The Museum of Fine Arts has just released its fall indie-rock schedule -- killer, as usual -- which includes dates for Why?, the Dodos, Low, No Kids, Jolie Holland, and Au Revoir Simone, among many others. Check back, we'll be doing ticket giveaways for all of 'em. In the meantime, though, we're giving away tix to the MFA's summer-ending indie blowout with Grizzly Bear (the day after they open for Radiohead) and Violens outdoors (weather permitting) in the MFA's courtyard on August 14.

Few things about Dirty Projectors' Dave Longstreth. One: while he looks tall and remote and Thurston-like from afar, up close, he looks impossibly young and is incredibly friendly. Two: Like the Grizzlies, he's a New Englander moonlighting as a Brooklynite.

Xiu Xiu, "Clown Town (Live at Museum of Fine Arts)"

Xiu Xiu, "FTW (Live at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston)"

If Jamie Stewart (who for all intents and purposes is Xiu Xiu) is playing with a full deck of cards, it’s not a deck you’d find on Planet Earth. So, not to judge or anything, but maybe before you go to a concert, you should at least listen to one song by that artist.

Mirah & Spectraone International, "Love Song of the Fly" (Live 1/11/08 at Museum of Fine Art, Boston)
Video by OTD & R. Stewart


Mirah & Spectraone International, "Song of Psyche" (Live 1/11/08 at Museum of Fine Art, Boston)
Video by OTD & R. Stewart

In the animated world, creatures that would otherwise be seen as unsavory have been given a family-friendly makeover, from a disease-ridden rat that happens to be an innate culinary genius to a pesky honeybee that cracks jokes and falls in love.

We hold that attending Berklee does not make artists Bostonians for life, as it seems to in certain local-music-award circles. But we don't want the statute of limitations to be up just yet for Via Audio, the now-Brooklyn-based-but-Berklee-bred indie auteurs who’ve become blog-famous thanks to endorsements from Death Cab’s Chris Walla and Spoon’s Jim Eno.

We've got three pairs of tickets to see Smog's Bill Callahan play this Saturday at the Museum of Fine Arts. Showtime is 7:30. Here's the catch: you must be able to come pick tix up in person, during business hours (8:30 am - 5:30 pm), between now and Friday. Hit us in the comments section with an email we can reach you at pronto. First-come, first-served.

It's not exactly news that as he's gotten older, Thurston Moore has found time in his life for more than Sonic Youth. When he's not reviewing noise records with Byron Coley, making noise records with people you've never heard of, or asking his daughter if she knows how to play that Dinosaur Jr song, he's apparently found time to record a proper follow-up to Psychic Hearts, the completely unexpected and awesome-beyond-belief (and recently remastered) solo album that all your Pitchfork-reading friends will tell you is secretly better than the last (insert any number from one to five) Sonic Youth records.

IF YOU GO:

• The Bad Plus
  Sunday, February 25
  Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave, Boston
  7:30 pm, $25
  617.369.3300

The Bad Plus may do witty covers of "Smells like Teen Spirit," "Heart of Glass," and the theme song from Chariots of Fire, but it's all backed up by muscular playing and a terrific sense of the strange.