Once upon a time there was a Virginian noise-pop band called Skywave, who released a tidy avalanche of washed-out fuzz-rock singles and one full-length before calling it a day in 2004. Bassist Oliver Ackerman moved to New York to form A Place To Bury Strangers and build custom guitar pedals under the banner Death By Audio, while co-Skywavers Paul Baker and John Fedowitz formed the similar-minded Ceremony and stayed behind to hold it down in Fredericksburg, VA. Skywave (and to some extent its offspring) engaged in post-psychedelic guitar mangling of the My Bloody Slowdive Chain 500 variety, featuring massively distorted guitar chords recorded inside the world’s largest underground parking garage, slamming drum machine beats, and vocal performances so completely humorless they might have been (but probably weren’t) a put-on. Seeing as how bands featuring former Skywave members are currently the talk of the town, we've put all three bands' records head-to-head to see what’s what:...

As we move to the next square on the calendar you're still out there trying to make a connection. Sadly you let most of them slip by without saying a word. We understand, no one wants to be overzealous and get shot down. If only you had some place to find a second chance. Oh yes, Missed Connections. If only you had someone to sort through and find the best of the above. Oh, right, read below....

No. 5 Jose Gonzalez - "Time to Send Someone Away" from Retread Sessions on Vimeo. If you missed Jose Gonzalez at the Parish last week, you missed one of the most intimate, gorgeously performed sets in a long while. All is not lost, though! KUT 90.5 FM's video series called Retread Sessions spent some time with Gonzalez in the America/Americas gallery at the Blanton Museum on campus, and filmed two songs in the process.......

There are reports of an armed man on the roof of a downtown building, near Guadalupe and 14th St. A nearby preschool has been evacuated. Police have blocked off the area around the building. 10:45 update: A witness had spied a man in all black fatigues, perhaps holding a gun, in a parking garage, and called it in earlier this morning. But now police have stopped the search for the armed man, thinking that he......

Cop shot in the foot during early morning shootout near Montopolis. UT student Daniel Toole fell to his death from Goodall Wooten dorm this weekend. Public universities in Texas cost more than the national average (for the second year in a row). UT won a state landscape preservation award (over a week ago) for their transplanting of live oaks during stadium renovation. Two kids in a family on their way to visit their wounded......

The Northcastle Apartments (8100 North MoPac) have become the newest front in the affordable housing/density wars. Trammell Crow Residential is seeking a zoning change in connection with a plan to demolish the complex and replace it with a larger, denser, more expensive complex. The Zoning and Platting commission will be hearing the request at their meeting tomorrow (item 13). Some residents aren't happy to be displaced, but other residents don't seem to like living there......

It’s not too often that a modern-day musician says “here, take this, it’s my whole freaking brain, synapses and gooey parts and all,” but Spencer Krug, the madman extraordinaire behind Sunset Rubdown (as well as the widely adored Wolf Parade), has done just that. With Random Spirit Lover, he throws his cerebrum straight off the parking garage, giving the audience a meandering but purposeful masterwork of clatter whose intricacy is belied only by its complication.......

Creativity thrives at the University of Texas Department of Theater and Dance, and they're out to prove it in a big way: next week, they're hosting the fourth biennial Cohen New Works Festival, a seven day whirlwind of original performances, readings, choreography, guest artist panels, and workshops. Founded in 2001 in honor of David Mark Cohen, a UT Professor of Theater and Dance and respected playwright, the Cohen New Works Festival celebrates original works......

Hurry up and join Austin-based writers of The Fearless Critic Austin Restaurant Guide Robin Goldstein, Rebecca Markovits, and Monika Powe Nelson tonight from 5-7pm at Follett's Intellectual Property. All three authors will be present to sign copies of the book, and Ruby's will serve up free samples of their award-winning barbecue. According to Editor-in-Chief Robin Goldstein, a food and travel writer for Fodor's and Condé Nast and graduate of the French Culinary Institute, "Our reviews......

There was some damn good momentum going. Some traction. Things were starting to come around. It was maddening motion, and it really felt like the sparks were building and building and building and a situation was on the verge of such explosive birth that it would likely rip all existence to shreds of piñata hair. ...

Note: Today's the last day of our two week long ticket giveaway, and the festival's nearly a week away! This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

This winter, Alamo Drafthouse and some of the folks at Emo's are teaming up to throw an enormous single-day music festival at Waterloo Park. Sponsored by yours truly, METV, 101x, The Onion, AT&T, Mickey's, and Waterloo Records, the FunFunFun Fest features three stages of nonstop indie rock, punk, and electronic bands, including several bigger acts like Peaches, Spoon, Prefuse 73 and Circle Jerks. From November 8 to November 22, we're giving away a pair......

Tickets for the hotly anticipated Broadway Across America performances of The Lion King at Bass Concert Hall go on sale tomorrow morning. An insider tipster tells us that there's already someone lined up. As the limited engagement is almost guaranteed to sell out, UT PAC recomends that you show up in advance before tomorrow morning's ticket sale begins. For the first three hours, tickets are only available in person at the Bass Concert Hall box......

Forget downtown - the east side is shaping up as the most enticing urban future in Austin. Who wants to live in a suburb-in-the-sky condo tower sitting on top of a parking garage with no street front retail? Might as well be in Round Rock. The various condo projects shaping up on the east side--mostly 3 to 5-story vertical-mixed-use structures with street front retail--create a much more pleasant urban neighborhood environment. Those close to......

Um ... ok. This appears to be some sort of an extremely early stage rendering of Legacy Partners' proposed condo tower, Legacy @ Town Lake, on the NE corner of Rainey and Cummings. It is clearly meant to convey an idea of the size and shape of the building. The details will probably change a lot before this is built. They may also want to re-think the promo material. Conjuring a dead architect isn't......

Watching the show from on top of the parking garage on West 6th St., just before Mopac. Picture of the actual fireworks below the Expand-o-Tron.......

Condos, anyone? High Street Residential, a division of the Trammell Crow Company, has broken ground at Red River and Davis (yes, above the secret tunnel) on a 22 story condo building (17 floors of condos over five floors of parking). The building will be linked to a 26 story Kimpton hotel/condo being built next door. WDG Architecture, which also did the Milago, is the architect, while Duncan and Miller Design is doing the interiors.......

What's currently the abandoned Intel parking garage shell began its transformation into the future 360 Condominiums today. Once complete, the 44-story, 580-ft-tall mixed-use building at Nueces and Third (360 Nueces Street) will be taller than Frost Bank (515 feet), though still not as high as the future 675-ft-tall slab of glass at Fifth and Congress. "This type of urban infill, transforming abandoned spaces into functioning residential and retail units, is exactly what downtown Austin needs......

The University has corrected the starting time of the football team's national championship celebration. ">Gates will open at 5 PM, not at 3:30 as UT's Web site first said. The start time has also been pushed back to 6:30 PM. Early birds will still have the chance to watch highlights on the jumbotron and splurge on food from the concession stand. In addition, details about parking have also been posted:Free parking is available in......

Today it was announced that the space on 300 Nueces Street downtown - intended back in Austin's heady dot-com days to house a parking garage for the new Intel Corp offices - will be used for a 40-story residential skyscraper. UPDATE: In fact, it isn't the steel shell that's being taken down, but the vacant space next to it (thanks, Sara!) Developers Novare Group and Andrews Urban claim that construction on the 520-foot tall......

From SavePlayers.com The University of Texas at Austin is intending on purchasing Player's and replacing it with a parking garage. Across the street, UT is purchasing the stripmall that includes IT Copy and Radio Shack. Apparently, we really need a hotel there. IT Copy or Radio Shack- we care not about. The hotel could be a great thing for the campus. However, once they try to take away a Player's Combo with cheese and......