Only at South By Southwest do I attend two brunches before it's even noon. But hey, when in Texas, do as the Texans do, right? Day three of the Austin musicfest SXSW started off for me with a long-honored tradition, the 10th annual BMI Acoustic Brunch on the lawn of the posh Four Seasons hotel--a pleasantly fancy-schmancy affair, and a refreshing change of pace after the previous greasy days' taco trucks and mac 'n' cheese spooned onto soggy Styrofoam plates. China! Real silverware! Bloody Marys! And, of course, a slew of easy-on-the-ears, hangover-alleviating unplugged acts. I was most impressed by Mumfordy British alt-folkers Dry The River, who admitted to having hangovers themselves (and didn't seem all that thrilled with their 11am set time) but didn't let any morning-after fatigue prevent them from putting on a lovely lawn concert, filled with sweet rustic harmonies, that gently eased me into another marathon music day.

Then, over at the scenester central known as the Fader Fort,

Lady Gaga may be headlining stadiums these days, but she clearly still likes to stay in touch with her clubby roots. This past weekend, she paid no less than three surprise visits to gay bars along her tour route, where the pop queen vamped it up alongside the very drag queens who were paying tribute to her.

On Saturday, March 12, after playing the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky, Gaga rode her disco stick over to a gay bar called the Connection, where the crowd understandably erupted when, a little after 1am, she bumrushed the club's drag revue and joined Gaga impersonator Vanessa DeMornay for an impromptu performance of "Born This Way."

The following night, Gaga and her entourage of shirtless male backup dancers hit the dance floor at the Round-Up club in Dallas, for another unannounced performance of her new hit single.

And finally, later that same evening in Dallas, she crashed a party in the Rose Room at the S4 club across the street, for another on-the-fly Gaga revue:

Well-known married musical couples who perform together are few and far between--but for Herb Alpert and Lani Hall, that's just one of many unusual aspects of their distinguished careers.

The pair just released I Feel You, their first studio album in nearly 10 years, which reinterprets several well-known classics of the past few decades, including the Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun" and "Blackbird," Peggy Lee's "Fever" and Van Morrison's "Moondance," among other similarly venerable tunes.

Also covered: a reinterpretation of "What Now My Love," a hit for Alpert back in 1966 with his revered Tijuana Brass outfit.

In fact, the storied history shared by Alpert and Hall--he not just as the co-founder of A&M Records but the recording superstar who rose to fame in the '60s and sold over 75 million albums worldwide, she as a Grammy winner and member of Sergio Mendes' much-respected Brasil 66--is part of what makes the pair unique: They make music not for commerce but purely for the love of it.

I was just 6 when I first heard Les Paul play his signature tune on the radio "How High The Moon," and it blew my mind! I didn't know what the sound was and my mum said it was the electric guitar. I wasn't sure how it was different to an ordinary guitar. I thought you plugged it straight into the voltage in the wall. However my mum told me that "it was all tricks." I knew, at that very moment, that I wanted to play the electric guitar. I made my first guitar with some wood I bought from the local wood shop. It was horrible but I played that thing as much as I could and never looked back. The sounds that Les made on his guitar, and what he did later with multi-tracking, were a revelation and completely excited every part of me.

My mum loved classical and jazz music. She first introduced my sister and I to the sounds of the '30s and '40s, but it was my sister's connection with a college pal that really cemented my future. She introduced me to Jimmy Page and we became inseparable. Jamming