After a relatively dry start to the year, this week kicks off a solid stretch of exciting CD releases.

Austin Collins & the Rainbirds' Roses Are Black dropped Tuesday with positive reviews from the likes of Twangville and Lone Star Music Magazine. They'll celebrate with a show at Stubb's tonight; Graham Weber (see below) opens.

I first met Austin at a 2005 SXSW kickoff party. I'm usually not one for schmoozing, but Charlie Robison and free BBQ lured me to slip out of work early and trudge downtown on a drizzly evening. I grabbed some grub, then sat wordlessly amid the cacophony of music industry colleagues reuniting and reminiscing. Just as regret began to set in, I thought I heard someone introduce Austin Collins at a nearby table. My curiosity piqued, I worked up the nerve to walk over, tap the speaker on the shoulder, and introduce myself. It was Jon Pattillo, head of Fat Caddy Records. Austin's Something Better was a first for both the musician and the label, and I'd written one of the first reviews, so Jon knew who I was (a first for me). He introduced me to Austin, and we just kinda hit it off — two guys who would rather be anywhere than at a social function, bonding over music and a shared dread of small-talk. I hooked up with Jon and Austin again a couple months later at a KGSR live broadcast from the Saxon Pub. We've been friends since.

Because of likely bias, I feel I shouldn't formally review Roses Are Black. That said, I highly recommend the album. One of my favorite things about Austin is he never settles for easy rhymes; he writes challenging lyrics that often read more like prose than songs. And he finesses some great lines, like I can't walk on water, but you still fill the lakes from "Unapology." Centro-matic front man Will Johnson produced the album, which they recorded at Britton Beisenherz's Ramble Creek Studios — and the sound is fantastic. There are so many things I like about Roses Are Black. Check it out for yourself; or better yet, come out to Stubb's tonight or another of the band's upcoming shows.

Here's a few forthcoming albums that I do plan to review…

Graham Weber is releasing The Door to the Morning at a Cactus Cafe show this Saturday. He's an extremely talented musician and songwriter, and I loved 2005's Beggar's Blues (review), his second album and first since moving to Texas. The Door to the Morning is his best yet.

Also in March, Collin Herring's Past Life Crashing powerfully signals he has broken free from a tumultuous last few years. After experimenting with a bigger sound and cycling through producers Ken Coomer and Colin Cripps, he ultimately returned to the dark roots rock of The Other Side of Kindness (review). Finally bowing more than a year after its initial scheduled release, Past Life Crashing is a lyrically devastating album that finds beautiful redemption in misery.

Rodney Parker & 50 Peso Reward has set March 28 as its release date for The Lonesome Dirge. I first heard the band on-stage three years ago, opening for Bob Schneider's Texas Bluegrass Massacre, and they simply blew me away. Blow the Soot Out is, without a doubt, one of my favorite albums of the past few years, and one of the few non–new releases to keep its place in my regular listening rotation. The Lonesome Dirge is simply incredible. I can't get over how talented these guys are. They should be huge — I don't know that they want to be, but they should be.

April is promising too, with Hayes Carll's Trouble in Mind, Robyn Ludwick's Too Much Desire, and the career-spanning treasure trove of Willie Nelson's One Hell of a Ride. Then in May, there's The Band of Heathens' studio debut.

This is a great time to be a music fan.

As one of the strongest commercial successes and foremost faces on the Texas music scene, Pat Green has inspired countless music fans with his wistful celebrations of living, longing, and loving. Count author Luke Gilliam and photographer Guy Rogers III among the inspired. Their new coffee table book, Pat Green's Dance Halls & Dreamers, is a beautifully designed waltz through 10 fabled halls.

Gilliam and Rogers take us deep inside the venues with help from the artists who keep them viable. The day-in-the-life approach works nicely, with the narrative providing good insights into the inner workings of each hall.

Gilliam manages some nice colloquial turns of phrase. Describing the Gruene Hall stage, he says it "seems more apt to host a third-grade play than popular music acts." And then there's the imposing booze locker at Billy Bob's Texas, where "[t]he rows and rows of liquor will make your liver hurt just looking at them." As expected of a work by Texans for Texans, there's also a good bit of hyperbolic mythologizing—but never so much as to detract from the real people and places behind the stories.

If the writing is good, the photography is great. Rogers's work is simply captivating. In all, 208 color and 28 black & white photos are packed into 184 oversized pages. A good number of those are full-page shots with layered text, or full-page montages that lend a scrapbook-type, you-were-there vibe. Words can't do justice to the photographs and the overall book design. It's a wonderfully styled, award-worthy package.

The chapters are primarily celebrations of dance halls and, well, dreamers. But their sequencing also serves as something of a warning. Chronological order would have placed the Saengerhalle show first and Coupland Inn & Dancehall last. Instead, though, Bandera Cabaret comes first and Saengerhalle last. Both have closed since Gilliam and Rogers went behind the scenes. Bandera Cabaret closed last year; earlier this month plans were announced to turn the building into a western swing museum. Saengerhalle closed in 2006 after being sold to the local Church of Christ. Gilliam re-interviewed former Saengerhalle co-owner Eric Chase, who warns: "There is a message to send to people and that message is, 'If you like it and love it, then support it.'"

Gilliam and Rogers clearly are doing their best to support the scene. Pat Green's Dance Halls & Dreamers is a splendid book that belongs on the coffee tables and bookshelves of all Texas music fans and photography buffs.

All 10 artists and venues, in chapter order:

• Jack Ingram at Bandera Cabaret
• Kevin Fowler at Coupland Inn & Dancehall
• Cory Morrow at Luckenbach Dancehall
• Randy Rogers Band at Schroeder Hall
• Pat Green at Gruene Hall
• Cross Canadian Ragweed at Stubb's Bar-B-Q
• Willie Nelson at Billy Bob's Texas
• Robert Earl Keen at John T. Floore Country Store
• Ray Wylie Hubbard at Sons of Hermann Hall
• Wade Bowen at Saengerhalle

Learn more: Dance Halls & Dreamers, UT Press

Buy: Lone Star Music, Amazon

SXSW released its full band list yesterday. I haven't had a chance to comb through the slate in detail just yet, but here's a few of the artists I was glad to find on my first pass through:

• The Band of Heathens
• Ryan Bingham
• Doug Burr
• Calhoun
• Hayes Carll
• Charanga Cakewalk
• Deadman
• Justin Townes Earle
• The Gougers
• Ian Moore
• The Quebe Sisters Band

Specific times and venues have yet to be released, but details are beginning to trickle out on some artists' sites.

With less than 5 weeks until festival time, it's not too early to RSVP for standing-room only official parties like the British Bootleg BBQ.