Best of Austin 2009Critics PicksArts & Entertainment
Best Bar Name, 1997: The Office
"Honey, I'm at the Office. Yes, dear, I'll be a little late." Need we say more? 3526 E. Seventh, 385-8511 Best Case of Inmates Running the Asylum: David Mark Cohen New Works Festival We can't say every department on the 40 Acres should give itself over to the students for a week every two years, but man, does it work for the Department of Theatre & Dance. Its biennial David Mark Cohen New Works Festival – in which upward of 30 student-generated pieces of drama, dance, design, and film get their day in the sun – is a blast of concentrated creative energy that packs the exhilarating buzz of a quintuple espresso with a cappuccino chaser. Some works are so innovative and dynamic that they find life beyond the festival. The latest example: The Psyche Project, a rowdy, irreverent, wildly funny retelling of the Greek myth, which gets an encore run in the department Sept. 10-12. 727 E. Dean Keeton, 471-3434; Speedway & Dean Keeton, 471-1157; 200 Battle Hall, 495-4620; 2301 San Jacinto, 475-7718 www.utexas.edu
Best Chicken 'Product', 2002: That of 'Dewey' the Chicken
Every Sunday, 4-8pm, you'll find free live music, free monster chili dogs, and Dewey the Chicken holding court at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon. For a “poultry” two-dollar donation, you draw numbers at random and wait for Dewey to do her business on a numbered board. Whichever numbered square Dewey hits with her, um, "product" is the winner. Did we mention the free monster chili dogs? 5434 Burnet Rd., 458-1813 www.musicroom.org/ginnys/ Best Comedy Tribute to the Deeply Geekified: Gnap! Theatre Projects' 'Guilds of Steel' It would be enough for this supergroup of improvisers to perform a longform narrative set in a World of Warcraft-like MMORPG, but that they simultaneously portrayed the quotidian meatspace lives behind the weirdling avatars questing across the Salvage Vanguard stage every weekend for six weeks … ah, what's a good portmanteau for amazing and hilarious? Directed by Bryan Roberts and Michael Joplin under the aegis of Gnap! Theater Projects, this improv geekfest was more fun than a level 10 wizard with a magic whoopee cushion. Best Creative Takeover of a Downtown Performance Venue: The Hideout Theatre After a decade of providing Austin with a Downtown epicenter of improv comedy, the beloved Hideout Theatre was about to bar its storied doors for good. Sorrow loomed. But, no! Up jumps Parallelogramophonograph's Kareem Badr and Roy Janik and Jessica Arjet of Flying Theater Machine, forming a fierce triumvirate of entrepreneurial wherewithal to assume the lease and management, brimming with revamping plans and now – in cahoots with Michael McGill, Andy Crouch, and Kaci Beeler – making the venue an even hotter hotbed of improv hotness. 617 Congress, 443-3688 www.hideouttheatre.com Best Cross to Bear: Susan Antone
When Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1971, not only did the world lose a musician who (after Elmore James) did for slide guitar what electricity did for blues, the Allman Brothers Band lost its boss. At that moment, li'l brother Gregg Allman assumed a mantle he never intended. Susan Antone is that queen. When Clifford Antone died in 2006, the olive-cast blonde from East Texas, who had documented the siblings' namesake Austin live music landmark from day one with Texas-sized photographs of blues deities and whose name topped the venue's corporate charter beginning in the 1980s, was suddenly alone at the fore of another Lone Star mecca. Opened in 1975, the home of Clifton Chenier, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Stevie Ray Vaughan kept it in the family; if Clifford booked them, Susan cooked for 'em. She probably feeds Muddy's piano prodigy Pinetop Perkins now and then, but mostly she's too busy steering the ship to spend much time in the galley. "Help Clifford Help Kids," benefiting American YouthWorks, could be her favorite headliner these days, but when Southpaw blues empress Barbara Lynn gets onstage at Antone's, you'll find Susan, camera in hand. Kiss her when you see her. 213 W. Fifth, 320-8424 www.antones.net Best Cure for a Restless Sunday: Supa Soul Sound System Getting a ready-to-party crowd to groove on Friday night is easy work for a DJ. Getting the same reaction on Sunday is a whole different challenge, but DJ C-Rich knows how to turn his tables to get heads nodding and bodies bouncing. Supa Soul Sound System spins soul, break beats, funk, old-school jams, neo-soul, new jack swing, and hip-hop worth a respin. This late afternoon brunch is worth the Monday morning hurt. Catch it at Cantina Laredo the third Sunday of every month. Best Expansion of Screen Real Estate: IMAX Theatre at the Bob Bullock Long the only place in town to satisfy our desires for big-screen nature fixes, the local IMAX venue has expanded its repertoire of late to include the presentation of selected Hollywood spectacles. Now when we’re lured by the call of the wild in addition to dolphins and canyon adventures, we can also discover tribes of Transformers or a wizardly Harry Potter. 1800 Congress, 936-8746 www.thestoryoftexas.com
Best Fashion Fantasist, 2000: Leslie Bonnell
An accomplished designer with an extensive understanding of fashion and fantasy, Bonnell takes what could be ordinary theatrical wear and transforms it into haute couture costumes of high style and soaring imagination. Her wizard's touch has graced such Zachary Scott Theatre Center productions as Tommy, The Santaland Diaries, and Schoolhouse Rock, but no show shows what she's best at better than Zach's 1999 take on The Rocky Horror Show, where she took the classic but now-hackneyed look of that gender-bent horror musical, added a touch of Thierry Mugler, a daub of Claude Montana, and a whole lot of Leslie Bonnell, and created visual magic. 1510 Toomey, 476-0541 www.zachscott.com Best Free Bagpipe Music: Capitol City Highlanders' Practice
When the marketing guys dubbed Austin the “live music capital of the world,” they probably weren’t thinking about the Capitol City Highlanders, but these skirted fellows are in fact deeply entrenched in the local music scene, with a sound so big, jubilant, and mournful at the same time, it's like a caber toss right through the heart of Texas. No offense to those singing Celtic ladies of PBS pledge-drive fame, but here in Austin, we do Scottish right. Minus the haggis. Monday nights, 6-8:30pm. 346-3123 or 567-1282 www.austinbagpipes.com Best Karaoke: Ego's Bar It's the end of the night, and all you want to do is belt Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" into a microphone. We understand, and so does the solid crew at Ego's Bar. Yeah, it's in a parking garage. Yeah, it's small. These oddities are more than appreciated by the lighthearted crowd, often consisting of local co-ed sports teams and cats just wanting to hear a classic or two. Everyone claps no matter how ear-shattering a performance, and if you're lucky, you might get to cap the night off with the whole bar united under Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," glasses swinging, arms embracing, and everyone singing as gleefully and loudly as possible – a truly spiritual karaoke moment to behold. 510 S. Congress, 474-7091 www.myspace.com/egoslounge Best Master of Gesture: Sharon Marroquin
A wave of an arm like a willow bending. The cupping of hands as if scooping up water. The gentle laying of a palm against a cheek. With many dancers, the motion of the legs is what captures your eye, but when Sharon Marroquin takes the stage, it's her upper limbs that mesmerize. This gifted dancer and choreographer, known for her work with Ballet East, Diverse Space Dance Theatre, and Big Range Austin, is so focused in her gestures, so precise and yet fluid with her every movement, that each passage of her arms and hands through air is its own poem, its individual act of grace. 385-2838 www.balleteast.org Best Museum Refreshment: Mexic-Arte Paletas Sure, most museum stores are full of overpriced souvenirs meant to help patrons remember their museum experience. But it was a stroke of giddy genius when the Mexic-Arte masterminds installed the paleta case just inside the door of its Congress Avenue museum. Coconut, brown rice, melon, mango, piña – the flavors are delicious and just the thing to perk up that midafternoon slump when running those errands in sweltering Downtown Austin. There's something about slipping into a fine arts museum and stepping out with a simple treat that puts a smile on your face. And since you stepped inside, you may as well look at the art, right? 419 Congress, 480-9373 www.mexic-artemuseum.org Best New Internet Radio Hostess: Miss Kitty on 'The Friday Flavor' She simmers. She sparkles. She coos the words into the microphone, and radioland takes a step back in time to the early 2000s when trance and electronica ruled Austin. Jen "Miss Kitty" Garrison has been and is the continuing force behind promoting dance music and the club scene here in Austin. Returning to us via the Internet, she's gone viral … and we're going there with her. www.richardcraniumradio.com/misskittyradio.php Best Nonprofit Upstart: Da! Theatre Collective
In a town where theatre troupes are a dime a dozen, Da! stands out not only for its integration of intensive disciplines such as the Vakhtangov tradition, the Feldenkrais Method, and Suzuki in its creations of new works (many of which have grown from Frontera Fest entries) and adaptations of folk classics (Heron & Crane) alike, but also for its forward-thinking ways. Just two of the many examples Da! sets for other troupes: It donates one of its children's performances to a Title 1 school for every paid performance and compensates its actors competitively, with the long-term goal of paying a living wage. Keep it up, Da! 511 W 43rd, 479-7530 x 5 www.datheatrecollective.org Best of the Fests: Pachanga Festival With a lot of ambition and heart, Pachanga Fest '08 showed a lot of promise to annually showcase Latino musicians in a fun festival setting. In '09, however, Pachanga Fest truly lived up to its potential with a dazzling array of acts that included the edgy Mexican Institute of Sound, the all-female Mariachi Las Alteñas, the eclectic Los Bad Apples, and hot hot hot singer/accordionist A.J. Castillo. That's what founders Rich Garza and A.J. Vallejo were hoping for, and it's a good indicator that for the 2010 Pachanga Fest, the sky's the limit. www.pachangafest.com Best Place to Discover Latino Music: Austin From such old-school promoters as Jerry Avila on Primetime Tejano and Isidoro Lopez on KOOP Radio's Fiesta Musical and the Premios Texas awards hosted by Austin's Univisión affiliate to longtime Horizontes host Michael Crockett on KUT, to Johnny Ramirez's Indie Live Austin, to Paul Saucido over on ME TV (and beyond), to youngblood promoters like Brandon Badillo, to Alba Peña's Conexion Rockera website, to new festivals like Pachanga Fest, and the monthlong events of Latino Music Month — there's no reason, no way, no how for anyone in Austin to say they don't know what's going on in Latino music. And let's not forget Alicia Zertuche's work pumping up the Latino music presence at South by Southwest. Old, new, cutting edge, folky, funky, and fabulous, Austin is quickly becoming the city to watch for what's happening in Latino music outside the usual places of New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. Pachanga Fest, which had its second successful festival earlier this year, promises to be the next must-hit Latino music festival in the nation. Yeah, that’s right. You read it here first. Rose Reyes, Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, 301 Congress, Ste. 200, 583-7230, www.austintexas.org/musicians www.austintexas.org Best Place to See the Past at Work: Goodwill Computer Museum Ever wonder what a computer built by Michael Dell in his garage looked like? Wonder no more; at the Goodwill Computer Museum, you can see stuff like this – and much, much more. It wasn't long after the folks at Goodwill Industries of Central Texas began taking donations of electronics in 1997 that they discovered they were taking in some great artifacts of technology. So Goodwill has collected and restored them and opened a free museum at its North Austin campus where the public can capture a glimpse of technological history. And, as if that weren't enough, it's got a collection of vintage games and gaming systems that are hooked up for the public to play. It is certainly true that at the Computer Museum, you can "experience the high-tech revolution all over again." 1015 Norwood Park Blvd., 637-7100 www.austincomputerworks.org Best Poetic Outlet: Ruta Maya's Open Mic If it is a poetic itch you have, Ruta Maya can assist with the scratching. For many a year, the coffee shop on the hill has hosted poetry and music open mics every Tuesday evening and is proud to be the longest-running poetry open mic in Austin. Whether it's the rantings of the crazed or the brilliance of a fresh mind, the weekly readings are always entertaining. So go ahead, release those words. The crowd will clap, and your dirty wordy secret is safe with us. 3601 S. Congress Ste. D-200, 707-9637 www.rutamaya.net Best Roll With the Development Punches: Chris Marsh of the Mean-Eyed Cat In 2004, when Chris Marsh left behind his job waiting tables at the popular Maudie's Tex-Mex Cafe on Lake Austin Boulevard, it was bittersweet for his faithful customers – they were sad he was leaving the enchiladas behind, but excited about his new venture: opening a small Johnny Cash shrine/bar in the old Cut-Rite chainsaw shack on West Fifth. When he opened, there was just the 300-year-old tree on one side and train tracks on the other (leaving plenty of room for a stage for a popular Mean-Eyed SXSW day party venue). Now, just five years later, the tree and tracks are still there, but the land has all developed around him. Real estate and a commercial plaza dwarf what used to be open space for Mean-Eyed fans. But Marsh is a roll-with-the-punches guy – the space may be shrinking, but with the good beer and music (now on a strategically placed patio stage) Marsh has been able to evolve the funky homage to Cash into a comfortable and popular neighborhood hot spot. 1621 W. Fifth, 472-6326 www.themeaneyedcat.com Best Soulful Smackdown: Neo-Soul Lounge at Club Illusion
It's a purr. It's a punch. It's a sigh. It's a holla. Spoken word = spoken intention, spoken sparks, poetry come to life. So much chakra-shakin' goodness and sweet sultry yumminess, it's easy to forget when it's a competition. Every Thursday night, South Flavas Entertainment presents this slam-style poetry gig at Pflugerville's haven of hip-hop. The stakes are high: cash prizes and the chance to rep Austin at the National Poetry Slam. Club Illusion, 2700 W. Pecan, Pflugerville, 670-7411; South Flavas Entertainment, PO Box 80217, 844-5491 www.clubillusionatx.com; www.southflavas.com, www.myspace.com/southflavas Friendliest Haunt for Weird Noise: Church of the Friendly Ghost Since first appearing in 2003 and floating into new digs at Salvage Vanguard Theater in 2007, Church of the Friendly Ghost has channeled a wealth of creative energy into Austin. Organizer Aaron Mace and associates are tireless champions of the outsider and outré: From bringing in international and national jazz and noise artists to providing asylum for homegrown experimental strains, they've cut a nice right angle in our scene. Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd., 474-7886; Church of the Friendly Ghost, 786-2015 www.salvagevanguard.org; www.churchofthefriendlyghost.com Greatest Virtuoso of the Ivories: Anton Nel We suspect that the digits on Anton Nel's hands are actually 10 tiny sorcerers, for when he sits down at the piano, they conjure music that enchants as potently as Prospero's charms. Whether the piece is majestic Beethoven, sprightly Mozart, or tempestuous Schubert, the Butler School of Music professor of piano can hold an audience spellbound, as seen at his Dell Hall solo recital this spring, when thousands sat rapt as those magic fingers danced masterfully across the ivories. In demand as a guest artist, the South Africa native plays everywhere and could live anywhere, but he chooses to make his home here. So as long as Nel stays under Austin's spell, we'll remain under his. Literary Salon 2.0: Five Things Austin Forget the wine-and-cheese reading series of yore: Amelia Gray and Stacy Muszynski's Five Things Austin is the hip kid in town, a scrappy, freewheeling multimedia show that pairs Austin's leading lights in literature, music, and photography with a new generation of young pups just starting to feel the Beat – and all for a buck. Snaps. Artseen Alliance, 512 W. 29th, 480-9562 www.fivethingsaustin.com |
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