It's always great catching a band at their CD Release show, because you know they're going to be fired up and ready to bring it. And such is the state of this Thursday at The Parish Room, where Austin-proud The Boxing Lesson will be dropping their new disc, Wild Streaks & Windy Days, an unabashedly Pink Floyd-esque collection of psychedelic rock. With songs like "Muerta" and "Back from the Dead," they establish an eerily sinister tone that's ably coupled with songs nodding to their forebears, such as "Dark Side of the Moog."...

Two Austin-based companies -- Whole Foods Market and National Instruments -- once again found themselves on Fortune magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For this year. ...

There is absolutely no reason to stay in on Friday evening. Whether it's DJ Shadow at La Zona Rosa or Future Clouds and Radar at The Parish, downtown offers you a wide variety of music to kick off your weekend....

Psst, guess what? Refraction Arts has added a show to their blockbuster remount of The Assumption. With reported shenanigans of mustache thievery (bet it was the all-powerful mustache of man-nation) and scores of "terrifying" ad-libbed lines (a la the master, Tim Conway), it's clear these players are having way too much fun. So they're offering up "Wild Winter Wonder-F#@king-Land Wednesday," a pay-what-you-can performance, night after tomorrow. If you want to skip that awkward, "how much......

Image from Benko’s MySpace Benko, The Boxing Lesson, & The Story OfWednesday, November 21Stubbs (801 Red River)9 p.m. | $8[info] | [Benko MySpace] | [The Boxing Lesson MySpace] | [The Story Of MySpace]Thanksgiving is just around the corner but before you get stuffed and sleepy, get your long weekend started right on Wednesday evening. There is a mouth watering set of shows on the Austin schedule for the 21st. Extended details to follow in our......

Image from Wild Sweet Orange’s MySpace, by Jason Wallis The Whigs & Wild Sweet OrangeThursday, November 15Stubbs (801 Red River)$10 | Doors 10:30 p.m. | Inside[info] | [tickets] | [The Whigs MySpace] | [Wild Sweet Orange MySpace]Wild Sweet Orange are in town this Thursday at Stubb’s to offer introspective dream-pop from their recently released The Whale EP, as well as their upcoming full-length for Canvasback Music. The Birmingham, Alabama act’s “Ten Dead Dogs” was featured......

Photo by Marina Chavez; Image from MySpace. The Hold Steady + Art BrutThursday, November 15La Zona Rosa (612 W. 4th Street)$21 Advance, $23 Day Of Show[info] | [tickets]Brooklyn's The Hold Steady may well be America's best bar band. Their 2006 release Boys and Girls In America made Austinist's 2006 top albums list (and everyone else's) by combining sharp lyrical wit, meat and potatoes power chords, and dry vocals that the listener either loves or hates.......

For the second year in a row, Whole Foods has been recognizes as one of the EPA's Green Power Partners of the Year. The award, which celebrates "leadership in accelerating the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide," is shared by seven entities, including PepsiCo, Wells Fargo, and the City of Bellingham, WA. With the recent acquisition of leading competitor Wild Oats Markets, Whole Foods is set to significantly expand its green power purchasing. This......

On Saturday, October 13, Two Gallants and Blitzen Trapper played at the Mohawk downtown. The Gallants were celebrating the one-year anniversary of their epic taser catastrophe in Houston, and Blitzen Trapper were supporting their latest record, Wild Mountain Nation.......

While lounging amongst hundreds of lesbians at HRC’s Dinah Lakeshore event two weekends ago, we noticed a few people emerge from the mass of tank tops in full-on Western-wear: they were there to spread the word about the Texas Gay Rodeo Association’s Capitol City Rodeo. Hopelessly hypnotized by the man’s Southern drawl and his ability to delve into the most fascinating details concerning the art of calf roping, we were already sold on the event......

Don't forget to submit your entry for our Fantastic Fest Bruce Lee Lookalike Contest! The festival starts this Thursday, so get your entry in ASAP for a chance to WIN TWO FESTIVAL BADGES! Fantastic Fest is our favorite eight days of the year. No lie. In fact, last year's fest was quite possibly the best eight days of our entire lives. And though we didn't think it was possible, this year is shaping up to......

Fantastic Fest is our favorite eight days of the year. No lie. In fact, last year's fest was quite possibly the best eight days of our entire lives. And though we didn't think it was possible, this year is shaping up to be even better! To celebrate the festival's opening night, we cordially invite you--nay, we challenge you--to compete in the Finishing the Game: Bruce Lee Lookalike Contest! Here's how it works: Dress up like......

It's official: Whole Foods now owns its biggest rival, Wild Oats Markets. Despite a juicy scandal over Chairman and CEO John "rahodeb" Mackey's anonymous web postings and the Federal Trade Commission's earnest efforts to prevent what they believed was a serious antitrust violation, the deal was given the green light by a federal appeals court last Thursday. Whole Foods' buyout offer called for purchasing all outstanding shares of Wild Oats for $18.50 a pop;......

Three rescue workers killed and six others injured in attempt to save trapped miners. The sleeping giant and his laughing poodle play with guns. Former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla convicted on all counts. Two of Michael Vick's co-defendants plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges. A Federal Judge will not block Whole Foods take over of Wild Oats Market. Markets rebound after Feds cut interest rate. Dutch men arrested for adding maggots to meat.......

One of the country's biggest private mortgage companies goes belly-up, leaving 120 Austinites newly jobless The Texas Department of Transportation releases a list of over 2,000 "structurally deficient" bridges across the state, with 10 in Travis County Nicole and Jeffrey Rank of Corpus Christi are awarded $80k after being wrongfully arrested at a Bush rally in 2004 Tax-free holiday weekend starts on Friday Whole Foods gets the go-ahead to buy out Wild Oats The......

Wall Street has faith in the Texas economy Dell scores low in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index A boy swimming in Lake LBJ contracts a fatal strain of meningitis and is now fighting for his life at the Dell Children's Medical Center. Austinist wishes you well, kiddo. A 9-year-old was responsible for one of the Dollar General fires Is Whole Foods buying Wild Oats just to take 'em out? Customs officials in Hidalgo confiscate......

Attention local bands: SXSW 2008 is accepting your applications to be showcase performers during the week long festival come March. The deadline is November 9, 2007 for stateside applicants. If your band has a Sonicbid membership, you can register using that account. Otherwise, register online. Future SXSW attendees can register online to attend, too: music badges are a mere $500 through September 28. Paper Thin Walls feature Austin's Best Fwends: "It's a very mixed......

Local media discovers, loves Craigslist 41-year-old drunk driver manages to slam into two houses in North Austin Just one of the sixteen amendments proposed for the November ballot in Texas: stripping the constitutional powers of the Inspector of Hides and Animals Roughly four percent of Texas bridges are considered "structurally deficient," says the Texas Department of Transportation Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo announces his executive staff A lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission calls......

What happens when a runaway bride stumbles into the cabin of a hapless recluse? ...in the middle of the remotest Alaskan outback? ...during a terrible blizzard? Sounds a tad bit like the upcoming film Into The Wild, only with a potentially happy ending. One that's not based on a true story. Oh, and this tale includes a woman in a wedding gown who is hopped up on junk food. Okay, so it's not so......

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey now faces an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after a widely-distributed article in last week's Wall Street Journal revealed that he'd been making anonymous postings on internet message boards about his company. Writing as "rahodeb"—an anagram for "Deborah," his wife's name—Mackey left a string of messages and comments dating from 1999 to 2006. Many of the remarks focused on Mackey, Whole Foods, and, more recently, on......

Not sure how we missed this, but Miramax and Wild About Movies are presenting a free screening of SXSW 07 favorite Eagle Vs. Shark tonight at the Regal Arbor. Though we haven't had the opportunity to see it yet, the New Zealand comedy got a lot of positive buzz during South By--and we loved the folks dressed in eagle and shark costumes walking around promoting it. Plus, it stars Flight of the Conchords member Jemaine......

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......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

East Austin's Saltillo Lofts will host its first annual "Sidewalk Celebration" this Sunday, kicking things off with the official opening of the New East Arts Gallery. New East is the latest venture by DiverseArts, a local nonprofit producer of multidisciplinary art and culture projects such as East End Fourth Fridays and the former Downtown Arts Magazine. Their inaugural exhibit, entitled "Fresh Black Paint," features works by New Orleans artist/musician Terrence Moline, who relocated, post-Katrina,......

We are crushed that one of the hottest event at the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival - tonight’s Sip and Stroll done got sold out. We are completely missing out on both champagne and chatting up the Bubbly Professor - Jane Nickles. We are also missing out on wandering down to (sometimes yay, sometimes nay) Cru Wine Bar, where we would have been force-fed white wine. We are also, alas, not heading......

Whole Foods Market yesterday announced a merger agreement with fellow organic grocery chain Wild Oats Markets. The deal, worth approximately $700 million, will see the Austin-based Fortune 500 company effectively taking over and eventually rebranding most of Wild Oats Markets' 110 stores. Locally, Wild Oats operates as Sun Harvest Farms. "Wild Oats Markets and Whole Foods Market have both had a large and positive impact on the natural and organic foods movement throughout the......

"What the Stones were; what the Dandy Warhols should have been."* Strong words, even in today's desensitized rock-critisphere, but Lions In The Street have already opened for Kings Of Leon, been shopped-and-dropped by major labels, and recorded their debut EP in a dingy basement with an 8-track and broken mics because they could hardly afford beer. What are you gonna tell them, be less rock and roll please? This is the kind of band......

Tonight, Alamo Music Mondays presents a rare 16mm print of the 1971 British film Melody. Starring Mark Lester, Jack Wild and Tracy Hyde, Melody is the story of two pre-teen children who fall in love and declare their intention to get married – an announcement that is (of course) met with ridicule by overbearing parents and teachers. All we’ve actually seen of this film is the Japanese trailer (that has now been removed from Youtube),......

As SX07 approaches, we'll be keeping you informed on all of the official confirmations, rumors, and non-SX events that we feel are worth your attention. With January's arrival, a lot of news has surfaced in the past few days. Here's a quick recap: Confirmed Performers (via SXSW): Pete Townshend, Rachel Fuller, Emmylou Harris, The Stooges, Interpol, Lily Allen, Bloc Party, Devin The Dude, Hoodoo Gurus, Matt & Kim, Ghostland Observatory, The Watson Twins, Stax......

Send Sen. Tim Johnson a get-well-soon card, because he better. Search far and wide though you may, you will never find a better headline than this one. Think Michael Crichton might notta been quite right about climate change being invented by liberals? Then you must also prey on small children. Is only logic. Seven million dollars worth of quality British investigation sez Diana died in a car crash, not because alien beings ambushed her......