Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, the clever New Zealanders known as Flight of the Conchords, were owning a rambunctious crowd at NYC's Town Hall, running through a cheeky version of their song "Robots," in which the duo sing from the perspective of two robots who've recently eliminated the human race by using "poisonous gases" to "poison their asses." As the song concluded and the audience (w

There may be people who only attended the third session of the 2008 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, but as a wise man once observed about his questionably unclothed behavior on a famed bathroom floor, "It Wasn't Me." So the remains of Days 1 and 2 -- The French Fry Diet, crap sleep, SPF 45 caked on like Steven Tyler's mascara, temperatures reportedly reaching a singeing 112 degrees, fee

In a better universe, Prince would've been the original alternative rocker. Able to play virtually any instrument in virtually any style -- funk, soul, R&B, gospel, pop, rock, folk, psych, new-wave -- he was a multiracial, pansexual, politically minded, sacredly profane fashion freakazoid who posed in the shower wearing a trench coat and a "Rude Boy" button.

Here are two skewed views of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, which opened its three-session 2008 cavalcade at Empire Polo Field in Indio, California Friday (just minutes away from where the late Merv Griffin once held court as the cardiganed billionaire pasha of this desert resort-village refuge, as the sultan of streets named after legendary golfers -- Nicklaus, Palmer, even We

DOUG BROD, EDITOR, SPIN
Best Set: My Morning Jacket at Austin Music Hall
Best Discovery: (Tie) Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, the Heavy, and the Last Vegas (not officially part of SXSW, though)
Biggest Disappointment: Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong walked off after two songs.

There's nothing quite like the sheer hell of the Austin airport on the Sunday morning after South by Southwest. Tousle-headed, sunburned-but-still-oddly-pale cred cops who, three short hours ago, worried only about how to see the Ting Tings play the Dell Computers and Vitamin Water Presents Corporatemusicsucks.com after-afterparty in some creatively converted warehouse, now slowly re-enter a world in which Garnier Fructis gifting-suite sculpting gel is not allowed in one's carry-on.

Motorhead, Stubb's
Nothing cures hipster fatigue like watching a couple thousand people, many badge-free civilians, throw devil horns in the general direction of Lemmy Kilmister, who looks exactly like he did 30 years ago: awesome and terrifying and haggard. Seemed odd to leave out "Eat the Rich" during an industry show, though. Overheard afterwards: "Doesn't look like anyone in Austin is gonna be able to get their car fixed today."

Give them credit: When Justice plotted an NYC stop on their current MySpace Music tour, they initially booked at Madison Square Garden. The arena. Where the Knicks play, or, we should say, where a few players wearing orange and blue occasionally conduct a lazy pick-up game. It was a bold move, and while the plan ultimately didn't fly -- the show was moved to the smaller (but still relatively cavernous), 3,500-capacity WaMu Theater at MSG -- it did prove that dance music has a resurgent presence in this country not felt since the supposed-but-never-realized electronica takeover of 1997. Will SXSW 2008 serve as the launch pad for the next slew of dancefloor dominators? Let's examine a few contenders.

Sorry that the South-by-Shuffle hasn't exactly been a daily endeavor. As you can see, we've just launched a brand new SPIN.com over the weekend, so that took quite a bit of our time and energy. But now it's back-to-work, and back to the SXSW iTunes shuffle project.

From now through March 11, SPIN.com's Peter Gaston is chained to his desk, listening to almost 600 MP3s of SXSW 2008 performers on shuffle mode in iTunes, separating the wheat from the chaff. His findings will be posted daily.