Cover Story
Welcome to the 28th Annual Hot Sauce Festival
The heat is on
Seafood Restaurant Guild Launches a Community-Focused Club
Become a member to get swanky perks and help your neighbors
Searching For Clues Online
Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian talk about their online thriller
AFS Moves Forward With Bloomberg Support
New program to help society grow through training, support
The Baker Brothers Find Their Kin
Behind the story of the gritty SF drama (plus, Mogwai!)
New to Town? Here Are Nine of the Biggest News Stories Affecting Locals.
A primer on Austin politics
Events to Help Queer Up Your Autumn
As the temperatures cool, the queers come out to play
Texas Book Festival 2018: The Full List
Lineup includes Cecile Richards, Julián Castro, + 280 more
Swimming Holes With Nearby Watering Holes
Embrace the endless summer with water therapy and post-swim drinks
10 Recommended Food & Drink Events This Fall
Looking for a few culinary celebrations, are you?
Kaci Beeler: Perfect Servings for One
The hextuple-threat artist’s work goes live and visual at St. Ed’s
aGLIFF 2018
September 6-9, 2018 Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar www.agliff.org The All Genders, Lifestyles, and Identities Film Festival gives a platform for the LGBTQ+ community in Texas and beyond, raising awareness of queer issues through a schedule of films that is enlightening, uplifting, and entertaining.
Make a Film For Beto O’Rourke
Texas’ movie heavy hitters want your story of hope
Reset: New Local Startup Helps Both Restaurants and Freelancers
Offset rent and encourage camaraderie (and pants)
The Lost Art of Being Offensive
Swimming in satire with cartooning documentary Mr. Fish
Are Kids These Days Bringing OOB the Laughter for Love’s Sake?
What dire agenda, we wonder, lurks beneath their odd & infectious joy?
Supremes Reject Ballot Lawsuits
Court denies requests that Council rewrite proposition language
We Are All In Local Loses Members Over Dave TV Rift
WAAIL acts drop over copyright spat with local videographer
AFF to Honor Larry Wilmore
Festival celebrates long impact of writer and comedian
Austin Beer Guide’s Lager Jam 5
Lager mongers collaborate for annual festival
Out of Bounds Comedy Festival 2018: Picks
In the bounty of improv, sketch, & stand-up, some of our picks
Real Life
Real Life 1978, PG, 99 min. Directed by Albert Brooks, Starring Albert Brooks, Charles Grodin, Frances Lee McCain. Albert Brooks’ mockumentary, his directorial debut, anticipates the rise of reality TV.
Hot Sauce Festival Winners 2018
The judges – and the people – have crowned their local hot sauce royalty
Encore Records Closing
Metal music retailer shutting in September
Were You at Pop Cats This Past Weekend?
Unless it’s only ever dogs for you, citizen, you should’ve been
Celebrate Melted Cheese!
Quesoff benefits Central Texas Food Bank, today at The Mohawk, 1-4pm
Weekend Wine
A great Pinot Gris from Sonoma
Review: dat Black Mermaid Man Lady
Let Sharon Bridgforth’s performance installation wash over you
A Summer Shindig With Austin’s Sex Workers Outreach Project
SWOP hosts a fundraiser for housing, employment, and safety
City Council Candidate Forums
Say hello to your district’s candidates
Live Music Recommendations for the Weekend
Jason Isbell plays three nights, Wiz Khalifa returns to town, and more
Mile 22
Wahlberg and company get bloody as a CIA black ops team
Support the Girls
The hidden rules of life in Andrew Bujalksi’s breastaurant comedy
The Happytime Murders
Puppet comedy crime caper is less Feebles, more just feeble
A.X.L
A boy and his electronic dog
Blue Iguana
Trans-Atlantic diamond heist flick wth additional hijinks
Papillon
New adaptation of Henri Charrière’s autobiographical novel of life on Devil’s Island
Good Manners
A Brazilian werewolf tale that takes a while to bite
Beautifully Broken
Christian drama about fatherhood and faith
40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie
Behind the Music for a band you’ve never heard of
Puzzle
The pretty pieces don’t all fit in this jigsaw-solving drama
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
The life and times of the Golden Age of Cinema’s favorite pimp
A Different Kind of Taco
Baja-style tacos are Rosarito’s specialty, and Austin’s obsession
Texas Platters
“World fusion” generally means indigenous music combined with pop-oriented sounds geared toward Western ears. Indicative of the title Flamenco India, Austin guitarist Oliver Rajamani’s ninth LP is a different beast, seamlessly blending Spanish flamenco, Indian classical music, gypsy folk, and Texas. With nylon-string guitar from Rajamani and co-picker Jerónimo Maya, and Hindu chants from the…
The Doctors in Van Boven’s Corner
Baylor Scott & White disputes amicus submission in Van Boven hospital litigation
Finding the Perfect Hot Sauce Is an Art Form
A pepper for every palate
Texas Platters
Soft guitar lines frothing into a slow boil of raucous distortion and torrential riffs becomes a fitting kick-start to Blynd Birds’ Find Your Conscience, Baby. The local quartet brandishes the same ferocity found on its 2015 debut Sure for Certain. While single “Vice Veins” gleans an unexpected pop sensibility, the rest of the sophomore effort…
Austin Scottish Rite Theater’s Wit
In this production, people are there for one another and no one has to face the end alone
Council: Reasons for Optimism
A manageable agenda? Heard that one before.
Freedom
A Tinder date that went really well
Texas Platters
Discerningly abrasive noise-rock trio Exhalants debuts catch and release, building up unforgiving deluges of cataclysmic sound that recede into melodically monolithic relief. Encompassing elements of ATX predecessors the Jesus Lizard and Cherubs, a surprising beauty runs through these 10 tracks, interwoven into the crew’s dark, caustic creation. “Latex,” a torrent of jittery post-hardcore, tumbles quickly…
“Crit Group 2018” at grayDUCK Gallery
The body of work by artists in the Contemporary Austin’s current critique group often engages the body in some way
The City Needs Gravediggers, Too
PARD’s long, hot summer with interment services
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to Daily Mail, Sir Patrick Stewart took up drumming lessons at age 74. According to BBC, he ordered his first single slice of pizza at 72. He’s now 78. A fauteuil is an armchair with open panes between the arms and the seat. According to Ars Technica, only about 0.02% of diamonds are blue,…
Texas Platters
There’s a specific sweaty dejection to lunching alone in a car. On their first label release, local noise quartet Super Thief reaches frenetic mania over the subject, self-discontent dripping from Cody Kimbell’s strung-out verse. Channeling Eighties hardcore, “Gone Country” pulses with restless, writhing energy. Accounting for half the EP, 10-minute closer “You Play It Like…
Lenka Clayton: The Distance I Can Be From My Son at the Blanton
In a series of amusing videos, the artist sheds light on the judgment calls parents make while balancing their children’s safety and autonomy
Third-Party Police Oversight?
You’re kidding.
Texas Platters
The delicate debut of 16-year-old Madi Meeks is petal-like. Five swooning tracks enfold wistful remembrances and missed connections, arranged to spotlight the Austin native’s lush, formidable tone. Her slow-burning, country-hued title track launches on a somber note: “Roses are red/ Romance is dead.” Acoustic sparsity steps up “Broken Telephone,” followed by swooning fiddle arcs for…
Soccer Watch
The UT Longhorns opened their regular season with a 3-0 road win at defending Conference USA champ Rice, with goals coming from Cyera Hintzen, Katie Glenn, and Tecora Turner. This weekend the 17th-ranked Horns are in Chapel Hill, N.C., playing fourth-ranked North Carolina and 23rd-ranked Central Florida; they begin a seven-match home stand next Thursday,…
Crime Lab Chronicles
City memo updates on troubled DNA lab’s progress
Celebrity Judges
This year’s distinguished panel of judges includes …
Texas Platters
Equipped with a CV of sideman duties for Okkervil River, White Denim, and Polyphonic Spree, multi-instrumentalist Mike St. Clair steps into his own experimental universe as Pocket Sounds. Layers of horn and synth escort the genre-swaying composer’s tranquil vox, striking in a careful, unhurried elocution. Propelled by a drum-machine heartbeat (“7&O”) and looping folk echo…
Day Trips: Monument Inn Restaurant
The Monument Inn Restaurant in La Porte on the far eastern side of Houston has a window to the world with a classic menu of seafood. Named for the San Jacinto battleground monument a short distance away, the restaurant overlooks the Houston Ship Channel where oceangoing vessels from around the world make a sharp turn…
Texas Platters
A dozen years as ever-evolving Austin essentials, White Denim delivers one of its best demonstrations of rock & roll raucousness. Founding members James Petralli and Steve Terebecki, joined by onetime NRBQ drummer and local beatmaster Conrad Choucroun plus various homegrown associates, push playful studio experimentation to its natural seams. Even with all the jazz, jams,…
Texas Platters
After the Flatlanders crashed and burned, or rather seeped back into the Panhandle, Athos retreated back home to Lubbock after sustaining three broken ribs as an animal wrangler for Ringling Brothers. Simple country instrumentation led by Lloyd Maines’ lonesome steel leads the convalescence – a folk-rocker out in the wind, casting his deceptively calibrating tenor…
Andrew Bujalski Explores Breastaurant Culture in Support the Girls
Hot wings and rules of engagement
Texas Platters
Before becoming a platinum-plated solo act, Christopher Cross (né Geppert) spent years woodshedding into a top-flight guitarist in San Antonio and Austin. Cross fronts Freedonia and its music fits squarely within his smooth rubric, but this eponymous bow plays out as a whole-band effort. The half-decade between Steely Dan’s Aja and Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly…
Texas Platters
Zack Varner is an experienced jazz saxophonist, but Blues in the Nude arrives as the Atlanta native’s debut as composer and arranger. Varner expertly honors tradition with hard bop and swing themes while simultaneously exploring and building on the genre’s evolution through tango, bossa nova, and samba-infused textures. A blues-rooted progression by the project’s rhythm…
Paid Sick Leave on Pause
Successful effort by right-wing group, attorney general, stunts city ordinance
Texas Platters
On lead single “Guns! (Baby),” Slomo Drags reaches a degree of demented pop splendor the Austin quartet merely hinted at on a previous pair of EPs. “This song is going out to every single person who’s ever died … Oh, I didn’t realize there’s so many of you guys,” Jackson Albracht sings cheekily over restless…
Texas Platters
Nervous Exits burned long and hot enough to squeeze out this 2006 CD finally seeing vinylization, then flamed out, casting ashes amongst local music scenesters the Golden Boys and Gospel Truth (guitarist Patrick Travis), the Ripe (drummer Nick Yaklin), Adam & the Figurines (bassist Adam Amparan), and the Dresses (singer John Yaklin). With second guitarist…
Headlines
It’s Busy Season: A mere 82 Items have collected on the City Council agenda for today, Thursday, Aug. 23, including dozens of fall contract renewals, plenty of zoning cases, and what might be a labor contract agreement with EMS employees (APD still pending). Wednesday’s afternoon session hosted public budget and property tax hearings. See “Council:…
The Past, Present, and FuturX of Latinx Performance in Austin
The current surge of Latinx theatre and dance in Austin speaks to both tradition and pioneering new directions
Texas Platters
Enter the final frontier. On Wave Refraction, Austin fivepiece Sungod continues rocketing through the sort of dense instrumentals pioneered by psychedelic savants Sun Ra and Tangerine Dream. Like predecessors Contackt and Sungod, the band itself delves into expansive sprawls of prog-rock spirals, synth burners, and rock maelstroms. Reverb and electronic flourishes swirl along the cosmos…
Need to Flip a Car or Burn a Building Down? Call EB3 Effects.
How brothers Everett and Craig Byrom went from building maintenance to making movies
Point Austin: The Circus Returns to Town
Final-day filings bump up the list of wannabe Council candidates
Austin’s Next Shot at Ending Homelessness
Thanks to an infusion of philanthropic cash, the city and its iTeam embark on a new effort
Texas Platters
Enlisting local luminaries Jonathan Horne (Young Mothers), Lisa Cameron (ST 37, Suspirians), Adam Jones (Bill Callahan), Bob Hoffnar (Mood Illusion), Thor Harris (Thor & Friends, Swans), and producer Zac Traeger, California native and Austin resident Raquel Bell moves through a haze of dreamy, avant-garde psychedelia on her third solo album. There’s enough reverb on “Stones”…
Snapshot: The Secret Behind Sazón’s Award-Winning Hot Sauce
It’s all about balance, baby
Public Notice: The Battle Is Joined
Land use policy will define the November Council election
Ballot Lawsuits Simmer at Supreme Court
Ellen Troxclair, Texas Public Policy Foundation file briefs supporting audit and CodeNEXT petitioners
Texas Platters
Austin genre defiants Kev Bev meld a cosmic hodgepodge of hypnotica. Behind horn and djembe-paced rhythms, the ninepiece ensemble bends blues harmonies with funk synths and disco omnichords that manifest dance music through ripe instrumentation. On opener “Radio Slay,” Candace Collins’ spirited vocals mount over jangly guitar and atmospheric horns, building a riot grrrl-esque crescendo…
Playback: White Denim Breaks Free
White Denim’s new LP Performance signals a new era of emancipation for Austin’s prog rockers, and Como Las Movies rides a nuevo wave
County May Contest Tax-Exempt Status of Soccer Stadium
It’s the tax, man
Texas Platters
For his third album in the guise of a power-pop combo, multi-instrumentalist John Lathrop commingles longing melodies and oblique wit in a bid for three-minute transcendence. Contrasting the acoustic bent of his 2013 soundtrack for Billi & Theodore, this soundtrack for Lex Lybrand’s Maybe Shower channels the fleeting moment when bands like Fountains of Wayne…
Gay Place
The Flash Collective calls on the queer community to help create public art
Quote of the Week: Sarah Eckhardt
The optics of local governance
Texas Platters
Megaphones, magic acts, Depression-era outfits, a monikered suitcase and, yes, a paper moon, much of it in glorious sepia tone: The packaging of Paper Moon Shiners’ second album oozes nostalgia. So much so that guitarist Frank Meyer and singer Elena Antinelli cross over from impressive to annoying. The winking “Cap Gun Dory” and oompahed “Dandy…
Southwest Key & Their Contracts
County votes to continue contract with nonprofit, city to deliberate on Aug. 30
A Taste of What’s to Come
Scenes from the 2017 Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival
Texas Platters
Ben Millburn boasts a green thumb for atmosphere, germinating simple parts into lush musical bloom. Unfortunately, while the Louisiana native forges occasionally infectious sounds on his debut long-player, his writing borders on the downright inane. “ABCD, take what you need/ Shut up and don’t tell me that the music’s slow/ Maybe it’s just you and…
Lewis Conway’s Complex Candidacy
Eligibility questions, vague accusations plague Council candidate’s early campaign
2018 Hot Sauce Contest & Festival Facts
Everything you need to know
Texas Platters
Justin Stewart’s immaculate and playful pop sensibility belies the punch of the songs on third LP Renaissance. The songwriter bounces through piano tunes sparked by a stellar local backing that includes Bukka Allen, John Michael Schoepf, and Geoff Queen, but like Harry Nilsson, the result rings deeper than the surface waggishness. Opening triptych “Texas Fatmucket,”…
Who’s on the City’s November 2018 Ballot?
Monday filing deadline yields complete list of candidates
