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Exhibitionism

Not everyone agreed with the clear winner in Ballet Austin’s competition this year, and enough with the tweets

by Jonelle Seitz

Texas Platters

Flaco & Max Legends & Legacies (Smithsonian Folkways) Los Texas Wranglers Aye, Que Tan Bonita (Deep South Austin Records) Blues ceded its sound-of-our-town designation long before Gary Clark Jr. appeared on the scene, but squeeze-box polkas go back more than a century in Central Texas. Flaco Jiménez, third generation accordionist bandleader, passed the torch to…

by Raoul Hernandez

The Luv Doc: A Drinking Solution

S’up Doc! Where do you go to drink? And what do you drink when you do? Inquiring minds want to know. – Sancho If I have learned anything in life, Sancho, it’s that you don’t really need to go somewhere to drink. It’s probably healthier if you do, though. Like just about any other respectable…

by The Luv Doc

Capital Metro Service Changes Public Meeting

Review and provide feedback on proposed service changes that Cap Metro is considering for the fall. Attend one of these meetings, April 8-10, or go to www.capmetro.org/fall2014. Tuesday, 5:30-7pm, St. John’s United Methodist, 2140 Allandale. Wednesday, noon-1pm, Capital Metro Transit Store, 209 W. Ninth. Wednesday, 6-7:30pm, Faith United Methodist, 2701 S. Lamar. Thursday, Noon-1pm. Capital…

by Chronicle Staff

Noah

Partly allegorical, partly spectacular, and wholly sincere, Darren Aronofsky gives us another memorable movie about a driven individual.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

Cindy & Friends

If you want to know what kind of friendships Cindy Wood has developed over her 25 years as an Austin comedienne, just look at the legion of luminaries from the comedy and music scenes turning out for Cindy & Friends, a benefit performance hosted by Esther’s Follies Sunday, April 6, to help Wood cope with…

by Robert Faires

Cindy & Foe

In 2001, Cindy Wood noticed an infected bite on the back of her neck, and since the symptoms were unusual – high fever, swollen lymph glands, painfully stiff neck – she went to the doctor. But the symptoms persisted, then intensified, and new ones appeared. She saw more doctors, but none was able to help. Wood…

by Robert Faires

Ernest & Celestine

The team from A Town Called Panic returns with another animated charmer – this time a tale about interspecies friendship and dentistry.

by Josh Kupecki

Phases & Stages

Toting a title worthy of Fiona Apple, Scratch Acid guitarist Brett Bradford leads Insect Sex Act on a muddy combat crawl through groaning, twisted narratives that cinch the zeitgeist of sun-baked noise-punk at the cusp of its autumnal years. The veterans of ISA channel the heady thrall of Woodshock-era Austin (1981-2001), but with more attention…

by Greg Beets

Jinn

Thrills start after a man receives a cryptic message warning that he’s in imminent danger.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

Texas Platters

The catch-all assignation of world music remains way too small to encompass a sound this big. Borrowing its title from a poem by 13th century Persian poet Rumi, Atash’s third LP bears audible roots that span the continents. What makes the nine-person Austin ensemble’s ambitious musicality truly transformative is its dedication to a deepening soulfulness…

by Greg Beets

Soccer Watch

Get your first look at the defending national champion Austin Aztex this Friday, as they head a few miles up I-35 to kick off their 2014 preseason playing Southwestern Univer­sity (7pm, Friday, April 4 in Georgetown; free). The Aztex added three more returning players this week: Sito Seoane, Travis Golden, and Mikey Ambrose. Seoane, the…

by Nick Barbaro

Texas Platters

Boyfrndz keeps a tentacle in many bodies of water, from tidal post-rock and crushing typhoons of doom metal to the boiling pools of psychedelia and urgent river currents of Trail of Dead’s prog-punk. Breeder, second full-length by the Austin foursome, takes a gallon from each and pours it over the amps all at once. Guitars…

by Michael Toland

Food-O-File

New menus, remodeling, and a fresh crop of weekends for Austin Restaurant Week? Spring has sprung in the Austin foodie scene.

by Virginia B. Wood

Texas Platters

Fuck me? No, fuck you! So goes the counter-punch thesis of this feminist punk quartet’s ferocious debut LP. Retaliation abounds in the inspired lyrics of Arielle “Relle” Sonnenschein, who sings with a stiff upper lip and puts exclamation points in all the right places on Haematic as she rages against gender roles and rapists. “You…

by Kevin Curtin

HBO My

Premium cable network struts its stuff with three premieres this weekend

by Monica Riese

Civics 101

Thursday 03 ACC BOARD CANDIDATE TRAIN­ING Learn about qualifications online. 6-7:30pm. ACC Highland Business Center, 5930 Middle Fiskville. Free. www.austincc.edu. AISD Budget Conversa­tion Get a first look at the preliminary 2014-15 budget. 6:30pm. Crockett High, 5601 Manchaca Rd. Friday 04 HOUSING + TRANSIT: Getting on Track in Austin Keynote by Shelley Poticha of Natural Resources…

by Chronicle Staff

HBO My

Veep In the third season of Armando Iannucci’s send-up of D.C. politicking, the stakes have been raised to presidential levels: After learning that the current, beleaguered commander-in-chief won’t be seeking re-election, the hilariously haughty Vice President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and her staff of lovable losers, try-hards, and braggadocios are angling for a bid for…

by Aleksander Chan

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

For his painting Washington on the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze used the Rhine, not the Delaware, as the basis for the scene. Women couldn’t serve on a jury in Texas until 1954. Elastic-waist trunks were designed in 1925 by Jacob Golomb, founder of Everlast, to replace the leather-belted trunks boxers wore. These “boxer trunks” immediately became…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

HBO My

Game of Thrones “The Rains of Castamere” no longer soundtracks our nightmares, and the Red Wedding’s deep cuts have pinkened into scar tissue. The audience, at least, has had a year to recuperate. Not so for the battered people of Westeros: Season four makes clear that the wound is still new – and very, very…

by Kimberley Jones

Oops

In last week’s issue, we ran a week-old version of the Mr. Smarty Pants column. Here’s the column you missed last week: Household water use accounts for about 6% of the water that we consume. The other 94% comes from the products we buy. Some say the world’s first burger was served in Athens, Texas,…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Quote of the Week

“This law is doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s working.” – President Barack Obama, April 1, announcing that approximately 7.1 million people had enrolled in health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act

by Chronicle Staff

Exhibitionism

Though slow going, Southwestern University’s staging delivered old-fashioned splendor and passion

by Adam Roberts

HBO My

Silicon Valley Little-known fact about Mike Judge: Before Beavis and Butt-Head, he programmed software for fighter jets. Now he’s returning to the keyboard with tech comedy Silicon Valley. As the hapless CEO of start-up Pied Piper, corporate drone Richard (Thomas Middleditch) finds himself caught between the tech sector’s divergent instincts. After semi-accidentally developing an Internet…

by Richard Whittaker

Texas Platters

Brawlers tend to band best with a brother. Think UGK, MOP, or closer to home, Crew54, those aggressive soul purveyors who hail from Killeen. The Austin Eastside tandem of Young Gift and Big John ebb closer to the gruff Memphis hustle of 8Ball & MJG than their other tag-teaming brethren. On their eponymous third album,…

by Chase Hoffberger

Headlines

• The next City Council meeting isn’t until April 10 (work session April 8) with a fairly light draft agenda, but dust might rise over a proposed new policy on interim budget adjustments and a 4pm hearing on vested development rights (i.e., grandfathering). › After cracking down on house-sharing with their “stealth dorm” rules, last…

by Chronicle Staff

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