Cover Story
The Power of Art in Austin’s Overlooked Objects
Defining the city’s personality from the moonlight towers to the railroad bridge
Fantastic Arcade Announces 2016 Lineup
Interactive arm of Fantastic Fest probes video games’ outer limits
Day Trips & Beyond: August Events Roundup
Houston Restaurant Weeks, Perseid Meteor Shower, and more
What a Concept!
Still no Grove PUD, but plenty more shit for Council to shovel
Gleason
Footballer Steve Gleason, diagnosed with ALS, is this doc’s subject
Austin Film Fest Adds 10 Titles
First wave includes Jarmusch, Stooges, Rooster Teeth
Exclusive Interview With Wrestling Legend Duke “The Rooster” Cartwright
Deposed local champ tells it like it is before Soul Grudge Showdown VI
Perseid Meteor Shower 101
We chat with the experts about when and where to see the night-sky show
Mayor’s Omnibus Resolution: The Arts Commission Hustle
City group gets moving on policy plan for Austin creatives
Casual Strangers Administer Turing Test
Who or what created the universe – woman, robot, or God?
Dixie Chicks Remain Red, White & True
The world’s finally caught up to the outspoken Texas trio
Affordability: Everywhere But Here
Council parses contracts, buys CD’s, and postpones housing
DVDanger: Fantastic Fest 2015 Revisited
With the 2016 lineup here, time for VOD and DVD reruns
Mental Health Care in Your Pocket
Journal to Save Your Life launches fundraiser for app development
Chronicle Recommends: Sweaty Films
Make sure you stay hydrated watching these persperational picks
Martinez Endorses Mobility Bond
Mayoral adversaries join on transportation proposition
New Grant at Other Worlds Austin
Dan O’Bannon award to help Texas filmmakers
Qualifying Rounds Open for Pluckers Wing King
Final to be held at Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival
Fetal Burial Saga Continues
Pro-choice advocates say new rules aren’t backed by science
Guns n’ Roses’ Texas-Sized Reunion
You know where you are? You’re in Jerry World baby. You’re gonna die!
Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad is done in by its own hand
Don’t Think Twice
In this comedy about comedy, Mike Birbiglia nails what’s funny and true
The Wailing
South Korean movie adeptly blends a variety of genre tropes
The Innocents
Polish nuns raped by soldiers during WWII trigger wider moral issues
Cinema East Films Series Returns at a New Venue
Maggie Lea brings the summer program back for its seventh year
Public Notice: Useful Wild Scooter
How Aug. 4 became Scooter Cheatham and Useful Wild Plants Day in Austin
Burt Reynolds and The Bandit
Doc chronicles the making of a classic
Quote of the Week
“The violence that seized the campus began in the heart of one. Let this memorial remain … as a reminder of the power we have at each moment to become a community of love, of reverence for life.” – Survivor Claire Wilson James, speaking at Monday’s memorial unveiling for the 50th anniversary of the UT…
Oops!
Last week’s edition of “Mr. Smarty Pants Knows” said that Robert Vandervoort of Corpus Christi was the only person who has ever successfully looped the loop on a bicycle. This was in error. Since Vandervoort’s feat in 1901, others such as Danny MacAskill have successfully done it, too. Vandervoort may have been the first, but…
The Common Law
Eminent domain & high-voltage power lines – how does the condemnation process start?
Page Two: “Fab 5 Freddy Told Me Everybody’s Fly”
Out of nothing, street art achieved velocity
The Devil in the Details
Council faces a daunting slate of work sessions
Austin’s Popular Gallery of Graffiti Searches for a New Location
Keeping HOPE alive
The Take-Out: Are National Food Holidays Killing Food Culture?
Foods deserve to be celebrated in more than an artificial way
Grove Approaching Council Date
Neighbors’ valid petition suit still pending
I Like to Watch: UnREAL and the Forms of Consumption
Season 2 of the Lifetime series proves nothing’s perfect
Review: Dee Dee
Northern-Thai trailer expands Austin’s global palate
Locked Up for Being Poor
City accused of unlawfully jailing indigent defendants over unpaid fines
The Luv Doc: Haircut!
Wear what the fuck you want
Magna Carda’s Golden-Era Rap Realization
The homegrown rhyme syndicate just went from “emerging” status to “fully realized”
For Whom the Bells Toll
Lege enacts campus carry on the 50th anniversary of the UT Tower shooting
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to NPR and The Washington Post, goats outnumber people 14-to-1 in Sutton County, Texas. The ratio is 22-to-1 in Edwards County, Texas. All in all, goats outnumber people in 21 U.S. counties, and all but one of them are in Texas. Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and Al Gore all played the harmonica.…
Booze Delivery Apps at Your Fingertips
Get lit without changing out of your pajamas
Paxton Sues City Over Open Carry
Attorney general wants guns allowed in City Hall
Texas Platters
Retrofitted in Ray-Ban aviators, blazers, and turtlenecks, Gloves INTL could have swaggered straight out of an Eighties noir on their eponymous sophomore disc. Curators of “future funk,” the Austin quartet coalesces hot pink rhythms and Champagne-kissed R&B with an ultra-polished pop veneer. Before boldly going where few locals have ventured with such self-assurance, guitarists Ajit…
Magna Carda Index
Like It Is (2014) A polished full-on band project, featuring a more-cynical Megz, who spits additional heft and defiance. Van Geaux (2014) Megz’s flows carry weight similar to The Pretty Toney Album-era Ghostface on a “producer” album heavy with sample use, including David Ruffin and Eumir Deodato. A remix followed. The Shoe String Theory (2012)…
Database Tracks Deaths in Police Custody
Project pulls data from the last decade
Texas Platters
Cody Jinks I’m Not the Devil (Cody Jinks Music/Thirty Tigers) Add Cody Jinks to the list of new country outlaws populated by Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, and Jamey Johnson. Heavily bearded, tattooed, and hailing from Ft. Worth, Jinks moves from his thrash metal band into a country sound that’s straight out of the mid-Nineties, the…
Zach Theatre’s Mary Poppins
Great singing and dancing make Dave Steakley’s staging soar, but a spoonful of calm would help the spectacle go down
Vacancy Savings Sticking Point for APD’s Rank-and-File
The department’s full-time vacancies hover around 150
Texas Platters
Long-running “Best Metal Band” in the Austin Music Poll, Dead Earth Politics has spent recent years cutting the fat, issuing a series of EPs that avoid potential bloat by getting down to business. The Mobius Hammersmith continues the local quintet’s odyssey of styles, few bands of this ilk so dedicated to synthesis instead of subgenre.…
Summer Stock Austin’s The Addams Family
The company’s young artists infuse the musical incarnation of those spooky, ooky Addamses with fresh blood by the buckets
Excessive Force Lawsuit Allowed to Move Forward
Case headed toward trial in December
Texas Platters
No one could ever accuse Cotton Mather leader Robert Harrison of lacking ambition. His band’s latest project promises a 64-song cycle, with each tune representing a hexagram from the I Ching. Wisely, Death of the Cool boils down the concept to 11 tunes, with content in the lyrics and a website for anyone looking. Let’s…
Day Trips: Moore Maker Tool Company, Matador
Largest tool and knife maker in Texas started small in Matador
The Hightower Report
The Bernie Sanders revolution is just getting started
Texas Platters
A band of hippies, Austin’s Brothers & Sisters cultivated a fervent local following for bandleader Will Courtney and his sister Lily. The sprawling ensemble made two albums packed with sun-streaked California pop and alt.country that alternated between introspective and effervescent, one self-titled in 2006 and Fortunately in 2008. Since then, Courtney’s been to Los Angeles,…
Gay Place
A slow week, but there’s still fun to be had
What Would $720 Million for Transportation Buy?
City Council mulls the “Go Big” bond in preparation for the November ballot
Texas Platters
Daniel and Jenna Watters relocated locally from Nashville last year, putting together a formidable new ninepiece outfit for their debut LP. The title track leads off with an early high point on a smooth, horn-lined groove glistening behind Jenna’s soulfully cosmic vocals before skipping to Daniel’s lead on the classic Sixties pop riff of “Reality.”…
Soccer Watch
The Brazil Olympics are under way, even before the opening ceremonies Friday night. The U.S. Women opened with New Zealand on Wednesday, then take on France at 3pm, Sat., Aug. 6, and Colombia at 5pm, Tue., Aug. 9, both live on NBCSN. The U.S. men failed to qualify, but there’s lots of male action as…
Headlines
City Council meetings resumed with a vengeance this week, featuring the regular work session Tuesday, a daylong budget work session Wednesday, and Thursday’s regular meeting. (See “Council: The Devil in the Details,” Aug. 5.) Council moved closer to a November mobility bond election this week, reviewing proposed ballot language and confirming the “smart corridor” emphasis…
Texas Platters
Children’s hardcore? Two-minute sturm und pogos, a 25-minute full-length, and obvious pit provocation (“Rock & Roll 2 Me”): Check, check, and double body check! Gene Davis (vox/guitar), Simon Flory (bass, banjo), and Jody Suarez (beat of a different drum) nearly caused a kiddie riot at Mueller recently in a free summertime concert for KUTX, and…
Playback: The Future of Austin Recording Studios
Studio owners look at different solutions to surviving in an increasingly expensive city
Point Austin: The Budget Wrangle Resumes
City Council attempts to spend more, cost less, and … sustain services
