Can it really be more than 20 years since the world got a taste of Poi Dog Pondering? The group first formed in Hawaii, 1986, and moved to Austin a year or so later. I absolutely loved them back then, first through their EPs on the Texas Motel label, then the live show that sprawled and bounced. I remember one night at the original Knitting Factory on Houston in New York City. The performance space was on the second floor of a ramshackle building that could hold, I’m guessing, 100 people. The place was jammed beyond capacity and Poi made sure the boundary between stage and audience was obliterated. It wasn’t that difficult, as the stage was probably a foot above the floor, but the shared musical experience between band and listener couldn’t have been closer. By the end of the night, the crowd was the band and vice versa and I feared the floor was going to disappear from the furious vibrations.

With Jakob Dylan & the Gold Mountain Rebels following in the footsteps of last year’s headliner Bob Dylan, the rest of the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival, September 26-28 in Zilker Park, is suiting up. While there are still a number of high profile veteran artists (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Manu Chao, John Fogerty, David Byrne), the lineup, announced today, is dominated by alternative staples (Foo Fighters, Beck, the Mars Volta, Iron & Wine, Gnarls Barkley), right down to the local delegates (White Denim, the Strange Boys, Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears). OTR is personally stoked to see Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band, M. Ward, and Gillian Welch on the same bill, along with Spiritualized, Band of Horses, and Antibalas. View the whole lineup after the jump.

He looked certifiable at the time, but Ol' Dirty Bastard now sounds prophetic rushing the stage at the 1998 Grammys to tell the world, “Wu-Tang is for the children.” Like all misunderstood geniuses, ODB was simply ahead of his time. A decade later, a generation who grew up on the Wu’s poisonous paragraphs is pushing 30 (holler!), and three decades after the birth of hip-hop, Rev Run is known more for his parenting skills. It was inevitable: hip-hop for babies. This month saw the release of Dino 5, a concept album dreamed up by legendary producer Prince Paul. Five rapping dinosaur kids start a hip-hop band to play in the school talent show and, of course, teach life lessons along the way. Don’t cringe yet, check the lineup: Chali 2Na of Jurassic 5 as MC T-Rex; Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets as Tracy Triceratops; Wordsworth as Billy Brontosaurus; Scratch from the Roots as Teo the Beatboxing Pterodactyl; and Prince Paul as DJ Stegosaurus. Now that’s a supergroup!

The last time I saw the inside of Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio was in January of 1970. I was being shown the front doors, suspended for organizing girls to wear pants to school in protest of the dress code that said girls couldn’t wear pants. Given the height that skirts were reaching then, pants seemed a more modest alternative but that wasn’t my rationale. I believed we were being discriminated against. It seems so silly now, forbidding girls to wear pants to school, but it was a big deal then, what with liberation movements popping up left and right. Of course, my high school used “Rebel Rouser” as its fight song, we flew the Dixie flag, the band played “Dixie” at football games, and Johnny Reb was the school mascot. Those symbols are gone with the old dress code. I found that out last Friday, arriving for the dedication of the new library and its 50th anniversary. Why I was even going when my teen years were so full of rebellion against school is combination of rosy sentiment, a desire to show “them” I’d done something with my life. Still, driving into the parking lot by the familiar red brick buildings, my stomach shrank and my mouth dried up. It had been almost forty years since that was my life and here it was, in the school colors of red and gray once again.

This week, influential indie music website Pitchfork unveiled Pitchfork TV, a new project featuring streaming music videos, exclusive live performances and interviews, and even full-length movies like the Pixies documentary loudQUIETloud. The site is an impressive undertaking, and though still in its infancy, presents a new model for integrating multimedia content within a critical space, an extension of the Forkcast feature of Pitchfork’s primary site. Beyond the multimedia possibilities excited by Pitchfork TV lies another discussion brought to light during the Blog Factor, a panel at this year's South by Southwest. Online sites and individual blogs are gaining increasing critical influence and force within the music industry, a reality perhaps most evident in the recent foldings of magazines like Harp, No Depression, Resonance, and Bluegrass Now, which have either closed shop or switched to a strictly online format. It’s a trend endemic to the entire print industry, not just music publications.

Most DJs spend hours digging through crates trying to find the perfect break or beat. Chances are most have thumbed through every bin in town, from the DJ Dojo and Friends of Sound to Waterloo Records, Sound on Sound, and End of an Ear. But tonight's DJ Melee competition at Mohawk is putting a new spin on things. Earlier this week local DJs Manny and Tweedy, along with Japan's Giant Hornets, were given five minutes to pick out 30 pieces of vinyl from a randomly selected music retailer. It's basically the audiophile equivalent of those timed grocery store shopping sprees you used to see on TV. The DJs then have to create a 30-minute mix in real time, with one DJ declared the winner by a panel of judges. The next round takes place May 9 at Beauty Bar as DJs Orion, Coolhands, and Ian Orth square off, followed by DJs Starsign, Abominatron, and Notion's three-way at Club de Ville June 13. The winners then compete for the local crown and a chance to take on the best from L.A. and New York July 18 at Mohawk. Those itching to go on their own vinyl binge might want to hold off until next Saturday, Record Store Day. See next week's Off the Record for more.

If ever a group was perfectly synchronized to the cacophonous acoustics of the new Austin Music Hall, the Mars Volta is it. The touring octet models that particular Mark of Zorro like both the Mexican flag across its amps last night and the one held aloft stage front by a surging crush of human sardines on the venue’s floor. Of course when the Mars Volta last landed on the Music Hall – April 2005 – the same muddle of bottled lightning ricocheted inside the building’s metallic bowels. Cedric Bixler Zavala and his paper thin partner in black Omar Rodriguez Lopez stoked a demon charanga of gargantuan proportions. Three years ago, the cause given was beast of burden Frances the Mute. Now, it’s Holy War The Bedlam in Goliath. Previously, the band’s power line guitarrorism cut slightly sharper and clearer in the Music Hall’s square box. Up in the new revamp’s also teeming bleachers, the only clearly audible instrument was the stage left horn man blowing hurricane gales on flute and saxophones tenor and soprano. The near sellout clamored his due. Santana invented nuclear Latin boogie at Woodstock and the Mars Volta destabilizes its compartmentalized meter with MC5 punk fury. A decade ago at Emo’s, TMV mothership At the Drive-In compressed this alternate power source into tighter, denser reactor rods. In the present, ATDI’s primary spin-off ratchets up its untamed combustion to levels well off the charts. Singer and guitarist have tapped into a breathtaking musical force of nature that electrocutes the Q-Tip axe man and funkifies the poodle-cut frontman, who executed handstands, flying leaps off the bass drum, and mic stand baton twirls. You couldn’t make out a single syllable of Bixler Zavala’s nasal screech, but he looked like James Motherfucking Brown doing it. After 90 minutes, Off the Record and I had seen enough, The Bedlam in Goliath melting into a single sonic wave where only “Ilyena” and “Goliath” sounded out above the fray. On disc, TMV’s diminishing returns began after 2002 debut the Tremulant EP. Live, they “Kick Out the Jams” like no other au currant, recognizable anthems be damned.

Tonight and for the next two Thursdays, the Alamo Drafthouse @ the Ritz offers Just Can't Get Enough, a New Wave singalong that pits you against videos of pale, floppy-haired guys and gals. Who doesn't know every word to "Karma Chameleon"?

“Like a warped Prince protégé from Africa by way of 1986 Chicago.” That’s how Brooklyn blogger Brian Shimkovitz introduces Ata Kak, the Ghanaian rapper/singer who has become a cult favorite on his audio blog, Awesome Tapes from Africa. Many audio blogs aim to spread the word about unknown musicians while simply parroting the alpha-bloggers and tastemakers of the moment. Not Shimkovitz. This is the real deal. Mining through the archives I stumbled across a few familiar names: Hugh Masekela, King Sunny Ade, and Ali Farka Touré. But the bulk is cassette curio you won’t find on Waterloo's world music rack. Ghanaian gospel, Ethiopian funk, Kenyan hip-hop, and hyperlocal genres like hiplife, a fusion of Nigerian highlife and hip-hop.