In a WORLD EXCLUSIVE!, Revolver, “The World’s Loudest Rock Magazine,” announced earlier this year that the planets aligned for the creation of the “ultimate metal supergroup!” Its members? Paid staff columnist and Dallas-native Vinnie Paul (who fields hard hitting journalistic inquiries like, “If you were gay, who’s the first dude you would bone?”), Mudvayne’s Chad Gray and guitarist Greg Tribbet, previously known as Kud and Gurrg, respectively, during their masked nu-metal heyday, and some dudes from Nothingface.

The problem is that nothing about HELLYEAH (caps intentional), is, in fact, super. Gray is an even more
one-dimensional vocalist than Damageplan’s Pat Lachman, while his attempts at Texas thrash are simply laughable. It takes more than whiskey and weed to sound like a true cowboy from hell. That’s one of the reasons that Rebel Meets Rebel, the collaboration between David Allen Coe and Pantera’s rhythm section, which included the late, great Dimebag Darrell, as well as bassist Rex Brown, sounded so raw and real. Those were true musical outlaws forging an alliance at a unique crossroads. In contrast, HELLYEAH is nothing more than another forgettable Mudvayne album. After all, Matt McDonough (sPaG) is actually a pretty decent drummer.

With the continuing rains and the already saturated soil meaning water levels continue to rise, the Lower Colorado River Authority is saying local river and lake levels could stay high for weeks. This means they'll have to keep opening floodgates across the Colorado dam system well into July.

The river is still below flood levels, although it has reached "bank full" status at several points, and the LCRA is balancing river and lake levels around the clock to keep it that way (even their press officers are working 'round the clock to keep people up to speed). To manage this, they're using Lake Travis as storage and managing the levels upstream by controlled floodgate usage at the Buchanan, Mansfield, Tom Miller, Wirtz and Starcke dams. The water dumping over the Inks Dam spillway, just for context, is now four to five feet high.

Recreational boating bans remain in effect on Inks Lake; lakes Travis, Marble Falls, LBJ, and Austin; Town Lake; and the Colorado River downstream of Longhorn Dam. However, check the LCRA site, since they'll be updating the bans daily. (And just before this was posted, the city of Austin further extended its watercraft ban. See press release under "continue reading.")

To be followed by the prestigious "Don't Let the Door Hit Your Ass" honors. But in all seriousness, this certainly reads like a golden handshake, doesn't it?

State association honors Futrell as Administrator of the Year

The Texas City Management Association (TCMA) has recognized Austin City Manager Toby Hammett Futrell as “Administrator of the Year.” The state award honors one city management professional who has made significant contributions to the field of local government management in the previous 18 months.

Futrell received the award for her long and distinguished career in public service that has made a positive impact on the greater Austin area.

“I love Austin, and I’m proud of the vital role City Government plays in fostering and preserving Austin’s quality of life, carefully tending economic growth and urban change, while nurturing Austin’s unique culture and green environment,” Futrell said.

As in the past, last year was filled with national honors for Austin and its municipal workforce.

“Her achievements have been the result of strong leadership and an unwavering vision to help make Austin the most livable community in the country,” said Mark McDaniel, Deputy City Manager of Tyler, Texas, and TCMA President. “As the largest local government association of public managers in the United States, TCMA is very proud of her efforts.”

As Austin City Manager, Futrell oversees a 12,000-person workforce larger than some Texas towns, more than 30 directors and a budget of more than $2 billion. Austin is a fast growing city in Texas with a population of more than 700,000.

TCMA announced and presented the honor at its annual conference June 22 in San Antonio. TCMA is an organization of local government professionals dedicated to promoting the highest standards of governance, service, leadership, ethics, and education while embracing individual and regional diversity for the benefit of our membership and the cities of Texas.

Congratulations. Next up: the Platinum 2X4 award to commemorate the construction boom Downtown she presided over – and to pry her outta her office.

Taking a cue from John and Yoko's ubiquitous Vietnam-era slogan, Attack Formation now has a shirt to express your views, perhaps of our current war, as seen on the right here.

"There isn't going to be any [Attack Formation] logo or our name," says frontman Ben Webster. "All the money we make off the shirts goes to make more shirts. To me, besides talking trash or joining in the apathy, not too many people in music are making an effort. I just wanted to do something that would reflect our viewpoint."

Just in time for summer! The shirts will be available at Attack Formation shows (like tomorrow's at Emo's), and if you want to reach out and touch someone, hit up [email protected].

The AFL playoffs start tomorrow, of course, but the season's over for the 4-12 Wranglers after an out-of-town loss to Tampa Bay last weekend. Two Wranglers got some good news this week, though.

Austin kicker Mark Lewis was named First Team All-Arena and defensive lineman Rob Schroeder was named to the All-Rookie team.

I'm not sure if this proves my theory that the Wranglers have way more talent than a 4-12 team has any right to have, but if the Wranglers really do become a minor-league team, I guess Schroeder and Lewis have some pretty sweet résumé padding now.

The AFL playoffs don't make it to Texas until Saturday, July 7, when the 15-1 Dallas Desperados will most likely come down from their fences and kick a TBA team's collective ass.

This year's Arena Bowl (best bet: Dallas vs. San Jose) is scheduled for July 29 in New Orleans. That weekend, the AFL owners will meet and possibly discuss whether the Wranglers will drop to the AF2.

Farewell to the Alamo Drafthouse on Colorado. Wednesday night was the big bye-bye to the site that launched QT Fest, Butt-Numb-a-Thon, Weird Wednesday, Terror Thursday, etc., etc., etc.

Already the last signs of the Downtown icon are going – literally. By this morning, the big light-up Alamo sign (featured very briefly, if eagle-eyed cineastes recall, in the opening credits to Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof) had already been stripped from the outside wall.

Tickets for last night's final blow-out at the Colorado location included a free wrench so the lucky attendees could take their seat home with them. But we at Chronic doubt that someone staggered home with 20 foot of neon after the goodbye screenings.

Attorney General Greg Abbott released a report this week that showed that 82 of the 96 government-related defined pension plans in Texas were carrying liability on the books. Basically, these funds carried $23 billion more in anticipated debt than current funding. Abbott estimated 1.8 million Texans have counted on retirement funds with liabilities that exceed their assets. Of those 82 funds, 17 were considered to be seriously “at risk” because current liabilities would take more than 40 years to repay. Abbott suggested independent actuarial calculations, better financial expertise from board members, and greater transparency of conflicts of interest.

Attorney Richard Suttle continues to make concessions on the CWS Capital Properties project at 222 and 300 E. Riverside to gain the support of boards and commissions, and he continues to get a skeptical reception. The two, 200-foot tower project, the subject of Save Town Lake’s ire, would be the first variance to the Town Lake Waterfront Overlay, if granted. On Tuesday night, Suttle tried to sweeten the pot with additional land and amenities for the Town Lake Trail. Development plans have been configured to avoid breaking the 150-foot, overlay-required “primary setback,” in which development is not allowed. The project will go through a subcommittee hearing process before it makes it back to the full commission next month.

Below, the press release just sent out by Responsible Growth for Northcross regarding their lawsuit over the recently approved second site plan for the Northcross Wal-Mart:

RG4N STATEMENT ANNOUNCING LAWSUIT AGAINST CITY OF AUSTIN AND LINCOLN PROPERTY COMPANY

AUSTIN, Texas, June 28, 2007 – On Tuesday, June 26, the City of Austin approved Lincoln Property Company's second site plan for Northcross Mall. Today, Responsible Growth for Northcross (RG4N) filed a lawsuit in Travis County District Court against our City and Lincoln to invalidate the site
plan.

RG4N concluded in December 2006 that Lincoln's first site plan was illegally approved by the City. The developer implicitly acknowledged its agreement with our conclusion by filing a second site plan. Unfortunately, our City has once again failed to follow several of its own laws in approving the second plan.

RG4N and others in the Northcross area sought for months to reach a mutually-acceptable resolution with the developer. However, the developer made it clear that our concerns and our vision for our neighborhood are at best secondary to its desire to make a quick buck. And to the shock and dismay of thousands of us across Austin, our City cynically made a show of sympathizing with neighborhood concerns while proceeding with business as usual in a city management environment that operates as a rubber stamp for
the development community.