago is now catching on in Austin. It's called the Dance Dance Party Party — think of it as a ladies-only, free-form, DIY Sunday night Rock the Casbah to help you work off that weekend of boozing. In their October/November issue, BUST magazine explains its appeal as bringing back that "giddy, uninhibited spirit of those bygone slumber parties, when you......

Proof that people are already growing more tired of presidential campaigns. Just how fat is the fattest city in the nation? Houston zoos are receiving multiple requests from area hospitals to borrow MRI or CT machines. The only tenor worth remembering died late last night. Just when you thought they were done: Apple came out with a new iPod yesterday. "I do a lot of crying in this job." Atlanta high school student suspended......

Ryan Adams – Easy Tiger (Lost Highway): We like Ryan Adams: he’s witty, annoying, moody, talented, and 100% rock star. It’s unfortunate, then, that his output is so often uneven. Like a poster child for iPod album editing, Adams throws a handful of gems on each album, then adds lots of C+ songs with gratuitous swearing and purposefully off-key vocals. Easy Tiger isn’t the complete return to glory that early press suggested, but it......

You can check iPhone availability at local Apple stores before heading out to buy one. Both the Domain and Barton Creek locations in Austin are stocked up--for now--so it's about time to get in line. Bring your sleeping bag--or, better yet, pay someone to wait for you. In case anyone still cares about the iPod, researchers broke down the parts and labor costs by country. Can't go more than 3 hours without checking your......

White Denim are sort of an anomaly in Austin: they aren't iPod dance-rock, they don't have a gimmick, and they haven't been consumed by the scene's self-conscious rock elite. They seem to be making it based on the purest of rock 'n roll fantasies: a live show that makes people turn around and smile at each other, and songs which catalyze that in more ways than one. But describing their sound can be difficult.......

After a month of guesswork, the ACL Fest lineup is here. And it's quite a good one. While the wild speculation of headliners like Neil Young and Stevie Wonder once again proved false, the key items one sees this year are depth and balance. Having spent yesterday looking over the roster, we have the following observations on the 2007 edition of ACL. The Good: A Great Top 10. Had you told us that we'd......

Another special night of local music beckons Friday at the baby Emo’s (Lounge). Headlining will be fast rising favorites Golden Bear, featured recently as the Artist Of The Day by Spin Magazine, while fellow Austinites Peel celebrate the release of their self-titled debut out now on Peek-A-Boo Records. Sandwiched between the two are the Midgetmen who specialize in beer infused punk n’ roll fit to kick off any weekend, or week-day for that matter.......

The Austin City Limits Festival lineup is official, making this year's three day event a legitimate item of lust. In addition to the names you see there, the fest will include performances by Peter, Bjorn & John, Midlake, The National, Yo La Tengo, Sound Team, Pete Yorn, Ghostland Observatory, Joseph Arthur and many more. Right now, tickets are $145, and VIP passes are $1,700. VIP access, in case you're wondering if its worth the......

The penultimate speaker in KLRU's 2007 Spark Series is the ever-fascinating Douglas Rushkoff, a hugely prolific author, teacher, and documentarian who's written extensively on new media, pop culture, religion, and technology as it pertains to society in general. Rushkoff first exposed the world to the emerging cyberculture phenomenon with his 1994 book, Cyberia, and has since published at least ten best-selling books, including Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism (2003) and Media Virus: Hidden......

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......

Sam Duckworth (aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly) just celebrated his 21st birthday by headlining a sold-out 2,000 seat theatre in London. If that's not precocious enough for you, he also has three UK Top 40 singles and made almost all of the major British magazines' Top 100 albums of '06 lists. The emotive and earnest vocals Duckworth employs are a touch emo, often political, and quite radio-friendly, which has earned him comparisons to......

In what might be the best example of both SXSW Interactive & Film comes "The Weathered Underground", a film that allows you to choose the direction that the main character, Eric (played by Michael Ciriaco), gets to experience. Wanna see Eric trip out on mushrooms? Wanna see him go to a club instead of working? Or would you rather see him work instead of drinking? The control is literally in your hands in this......

We were so excited when Thomas Dolby graced our city with his presence last year, and when the prospect of an interview with the pioneer came our way last week, we literally planned our weekend around it. Now, the thrill has gone and we’re left with some wonderfully insightful responses from the master himself. Enjoy. And then jam out that Grammys performance again. Are you working on new studio material? When can we expect......

One of the more intriguing panels during SXSW Interactive isn't even part of the official conference: 20x2 assembles twenty interesting individuals from the creative industry -- "writers, musicians, filmmakers, web geeks and other bon vivants" -- and poses a broad, abstract question that each must answer in two minutes. Having been around since 2001, questions presented at 20x2s past have included "Who Are You?", "What's the Word?", and "What's the Big Idea?". Abstract, indeed. This......

Andy Roddick, the world’s sixth-ranked men’s tennis player and part-time Austin resident, was in town last weekend for his Second Annual Andy Roddick Foundation Charity Gala. Founded in 2001, the Andy Roddick Foundation raises money to benefit organizations that aid in the development of at-risk children and families, including those that have been abused, abandoned and neglected. The Foundation’s goal is to improve the quality of life and enhance educational and economic opportunities for all......

If you're hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs "so are you nakie" to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

It was probably inevitable. When Franz Ferdinand and the Killers whetted the kids’ appetites for catchy, electro-dance pop, we should have known that a slew of imitators armed with keyboards and laptops would follow. It hasn’t been all bad, but sometimes we just have to ask oursevlves, “Why?” Such is the case with We Are Pilots, the new release from Shiny Toy Guns. The would-be buzz band of the season shows some potential on......

Last week Austin police seized 850 balloons of heroin in South Austin. Yikes, that's a lot to swallow. Pat Buchanan thinks Gore can beat Hillary in the Democratic primaries. Pat Buchanan, that great liberal mind. Saddam Hussein has some head-crushing in mind. On that note, soon scientists will be able to tell how smart you are with their improved brain imaging techniques. So there, IQ tests! People are taking their revenge for Steve Irwin's......

Bob Dylan - Modern Times (Columbia): From the opening notes of Modern Times, you can't help but feel that Dylan has been strongly influenced by his recent tours with Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. 'Spirit On The Water' and 'When The Deal Goes Down' each sound like Stardust-era Willie, while several other numbers channel vintage blues stomps and rockabilly in the vein of Haggard's 'Workin' Man Blues' with surprising freshness. The operative word for......

Our favorite local posts for this week: Jette's pal saw Tarantino at the Paramount's Howard Hawks double feature this week. We would have been on the Ameche to our pals if we had seen him at the showing of Ball of Fire. Over at sheep diaries, the term "Shyamalaned" is defined and put to use in a rant on Lady in the Water. As we looked at bigYELLOWbowl, we wondered: does this place make......

We let it slide when ticket prices increase every year. We thoughtlessly shell out $3 for water or $4 for beer every year. And we even said "we'd go next year" when the dust from Zilker’s fields gave us dry mouths and black boogers for a few days. But the folks at The Austin City Limits Festival have outdone themselves this year (as well as overused the words deluxe, supreme and luxury) with their......

Trying out a different approach in their efforts to preserve the Edwards Aquifer from urban development, Save Our Springs Alliance today launched a new audio-based walking tour of Barton Springs. The self-guided tour covers thirteen stations of note, including Philosopher's Rock Statue, Old Mill Springs, Eliza Spring, and the Monument on Big Hill. What's more, they're making these available as free mp3 downloads so you can load 'em onto your iPod before you head......

Our favorite local posts for the week: Jeff Beckham posts on the phenomena that are iPod guides to Austin. Los Brushes ponders the space-time continuum. Paul Burka from Texas Monthly now has a blog, after writing last year that they were just a fad. Eileen at ITPT takes him on. McChris riffs on the smartest cities listing. Karmalized is being overrun by figs. Favorite Random Blog of the Week: ultra8201, because he asked so......

This being one of those quality-over-quantity weekends for bands and rocking and, y'know, that kind of thing, you won't really have to make any tough decisions. Friday night you got Sonic Youth w/Awesome Color at Stubb's. Thurston & Co. have aged so gracefully they just might be wheeled onto the stage encased in blocks of carbonite; they're like 50 years old! Nonetheless, if you've never seen Kim Gordon do her cheerleader dance, or heard......

A professor at UC Davis was awarded a grant to study the relationship between music and emotion. For instance- why do some people get turned on by R. Kelly while it makes us other people want to vomit? Every kid's dream came true for 6-year-old Michael James Emanuel Jr. who was left behind at a Chuck E. Cheese on his birthday. His 23-year-old mother didn't even realize Junior was missing until the following morning.......

A New Zealand man and double-amputee Mark Inglis, is heavily criticized for walking past a dying man on his trek to the summit of Mount Everest. Houston's bat population is getting a bad rap already. A teenager was diagnosed with rabies and is fighting to survive passed away after being bitten by a bat. "Nike+iPod will change the way people run." What, with shoes on their ears? Oh, ok. Nike just wanted in on......

You're listening to your iPod walking down Congress Ave., the beats pounding in your head conspire with your artistic sensibilities, painting in your mind's eye a visual landscape for the song you are hearing. You're sitting on the couch at home, trying to finish that twelve-pack, hearing something come from the latest Dead Prez album that makes you think, "Oh, this song would make the perfect video. There'd be a kid sitting obliviously on......