SXSW has announced via official mailing that there are a few bands confirmed for the festival aside from those we've mentioned already: R.E.M., My Morning Jacket, Daniel Lanois, The Black Keys, The Kills, My Brightest Diamond, Pato Banton, Vampire Weekend, Joe Lean + The Jing Jang Jong, Jens Lekman, Sia, $olal, Tech N9ne, and Mala Rodriguez have received the official nod. A couple of those names will look familiar to those of you following our ongoing coverage, but the big names are news to us as well. more ›

JOSH RITTER What’s The Deal: Josh Ritter graduated from college with a major in American History through Narrative Folk Music, which makes the title of this folk-pop singer/songwriter’s recently released album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, fitting as well as boastful. He can boast all he wants with those hearty lyrics fat with imagery and the voluminous songwriting of this, his fifth album. Comparisons to Bob Dylan as well as John Lennon immediately come... more ›

Rasputina is one of those bands that sounded like a gimmick but turned out to have the skills to carry the concept far enough to make it interesting. We, like many children of the '80s first became aware of Rasputina when they were one of Marilyn Manson's favorite projects and all the goth kids at our high school were totally, totally into them because they were covering pop songs on cellos and that was just so, you know, awesome. more ›

We're back in New York where people are trying to recover from SXSW, here's the last entry of Nate from My Brightest Diamond's Austin tour diary he kept for us. Read the first part here. Over at Gothamist we've got Pela's tour diary...we totally snuck in to their hotel room and found it under their pillow. SXSW DAY 2: A DAY, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER In contrast to my first 24 hours here at the... more ›

Over at Gothamist we have a thing called Tourist, where bands from New York keep tour diaries for us. My Brightest Diamond is one of the bands doing this for us throughout SXSW, check out Nate from MBD's first entry here. And here's an excerpt. Three days before flying out from NY to Austin for the South by Southwest music conference, I had a rather ominous dream. It was the sort of dream you wake... more ›

A beautiful and excited crowd politely stormed the gates of The Paramount theater Friday night to catch one of indie-rock's most unlikely superheroes, Sufjan Stevens. Arguably the most anticipated and talked-about show of the year this side of The Stones, Sufjan and his prodigious backing band provided a salivating audience of Austinites a glimpse into their corn pone mystique, and we weren't disappointed. If anything, as many questions were raised as were answered about one of recent music's most curious and potent success stories. more ›

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... more ›