Austin Sound

We thought Shearwater’s whole “dossier” idea was a little odd and extravagant, but they continue to mine the bizarre with the new video for “Hidden Lakes” off of next week’s release, The Golden Archipelago. Really, what the hell is going on here? Is this some post-apocalyptic desolation? If so, then why are we dressed like the 1800’s? And wearing mascara? And what’s with the puppies? Our theory: these are two designated heathens from the “After the Rapture Pet Care” service! The video was directed by Alma Har’el, with Eduard Grau doing the amazing cinematography. How can Shearwater be so beautiful and so damned depressing? The band is currently over in Europe, but they’ll be back in Austin on March 13 for a show at Red 7 with Noveller and Xiu Xiu. Check out the video below, as well an Mp3 of “Black Eyes” in case you missed it earlier:

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: two rock stars walk into a toy store. There’s not much of a punch line, but this little teaser video for the new Roky Erickson and Okkervil River collaboration is pretty cool. In fact, it’s kind of adorable. The two Austin luminaries take a trip to Toy Joy with a camera in tow and spend awhile rummaging around through all the stuff. It’s a little trippy, and all pretty amusing, with some poignant shots of Roky among the toys looking a little bewildered. Kinda like this guy! In case you don’t know what all this is about, the “Rokkervil” album will be coming out on April 20th on Anti-, titled True Love Cast Out All Evil. More details on that here, but they have released the cover art, which you can see below, along with the track listing. They have a youtube channel up, so hopefully we’ll get more videos of Erickson and Sheff running around hallowed Austin sites - maybe taking a dip in Barton Springs, or having a picnic under the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue, or something. Video and album details below:

David Yow opening up? Well, it ain’t exactly Oprah or anything, but for a little 12 minute documentary, this is pretty damn insightful. Kudos to the French site The Drone for the nice piece of work (and Daily Swarm for catching). This was filmed last month when Yow was in Switzerland recording with the band Ventura (in Europe, we bet they actually think this is a cool band name), and the Drone followed him around and actually had some pretty deep conversations. So what do we learn about the head Jesus Lizard? Well, there are daddy issues, of course. He doesn’t think he’s very good: “I’m just a fellow involved in music. I don’t know if I’m a musician.” (Damn, now you tell us!) And now he wants to “make a living through acting.” Guess that’s better than actors turning rock stars. Maybe. And a “Steve [Albini] and David Comedy Show”!? We’d watch that. You can watch the whole documentary below, but check out The Drone’s other videos, which are equally impressive.

The Strange Boys sophomore album, Be Brave, is due out later this month, and while not as shockingly fantastic as their debut last year, it’s still pretty damn great. The band has oddly been rather tight with the official details/leaks of the album, with only one song up on their myspace, and no official mp3s or anything released into the wild. But at least they have finally made a video for the title track. Well, kinda made a video, if you can consider lo-fi footage of the kids sittin’ around and motorboatin’ their mouths, watching dogs hump legs, and getting mugged in the streets a video - you know, basically just another day in the life of Strange Boys? Chances are that that life might change here soon with their upcoming massive tour, which includes a nice little stint with Spoon. They’ll be kicking all of that off at Emo’s February 19 and then running up the west coast until SXSW. Check out the video below:

Holy shit, this is funny. The video for St. Vincent’s “Laughing With a Mouth Full of Blood” debuted today on something called Myspace, and it seems she’s recruited Car­rie Brown­stein and Fred Armisen to be her fans. We’re not exactly sure who is who though, so maybe you can tell. What’s funny is we tried to stage this same thing with Annie Clark - luring her into our living room for a solo performance - but all we got was a restraining order. So it goes. Now St. Vincent has gotten all big time NYC SNL NPR, so we might have to stop writing about her all the time here on Austin Sound. Except we won’t, because it’s the only way we’re allowed to legally still cyberstalk her. Clark is currently touring, but there don’t seem to be any stops down here in her former stomping grounds. (According to her myspace, however, she does have a show tonight at an intriguing venue in Vancouver called “venue.” Could that possibly be real? We really hope so - Canadians are so meta). Check out the awesome video below:

So as you’ve probably heard, local songwriter Ryan Bingham recently won a Golden Globe (or half of one, anyway) for his song “The Weary Kind.” It’s the theme song for the movie Crazy Heart, which from what we can gather stars George Clooney playing Ryan Bingham, who is some kind downsizing songwriter? It’s all very confusing, especially since our subscription to Variety got canceled and because we’re banned from the Alamo Drafthouse ever since that “incident” at the 80s night sing-a-long. (Our lawyers say we can’t discuss the details). But Bingham (the real-life one, not the George Clooney one flying around everywhere), has been doing pretty well by Crazy Heart, even if T-Bone Burnett gets half the credit. But hey, when someone named T-Bone asks for half of something, it’s generally just a good idea to let him have it. You can check out the video for Bingham’s song below, and there are a ton more videos up on his Myspace page for tunes off his latest album with the Dead Horses, Roadhouse Sun.

The Lonesome Heroes are a wandering lot, so maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised that it took them about three years to make a video for “Don’t Play to Lose.” We give them a pass on the old tune, though, because the video is pretty great. How can you not love two adorable kids escaping from some hardcore bikers and bouncers?! It’s like Goonies II: Goonies in the City! Or something. Kudos to Daniel Stolzman of Frameless Films for directing the video, and to Rich Russell and Landry McMeans for wherever they dug up their younger counterparts. As for the Heroes themselves, they’ll be back in town after last month’s trek up into the north east for a gig at the Continental Club on Saturday, January 16 with Lil’ Cap’n Travis and Grand Champeen. Check out the video below:

Man, remember 2009? Those were crazy days. All the drugs. All the music. All the PSYCH, man! And the Radio Room, remember that place? Austin has changed, man. It’s all condos and yuppies now. A place like the Radio Room could never exist downtown today, you know man? Back then, Sky Saxon could be a crazy shaman dude and it was cool. He’d be so disappointed with what this city has become today. If only we go back to when Austin was exciting. Now the lawyers are trying to kill the scene, and stuff, man. We don’t even want to go out anymore. Thankfully we don’t have to because we can stay at home and relive those halcyon days back in 2009 when psych ruled the city, with the new DVD release of Austin Psych Fest 2. For the release party tomorrow night at the Mohawk, a stunning reunion has been assembled of some of Austin’s best Psych bands from that golden era of the ’00s. The legendary Black Angels have curated the event themselves, and it will include that obscure BA side project that has been all but lost to history, the Viet Minh, along with period local mainstays Horse + Donkey, Shapes Have Fangs, and the Ghost Songs. They’re going to be screening the film at 8:00pm, so prepare for some crippling nostalgia with footage from that legendary era and Psych Fest, as well as an additional 20 minute documentary on Sky Saxon. We might cry tomorrow night for those lost glorious days of ‘09. Check out the trailer below:

We’re not sure if this new video from Eric Power is adorable or creepy! These little one eyed monsters are cute, but man, claymation still freaks us out. We blame Gumby, obvs. Still, little monsters this sad aren’t very threatening, even to our innately horrified hearts, and we’d in fact like to pet them on the head and let them know it will be alright, but we’d probably just smush them. This is why we don’t have nice things, according to mom. But the key takeaway here is that little one-eyed claymation monsters are just like us, yearning and lonely and just trying to get by a cruel non-claymated world. And they apparently try find commiseration through the music of the Lovely Sparrows. Misery and company and all that. This is the Sparrows’ take on Big Star’s “Take Care,” which follows Yo La Tengo’s version of the song. So this is like third generation, or something. Shawn Jones and company are currently recording their followup to last year’s debut LP, Bury the Cynics, expected sometime next year. We just hope he can hang in there that long. Buck up there, cowboy.

One day, archeologists (read Space Aliens) are going to dig up life on Earth in the early 21st century and wonder why love affairs seem to only happen in grainy Super 8 vision. Seriously, can our nostalgic and whimsical relationships be presented in HD for once? The ‘naughts are almost over people - let’s find a new way to visualize this thing called love. And yeah, we’re looking at you, too, Bill Baird! Also, whistling. We thought there was an international ban on whistling after all those young folks ruined it for everyone (according to the Geneva Convention treaty clause #983.7, section F, Andrew Bird is the only artist that gets clemency here). Plus it makes you look like this during shows. But here we have Austin’s beloved Black and White Years, with the help of director Matthew Hoffman, throwing caution to the wind with their new video “Two Reservoirs.” We’ll see if Kanye likes this one enough to post on his blog as well. The song is off of their latest EP, Nursery Myths. Check it out below: