Crowded House, put simply, are a sterling pop band. The band was formed 25 years ago from the ashes of new wave hitmakers Split Enz ("I Got You", "History Never Repeats") by singer-songwriter Neil Finn and drummer Paul Hester. The two, according to Finn, "wanted to be in a three-piece band that could fit into one rental car." After adding Melbourne bassist Nick Seymour, the trio was complete. The trio burst out of the gate in the United States in 1987 with Top 10 hits "Don't Dream It's Over" and "Something So Strong," which remain the group's biggest American hits. From here, the band's global presence diverged wildly: while 1991 album Woodface propelled them to arena-rock status in the UK, Europe, and Australia, the group remained largely a club-level band in the United States.

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Robert Plant is about to turn 62, but apparently, getting older doesn't mean playing it safe. After 2007's one-off Led Zeppelin charity gig prompted concert promoters to stack piles of cash at Plant's door, he rejected the overtures to continue touring his Americana project Raising Sand with Alison Krauss. After collecting no small amount of critical acclaim for that endeavor, Plant has now blown it all up again, emerging with a new brand of weirder, louder roots rock in his current project, Band Of Joy.

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SPIN has confirmed Hole as the headliner for their annual SXSW bash at Stubb's. This year's party will take place Friday, March 19 and the rest of the lineup includes Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Fucked Up, Miike Snow, Rogue Wave, and Foxy Shazam. more ›

On Tuesday March 16, Motorhead will play at Stubb's with the Sword. There's also a Lemmy-themed film premiering at SXSW as well. Tickets go on sale Feb. 12. more ›

Ever had a fun nightmare? The Residents make yours come true. Talking Light, their first tour in two decades, descended upon Stubb’s Tuesday night, wracking brains and bodies of everyone from the fans who’ve waited twenty years for this moment, to the ten-year-old boy who evenly declared, “I’m not old enough to have seen them twenty years ago.” The wait yielded a writhing body in a wrinkled old man mask with a protruding nose, backlit in vertical stripes and black-and-white patent leather clown shoes. Though he introduced himself as “Randy,” we don’t know who The Residents are. Since 1976, they’ve been performing to cult audiences without revealing their identities. This is not the cloak of anonymity so much as a cohesive creature called The Residents which, despite the fluidity in line-up over the years, remains an unmistakable entity whose wild concept albums contort history and mythology the way their live frequencies mess with our ears. more ›

English Teeth will release their debut EP, English Teeth on Saturday, Jan. 23 at Stubb's indoors with The Ugly Beats and The Ripe. more ›

WOXY and Austinist are pleased to present an official get-the-ball-rolling-even-further-on-the-crazy-hype-machine listening party for the much-loved and much-loathed spiffy dressers from the northeast, Vampire Weekend. Because, if their faces are going to be utterly everpresent (see their recent feature interview in The New Yorker, of all elite places, or their just-produced and astonishingly immaculate MTV Unplugged set (yes, MTV Unplugged)), the new album deserves at least a solid beer-in-hand listen before deciding whether this foursome is the true salvation for yuppies with a heart/people who like Paul Simon, or a sign that the horsemen of the crap apocalypse like to wear cashmere cardigans with collars fully popped. more ›

Has it really been almost two years since Vampire Weekend captured our hearts with their addictive debut album? The memories of a jam-packed, sold out show at The Mohawk in late 2007 and the ensuing SXSW gigs the following year are still vivid in our minds. more ›

Austin's Whitman are releasing their first 7" this Saturday night at Stubb's. "Cul-de-Sac" and "Light It Up" are acting as the band's first "double single" so we're sure we'll hear both tunes at the show. more ›

• If you thought you saw a Viking Boat on the street on Saturday, it wasn’t your imagination. It was on the way to be part of the East Austin Studio Tour!
• The Blue October show at Stubb's on Friday was kind of a big deal. People even flew in from out-of-town to see the band play.
• The Austin Film Society's current film series features the work of a modern Finnish filmmaker. Watching some of the films might make you very glad that you don’t live in Finland!

Photos courtesy Steve Hopson. Monsters of Folk consists of Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes and M. Ward. more ›

Sound is in love with Regina Spektor. There’s nothing it won’t let her do. She’s made her mouth into a synthesizer, morphed her lips into a kazoo-trumpet hybrid, made heartbeats and drumsticks their own instruments, rocked hard with an unamped electric guitar, and put a piano bridge in the middle of a punk song. At first, you might not recognize that adventurous spirit on Spektor’s most recent album, Far. Listen again. more ›

Photos courtesy Eric Uhlir. If you can't view the Flash slideshow above, an alternate version appears after the jump. more ›

Photos courtesy Steve Hopson. more ›