Cover Story
Austin’s First Cannabis Oil Dispensary Is Ready to Grow
Compassionate Cultivation prepares to serve epilepsy patients
Local Soups for Surviving Winter
Five favorite soup spots to try during this arctic blast
Five Arty Things to Do: Dec. 8-10
Tick-tick-tick goes the year-end timepiece, better do these now …
Levitation Materializes 2018 Lineup
Slowdive, Electric Wizard, Black Angels, etc. à la carte
Into The Black Hole at Other Worlds Austin
Director Gary Nelson on Disney’s sci-fi epic, returning this weekend
Holiday Viewing: Krampus
How to avoid being dragged away on Krampusnacht
Local Encounters of the Gift Kind
Five Austinites share the stories behind their greatest gifts
Self-Care for Queers, by Queers
A queer’s guide to gifting and weathering the next three years
Queer, Quick, and Dirty Gift Guide
Great stuff that makes us feel good
Lady Gaga’s Love-In
Electro-dance validation brings Austin to its knees
Opening Night at Guzu Gallery
Artists talk about their work for new horror-themed show
Holiday Viewing: The Lion in Winter
It’s 1183 … but squabbling with the family is timeless
Kickstartering that Lovise and Shealy
It’s down to the crowdfunding wire for Couri Vine graphic novel
Moontower Comedy 2018: More Comics Named
On, Ryan! On, Preacher! On, Colin! On, Ali! On 39 more jokers!
Darkbird Gets Down With Its Bad Self
Austin quintet goes crazy channeling Prince
Aquatic Master Plan May Be Mastered
Long-awaited pool plan goes before Parks and Rec Board
Holiday Viewing: Elf
One for the whole family
SCOTUS Won’t Hear Same-Sex Spousal Benefits Appeal
Justices reject Houston-based case in Monday toss-out
Dead & Company Hold Their Own
Grateful Dead assemblage puts in four hours on Red River
Holiday Viewing: The Dead
The shadow of Christmas past hangs long over Huston’s classic
Holiday Viewing: A Christmas Tale
Turns out Christmas dinner is just as fraught in French
Day Trips & Beyond: Twelve Weeks After Hurricane Harvey in Port Aransas
“Port A is open for business,” says chamber of commerce
Holiday Viewing: Black Christmas
The giving season can be murder in the original slasher
“It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock & Roll)”
Paying tribute to AC/DC on this week’s post-Thanksgiving playlist
Nicole Atkins’ Showpiece Pipes
Soulfully sober siren entrances Antone’s
Austin Heads to Sundance
Zellners’ latest and Blaze Foley film booked for Utah fest
Fantastic Fest Announces New Board
Familiar faces make up directors for troubled festival
Day Trips & Beyond: December Events Roundup
Dickens on the Strand starts the month off right
Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Denzel Washington is a lawyer who goes rogue
The Disaster Artist
The making of one of the most inept films ever made
The Breadwinner
A young girl tries to provide for her family in Afghanistan
Blade of the Immortal
More blood-splattered samurai action from the Japanese master
Psychopaths
More murder and mayhem from Mickey Keating
Thelma
A college student’s burgeoning sexuality brings on psychic powers
Holiday Viewing: The Shop Around the Corner
The essential Jimmy Stewart Christmas movie (no, not that one)
Joachim Trier’s Thelma Is a Riveting Tale of Psychic-Sexual Coming of Age
Love makes the world burn down
Texas Platters
January’s South Texas Suite EP showcased obvious potential when Whitney Rose relocated from Canada to Austin. Her songwriting seared Margo Price promise and Raul Malo helming production for third LP Rule 62 set high expectations. Rose rolls a unique blend of honky-tonk and Sixties soul, yet her vocals throughout underwhelm against the backdrop of seasoned…
Sotol: The New White Lightning
Three military vets find purpose, identity, and craft in Desert Door distillery
Texas Platters
Rounding into the decade mark, the Sour Notes are now veterans of the local indie scene, and fifth LP Darkest Sour highlights both the trio’s tightness and range. “Clock Strikes Twelve” chimes familiar at the outset, driving guitar into the poppier bounce of “Today, I’ll Buy No Sorrow.” The band grooves best on straight-ahead power-pop…
Esther’s Follies: The Laughs, the Gossip, and the Story Behind Texas’ Most Celebrated Comedy Troupe
In his history of Esther’s Follies, author Jesse Sublett follows the flow of four decades of frivolity
Texas Platters
Tellingly, Austin’s best punk album of 2017 comes with a pack of Stay Hard Beaded Cockrings. Welcome to the blatantly offensive universe of Worm Suicide, winners of this year’s Austin Music Award in said same genre. A mid-Nineties Victoria hardcore outfit reformed when singer Pablo Flores and guitarist/vocalist Scott Free found themselves relocated to post-millennial…
Texas Platters
On her best project to date, Cape Town, South Africa, producer/vocalist Jessica Taylor follows up 2016’s Silver with a confident, consolidating, eponymous EP that firms up her brand of modern electro-soul. Evident throughout, the University of Texas graduate elevates the efficiency of her vocals and songwriting, while also showing off innate comprehension of placement, the…
The Half-Century Psych of Shiva’s Headband
13th Floor Elevators weren’t the only local psych act exploring Austin’s outer limits – and still doing so
Texas Platters
Despite a 25-year career and consistent work with Church on Monday, the Jon Klekman Quartet, and the Mario Castellanos Trio, Storybook is jazz guitarist Tommy Howard’s first album under his own name. Supported by the effortlessly swinging rhythm section of bassist Daniel Durham and drummer Brandon Guerra, the Austin axeman combines a dedicated melodic sensibility…
Austin Energy’s New Low-Income Solar Deal
Utility wants to enact a heavily reduced rate for those enrolled in its customer assistance program
Lloyd Doggett Talks ACA, Tax Plan
The congressman took a few minutes from “Trouble in Toyland”
Democracy in Rest and Motion
Indie Meme brings acclaimed export Newton to AFS Cinema
Does Your Boss Pay You to Miss Work?
They may have to soon
Allegations Mount at T. Don Hutto
Two more women come forward to allege sexual abuse inside the detention facility
What’cha Watchin’?
Who knew News Editor Chase Hoffberger was a sucker for despot propaganda?
Jim Baker’s Bad Bygones
Could the former firefighter’s recent invasive video recording have been prevented?
The Vortex’s Wild Horses
This staging of Allison Gregory’s new play takes you back to your 13th summer with all its freedom and fear
Plans Stalled at Champions Tract 3
The saga continues
Different Stages’ The Member of the Wedding
This staging of the coming-of-age drama evokes the small-town South with vivid design work and a rock solid ensemble
Gay Place
This holiday season is filled with fun, queer activities
Council: Meet Your City Manager Semifinalists
Winnowing down the list
“Raul Gonzalez: Doing Work” at grayDUCK Gallery
The show’s images of construction work and fatherhood challenge expectations of masculinity, domesticity, immigrant work, and art
Saigon Cafe and Seafood Shack
The Le family’s sister restaurants on Hudson Bend are worth the drive
AISD’s Big Move
It’s musical chairs for the school district
Day Trips: Island Motor Bikes, Port Aransas
Port A bike shop is back in business and ready for vacationers after Hurricane Harvey
ICYMI: Hopfields
Guadalupe gastropub channels Sporty Spice and Posh Spice
AISD Board to CodeNEXT: Remember Us
School board passes resolution recommending consideration of AISD students
Soccer Watch
Soccer Election? See “Public Notice,” Dec. 1, for an update on Columbus Crew FC’s planned move to Austin… Meanwhile, the Crew are at Toronto FC in the MLS Eastern Conference finals Wednesday evening as we go to press. Houston is at Seattle Thursday, Nov. 30, at 9:30pm on FS1. Major League Soccer announced this week…
The Luv Doc: Happy Grunting!
There are certain smells that even love can’t overcome
Time for a New Republic (Studios)
John Robison is building a creative campus out in Bastrop
Headlines
No regular City Council meeting this week – that schedule resumes Thursday, Dec. 7, with plenty to do – but Council meets today (Nov. 30) for a procedural work session, and will be re-interviewing city manager semifinalists this weekend, planning to announce finalists Dec. 11-12. “Council: Meet Your City Manager Semifinalists,” Dec. 1. City negotiators…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
There were two sets of Bobbsey twins: Nan and Bert, and Flossie and Freddie. According to one historian, Chinese chopsticks are square on the bottom and round at the top end because the sky is round and the ground is square, according to the ancients. About 7% of all car crashes, and 21% of fatal…
Playback: Saturnalia Lands
Austin welcomes new DIY music fest while another gets blocked in court
Point Austin: This Week in Trumpism
The accelerating reactionary assault on truth, humanity, and community
Texas Platters
When KGSR released its debut Broadcasts compilation in 1992, a single platter bookended by local songwriters Darden Smith and Sarah Hickman, CDs were supplanting cassettes and Austin’s skyline didn’t defy gravity. The local frequency’s annual stocking stuffer has since raised over $3 million for homegrown charities. This year’s dual disc dishes live performances from the…
Public Notice: Back to the Present
Hitting the refresh on CodeNEXT
Texas Platters
KGSR’s earliest Broadcasts thrilled with live, local, one-time-only covers, mash-ups, and acoustic whisperings peppered through by (inter)national all-stars legitimizing Austin’s musical El Dorado. Mixtapes, if you will. Proliferated in this digital millennium rather than fading like so much analog tech, thematic collections now thrive online but never more so physically than All ATX’s annual health…
Quote of the Week: Lee Yeakel
Judge again strikes down state abortion ban
Judge Strikes Down Texas Abortion Ban
Yeakel slams D&E ban as an “undue burden” on women
