Woven Bones

Watch Out For Rockets

I caught Austin band Watch Out For Rockets playing the other week at the Beauty Bar, a small smoky den on a bustling hipster strip. Although they hit the stage a few hours late, they still cranked out an awesome set of guitar-based power pop, though they left out my favorite track, Urgent Serpent Merchant (below).

Art-pop ensemble: Future Clouds and Radar

Austin-based Future Clouds and Radar, the eclectic art-pop ensemble headed by Robert Harrison, has recently released its sophomore recording, Peoria. Where their self-titled debut album showed Harrison as the central figure in a large musical cast, Future Clouds and Radar’s latest offering finds the core band focusing their kaleidoscopic vision into a single cinematic narrative about the illusory nature of mortality. Throughout, Harrison stays true to his genre-hopping eclecticism, leading the journey through a maze of fuzz-box vocals and ethereal keys.

My Milky Way Arms’ Secret Playlist

We checked in with Space Kill of Austin group My Milky Way Arms, who has just released an album of Star Wars-ian ‘crystal operas’ and asked about the music that inspired it all. He started off with, what else but Van Halen’s mega-hit, Panama: ‘I hated Van Halen for years and this song embodied my hatred. Then one day, like a light switch, my mind clicked over to finally realize this is the most awesome band of all time! This is the ultimate party song I’m too scared to play at a party’. [Read the rest of My Milky Way Arms' Secret Playlist]

Luke Butler’s Enterprise series

My roommate is on a big Star Trek kick, re-watching the entire original series. I forgot how amazing and progressive and ahead-of-its-time it was. Actually, Star Trek: the Next Generation is also just as good. Hopefully Luke Butler will paint images from that series next or superimpose Captain Picard’s head on a nude body of Adonis. Read more

Tom Fun Orchestra’s Bottom of the River

This video for Nova Scotian gypsy folk-punk ensemble Tom Fun Orchestra is so effectively simple, matching the imagery to the song perfectly.

Cheeming Boey’s coffee cup art

California-based artist Cheeming Boey makes super-wowza drawings on styrofoam coffee cups. He also keeps a web comic documenting his daily life that is at times hilarious at others rather touching. He reminds me of my friend Jon from high school. Read more