Wisecracking aside, lots of really excellent things have come out of Jersey.* Things like Bruce Springsteen and Zach Braff and the Wrens. This weekend, the Wrens will be wrapping up what has been a four-year, weekends-only tour of the country, supporting their album the Meadowlands. But, the boys in the band will be taking a breather only after playing Emo's this Friday night. The four-year tour might seem a bit excessive, but it came at......

Blitzen Trapper Wild Mountain Nation (Lidkercow Ltd.) Folksy but freakish Portlanders Blitzen Trapper have yet to be scooped up by Zach Braff, but that's probably only because they're still on the fringes of too weird. Yet, between soothing and familiar odes to old Grateful Dead tunes and powerful plays towards anti-genre adorableness, the odd sextet manage to capture the listener's attention while totally defying their own. Eccentric, playful and genuine songs fuse 70's goofball......

Alt.Country, power pop, loud rockabilly, and love songs. If you enjoy any or all of the things we've just mentioned, make it a priority to head to Stubb's tonight. For almost 15 years, Dallas-based The Old 97's have been playing a mixture of the music they love. The band started on Bloodshot Records as a loud, rough-hewn alt.country bar band, then slowly evolved their sound into something catchy and polished enough that the love......

Cary Brothers, Rachel Yamagata, Tristan Prettyman, Joshua Radin, Jonah Matranga, Jim Bianco, and Sara Bareilles will grace The Parish's stage on Thursday night as part of the 2006 Hotel Cafe tour, which has blossomed from a rag-tag gang of L.A.-based musicians harmonizing in a Hollywood coffee shop into a tour bus full of artists with credits like appearances on Grammy Award winning soundtracks (Garden State). Throughout the U.S., the tour offers a variation of......

The following review was written by Austinist foreign correspondent David Cheng, who's off cavorting with ill-mannered expats in Southeast Asia. We would've published this sooner, but we forgot. -- The Editors We want to start out this review by saying we "heart" Zach Braff.  We’re a huge fan of Scrubs, so much so that we’ve seen every episode at least three times.  We loved Garden State, and not just because Natalie Portman was so very......

- Wild Horses Couldn't Sell Those Cheap Seats: Charles Attal must be having some trouble filling those far corners of Zilker Park, because KGSR sent out an email this week offering four Rolling Stones tickets and four concert T-Shirts for $199. If you're keeping score, this is roughly half of the original $95 ticket cost. If you'd like to take advantage of the offer, head over here. - New Concerts Going On Sale his......

Heading to End of an Ear or Waterloo? Here's what you can look for this week on the new release wall. Adem: Love & Other Planets (Domino) Adem's work with Fridge doesn't give any indication of his capabilities as a folk / pop singer-songwriter, but the distinction between the styles is indicative of his talent. The album's subtle yet sonic layers combined with Adem's fragile, persistant voice create a soundscape to match the themes......

This is the first post from our new contributor, Elizabeth... Now that you've gone to all the free museums you can, surely you need something to do this evening. So here's where we remind you that the Emmys are on tonight (7pm, KEYE CBS42). We don't make as much of an effort to watch the Emmys as we do to watch the Oscars (and yes, even the Golden Globes). We still have opinions on......