White Noise.

Dead Flowers Put Out Fires as the Toadies and Bethan Heat Up.

2014 has undeniably been the Toadies' year. The band has headlined local festivals like Homegrown Fest, where it played Rubberneck in-full. And they'll, of course, repeat that feat later this month at their own Dia de los Toadies festival. Oh, and let's not forget that they also re-issued that seminal album earlier this year, had a beer named in their honor, released a mini-doc about the album and released a comic book.

Nostalgia's a hell of a drug.

Recently, the band's breakthrough single, “Possum Kingdom” also landed a spot on Spin's list of the 100 best alt-rock songs of 1994. Writes the magazine in an accompanying blurb: “A song about rape, murder, vampirism or possibly some combination of the three, Toadies' 'Possum Kingdom' was one of the most evil fucking one-hit wonders of the '90s, mostly because it had so much damn fun with its villainy, and forced you to do the same.”

Weird, we thought the song was about something else entirely.

Then there was Toadies drummer Mark Reznicek, who provided a “name that drum fill” audio quiz for NPR's All Songs Considered. See if you can best our 60 percent score.

On the flip side, French website Sourdoreille did some quizzing of its own last week, playing a bit of “name that tune” with St. Vincent in which the musician was made to identify the songs of her past collaborators and influences. While she stumbles over the “bullshit Christmas songs” of Sufjan Stevens and The Polyphonic Spree, she later nails a track from her 2006 tour mates, Midlake, almost immediately.

By the end of the clip, she was on fire.

Meanwhile, if it weren't for the Dead Flowers, one of Deep Ellum's newest restaurants might have burned down as well. Fortunately, frontman Corey Howe happened to be walking by Pecan Lodge on Sunday when he noticed smoke coming from the restaurant's smokehouse and notified the fire department, who arrived in time to save the place from any real damages.

On more figurative fire is Third String Productions, which recently announced the first crop of acts that'll appear at next spring's eighth annual South by So What festival. Included among the initial crop of acts is Mayday Parade, Parables, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Monuments, Lydia and more, which you can find here.

While you're at it, check out this coloring book project from Austin's Weird Destiny Productions that comes with over 40 pages of color-able illustrations from 30 artists and outside-the-lines type musicians, including North Texas' New Fumes' Daniel Huffman. The book will come packaged with a compilation disc curated by Weird Destiny that'll not only include tracks from New Fumes, but also Def Rain, Botany and the new Zorch/New Fumes live collaboration Refarba, among others. The release will be celebrated at a September 13 show at Austin's Museum of Human Acheivement that'll include performances from New Fumes, Def Rain, Ghost of Electricity and Field Dress.

As long as you're checking out new stuff, why not give the debut track from Bethan's upcoming full-length a spin? That one premiered earlier today over at the Observer's DC9 at Night blog. The band will host a release show for the album at Three Links on Saturday, October 11.

Also ahead in the coming weeks is a new, six-song EP from newcomers Natural Anthem that'll earn its release September 16. Also worth keeping up on: The Baptist Generals will celebrate its 15th anniversary as part of a September 27 show at Dan's Silverleaf and Americana outfit the Jack Kerowax will release its debut full-length in November.

The near future will also hold a new name for North Texas ex-pat Ejecta, who'll soon be appearing at Gorilla vs Bear Fest 4, thanks to a cease and desist received from a DJ currently using the similar-but-different ejeca moniker. Ejecta is currently holding a contest on the band's Facebook and Twitter accounts to come up with a new name. Says the band: “The addition can be purely aesthetic, conceptual or both! The winner will receive copies of every Ejecta release past present and future, access to live shows, merchandise, breakfast in bed, sex, first-born-sons and possibly more!”

And, finally, in a revealing Q&A with the New York Times over the weekend, Andre 3000 divulged his plans to all but leave the music world behind for good at the end of Outkast's summer festival tour to pursue acting. In another interesting tidbit buried within the piece, Dre also mentions it was his old boo Erykah Badu that initially convinced him to give the whole singing-on-an-album thing a shot.

So I guess, aside from heading up the '90s neo-soul movement, we also have the Lady of White Rock Lake to thank for “Hey Ya,” too.

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