Is there a better band and venue name pairing than the Low Lows’ set tonight at the Ghost Room? If you could describe the group’s music with one adjective, it would be “ghostly.” But you’d need a whole grab bag of adjectives to fully define the band; since moving from Athens, Georgia to Austin in 2008, the Low Lows have quietly built a musical world that’s unparalleled in scope or sound. more ›

For those who aren’t out celebrating the birthdays of Ronnie Milsap, Aaliyah, or Ethel Merman Saturday night or resting up from a busy National Influenza Vaccination Week, Li’l Cap’n Travis is playing with The Lonesome Heroes and The Low Lows at the Continental Club. Li’l Cap’n Travis has been a popular staple of the Austin music scene for around 10 years now, playing shows semi-regularly ever since the band’s debut release. The group started as a side project for the members to wring out all the fun songs rattling around in their collective mind they couldn’t purge in other projects, but soon their mix of country, psych rock and pop became a primary gig with the band releasing three more recordings by 2007. more ›

So you missed last night's Bleet Up, the first event leading up to what will surely prove to be the best Fun Fun Fun Fest of all time. Well fear not, music-loving citizen: you have an excellent opportunity to redeem yourself tonight by attending, and definitely not, in any way, shape, or fashion missing, the greatest installment of Local Music is Sexy yet. Even better than the Bleet Up ('cause it's free!), Austinist will take over both stages of the Mohawk and the outside stage Club Deville tonight to present sets by some of our city’s finest practitioners of the rock and roll—not to mention disorderly marching music—to help you celebrate the imminence of the only fest that offers you fun in triplicate.

The music starts at 8pm following the early-ish After the Jump blogger panel (featuring Austinist's own music editor Paige Maguire), and runs until midnight. We’re keeping mum, but there may or may not be a few surprises in store for those who stick around the Mohawk’s inside stage after the clock strikes 12. Let’s run this down one more time: free, sexy, local, music. Those are the makings of a definite must-attend event in our book. Follow the jump for a complete list of bands and set times, and we'll see you tonight! more ›

School has been back in session for a few weeks now, meaning students are probably ready to pretend it hasn't. We've got just the event to wash those study worries away. Best Fwends, The Eastern Sea, The Low Lows, No Mas Bodas and Fat Tony are performing at the Mohawk for the annual KVRX Back to School Party. The line up is diverse and has something to please every freshman, grad student and dropout. more ›

Eric Johnson, the sole constant member of Seattle via Chicago’s Fruit Bats, cut his teeth as a touring member of the windy city’s excellent ramshackle avant-folk combo Califone, and released the first Fruit Bats album, Echolocation, in 2001. On the strength of that album, the group signed to Sub Pop and released Mouthfuls in 2003; a huge leap forward for Johnson in terms of the refinement of his songwriting and vocal arrangements, Mouthfuls saw him performing most of the music. The record earned the band a good bit of attention, Johnson's harmonizing with former member Gillian Lisée especially winning over early fans and critics. Their second Sub Pop LP Spelled in Bones followed roughly the same template in 2005, so when setting out to write and record its follow-up, the just-released The Ruminant Band, Johnson purposefully loosened his grip on the performance aspect of the record, choosing instead to trust the talents of the players he’d assembled. more ›

Fort Worth’s Telegraph Canyon cruise down IH-35 to Austin tonight to celebrate the release of their new record, The Tide and The Current, at Stubbs’ inside stage. If you’re wondering why a band from Fort Worth should be throwing a CD release party in Austin, the short answer is that the group recorded The Tide and The Current here in town with Will Johnson behind the board. The album, which is the band’s second, takes The Arcade Fire’s anthemic melodies and dramatic orchestral swells and filters them through the dusty Texas prism of Johnson’s Centro-Matic, resulting in a sound best described as baroque Americana. more ›

Spoon’s music is all about propulsion, while the Low Lows focus on creating inescapable drag forces behind their melodies. But both bands seem thematically engaged on distilling the complexity of their musical ideas down into almost impossibly simplistic statements. In Spoon’s case, it’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga- pre-symbolic infant babble or chord structure? And on the other hand, with The Low Lows it’s a penchant for psychic denials so thinly veiled as to call attention to their transparency, which has vocalist Parker noon crooning heartbreakers like "There is no such thing as Sara Jane." more ›

There are few bands currently performing that can't shake Austin the way Spoon can't. Even though most of the band lives elsewhere, their presence lingers on the streets, in the record stores and in the bars. more ›

Boston's Pretty & Nice are a slam dunk for Austin show-goers, and their '80s-inspired electro-pop, cat claw sharp and relentless, will keep us riveted at Emo's tonight. The new record Get Young (Hardly Art) is a pummeling pop experience, taking few breaths along the way. more ›

If you’re participating in SXSW this year, we hope you’ve got a day planner or something so you can keep track of all the crazy shizz that’s going on around town. Speaking of, here’s something else you should mark on your calendars. I Eat Records (with a little help from Austinist) is throwing a couple of FREE day parties this Friday AND Saturday at Spider House, and you really don’t want to miss ‘em.... more ›

SXSW.com released an updated lineup for this year's SXSW Music Festival earlier today, and it's one hell of a list. The SXSW committee hastens to note that "This is a partial list of performers confirmed to appear at the 2006 SXSW Music Festival. This list is current as of 1/13/06. All of this information is subject to change." International acts include: Masahiro Nitta, DMBQ, Ellegarden, Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re, PE'Z, The Emeralds (Japan)... more ›