As we promised earlier this week, here's your chance to score those coveted space-available tickets* to the John Mayer Austin City Limits taping at KLRU-TV studios. Instead of the previously-announced 25, we're actually giving away 50 pairs of tickets to the first folks who enter. KLRU-TV will be taping an episode of Austin City Limits this Thursday with singer-songwriter (and guitarist extraordinaire) John Mayer. These days, the Grammy Award-winning artist routinely plays to packed amphitheaters......

KLRU-TV will be taping an episode of Austin City Limits this Thursday with singer-songwriter (and guitarist extraordinaire) John Mayer. These days, the Grammy Award-winning artist routinely plays to packed amphitheaters and festival audiences. For die-hard Mayer fans, seeing him at the intimate ACL studios with its capacity of a few hundred and incredible acoustics is an opportunity not to be missed. That being said, your only chance to win a pair of space-available tickets* is......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

FRIDAY [15] music • Ghostland Observatory and Thee Emergency at The Mohawk (912 Red River) ® party • Earthdance at NiaSpace (7:30pm-10pm, $15) party • Eastside City Limits party with Pink Nasty, Tnlons Fort, I Kill Cars, Missing Tapes, Brothesr and Sisters, Til We're Blue or Destroy, The Black at Red Scoot Inn and Old Austin Daze Compound (9pm-4am, FREE) ® party • Teleport Door presents the Pop Yo Colla' party with DJs Daniel......

If you lost your ACL pass and – even after countless screaming matches with Front Gate Ticket employees and hours of scouring Craig’s List for scalpers – you’ve been left sans plans for the festival weekend (or maybe you’re just afraid of tourists/loathe sunshine/whatever), we’ve got an alternative suggestion. An air conditioned alternative suggestion. Go see a play. That’s right, don’t be a pussy about it. It’s just theatre. You might even like it......

Didn’t want to spend your hard-earned cash for ACL ducats this year? Or maybe you have to work, and can’t get away from that computer to which you’re chained. Whatever the case may be, if you aren’t heading down to Zilker Park this weekend, you can still catch several of the ACL performances broadcast live over the intranets. AT&T will be airing exclusive content at their Blue Room portal beginning tomorrow with the first......

Maybe you’ve heard, but there is a festival going on this weekend. Well, what would an Austin City Limits Festival be without some excellent Austin City Limits television show tapings? The scheduled tapings are as follows: Calexico- Wednesday at 8 p.m. Van Morrison – Thursday at 8 p.m. Sufjan Stevens followed by the Raconteurs - Sunday at 8 p.m. Cat Power – Monday the 18th at 8 p.m. Damian Marley – Tuesday the19th at 9......

Hang on to your wristbands, people, there's a lot going on this week in the world of legitimately released music! The Rapture Pieces of the People We Love (UMVD) The Rapture have finally caught up with their own hype following 2003's Echoes, working with producers Danger Mouse (Gorillaz/Gnarls Barkley), Paul Epworth (Bloc Party) and Ewan Pearson (UK DJ/Remixer) and delivering a disco, funk, punk and pop-influenced album worthy of all your parties, speedy drives......

MONDAY [11] film • AICN presents Calvaire at Alamo Drafthouse (7pm) ® film • El Mariachi at Rounders Pizzeria (8pm, Free) film • Dave Chappelle's Block Party at Café Mundi (8:30pm, Free) film • A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise at Alamo Drafthouse (9:45pm, $2) ® music • End of an Ear presents a listening party and midnight sale for TV On the Radio and Yo La Tengo, with DJs from The Rich Girls......

Before I launch into this week's batch of ACL previews, a bit of bad news - Feist has unfortunately dropped out of the lineup. Her replacement hasn't been named yet, so hopefully I'll have an update for you by next week, but in the meantime, you too can stalk the schedule. Remember, you can check out all the previews that have been posted over on my ACL Artist Previews Page. This is what's new......

We just read a leaked report of the ACL Fest Lineup, to be officially announced on Thursday. The report comes from Dallas Observer entertainment guru Robert Wilonsky. As we said, this is just a leaked report and therefore considered a rumor, but this source is about as good as they get. Of course, we hope there are a few more of our favorites coming but won't hold our breath. Have a look for yourself......

Like most attendees, our biggest frustration with last year's Austin City Limits Festival was the wretched dust cloud blanketing Zilker Park after the first day. With tens of thousands of people milling about and the daytime highs between 98-107 degrees, everything was worsened by the fact that the park was already suffering from drought-like conditions. But not anymore, if Capital Sports and Entertainment (CSE) and its massive coffers have anything to say about it. Perhaps......

So word on the street's that John Mayer is coming to Austin City Limits this Fall, at least according to gig repository Pollstar, who, as far as we can tell. are paid to traffic around such information. Make of it what you wish. Meanwhile, Tier I ($90) and Tier 2 ($100) passes are sold out, and they're now going for about $140 a pop, after service fees and shipping's included. Already confirmed, according to aclfest2006rumors.blogspot.com:......

We knew there was some devious reason John Mayer’s “Daughters” topped the charts. That song managed to be both cheesy and creepy at the same time. This morning, New York’s illustrious Attorney General Eliot Spitzer subpoenaed nine major radio conglomerates for their role in this crime against music. Buying airplay has been illegal since the 1960, when a federal law was put into place to ban the rampant practice of “payola” (pay plus Victrola,......

Below is a list of the new albums released this week. You can get most at Waterloo Records or End of an Ear. Artist Spotlight Mendoza Line - Full of Light and Full of Fire (Misra) New York City's Mendoza Line are an awfully bitter bunch. Then again, these days, we can't rightfully blame them for feeling that way. Their latest release on Austin's Misra Records, Full of Light and Full of Fire, finds......

Apart from its satisfying lead-off single, "Blue Orchid," we're not really feeling "Get Behind Me Satan," the new album from Detroit's White Stripes. While the songs are catchy enough, they are undone by deliberate idiosyncracies, such as a distinct overreliance on the common household xylophone and an odd Appalachian fetish. Take "The Doorbell," for example. This has an appealing, schoolyard kind of a beat, and might be a good theme song for a sitcom......

Singer-songwriter Glen Phillips first burst onto the music scene in the 90's as the lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket, a group of four guys from the laid-back, sun-drenched California beachside town of Santa Barbara. Remember "All I Want" or "Come Down"? After Toad broke up in 1998, Phillips went on to a fairly promising solo career, releasing in 2001 the highly acclaimed Abulum. This album was largely a reminiscence of days long......