Cover Story
Austin’s New Home for History
While leaders of the Austin Public Library prepared to kick off the ceremony for the reopening of the Austin History Center, the automatic door that serves as the entrance to the facility continued to slide open, letting in more and more attendees. It was clear this event was a big deal for a lot of…
News
Texas to Make Changes to Eviction Process
Austin is a city of majority renters, and Texas will be making some changes to the way it handles evictions starting in the new year. Senate Bill 38 will take effect for all eviction filings starting Jan. 1, empowering landlords and property owners to more easily evict “squatters” – individuals illegally occupying someone else’s property…
Texas App Store Age Verification Law Blocked in Court
As a queer, brown teenager growing up in a conservative part of Texas, Sarah Philips, a campaigner for Fight for the Future, said the internet served as a place to find community. “Most people I know with that experience looked to some sort of online connection when they didn’t find it in-person,” Philips reflected. Back…
The Week’s Biggest News in Brief
Sixth Street Situation: According to KXAN, over 50 Austin organizations have signed off on a letter urging City Council to add protected bike lanes on Sixth Street. The letter comes as the city continues to work on the Sixth Street Mobility and Revitalization Project, which aims to improve safety and walkability in Austin’s downtown core.…
Debates Over Convention Center Continue Following Austin United PAC Lawsuit
Austin City Council members Vanessa Fuentes, José Velásquez, and Mike Siegel held a town hall in mid-November, two weeks after the defeat of Proposition Q, the proposal to increase property taxes to pay for public safety, social services, and other city needs. The Council members told the crowd that they had heard the will of…
Music
Music Notes
Erik Hokkanen & the Hip Replacements Thursday 1, Radio Coffee & Beer In 2025, Erik Hokkanen overcame a serious medical condition he suffered while touring overseas to return to the stage by year’s end. It’s only fitting, then, that the multi-decade Austin music scene veteran begins 2026 with a free matinee at the venue he’s…
Vote Now in the 2025/2026 Austin Music Poll
The time has come again to vote in the Austin Music Poll! For the 44th year, The Austin Chronicle celebrates the musicians and music industry professionals that make our city sing – with help from the community, of course. After consulting a select group of record store clerks, venue owners, bookers, and other local experts,…
BLK ODYSSY’s Psychedelic MOOD CONTROL
BLK ODYSSY’s fourth album challenges the narrative of his previous works. BLK VINTAGE chronicled his backstory, DIAMONDS & FREAKS detailed his resulting internal struggle, 1-800 FANTASY animated a teenager driven to mania – now MOOD CONTROL reads like Juwan Elcock has unplugged himself from all that noise. On the cover, the Austinite’s headphones, once connected…
Matt Kivel’s Dreamy Escape From L.A.
If Los Angeles is where dreamers run, what happens to the dreams that get away? Some of them, certainly, end up in Austin, Texas. “I never felt at home in my home,” Matt Kivel explains in the opening words of his memoiristic new album, Escape From L.A. The 11 autobiographical tracks trace the songwriter’s juvenility…
Live Uneasy Listening
Free improvisation lives in infamy as often as it basks in glory. Many people think it can be done by anyone, no skill or creativity needed. But, much like Jackson Pollock’s paintings, spontaneous composition requires not only technical dexterity but also the ability to listen to and complement the other participants’ work as you express…
Lynn, the Motivating Villain
At some point between her R&B-styled December 2023 project Release and Retribution and March 2024 rap mixtape Bad Guy, Lynn stopped giving a damn about naysayers. Musically, the Alabama native increasingly leaned into her “bad guy” moniker – a self-professed villain in the vein of a confident shit talker. On the title track for her…
A Spirited First for Happen Twice
Happen Twice has positioned itself as a Swiss Army knife within independent music, operating as a record label, booking agency, and art culture brand. Its latest endeavor – a 28-song compilation album – extends its presence and serves as a cross-section of artists and scenes within the Austin-based company’s orbit. Apart from its East Coast…
In Revelry and Regret
If 2024 LP Rio Bravo breathed heavy with an almost existential wail, Scott Ballew’s fourth LP cracks with cathartic relief. Paradiso bakes in a late-night revel, soaking in the aura of its New Orleans recording as the songwriter stumbles through the streets – and possible loves. “Don’t close your eyes, you’ll hear what you might…
SIMS Announces Dick Chalmers Music Venue Program
In the tight black booths of Empire Control Room and Garage, where Richard “Dick” Chalmers spent endless days editing videos and creating custom drink menus for the Red River stage, the late legend and other venue veterans started piecing together a different kind of project. The Dick Chalmers Music Venue Program was born of these…
Monks Jazz Club Moves to St. Elmo
“Intimate yet casual” are the intentional words at the heart of Monks Jazz Club, an accessible listening room that hosts local and traveling jazz musicians. After spending half a decade on the Eastside, first as a pop-up concept and then a brick-and-mortar BYOB venue, owner Collin Shook is relocating the peaceful, music-centered spot to the…
Arts + Culture
Country-Folk Artist Jim Stringer Dies at Age 77
Jim Stringer, the country songwriter and guitarist who spent his Austin career playing beloved residencies and accompanying fellow roots giants T. Jarrod Bonta and Roger Wallace, passed away on Dec. 16 at age 77 after an ongoing struggle with cancer. The Kansas native made Austin his home for over three decades, founding the AM Band…
Inaugural League One Volleyball Champion LOVB Austin Serves Up Season Two
Unwavering resilience: That’s the best way to describe LOVB Austin’s resolve en route to winning the first-ever League One Volleyball (aka LOVB Pro) championship last spring. Seeded fifth out of six teams, Austin scored back-to-back reverse sweeps before pulling off a sweep of its own in the finals. Madisen Skinner, a three-time NCAA national champion…
Screens
Resurrection Review: To Sleep, Perchance to Make Movies
It’s been said that a film is merely a dream captured in celluloid, and if so then the nighttime visions that dance through the head of Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan must be too vibrant to contain within one man. They have spilled out into the worlds of Resurrection, a cavalcade of strange images that take…
The Plague Review: Childhood’s End
Few works of art have debunked the idea of childhood innocence as harshly as 1954’s Lord of the Flies, and what makes it such an important work of fiction is its astuteness. Take away the island setting and the shadow of nuclear war and what author William Golding really placed under an uncomfortably powerful microscope…
We Bury the Dead Review: Zombies Down Under
What’s a zombie? The revenant have transmogrified and diversified since White Zombie’s voodoo possessions, with the only unifying factor these days being an uncontrollable lust for warm-blooded living human flesh. However, the order of mortui vivi can arguably be split into two families: the fast and the slow. But what if you thought you were…
Columns
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, a Pakistani spiritual leader and mystic, the world will end today if it wasn’t destroyed yesterday because it will be hit by a comet. Baba Vanga, a blind Bulgarian healer and mystic who passed away in 1996, predicted that in 2026 we should expect more earthquakes, violent volcanic eruptions,…
Day Trips: Santa Maria Plaza de Toros, La Gloria
Santa Maria Plaza de Toros outside of La Gloria presents a new season of exciting bloodless bullfights from January to March. In 2001, Fred Renk, a former water-purifier salesman who had been an aspiring matador in his youth, introduced bloodless bullfights in the small ring in the brush country about 55 miles northwest of McAllen.…
Feedback: January 2, 2026
Win-Win for Dems Dear Editor, Is U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s decision to challenge state Rep. James Talarico in the Senate primary another example of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot? It doesn’t have to be. Crockett’s bid means Talarico will have to spend money in the primary that he could have used to fight the…
The Luv Doc: Many Have Tried, Few Have Succeeded
Dear Luv Doc, I have been living with my girlfriend in Northwest Austin for nearly three years. We both work in the tech sector and earn good incomes, have nice cars and a nice, large apartment. Life is good, but every year around the holidays, she gets a little bit depressed because her birthday is…
Qmmunity: New Year, New Hopes
Welcome to 2026! Or, well, I hope the new year feels welcome. I’m writing this column solidly still in 2025, where things are bleak but not hopeless. Yes, our state government seems determined to restrict trans people – mostly trans women’s – access to potties their budgets fund, BUT at least Austin City Council has…
Fun + Games
Free Will Astrology
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. He helped ensure its core technologies were released to the world without patents or royalties. Universal, open access mattered more to him than personal profit. That single decision was a profound gift to the world. Billions benefited. In his generous spirit, dear…
