If you haven't got your badge and hotel reservation for SXSW 2008 in Austin Texas you may already be a day late and a dollar short. Hotel rooms in the downtown area are almost all booked up for the music portion, and rooms for the interactive and film portions are filling fast. Badge prices went up on Saturday as well, and will go up again each month until the event.

One person that doesn't have to worry about a room reservation or a badge for SXSW08 will be Moby. As part of the 2008 SXSW Film Conference, Moby will participate in a session entitled “A Conversation with Moby�. The session, scheduled for Tuesday, March 11, will take a look at the musician’s relationship with cinema and will include a look at “moby gratis,� the musician’s new endeavor to offer some of his music, free-of-charge, to independent filmmakers. For more on SXSW check out http://www.sxsw.com

Club kingsnake will be providing extensive pre-SXSW interviews and on scene coverage again this year for all 10 days of the event. We already have our badges and reservations and will be sending at least 3 staffers. If your a musician, band, or artist planning on performing or showcasing at SXSW 2008 and would like to be part of our coverage with an interview or performance video let us know! We will start providing coverage as soon as the band list is announced.

In other music news....

Did you hear the one about The Police, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, and The Sex Pistols all reforming in the same year? I don't know what hellish alignment of planets was required for this to occur but if Fleetwood Mac announces a reunion as well I will have to assume the world is ending. The Pistols have announced they will be playing a private warm-up club date at the 500 seat Roxy in Los Angeles on October 25 before jetting off to the U.K for a tour. The U.K. tour, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of their Never Mind The Bollocks album, has added more dates after the 3 shows in London sold out in 15 minutes. Led Zeppelin on the other hand will play only one more "reunion" gig according to Robert Plant “There’ll be one show and that’ll be it,� the magazine Uncut quoted him as saying. “We need to do one last great show because we’ve done some shows and they’ve been crap,� he added. Led Zeppelin's sold out reunion show will be at the O2 Arena in London on November 26

Protest The Hero - more photos... photo by clint gilders - staff photographer

October is shaping up to be pretty hard rocking month here in Austin, with a whole bunch of neat tours coming through town, but with a whole bunch of interesting conflicts. Even the Frank Erwin Center is getting in on the act.

Canada's Protest The Hero will be playing, along with All That Remains down at Emo's on 10/5, but I'm torn because thats the same night The Meat Puppets and Sonic Youth will be playing at Stubb's. I don't know if I can see both shows but I am willing to try. Luckily nothing seems to conflict when fellow Canadians Alexis On Fire play Emo's on 10/11.

Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush will be dusting off their amps and playing at Antone's on 10/6. Talk about classic rock, I think I still have an LP of theirs from the 70's somewhere around here. For even more classic rock, check out Peter Frampton out at The Backyard on 10/18, or the Doobie Brothers on 10/26. Chris Isaak will also be playing The Backyard on 10/13.

Vinnie Paul of Hellyeah - more photos... photo by brian rampacek - staff photographer

Korn will be bringing their back-assward logo typewriter to town, on 10/17, along with Vinnie Paul's Hell Yeah, Five Finger Death Punch, and Droid over at the Frank Erwin Center. If you can't catch that show, then head over to Emo's on the same night to catch the Melvins.

Another set of Canadians, the Tragically Hip, will be playing La Zona Rosa on 10/18 and that conflicts
with Chevelle's make up set on the same night at Stubb's.

The Erwin Center will be the scene of mobs of teenagers on 10/23 for Cute Is What We Aim For, Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes and the Plain White T's. A mob of grown up teen's will probably be at the show by former teen hearthrobs Hanson at La Zona Rosa on 10/27.

Finishing out the month on 10/28 we have Sinead O'Connor at Hogg Memorial Auditorium, Dax Riggs on 10/30 at Stubb's Bar-B-Q and make sure to wear a costume on Halloween when you catch The Dandy Warhols at La Zona Rosa.

Thats just a FEW of the interesting road shows coming next month. Looking WAAAAAAY off in the distance Robert Smith and The Cure will be playing at the remodeled Austin Music Hall on June 8th, 2008 and thats a show I will be at, photo pass or not.

While the rest of the world is still busy coming up with alliterative comments to describe Brittany Spears' performance on MTV's music awards show, Austin is all a twitter with rumors after the White Stripes pulled out of both ACL Fest and their after-show performance at Stubb's. While there is no refund available for ACL tickets, those who purchased tickets for their show at Stubb's can contact them about a refund.

Fans moved quickly to start lots of rumors about replacement acts (U2, ZZ Top, and just about everyone imaginable), but Charles Attal of C3 productions equally quickly quashed those rumors by announcing that the other bands would just move their sets back, with Muse taking the White Stripes' slot. This now makes three acts, the others being Amy Winehouse and Rodrigo Y Gabriela, that have canceled their ACL appearances this year, leaving fans wondering if there are more cancellations on the horizon.

One ACL artist showing no signs of canceling is Bob Dylan. Still slotted as the ACL headliner, Bob has announced that he will be doing an ACL aftershow at Stubb's. Fans hoping for tickets shouldn''t worry, as there are none available. Tickets were offered first to Bob's fan club members, then one thousand were made available to the public on Monday through a pre-sale. Those didn't even last an hour.

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news, rumors, and buzz compiled from around the web by the club.kingsnake staff