Attack of the 50-Foot Uterus!

Oct 30 - Nov 5, 2015 / Vol. 35 / No. 9
Digital Edition

Cover Story

How To Assemble Your 50-Foot Uterus Mask

After years of repression by the Texas Legislature, the uterus is striking back! Little did anti-choice lawmakers know, while they were trying to keep it down, the uterus was growing faster, stronger, smarter – and it’s coming for you, Gov. Greg Abbott. 1) Wake up. Following session after session of anti-abortion laws that contravened medical…

by Amy Kamp and Mary Tuma

Texas Platters

Who says sequels can’t outrun predecessors? Building upon the sci-fi template of 2012’s Space Taste Race Part 1 EP, this veteran local prog-rock trio delivers its most fully realized effort to date. Opposite Day seizes the viscera with finely oiled musicianship running headlong into spellbinding time changes, but their appetite for whimsy and subliminal pop…

by Greg Beets

Headlines

City Council work moves into committees for a couple of weeks, with the next regular meeting now scheduled for Nov. 12. Contentious proposals in development address utility rates, ride-for-hire companies, short-term rentals, etc. See “Taking It to Committee,” Oct. 28. The Austin Parks and Recreation Department and the nonprofit Barton Springs Conservancy announced a partnership…

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Choking on enough fuzz to carpet a split-level, Sweat Lodge pounds acid boogie like the early Seventies never ended. The type of riff-oriented heavy rock the Austin quintet wallows in doesn’t require innovation so much as expertise, and Sweat Lodge executes it as well anybody flailing power chord licks on Gibsons through Orange amps. Educated…

by Michael Toland

Texas Platters

What William Harries Graham, Chronicle contributor and the Painted Redstarts’ leader, shares in common with father Jon Dee Graham is being an Austin singer-songwriter-guitarist of protean talent. The sonic resemblance mostly ends there. Debut LP Foreign Fields demonstrates a Nineties dream-pop influence mixed with more urgent rock & roll across ethereal soundscapes including “Curtains Wide,”…

by Tim Stegall

Texas Platters

Midway through “Mockingbird,” title track from Mike & the Moonpies’ third LP, the lead singer and songwriter takes a moment to reflect on his aesthetic. “With my Levi jeans and snakeskin boots,” sings Mike Harmeier, “I dress like 1982.” The getup is hardly the frontman’s only vintage foray. With its Bob Seger-style cover art and…

by Chase Hoffberger

Texas Platters

The latest manifestation of modern country’s honky-tonk renaissance, Okie transplants Jason Boland & the Stragglers have been hewing close to Ryman Auditorium/Armadillo World Headquarters roots for nearly 20 years. Squelch feels like a culmination of the locals’ hard work: Eleven tracks of hard country the Broken Spoke celebrates nightly. Boland has a deep, round baritone,…

by Tim Stegall

Quote of the Week

“SXSW’s ‘both sides’ rhetoric is merely the status quo of a tech industry largely ignoring systemic online harassment.” – Anita Sarkeesian, Feminist Frequency blogger and media critic, on SXSW canceling two gaming panels after threats of violence

by Chronicle Staff

Public Notice: Gone Fishing

“Public Notice” will return in full next week; meanwhile, here are a few things to look forward to this week. There are a few events left in the city of Austin’s Better Streets Week program, including breakfast and lunch talks on Friday, and continuing through Austin Bike Fest on Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31. It’s all…

by Nick Barbaro

Three More Views

Zell Miller III • Interdisciplinary theatre artist and educator • Divorced father of two “in a healthy relationship” “[Fatherhood] made me really understand how I needed to choose mercy in my living and art practices. It quickly erased so much hate and fear and sharpened my focus as an agent of change. It also drives…

by Chronicle Staff

Libraries, Technology, and Politics

As Texas State Librarian Mark Smith notes, it used to be a pundit commonplace that digital technology and the Internet were rapidly displacing libraries, books, or even reading. The cliche is less common now, but has occasionally surfaced in recent months at City Hall – especially during City Council discussions of Austin Public Library funding.…

by Michael King

Reading by District

In response to the City Council adoption of a 10-district system, the Library has begun to maintain readership statistics by district, in order to provide those to Council and city leadership. For example, the system records three-week totals of items from the Central collection checked out, by district. For the three-week period from Sept. 14…

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Originally from Missouri, Israel Nash took to Dripping Springs after looking for a musical home in New York City. Once here, he built a recording studio/Quonset hut to record Silver Season, follow-up to last year’s Rain Plans, the singer-songwriter’s glorious attempt at capturing the sun-streaked atmosphere of the Texas Hill Country in song. The floods…

by Jim Caligiuri

Texas Platters

Having penned her way to a trio of Grammys, Shawn Colvin originally honed her considerable skills covering Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, and has been known to incorporate songs by such diverse artists as Cee-Lo into her live sets. Uncovered, the longtime local’s second covers album, both respects its material’s wellsprings and celebrates them through…

by Abby Johnston

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

Some people in China use the term “An Bu Neng Si” (pronounced ahn boo nung seu) for “ambulance,” which means “I should not die.” The first U.S. census identified only white males and females, with the remainder lumped as either “other free persons” or “slaves.” A human heart puts out between one and five watts…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Texas Platters

With a name like I Am the Albatross, this Austin trio might be mistaken for overeducated wiseasses out to carve a new notch on the indie rock bedpost. Fortunately, that’s not the case on Lonesome Son. For one, leader Jesse Berkowitz and his wingmen rock too hard, pulling riffs from the heavy end of the…

by Michael Toland

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