Deerhunter took the indie underground by force with last year’s Cryptograms, an album whose most propulsive rock songs were as finely textured as its meandering, ambient reveries. more at austin.decider.com

Before he became a devoted agent of the cameo appearance on albums far and wide, more at austin.decider.com

yes please

Sold out. more at www.austinchronicle.com

Trail of Dead, Brownout, Ume, Lemurs, and many more throw their own three-day fest. more at www.austinchronicle.com

Does this mean Emo’s can get their driver’s license? Rock on.

Ludo and Flobots? I’m there.

Bidding starts at $1, right in my price range.

I got to see Monte Negro at SXSW this year. They really won me over. They were cool dudes and you need to be familiar with them if you aren’t already. You’re welcome!

On the recent Kill Rock Stars-released We Brave Bee Stings And All, Thao Nguyen and backing band The Get Down Stay Down make arresting songs given to bluesy sparseness and nuanced cadence. While her wispy voice, playful melodies, and sense of childlike wonderment suggest just another starry-eyed female folkie, Nguyen’s dense, witty lyricism and subtle quirks (check her beat-boxing on “Bag Of Hammers”) reward deeper study. Opener Horse Feathers makes chamber-pop that frolics outside that genre’s stuffy drawing room with lithe, portable songs. On its 2006 album, Words Are Dead, instruments like mandolin, violin, saw, and cello often stack up for a bigger sound, but the group can also scale it back to just guitar and violin to carry its strong, crafty melodies.

What a great night for music in Austin! Happy Birthday indeed Antone’s!

Morrissey’s name probably isn’t high up on Andy Rourke’s Christmas card list: The former Smiths bassist joined forces with drummer Mike Joyce a decade ago to sue Morrissey and Johnny Marr for unpaid royalties. Needless to say, it was an acrimonious affair, but such trivia pales before the might and dexterity of Rourke’s bass playing, which was always unfairly overshadowed by Marr’s admittedly godlike virtuosity. Rourke has been caught up with various projects since The Smiths’ dissolution 20 years ago, and also keeps busy spinning records at clubs around the world, where he doubtlessly fends off aging groupies and inevitable questions about a Smiths reunion. Austin’s twitchy electro-rockers The Black And White Years should provide an excellent dance floor primer.

This Washington, D.C.-based DJ duo has a pan-national feel — multilingual lyrics with techno itself as the utterly international tongue. With the Austin-based Latino sound system Ocote Soul Sounds. more at austin360.com

AA-S Best Bet – Ladytron:
If you like females and robots — specifically, female robots — then you probably love the English electro-pop quartet Ladytron. Formed in 1999 with principal members Reuben Wu, Daniel Hunt, Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo, Ladytron soon rose to popularity with the release of the band’s first album, “604,” in 2001. Two records and seven years later, the four-piece has rolled out “Velocifero,” which they support tonight at Stubb’s.
— Shannon McGarvey
More at austin360.com

Despite hit-or-miss debut Broken Boy Soldiers, Jack White and the Raconteurs stormed Austin City Limits Music Fest 2006 like a seven-nation army, even firing off a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” The supergroup reloads Friday night (Saturday is sold out) with latest Consolers of the Lonely, a dynamic combination of Brendan Benson’s best melodramatic ballads and garage blues. Raleigh, N.C.-based retro-rockers Birds of Avalon fly first. – Austin Powell more at austinchronicle.com

Priming the pump for a week’s worth of debauchery, Beauty Bar gets the buzz started for early SXSW arrivals with a crash course on some of the best bands Austin has to offer. On the outside stage, Belaire lets the sun shine in with infectious indie-tronica and huggable harmonies from last year’s Exploding, Impacting along with desert-folk troubadours Brothers And Sisters and funky art-school aces The Black And White Years. Inside, garage wunderkinds The Strange Boys headline a retro revival that includes souped-up rawk from Those Peabodys and swaggering Southern steez from Scorpion Child. Around 1 a.m., DJs from Austin, London, and Glasgow (and special guests like Yo Majesty’s Shunda K.) kick off a late-night dance party that will ensure you never make it to any of those Wednesday panels. They sounded boring anyway. Also playing: Golden Bear, AM Syndicate, {{{Sunset}}}, Murdocks, Sleeping In The Aviary, Future Clouds And Radar.
To win tickets to this show, email austinpromo@theonion.com with ‘Art Disaster’ in your subject line.

Summer 2001, Coney Island. I’m standing front and center, sweating profusely under the oppressive July sun as Les Savy Fav commands the stage. Singer Tim Harrington is wearing flimsy, red jogging shorts, then he’s wearing only a small white towel. He runs off stage in the towel, through the crowd, right toward the Cyclone, and gets in line. The other band members look at one another and end the song.more at austinchronicle.com

The Hold Steady has maintained a devout fan base since growing out of the legend of Minneapolis rock band Lifter Puller, and lead singer/firebrand Craig Finn makes it easy to understand why. His style trades on patently singular vocal screeds that siphon added power when the rock gears turn higher and looser, as they do on last year’s breakout Boys And Girls In America. Art Brut frontman Eddie Argos spits acidic observations like a post-punk Ray Davies, baiting hipsters with lines like “I can’t stand the sound of The Velvet Underground” while the band behind him sloshes and slams between The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys. This year’s It’s A Bit Complicated doesn’t exactly live up to its title, as Argos and his group continue on their sardonic pop path with a similar smirk. Glasgow’s 1990s sure makes a playful, crowd-pleasing racket—the kind of pleasantly ramshackle garage-y pop (similar to leader Jackie McKeown’s former group The Yummy Fur) that surely gets even better onstage.