He’s a master of sampling and an early proponent of turntablism, but you won’t find Carl Stone working with Kanye any time soon. Instead, throughout his musical career, minimalist pioneer Stone has taken experimented with electronics and sound in a way that recalls his hero John Cage and other irrepressible avant-garde musicians of his ilk....

M.I.A.'s Friday ACL performance felt so seductive because it was both spicy and sweet; but what else can you expect from a girl who salts and peppers her mango? She burst onto stage wearing pink pedal-pushers, white trainers, wrap-around glasses and war paint, all the while shimmying her heart out to Kala's "Bamboo Banga." Her dancing seemed confounded by tentative limb placement, and it marked her as one extremely sexy dork. (Hawt!) It's this......

The Hold Steady have been holding, er, steady in the limelight since 2004, picking up a Village Voice cover here and a best album of the year there (2006: The Onion’s A.V. Club), and just generally best-ing all over the place: they were Blender’s 2006 Band of the Year and made it to Rolling Stone’s annual album ranker at number 8. Critical acclaim blah blah blah. The big hit from the big album Boys......

Since unleashing the Peter Gabriel-like "Staring At The Sun" in 2003, TV On The Radio has done just about everything an indie band can hope for. They've released two lauded albums, made the major label jump, opened for the Pixies, recorded with David Bowie, and won the Shortlist Prize. And while The Arcade Fire may be the most blogged about band of the last two years, one could argue that TVOTR may be the......

One of our favorite authors, and national treasure, Sarah Vowell returns to Austin Friday night for a performance at the Paramount Theatre. In addition to authoring several outstanding non-fiction books (Radio On, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Assassination Vacation), the dry-witted Planes Stater-by-birth, New Yorker-by-choice has applied her substantial intellect and rapier wit to work for This American Life, McSweeney’s, Believer Magazine, Esquire, GQ, The Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, Spin and The New York......