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Texas Platters

Bree Bruns (Honey Spot) Four song titles promise what they deliver in classic style: Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” Hoagy Carmichael’s “Nearness of You,” Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose,” and Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale.” Musical composition reached its apex with the writers of the Great American Songbook then had to evolve because it…

by Margaret Moser

Texas Platters

Calida Winter Songs Winter Songs surfaced during the recent cold spell, with its air of electronica, a perfect complement to the frigid temperatures. It’s a far cry from the music Calida sang with the Dirty Hearts, but this handful of tunes is compelling and memorable (“Birdcage,” “Rocket”). They’re dreamy in that Sarah McLachlan way, suggesting…

by Margaret Moser

Texas Platters

Datri Bean Ruby If Datri Bean’s Ruby looks like yet another album from a female singer-songwriter, consider this: Bean accompanies herself with pump organ and ukulele. She also plays piano and sings quite well, but it’s her cabaret style of jazzy originals that makes Ruby a gem (“Green Onions,” “My Neighbor Willie,” “Mockingbird”). Expert production…

by Margaret Moser

Texas Platters

Butch County Sugarloaf Mountain There shouldn’t be a lot of guessing about a band with a name like Butch County, but don’t be surprised if the single “Sugarloaf Mountain” doesn’t drill a few holes in your skull before it leaves. Butch County (formerly Koonce) gut-punches listeners with the muscle and swing of AC/DC-style, 1970s-flail-your-hair, old-school…

by Margaret Moser

Soccer Watch

Italians crash and burn in Champs League, Austin Co-ed Soccer Association gets under way, and more

by Nick Barbaro

Shelter From the Storm: What’s Next?

It’s no easy business turning a city’s animal-welfare program no-kill. Since City Council approved the “Implementation Plan To Reduce Animal Intake and Increase Live Animal Outcomes” almost a year ago, the animal-welfare community – from shelter staff to volunteer rescue groups to low-cost spay/neuter clinics – has been slaving away, sometimes hand in hand, sometimes…

by Josh Rosenblatt

ASPCA: Finding Funding

While arguments rage over policies at the Town Lake Animal Center, non-city organizations keep doing what they do. For Karen Medicus, director of the national ASPCA Partnership (formerly Mission Orange), that means securing funding. Since 2007, the group has invested nearly $2 million in local animal-welfare services, including several components of the no-kill implementation plan,…

by Josh Rosenblatt

Off the Record

Prime real estate: Patricia Vonne and the historic opening week for Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater

by Austin Powell

Texas Platters

Hayes Carll KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories) (Lost Highway) With 2008’s Trouble in Mind, Hayes Carll turned his red-dirt-caked troubadourism into a national debut garnering acclaim behind the lackadaisical humor of “She Left Me for Jesus” and Ray Wylie Hubbard co-write “Drunken Poet’s Dream.” The Austin songwriter’s fourth album breaks beyond Texas borders again,…

by Doug Freeman

Quote of the Week

“This is not ‘right good.’ This is ‘right painful.'” – Austin ISD board Pres­i­dent Mark Williams on the impossibility of finding a “right” way to cut 1,017 AISD jobs

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Erin Ivey & the Finest Kind Broken Gold (Mixtank) Erin Ivey’s got a voice that could be easily relegated to retro-jazz purgatory or novelty (see: the Reid’s Cleaners commercial). So thank goodness she steps into her own here. The local singer-songwriter’s second LP finds her far from 2007 debut The 11th Floor and, along with…

by Audra Schroeder

Texas Platters

Todd Snider Live: The Storyteller (Aimless) Although Todd Snider’s made albums since the mid-1990s, he must be experienced in person to fully appreciate his talents. This double-disc set does a magnificent job of capturing the onetime San Marcos scenester’s genius, a heady combo of post-folk punk and stoned comedian not witnessed since the passing of…

by Jim Caligiuri

Headlines

� We didn’t know we’d be saying goodbye so soon, but former Austin City Council Member Eric Mit­chell died Monday from brain cancer. He was 57. A combative figure with an eloquent tongue, Mitchell always made for good News copy in the Chronicle pages; he became a political lightning rod for environmentalists, who recruited a…

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Wil Cope Sunset Craves (Deadbird) Wil Cope’s debut rolls with such an easy, natural rhythm that his unassuming style camouflages a similar songwriting talent. Lurking under his laid-back Austin twang are familiar harbingers; the honky-tonking “Stumble Creek” smacks of Gram Parsons, while “Avenue H” and “We Wish” add just enough pop tinge to tilt his…

by Doug Freeman

Naked City

RG4N but Not Forgotten Turn out the lights, the party’s over. Well, okay, it wasn’t exactly a party fighting the building of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in North Central Austin – although it was a fun display of community unity when thousands of people held hands completely encircling the former Northcross Mall property back on Feb.…

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Bob Livingston Gypsy Alibi (New Wilderness) If Bob Livingston’s name doesn’t pop to mind when recalling Austin’s cosmic cowboy years, that’s okay by him. The Lubbock-raised singer-songwriter hand-tooled the era with the Lost Gonzo Band and kept the cosmic part handy, thank you. Livingston’s Gypsy Alibi wanders the realms and far-flung genres of Texas music…

by Margaret Moser

DIY 2011

Food-swapping, Kate Payne, and The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking

by MM Pack

Texas Platters

Augie Meyers Trippin Out on Triplets (El Sendero) Doug Sahm The San Antonio Hipster (San Antonio) Sir Douglas Quintet & Beyond Texas Gold (San Antonio) Although it’s surprising some Cajun ivory-tickler didn’t do this before, Trippin Out on Triplets bakes a dozen piano pop songs the way only Augie Meyers can. The man who made…

by Margaret Moser

Texas Platters

Gold Beach Habibti Historically speaking, Gold Beach either refers to a code name for one of the D-Day landings in France or to a popular vacation spot off the Rogue River in Oregon. Both work in the context of the complicated beauty and cautious optimism of the new project from former Glass Family singer/guitarist Michael…

by Austin Powell

Texas Platters

The Gary El Camino (Cedar Fever) After last year’s beer-goggled Logan LP, the six-song follow-up from this thinking feller’s union is a bit more clear-eyed. They’re men of a certain (r)age, and if the local trio never seems to make music for anyone in particular, that’s because it’s a release from the day-to-day grind. With…

by Audra Schroeder

I Am Number Four

This filmed adaptation of the first book in the proposed Lorien Legacies series follows the tribulations of an alien refugee on Earth.

by Kimberley Jones

Texas Platters

Jackie Bristow Freedom Maybe it’s no coincidence that on the cover of Freedom Jackie Bristow resembles Silk Purse-era Linda Ronstadt. The New Zealander’s soulful, dark eyes engage from the cover and her strong, lilting voice entices on the opening title song and the practiced, well-crafted country roots songs (“Holy Mess,” “Broken Girl”) that follow. Though…

by Margaret Moser

Cedar Rapids

A wonderful cast turns Cedar Rapids into a semisweet charmer that fluxes between edgy comedy and palpable pathos.

by Marc Savlov

Texas Platters

Arielle Nicole This One’s for You Arielle Nicole’s heart-on-her-sleeve renderings carry the distinctive weight of first songs, with elements of weary innocence and the familiar musings of an artist reaching for meaning within her craft (“Wednesday Blues,” “Sink or Swim”). By turns tentative and guileless, This One’s full of charm thanks to the New Mexico…

by Margaret Moser

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