Stoner metal bands ply their thankless trade in a vacuum. Holed up in bedrooms throughout their teenage years, learning every riff from Ride The Lightning, the bands typically have technical chops but lack that inherent charisma that comes from, y'know, regular human contact. Consequently very few of these bands make it big. Occasionally a Josh Homme or Matt Pike will jump the fence from their old band into a more profitable project--Queens of the Stone Age and High on Fire, respectively--but more often than not these bands toil away strictly for the love of the game....

Blitzen Trapper Wild Mountain Nation (Lidkercow Ltd.) Folksy but freakish Portlanders Blitzen Trapper have yet to be scooped up by Zach Braff, but that's probably only because they're still on the fringes of too weird. Yet, between soothing and familiar odes to old Grateful Dead tunes and powerful plays towards anti-genre adorableness, the odd sextet manage to capture the listener's attention while totally defying their own. Eccentric, playful and genuine songs fuse 70's goofball......

The woman who encouraged us to shove dimes into jukeboxes long after they had switched to quarters, triggering a nationwide coin shortage in the early 80s, is coming to Austin. Joan Jett, the hottest 46 year old since Tina Turner in 1985 (or Madonna in 2004, for that matter), is still lovin' rock and roll, touring like a madwoman and turning her nose up at the prospect of ever investing in a pair of......