Two months after I moved to Austin from the bleak and boring state of South Carolina, my car broke down in a parking lot by my house. After spending 2K fixing up my car to get it here, that was the last straw. The doors still didn’t close right, the driver’s seat was no longer attached to the car, it’s never had heat or air conditioning and it stunk; I was done. It did smuggle me out of Scare-olina to save my soul from being doomed to a fate of driving a potato chip delivery truck, getting married way too young, having barefoot children with names taken from my favorite daytime “stories” and only finding comfort in getting blind-stinkin’-drunk while watching the Saturday afternoon auto racing event, and for that I’m grateful. ...

So the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival has come and gone but you still haven’t had enough music. Thankfully, the 2007 Wall Of Sound Festival is just around the corner. Besides catching headliners such as Explosions In The Sky, Midlake, and Ghostland Observatory, be sure to check out Spectrum. The brainchild of Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom (a.k.a. Peter Kember), the act will be performing new songs while Spacemen 3 era tracks are also promised.......

Hello Lovers -- Vanity Fair (Inchworm): If it is possible to musically capture a lovesick, misunderstood poet wailing and moping about drunkenly in a scummy apartment overlooking a dark and lonely city, Austin’s Hello Lovers have done it. In fact, they have positioned their sound around the voice that embodies said misunderstood poet: that of J.C. King. If you can’t latch on to King’s Antony-esque vibrato, Colin Meloy-esque (of The Decemberists) nasality, or off-melody,......

Taylor Mills Lullagoodbye (Aquapulse) There’s a new safe word being grunted out of S&M dungeons everywhere, and it is Lullagoodbye. It means slow down, ease up and take fewer risks. Although the album mostly lies within the boundaries of uninspired adult contemporary, at times her voice is filled with smooth, sometimes-sultry melody and a graceful piano whispers like a bedtime story. Then, there’s the added bonus of looking at her staggeringly attractive mug on every......

If you spend your Sundays reading French surrealist poetry, or if you’re just a fan of beautifully-breathy, sometimes-sanguine pop songs; then, tickets to The Clientele show are probably already being used as a bookmark in your copy of Fantomas (the book, not the band). Touring off their latest album, God Save The Clientele, this UK art-pop foursome will be will be playing a host of new tracks much sunnier than their last three releases.......

In Austin, all the malt shops, arcades, bowling allies, drive-ins and wherever else the hip kids hang out these days will be empty May 13th. Instead, they’ll all be gathered at Bass Concert Hall with their hearts in hand ready to give them freely to Bright Eyes indie folk heartthrob Conor Oberst. He’s now become a coveted American musical icon, and thanks in part to the media, we have watched him mature through breakups......

The Electric Soft Parade No Need To Be Downhearted Like an indie pop amnesiac, we find The Electric Soft Parade wandering somewhere in the woods on No Need To Be Downhearted. The group is unable to choose between three possible identities; one of Smiths-inspired Brit pop, another caught in experimental, lo-fi doldrums and a third all about the dance-able angular guitars that made so many fall in love with the first Bloc Party record. However,......