Cover Story

Ikiru

Ikiru 1952, NR, 143 min. Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Starring Takashi Shimura, Shin’ichi Himori, Haruo Tanaka. In this Japanese classic, a bureaucrat tries to find a meaning in his life after he discovers he has terminal cancer.

by Chronicle Staff

The Luv Doc: Getting Good Gigs

Dear Luv Doc, I am a drummer in a good band, but we can never get any gigs. We don’t do anything but rehearse. Clubs say they have too many bands already or that we are not the right style of music (progressive rock). When we do get a gig, it is always late at…

by The Luv Doc

Other Notable Local VR Projects

Omni TreadmillThis omnidirectional treadmill replaces the usual controller for movement within a virtual environment. Slick shoes and a concave bowl re-create the sensation of walking and reproduce your “movement” in the game world. It’s another big step toward biofeedback and deeper immersion. Shark PunchChaotic Moon fulfills the near-universal fantasy of punching an attacking shark in…

by Chronicle Staff

Crazy From the Heat

The Dead Space Faker (12XU) Much as the inner sleeve photo of birds circling a pollution-belching smokestack suggests, this spry post-punk trio’s debut LP births a series of tightly wound meditations on loss and isolation. Austerity abounds in both the spartan arrangements and forlorn subject matter. The upside of this approach is heightened potency. Even…

by Greg Beets

Crazy From the Heat

Billy Joe Shaver Long in the Tooth (Lightning Rod) No coincidence that with Willie Nelson topping charts for the first time in decades, Billy Joe Shaver shows up with his first album of new material since 2007’s Everybody’s Brother. After all, Nelson’s Band of Brothers stars two new Shaver cuts, “The Git Go” and “Hard…

by Doug Freeman

Headlines

› City Council, knee-deep in budget review, resumes formal meetings today (Thursday, Aug. 7) with a daunting agenda, including setting the November election (and transportation bond proposal), board and commission revisions, and a host of other matters. If you’re attending, this week it’s at Commissioners Court, 700 Lavaca. See “Council: Come As You Are.” ›…

by Chronicle Staff

Crazy From the Heat

ZZ Top Live at Montreux 2013 (Eagle Vision) Ever wondered what’s behind Billy Gibbons’ not-so-cheap sunglasses? Eighty minutes Live at Montreux 2013 gets right up in the guitarist’s fuzzy mug, the green buds on his skull cap poking out from under his regulation sombrero like cannabis rivulets. ZZ Top on Blu-ray breaches all kinds of…

by Raoul Hernandez

Crazy From the Heat

Centro-matic Take Pride in Your Long Odds (Navigational Transmissions/Thirty Tigers) After 17 years, perennial indie underdog Centro-matic knows something about embracing the long odds. The local quartet’s 11th studio LP plays to those defiant in the struggle, buffering the balance of resolve and regret. Take Pride also ventures more diverse and eclectic, from the title…

by Doug Freeman

Crazy From the Heat

Flesh Lights “No Longer” / “You Don’t Know” (Twistworthy) Sophomore LP due sometime this fall, Flesh Lights throw fans a bone in this two-tune 7-inch of beer-soaked live favorites recorded by Austin expat Mike Vasquez in his Oregon studio. Side A spins the airtight guitar pop of “No Longer,” in which boyish axeman Max Vandever…

by Kevin Curtin

Quote of the Week

“It’s not acceptable that the governor’s office is for sale.” – Wendy Davis on Greg Abbott’s pay-to-play campaign contributions

by Chronicle Staff

Crazy From the Heat

The Mastersons Good Luck Charm (New West) Good Luck Charm arrives as the Mastersons’ second effort, but it’s the couple’s first full-on collaboration. On 2012’s Birds Fly South, marrieds Eleanor Whitmore and Chris Masterson offered mostly their own songs. Here, they both had a hand in bringing all 11 tracks to life. Accomplished musicians, she…

by Jim Caligiuri

Crazy From the Heat

Lou Ann Barton The Best! (Rock Beat Records) Lou Ann Barton originated in Fort Worth, but the veteran blues belter made her name, home, and career in Austin. Likewise, The Best! isn’t mere description of this compilation. It’s a declaration of artistry. The lovingly assembled career retrospective crowns her the capital’s Queen of the Blues…

by Tim Stegall

Crazy From the Heat

J. Wagner The Runaway Kid J. Wagner writes songs like the novel you long for after the last page is turned. Wagner’s self-released sophomore album, The Runaway Kid, proves he’s not just whittling words. He’s become a commander of ideation. Wagner grew up in Albuquerque, went to college in Denton, worked as a park ranger…

by William Harries Graham

Crazy From the Heat

Obsolete Future Cassettes live? They do for Chronicle contributor Conor Walker and Charles Ballas, proprietors of Austin/Denver electronic music label Obsolete Future. While no new car sold in the U.S. since model year 2010 has included a tape deck, that hasn’t stopped the pair from reimagining the fleeting format as a sort of retro-futuristic calling…

by Greg Beets

Crazy From the Heat

Christopher Denny If the Roses Don’t Kill Us (Partisan) Christopher Denny arrives blessed with a tender vibrato that might have made Roy Orbison tip down his shades. The Little Rock transplant’s first album in seven years kicks off with the bipolar guitar and banjo play of “Happy Sad,” which, for all its monosyllabic simplicity, foreshadows…

by Kevin Curtin

Crazy From the Heat

Kelley Mickwee You Used to Live Here With the Trishas on “open-ended” hiatus, Kelley Mickwee becomes the first of the lauded local quintet to release any solo material. You Used to Live Here, bordering on an EP at a slim seven tracks, combines the singer’s native Memphis roots with those of her Austin homestead. It’s…

by Jim Caligiuri

Crazy From the Heat

Jess Klein Learning Faith The title track to Jess Klein’s seventh studio LP sets a tone of seeking and defiance at the outset, a direct and bluesy stare back at struggles personal, cultural, and spiritual. Klein’s vocals and vision have matured with power and confidence, ripping raw on biting rocker “So Fucking Cool,” and beautifully…

by Doug Freeman

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

Every day, at the end of the workday in China, they play the Kenny G song, “Going Home,” to encourage workers to go home. An apron was originally called a napron. If you go all the way back to Latin, you can trace the roots of “apron” to the word “mappa” which meant both tablecloth…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Crazy From the Heat

Speak Pedals (Playing in Traffic) Speak’s 2011 debut showcased 10-foot-tall anthems that swirled with synth hooks and big ideas. The local foursome’s follow-up, Pedals, further proves their penchant for the grandiose, delivering a sonic blowout as large as it is entrancing. “Mystery Lights” and “Gates” lead off like the dance-floor apocalypse, leaving a big impression…

by Abby Johnston

Exhibitionism

Punchkin Repertory crafts something special out of the vast “nowhere” in the lives of its three protagonists

by Adam Roberts

Crazy From the Heat

Suspirians (Super Secret Records) The difference between hearing a song and experiencing it distinguishes good bands from great ones. Suspirians’ eponymous debut delivers the goods with feeling. The local quartet’s disjointed guitars and vocal sass of frontwoman Marisa Pool recall impassioned Nineties femme punks Heavens to Betsy and Bratmobile, the seven-song long-player blending raucous rock…

by Neph Basedow

Crazy From the Heat

Pong Gone (Saustex) Bouncing off satellites like the Nineties – and for that matter, the Fifties, Sixties, and most of the Aughties – never happened, Pong gets good and Gone on album No. 3. Grown to a septet with the addition of singer Kerri Atwood, the band of former Ed Halls, Moist Fists, and Pocket…

by Michael Toland

Crazy From the Heat

Casual Strangers Launching a side gig while your day job hits a peak seems like odd timing. And yet, that’s what Boxing Lesson singer/guitarist Paul Waclawsky does with Casual Strangers, a quartet co-led by singer Katey Gunn, whose self-titled debut follows hot on the heels of the Lesson’s triumphant Big Hits. At first blush, the…

by Michael Toland

Crazy From the Heat

The Ugly Beats Brand New Day (Get Hip Recordings) All too easy to take the Ugly Beats for granted. That’s due as much to their contemporary folk-punk sheen as to the musicians’ affable personalities. Overlooking them – egregious error. Leader Joe Emery and Daniel Wilcox’s guitars veer closer to Roger McGuinn’s jangle action than the…

by Tim Stegall

Advocacy, Ethics, and Opposition

While opponents of the urban rail plan have relentlessly voiced that opposition for months, official agencies such as Capital Metro and Project Connect “are in a strict ‘education only, no advocacy’ position,” says Cap Metro’s John Julitz – as is required by Texas state law regulating the use of public funds for political advertising (Texas…

by Mac McCann

Crazy From the Heat

Adrian & the Sickness Be Your Own Savior (Fantom Records) Blessed is she who headbangs to the beat of her own drum. Local shredder Adrian Conner, in the process of dropping “the Sickness,” lets her dreads fly on Be Your Own Saviour, an all-but-in-name-only solo debut. The longtime Austin punker opens with dreamy, wordless interlude…

by Nina Hernandez

Soccer Watch

Another smart move from the Austin Aztex this week. They announced Monday that they’re bringing popular and successful head coach Paul Dalglish back from MLS to head the Aztex as they move up to USL PRO next season. He’ll be both head coach and technical director, under what Aztex owner Rene Van de Zande called…

by Nick Barbaro

Crazy From the Heat

Joe King Carrasco y El Molino Rucca (Anaconda) Tex-Mex rock & roll instigator Joe King Carrasco continues his relentless run of self-releases with Rucca, the second consecutive disc employing his late-Seventies group El Molino, which today includes respected locals John X Reed, Speedy Sparks, Ernie Durawa, Augie Meyers, and Joe Morales. Rucca lays out exactly…

by Kevin Curtin

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