Thursday Flamingo Cantina takes a break from bringing in bands like The Skatalites and Israel Vibration. Instead, for this free day show they will host the shimmering and sentimental, Swedish alt rock of the Shout Out Louds. You’ll also hear the catchy California rock of Rogue Wave and the love song sing-alongs and quirky experiments of Akron/Family. Sub Pop’s Portland drums-and-guitar duo The Helio Sequence come prepared with spacey indie rock prettiness, and Fleet Foxes are set to impress with charming guitars and melodic tones. Expect a thrilling display from Athens’ psych-folk collective Elf Power. ...

Primary results from national/state/local races: So even though it seems that Hillary won the Texas primary (it's interesting that Obama led in statewide early voting), Obama may beat her in delegate numbers. In the GOP race, McCain is now the GOP candidate as Huckabee gives up the ghost. In Travis County, Ron Paul won 17% of the vote . . . ...

SXSW has announced the schedule of events for this year’s official showcases -- start here! Also, check out Greg Hewgill's site for (unofficial) Torrents featuring the various artists playing SXSW 2008 (as well as past years)....

Sex toys are no longer illegal in Texas; federal appeals court overturns the ban. McCain adviser tells NPR that if Obama is the Democratic nominee, he won't keep working on McCain's campaign. Decapitation wire placed by someone on US/Mexico border fence. Hezbollah leader in Lebanon calls for "open war" on Israel at the funeral for their top commander. Yesterday the Prime Minister of Australia publicly apologized for the wrongs done to the Aboriginal people.......

Photo by Herald H. Schoeder courtesty of Essay RecordingsSHANTEL What’s the Deal: Finally, some club music that doesn’t make you want to club yourself for being so easily convinced into going “clubbing.” In case you missed them on NPR’s All Songs Considered, which everyone should be listening to, Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar is comprised of German electronica master Shantel and an ensemble of Balkan sounds. The result of this mix of electronic beats and......

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors I don’t want to say that there’s a right way and a wrong way to celebrate The Holidays. That would be foolhardy and dickish. Especially in a city as diversified as this one (we celebrate Christmas AND Thanksgiving!). But something this chick was crying about on NPR this morning got me thinking......

Image from www.kut.orgBefore you get too bogged down with finals, papers, end-of-the-semester projects, etc., you might consider this for next semester: KUT is currently taking applications for their Spring Break/SxSW Intern Program. Interns in this program will undergo an intensive week-long audio journalism training program under guidance from KUT and NPR staff. KUT is looking for two student journalists to cover Film and three to cover Music during the SxSW Festival. You must be at......

Image from Tom Brosseau’s MySpace Nickel Creek & Tom BrosseauSaturday, November 17Stubbs (801 Red River)$25 Advance; Doors 7 p.m.[info] | [tickets] Singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau brings heartfelt lyricism and mellow melodies to Stubb’s on Saturday. Hailing from Grand Forks, North Dakota, Brosseau’s high pitched voice and gentle guitar complement his sincere storytelling perfectly, and has found him at least one fan in a certain Natalie Portman. Portman picked Brosseau’s “Plaid Lined Jacket” (along with tracks by......

Logo from Austin Jewish Book Fair Keynote Lecture: "Iraq, Al Qaeda, and the Future of Israel" with Jeffrey Goldberg and Lawrence WrightSunday, November 11Jewish Community Association of Austin (7300 Hart Lane)7:30pm, $12 Gen Ad, $10 Students/Seniors/JCC Members[info] | [tickets] Austin Graphics and Comics Night with Paul Benjamin and Terry and Patty LaBanThursday, November 8Barnes and Noble Westlake (701 S. Capital of Texas)7:30pm, Free[info]Less than four days are left in the 2007 Austin Jewish Book Fair,......

*The views expressed in The Laurie Show are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole.* -ed. note Once again, I am plagued with the thought of: "Why is everything happening this weekend?! WHY, I ask you?!" Literally, it's packed with such a wide variety of live musical entertainment that your brain will explode. It can be a good dilemma to have, though. I'll try to summarize as best I......

Providing hours and hours of entertainment to the city of Austin daily, KOOP 91.7 FM requests you to join them this evening at The Scoot Inn for a multi-talented line-up of local acts. And all for a mere five bucks of your hard earned money for all the fun. Not bad a deal, we think. Hosted specifically by Now Playing Austin (which airs every Thursday at 6 p.m.), headliners on the night include Peel and......

Bishop Allen The Broken String (Dead Oceans) So, the Brooklyn-based (man, it gets tiring typing that out every week) blog band Bishop Allen are a sort of east coast Voxtrot in that they've wet the pop-frenzied masses with a series of well-received EPs over the last couple of years. Instead of releasing an album full of highly anticipated new material, however, they've polished a bunch of old tracks (and previously only available live songs)......

Black Nasty Feed From Me It's hard not to start by saying "This music is totally offensive, completely cringe-worthy, and absolutely not appropriate in almost any situation you can imagine." There, we didn't start by saying that. Feed From Me is a maxi single (not an EP, CD or regular single, these are different times, folks) with ten songs that push the boundaries of what most normal people consider music. Influenced by the olden days......

Lady Bird (Claudia Alta Taylor) Johnson was the oldest living former First Lady before her death this afternoon in Austin. The widow of LBJ will be fondly remembered for her love and work for the environment (promoting the highway beautification bill, raising money for Town Lake Park, and co-founding a national wildflower center). She had not been in top health since her first stroke in the early '90s, but still made rare public appearances around......

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......

There are times when it is difficult to look at a band without thinking of what might have been, and Son Volt is undoubtedly one of them. When the wildly influential alt.country group Uncle Tupelo disbanded into two camps, Son Volt was one resulting act. The other was Wilco. In 1995, the Jay Farrar-led Son Volt released their debut album Trace, one of the best albums of the 1990's bar none. At the time,......

Followers of the indie-rock scene may be a little shocked to find out that it has only been two years since Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's debut demos stormed across the blogosphere. The decidedly scruffy demos were a revelation, full of Talking Heads-like vocals, soaring minimal guitar lines, and (perhaps most importantly) a very danceable rhythm section that sounded quite different to the many Interpol-derivatives of the day. Having seen the then-unknown CHYSY win......

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......

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors It was supposed to end by now. We’re supposed to already be past this. Many believe they saw it coming before it hit, and many more than that read through the lines to see the “conspiracy” for what they believed it was. Have you heard that Del Monte or Chiquita or some......

Those who grew up with NPR as auxiliary parent will doubtless recognize the names Maria Hinojosa and Ray Suarez, the honored guests at Spark: KLRU's Engaging Speaker Series this Wednesday. (So, do their pictures match your mental conception of how they'd look? 'Cuz the first time we saw a pic of Terry Gross, we flipped out.) Hinojosa, the anchor of NPR's Latino USA, is also most recently the author of a memoir of Mexican-American......

Nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, political reporter, and beloved Austinite Molly Ivins passed away in her home yesterday at the age of 62. In a remarkable career that spanned nearly four decades, Ivins commanded the respect and admiration of a devoted national readership, who rallied around her unapologetically liberal, often satirical, and always insightful coverage of the Texas "Lege" and our leaders in Washington. Among various and sundry positions held, Ivins served as co-editor of the......

Say what you will about the Austin music scene, if there's one thing we've got in spades, it's heart. And breakfast tacos. But that's another story altogether. Our bands can take any other city's bands on when it comes to sheer per capita productivity and playing out, never leaving their respective constituencies on the sidelines. And albums? Lordy, just walk into Waterloo Records and check out the local music section: 2006 was a banner......

15. Mogwai - Mr. Beast (Matador) As ever, Mogwai manage to blend unadulterated post-rock weight to their shoegazer tendencies with tracks like "Glasgow Mega Snake" and "Folk Death 95," showcasing their ability to create anthems with no words. This is where Mr. Beast really shines, in between blistering chord progressions and gradual swings into corybantic climaxes. In some ways a throwback to earlier (and heavier) Mogwai material, Mr. Beast isn't merely a rock album.......

She's arty, but her songs are as catchy as hell. She was an anti-folk regular on the New York club scene, but also hangs out with The Strokes. Tonight, Antone's hosts the entertaining contradicton that is Regina Spektor in a sold out show. Spektor's latest album Begin To Hope has received accolades from NPR, Pitchfork, The Onion, and Rolling Stone, so we suppose that just about everyone likes it. The disc is a blend of......

While you sit on the couch tonight, toasting democracy, check out these resources to pass the time. Also, feel free to use the comment section as an open-thread all night long. Your friends tell you they voted? Don't trust them? Check on them. We're surprised this is even legal! | link Can't wait for Rather or Blitzer to let you know what's going? The Secretary of State lets us watch the real-time election results roll......

Last night's roast of Molly Ivins went off without a hitch. It sounds like it was a very pleasant, friendly gathering (so most likely not officially a roast). Foley was sending sketchy emails to pages back in 2000 . . . and people knew about it. American Nobel prize-winners so far for 2006: Six. "(E)very prize except for the literature and peace awards, which are yet to be announced, have gone to Americans." How......

If it weren't for our life as an -ist, we're not sure we'd ever leave our apartment. Fortunately, to fully -ist, one must seek out the new, the fresh, and the unknown. Brand new, or just new to us, that's what we're all about this week. Phillyist keeps it fresh by getting a new motto, learning to prioritize, and taking in an experimental indie rock show. Torontoist does their first post in franglais, gets ready......

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......

Austin is such an NPR town. How else can one explain a sold-out house of 2,800+ at $35 per ticket for author David Sedaris? Austinist hadn't been to many readings before, let alone one at a venue hosting Elvis Costello this week, so we weren't sure what to expect. We found a fawning audience, a writer in command of what he does best, and a great number of laughs through the course of the......

Call us elitist or snooty or even boring, but we admit it - we love National Public Radio (NPR) and their local affiliate KUT (90.5). And yo, it’s not just for intellects anymore. Where else can you hear the refined likes of Terry Gross juxtaposed with the crassness of the Beastie Boys? Yep. You guessed it – NPR, baby. Today’s esteemed guests on Terry Gross’s highly regarded interview format talk show “Fresh Air” were none......