What’s the Deal: Austin’s own experimental electronic, post-whatever eclectica outfit The Black & White Years – Scott Butler, Landon Thompson, John Aldridge, Billy Potts – have an album arriving this month. They’re having an album release show at Stubb’s on February 22nd. They’ve brought on some comparisons to the Talking Heads, and their upcoming album was even produced by Talking Head Jerry Harrison. Even though it’s not exactly the most accurate comparison that could be made here, there’s still a little fingerprint present in the punchy, artful rock and funky, dance-heavy sounds. ...

Image from MySpace The English Beat with Eleven Fingered CharlieFriday, Nov. 30Antones (213 W 5th St)Doors at 8, $17[info] | [tickets]Known simply as The Beat in their native UK, The English Beat were possibly the predominant 2-tone ska revival bands in the early 80s. Although some would argue The Specials were more influential, The English Beat defined the 2-tone movement with their potent blend of mod soul, Jamaican dancehall and reggae, and a staunchly leftist,......

Photo by Daniel Perlaky The Black and White Years Wednesday, November 28Emos (603 Red River St)$5, 10 pm[info] Locals The Black and White Years have had their genre-blurring, squiggly synth rock compared to The Talking Heads so many times it should come as no surprise that Jerry Harrison of that band (not to mention a one-time member of The Modern Lovers) produced their self-titled debut album. As a producer, Harrison’s work can be seen all......

By now, the media buzz surrounding blogger darling and dance party curator Dan Deacon has made his upcoming gig at Mohawk chatter-worthy (after his performance at Emo's earlier this summer, party animals who missed the event started marking their calendars) and his career absolutely viable: he's toured with Girl Talk, and only needs to press 'play' to get a news item on Pitchfork. Rather than remind you (again) to go check him out, we'd......

No plans for tonight? No need to call in for backup--the Austin Film Festival has you covered with a screening of revered cop documentary Sheriff at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek. Filmmaker Daniel Kraus gets up close and personal with Sheriff Ronald E. Hewett as he brings about justice in Brunswick County, North Carolina. Critics rave about the intimate portrait the film manages to capture in little over an hour; according to the event site,......

Pseudosix Pseudosix (Sonic Boom) Pseudosix began as Tim Perry's solo project, but quickly became a group effort with Emil Amos (Grails, Dolorean), Joe Kelly, and a handful of other local, talented friends. The band has written and recorded with pals from Joggers, Decemberists and The Standard in their relatively short existence, but the impetus has been barreling towards this release since back in the day when Perry wrestled with the nerve to perform live,......

Belaire'sExploding Impacting is an album that very well captures the essence of summer madness: the spectral emotional range goes from playful romanticism ("You Really Got Me Goin'") to the deeply reflective ("Waiting Patiently" and You're Not A Kid Anymore". ) The band's sound is somewhere between '60s Brazilian Tropicalia (Caetano Velosco, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes) and early '80s synth-pop (Gary Numan, Talking Heads, OMD) taken in a new direction. Though twin sisters Cari and Christa......

Everyone knows that Thursday night is the beginning of the weekend, a night to be spent with a hearty dose of fresh energy stored up from a week of working just hard enough to not get fired. This fresh energy should, as always, be spent dancing. Tonight is just your Thursday night for dancing, in fact, since The Black and White Years and DJs KidIndie and Eric will be at Beauty Bar. KidIndie, as......

In the first bit of Las Manitas news this year that has nothing to do with small business displacement or forgivable loans, Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme has announced plans to shoot a new film at the embattled downtown eatery. The film (mentioned at the tail end of this Washington Post article) will apparently be a concert documentary featuring Austin roots rocker Alejandro Escovedo. No word yet on a timeframe for the shoot, but......

We heard a lot of buzz around Robinson Devor's dramatic bestiality documentary Zoo at South by Southwest this year, but we just couldn't fit any of the screenings into our already-packed SXSW schedule. So when Zoo showed up on the schedule at Toronto's HotDocs festival last month, we jumped at the chance to see it. Here's the thing about Zoo: it's about dudes having sex with horses. Or rather, horses having sex with dudes, if......

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......

Tonight, Alamo Music Mondays presents Times Square, Allan Moyle's two-against-the-world teen drama set in the grimy, x-rated heart of late 1970s Manhattan. Featuring music by Gary Numan, XTC, Roxy Music, The Ruts, Patti Smith, the Ramones, and the Talking Heads, the film follows two teenage girls who escape from a psychiatric hospital, take up residence in an abandoned warehouse and form an underground punk band called "The Sleez Sisters". With the help of a hip......

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.......

Vote y'all. Then go buy records. Here's what's new today: Pavement Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition (Matador) Pavement's 1995 masterpiece came on the heels of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, a decidedly more radio-friendly album. Pavement fans who dropped the needle on "We Dance" expecting some sort of answer to "Silence Kit" or 120 Minutes darling "Cut Your Hair" were probably surprised, but not disappointed (in time). Malkmus took a certain pride in alienating critics,......

If it’s true that every music writer wishes they were a musician – and we can say from personal experience that it probably is – then it is apparently also true that “every musician wishes they were in a cover band.” Such are the words of Aaron Miller, guitarist for Friday After Dark and the brains behind the quirky gala being held at Club DeVille on Sunday night. What started as an oddball idea for......

Badly Drawn Boy - Born In The UK (Astralwerks): If Talking Heads were last year's band to emulate, The Boss is certainly the sound of 2006. After seeing a great Springsteen record from The Hold Steady and a suspect one from The Killers, we now find Brit Damon Gough wrapping himself in the English flag and turning up the shiny, Human Touch-style production. Unfortunately, Badly Drawn Boy's main charm were his lo-fi early songs......

The Rapture have made a decent career out of pretending to defy expectations while giving its audience just what they wanted all along. In 2002 they were just another gritty post-punk group laying snarly guitar lines on top of hyperreal dance beats, but the release of 2003’s Echoes, and its attendant club smash "House Of Jealous Lovers", propelled them to the forefront of the scene everyone was expecting to save rock and roll. The scene......

Tomorrow night, we're helping out folks from PartyEnds.com, Green Potato Ventures, Sparrowhead, and Super!Alright! to throw one hell of a party over at Gallery Lombardi. Come and check out bands, video projections, art installations, and DJs while you enjoy complimentary beverages, courtesy of Austin's own Independence Brewery. The Lineup: The Lemurs [link] Cue [link] Tacks, the Boy Disaster [link] Economy [link] Stay Gold DJs [link] Luther at PartyEnds has also put together his first......

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. Bostonist has its first birthday party and investigates how to attach more gambling dollars to the Red Sox. Benjamin Franklin is celebrated and Johnny Damon is not. Image by Ethan Bagley......

Close listeners coming into musical consciousness in the 1980s were faced with a paradox: while past recordings that had slipped into obscurity had become available once again, the sonic quality and production values that had marked the great age of vinyl had been swept aside by record companies in order to reissue as many albums as possible. From 1997, with the long-awaited remasterings of jazz masterpieces by Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, many notable record......

Sale information on wristbands for SXSW will be announced by the Austin Chronicle in this Thursday's issue -- we'll have it posted here as soon as we find out! Arab Strap - The Last Romance Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not Asylum Street Spankers - Pussycat: Bootleg Series V.2 Bela Fleck & the Flecktones - The Hidden Land Billy Bragg - Box Set V.1 Billy Bragg -......

Truecraig had some thoughts on the shot heard round the world in his column. Mr. Hollywood Jason Patric dropped his suit against the ever-aggressive Austin Police Department. Austin ranks as the second-best city outside of Hollywood in which to make a movie. We checked out the Zuraach Collective and took some photos. AM Syndicate, Nina Simone, Talking Heads...take a listen in AV Bits. It was a busy news week in the Kingdom of George.......

[mp3] The Hold Steady - "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" [mp3] The Hold Steady - "The Swish" [link] The Plastic Constellations - "Iron City Jungles" [mp3] Baby Dee - "Endless Night" [mp3] Baby Dee - "Love's Small Song" [mp3] Baby Dee - "Lilacs" [mp3] Shearwater - "I Can't Wait" [mp3] Shearwater - "Whipping Boy" [full EP] Weird Weeds - "This Is Not What You Want (EP)" [mov] Nina Simone - "I Want A Little Sugar In......

Wake up. Go to work. Go to bar. Go to rock show. Go to sleep. Repeat. If this is beginning to sound like your life, too, we encourage you to break the mold this weekend. Skip Bright Eyes on Saturday and head to Emo’s instead for a night of comedy and music with Eugene Mirman, Andy Blitz and Langhorne Slim. We have been fans of Mirman (who has opened for The Shins and toured......