TCB

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Last One Off Red River, Please Turn Out the Lights

In case you missed it, and many of you apparently did, there was an election Saturday. About 15% of our friends and neighbors (6,600 out of a possible 116,000) told local bar owners their right to decide what does and doesn't go on in their private establishments – with a perfectly legal substance – means as much as gay marriage rights. Or Travis High School cheerleaders' right to stir their classmates' awakening libidos. In today's America, all rights are not created equal, not a good thing when, on the public-esteem chart, smokers rank down there with journalists and sex offenders.

Remember when smoking used to be cool? The government sure does, and now those gazillions of tobacco-derived tax dollars are their own sort of addiction. Capitol Hill lobbyists who would go off like U.N. nominee John R. Bolton at the first Congressman to even suggest outlawing smoking itself. Luckily, deep-pocketed, well-connected, supposed public-interest groups like Onward Austin are more than happy to provide an escape clause. What gave even nonsmokers pause Saturday was the thought of what other currently legal indulgence these groups might target next. For all we know, it could be Mexican food. All that fat can't be good for you.

It promises to be an interesting summer. Nonsmokers have until Sept. 1 to shop for all those new clubbing outfits they'll be needing. (When in doubt, wear black.) The city needs to find a way to accommodate those people who do choose to step outside without forcing them into the middle of the street, as does the current 15-foot law. The public-health folks might want to consider hiring some more people to enforce the ban than the half-dozen now on the payroll, and extending their hours past 11pm. Too bad there's this little thing called the budget. Maybe Onward Austin can entice people to call in complaints the same way they did signature-gathering "volunteers" who started this whole thing – by paying them.

Some downtown bar owners are said to be already thinking of getting out, but that seems hasty. It might take until December to accurately gauge the ban's impact, and it's hard to imagine the same people who fought so vigorously just rolling over and accepting defeat. Both Saturday's comparatively heavy turnout and the ban's narrow margin of victory – 52% to 48%, or about 2,500 votes – offer encouraging signs about Austinites' investment in their music scene. If bars can capitalize on that goodwill, and turn it into a campaign to keep patrons coming out regardless of whether or not they can smoke, they can probably avoid the dire predictions that have clouded the last few months.

Or all us nasty smokers could just finally quit. But after Saturday, why give those smug, self-righteous bastards the satisfaction?

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Portions for Foxes

When Rilo Kiley returns for September's ACL Music Festival, could someone please get singer Jenny Lewis (below) a cheeseburger? With a voice as big as she is small, Lewis led her better-fed bandmates through an Austin City Limits taping Thursday evening that occasionally succumbed to nerves, yet shone like a beacon on More Adventurous' "I Never" and "Accidental Deth," plus the brassy new "Pull Me in Tighter." The next night at Stubb's, the band was visibly more relaxed, lending extra heft to soon-to-be hit "Portions for Foxes" and extra poignancy to love-triangle drama "Does He Love You?" Upcoming ACL tapings include festival acts John Prine and Kathleen Edwards, a rescheduled Ray LaMontagne, and perennial Alison Krauss.

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Surrealists' Pillow

Once she sang about white rabbits, now she paints them. Former Jefferson Airplane/Starship singer Grace Slick retired from the stage a few years ago, and parlayed a couple of drawings for her autobiography into a painting career. "I'll draw rock stars, I'll draw bunnies, I'll draw whatever you want," said the effusive Slick.

TCB: Are you interested in certain themes and images?

Grace Slick: Union. That can be universal, it can be personal. I draw animals a lot, because they're wiser. They've been around longer. We're a new species, and we haven't got our shit together. You never hear of 40 raccoons from L.A. going up to have a war with 40 raccoons from San Francisco.

TCB: When you draw someone like Jimi Hendrix or Jerry Garcia, do you go back and reconsider your experiences with them?

GS: Oh yeah. For instance, Garcia. Most of the photographs of him make him look like the village idiot, and he wasn't by any means. He would look you in the eye, he was very direct, very funny, very interesting, and interested. I'm not a big Grateful Dead fan, of the music, but I liked him as a person – a lot.

TCB: Why has Alice in Wonderland always intrigued you?

GS: Well, because it's my life. She comes out of Victorian England. It's very straight, and the Fifties in this country were very straight. I went from the Fifties into Sixties rock & roll, [which was] pretty much like Wonderland. Alice takes at least five different drugs. The bottle literally says "drink me" on it, and she literally gets high. About 10 feet high.

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Grace Slick appears alongside her work 6-9pm Friday and Saturday, and noon-3pm Sunday, at Art on 5th, 1501 W. Fifth.

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BULLET THE BLUE SKY

• Shortly before TCB went to press Tuesday, the Church of the Friendly Ghost announced it will soon be shutting down due to zoning violations. A call to the Eastside experimental-music haven was not immediately returned, but programmer Aaron Mace said earlier, via e-mail, he hoped to transfer as many bookings after the unspecified cease-and-desist date to Beerland as possible.

• Blondie Chaplin, one of the Rolling Stones' backup singers, has been warming up for their upcoming tour by recording locally with Tosca, and surfaced Sunday at the Continental Club to enjoy Heybale!. Also watching were Elana Fremerman, fresh from the Bob Dylan tour, and Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez. The Stones' tour, which lands in Houston Dec. 1, is (again) rumored to be their last.

• Local sound collagists Single Frame have just released the Vinyl Disaster Mixes 12-inch, with a remix of "People Are Germs" by Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, to go along with new LP Body/End/Basement (see "Texas Platters"). Just as industriously, their friends at Super!Alright! media have posted a video for "There's an Exact Copy of This in the Basement" at www.singleframe.net, and cooked up multiprojector visuals for the trio's tour, which stops at Emo's Tuesday.

• Congratulations to McCallum High School, recent recipient of $7,000 in grants from the Grammy and Gibson foundations. Given for excellence in music education, the grants went to 42 schools nationwide and seven in Texas; local Grammy winner Shawn Colvin serenaded Austin's only winners at Monday's awards ceremony.

• Performance-pop kewpie dolls the TunaHelpers had to rent an expensive van for their five-week June jaunt through the East Coast and Midwest. For gas and meal money, they're headlining their own benefit Saturday at Trophy's over acrobats, modern dance, DJs, karaoke, and the bands Fine Fifteen and Hot as Shits. All this for only $5.