Cover Story
Deep Eddy Rising
Citizens and city come together to restore an Austin landmark
How Much Bang for the Buck?
The Rolling Stones latest DVD drops with a bang.
The Night the Lights Went Out at the Roller Derby
Last Sunday, like the first Sunday of every month during their season, the Texas Rollergirls flat-track Roller Derby league hosted a bout at their headquarters, Playland Skate Center. The Hustlers faced off against the Assassination City Derby’s Special Ops team from Dallas with the Hotrod Honeys battling the Hell Marys. While the Roller Derby was…
Girls Rock Camp Benefit This Sunday!
The Girls Rock Camp of Austin begins June 18 and runs through June 29, when the gals will have their final showcase. Inspired by the Portland, Ore., camp, local girls ages 8-17 have the chance to learn different instruments and flex their musical muscles, and you can help out this very worthy cause with Sunday’s…
Las Mas Loan Legit
Manitas loan approved with conditions.
Setting Council Context
You’d think there was nothing but Las Manitas today, but no …
Lightning on the Road, U.S. Men Defeat China, and More
The Austin Lightning are on a long road trip this weekend, at Baton Rouge and Mississippi, before starting a three-week homestand June 15-16. ESPN Deportes Radio 1260AM is hosting their first Copa 1260 tournament, billed as featuring eight all-star teams culled from eight different local adult leagues. Should be interesting to see a variety of…
COPA 1260 Soccer Tourney to Be Held Sunday
Hosted by ESPN Deportes 1260AM, the Copa 1260 soccer tourney will feature eight all-star teams from adult soccer leagues including Austin Premier, Round Rock, Manor, Azteca, and more. The winning team will receive custom commemorative uniforms from Aztec Soccer, and, best of all, the concessions will be provided by Carnes y Pollos Restaurant. Directions: From…
Five Good Reasons Las Manitas Deserves a City Loan
Exploding some of the myths regarding the city’s loan to the Downtown restaurant.
Just a Dream and the Wind to Carry Him
“Sailing” is softsational.
Baseball State Championships Are Under Way – Here’s the Schedule
The 2007 University Interscholastic League state high school baseball playoffs start today and are currently under way at the lovely Dell Diamond (3400 E. Palm Valley Blvd., Round Rock) with the first pitch of the Thorndale-New Deal game being tossed this morning at 10am. Tickets are $5 (student session ticket), $10 (adult session ticket), $20…
Why Not a MySpace Page, APD?
Why does the “community outreach” page on APD chief hiring look worse than a GeoCities page?
Dios Te Salve, Tortilla
A mysterious visitation in the form of pressed corn.
Brenner Boing Boinged
No, this isn’t another NSFW post, unless your boss can’t handle some good-natured ninja anime. Web tastemaker Boing Boing highlighted a recent article from the Chron’s own Wayne Alan Brenner about the family-reinforcing powers of Naruto.
What Can’t You Say on TV?
Swearing in public: no longer one rule for Bono, one rule for Bush.
Juiced: Wayward Astros Still Hold Fans’ Attention
“There’s a lot of games left – don’t give up on us” – Astros SS Adam Everett after Saturday’s 8-3 win over St. Louis Most years the Houston Astros are only interesting if they’re at or near the top of the league. Let’s face it, personality and charismawise, we’re not exactly talking Johnny Damon or…
Wranglers Slay Dragons, Wrangle Up a Win, et al.
The Austin Wranglers broke a four-game losing streak this weekend, pulling up to a let’s-face-it-still-pretty-horrible 4-9 standing. The season’s been rough for the Wranglers, who have a rookie head coach and dropped their starting quarterback midseason. The Wranglers defeated the New York Dragons 82-54 setting a franchise high for points scored. New QB Lang Campbell…
City Council Notebook
An overflowing agenda this week leaves little room for snark.
Horns Lose to Anteaters, Season Over
UC-Irvine finished what they started last night, defeating the Longhorns 9-6 at the Dell Diamond Monday afternoon, thereby ending UT’s season earlier than expected and hoped for. While UT’s lineup was stocked with talented players, injuries and some poor play in the field opened the door for the Anteaters to move on to the next…
Little Foxes
RTX xterminates Emo’s.
Just One More
Remembering author/songwriter Larry Brown.
ROT NSFW
Some nonworkplace appropriate photos from the ROT rally this weekend. (Unless your workplace is the Chronicle.)
Parading Around Like a Buncha Queers
Marching gaily forward.
Longhorns Baseball Game Suspended, Resumes Today at 1pm
In the middle of the seventh of UT’s regional game vs. the UC Irvine Anteaters – with UC Irvine ahead 6-5 – the game was called due to weather at 9:48pm. The game is scheduled to continue today at 1pm at the Dell Diamond. If the Horns can manage to pull this one out, they’ll…
Death in East Austin
New police shooting comes on eve of investigation into APD.
Gigantic ‘Duh’
He’s GAY????? NO WAI!!!!!
So Very Randy!
The Village People’s Randy Jone’s saddles up for Austin Pride.
I Love Tab
Tab is coming to Austin!
Speaking of Man Panties
On the launch of a dream … of Manties…
Lindsay Fully Loaded
Oh, Lindsey, please tell us! Is it true?
Spanks for Comin’ In
Getty goes to Lobo and gets spanked.
Austin Toros Host Summer Basketball Camps
On Monday, June 4, the Austin Toros host the first of eight of their summer basketball camps for the kids. Camp instructors will include ex-Toros, ex-NBAers, and top-notch varsity basketball coaches from local schools. On top of the group and individual training sessions, participants will receive vouchers for use at ’07-’08 Toros home games and…
Bert Jansch to Play Houston
For those of you who like your folk baroque, Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch plays his only Texas show next Friday, June 8, at Houston’s quirky Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. The former guitarist for British band Pentangle, Jansch was an influence on his own generation as well as ones to come. Jimmy Page admitted…
Eight Reps Enter, One Speaker Leaves … Eventually
Welcome to what may be the biggest, longest speaker race ever.
Knocked Up
Although it’s extremely funny in bursts, Judd Apatow’s new comedy flirts once too often with schmaltz before toppling into melodrama in its third act.
Arts Review
This first part of the artist exchange between Dallas’ Road Agent Gallery and Austin’s Art Palace brings a stylistically different perspective to our town
Rock & Roll Books
To Live’s to Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandtby John Kruth Da Capo, 318 pp., $26 When Townes Van Zandt died on New Year’s Day 1997, his life was already enshrouded in myth, and perhaps the greatest achievement of John Kruth’s new biography of the tragic songwriter is his balance of…
Rock & Roll Books
Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autryby Holly George-Warren Oxford University Press, 406 pp., $28 During the first half of the 20th century, there was no bigger entertainer in America than Gene Autry. 2007 marks the 100th anniversary of his birth, and among its commemorations is Public Cowboy No. 1. Crafting…
Capitol Briefs
• The lazy days of summer will last a little longer for students across the state thanks to a law passed in 2006, which will extend the summer break by one week. All Texas schools will start on or after the fourth Monday in August, effective this school year. The law was passed during a…
TV Eye
La Lupe
Beyond the Gates
With infinite grace but no real suspense, Beyond the Gates bears dramatic witness to the Rwandan ethnic genocide of the last decade.
Readings
“What if your sister were destined to become one of the greatest poets of all time?”
Rock & Roll Books
He’s a Rebel: Phil Spector: Rock and Roll’s Legendary Producerby Mark Ribowsky Da Capo, 453 pp., $18 (paper) Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spectorby Mick Brown Knopf, 512 pp., $26.95 The bizarre, only-in-Hollywood trial of Phil Spector – who seems to be turning into a middle-aged woman and…
Rock & Roll Books
The Rockabilly Legends: They Called It Rockabilly Long Before They Called It Rock and Rollby Jerry Naylor and Steve Halliday Hal Leonard, 278 pp., $45 The first flip through this coffeetable volume is a primary experience. The pictures are many, the font sizes range from very large to gigantic, and the arc of the content…
Developing Stories
Traffic, bullshit, Suttle, and Town Lake
Rock & Roll Books
I�ll Sleep When I�m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon Ecco, 480 pp., $26.95 I�ll Sleep When I�m Dead rolls out as unique as the subject it illuminates, putting the reader through a wringer of emotions, from bursts of untamed laughter to abject pity. The story of Warren Zevon,…
10 Questions for the Dalai Lama
His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, is truly a spiritual leader for the 21st century.
Readings
In this epic tale, writer/artist Bryan Talbot draws on centuries of European history and graphic storytelling
Rock & Roll Books
Texas Troubadoursby Steve Harris University of Texas Press, 127 pp., $39.95 Kinky Friedman knows Lone Star State singer-songwriters. “Needless to say,” he writes in the forward to Texas Troubadours, “these critters are often lonesome, ornery, and mean.” Houston-based photographer Steve Harris, onetime house cameraman at Rockefeller’s Nightclub, therefore shoots more than 50 of them in…
Live Shots
Emissions From the MonolithEmo’s, May 24 With a beaming Jesus smiling down on us from the rafters via an Oriental rug, the opening night of the ninth annual Emissions From the Monolith festival purposely got off to a slow start thanks to Lawrence, Kan., quintet Samothrace, whose raw compositions pushed well past the 10-minute mark,…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “I knew we had a speaker. I didn’t know we had a dictator.”– State Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, when Speaker Tom Craddick refused to recognize a motion to declare the speaker chair vacated Headlines• Continuing heavy rain mostly spared Austin but caused disastrous flooding north and west of Travis County,…
Gracie
Davis Guggenheim (director of An Inconvenient Truth) tells this more-or-less true story of one New Jersey girl’s struggle to play soccer in the male-dominated sports world of the late Seventies.
Oops!
Our latest batch
Rock & Roll Books
Lonely Avenue: The Unlikely Life & Times of Doc Pomusby Alex Halberstadt Da Capo, 254 pp., $26 This linear but novelistic biography of pop phenomenon Doc Pomus (né Jerome Felder) reads like a book that had to be written, much as his songs have always sounded like they had to be. The Brill Building beauties…
Live Shots
MorrisseyThe Backyard, May 26 Despite recent media coverage to the contrary, the queen is still dead, although longtime fans of the former Smiths frontman presumably embraced the irony inherent in Morrissey’s frequent use of the royal “we” during between-song patter. Saturday’s singles-heavy Backyard set was prefaced by a series of backstage mishaps – the video…
Cover-up at Hutto?
Alleged incident of ‘inappropriate contact’ between guard and detainee at T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility puts Immigration and Customs Enforcement in hot seat again
Mr. Brooks
Serial killers are a dime a dozen in this often beguiling but essentially ludicrous movie that stars Kevin Costner in an unconventional role.
After a Fashion
Stephen and the rest of town remember Clifford
Rock & Roll Books
Shout, Sister, Shout! The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpeby Gayle F. Wald Beacon, 252 pp., $25.95 For all the biographies and academic studies on popular music, every stone overturned leads to five more. That’s certainly the case with Gayle F. Wald’s wonderful books on Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1921-1973), the woman who trod…
Live Shots
Steve Riley & the Mamou PlayboysThe Oaks, May 25 If you have a problem with the “mallification” of the once-great venue known as the Backyard, and lots of people do, then look east. Just outside Manor, the Oaks is intimate and laid-back. With shade trees, a concrete patio, and a muddy parking lot, it could…
Congress and Iraq: Two steps back
Congress votes to appropriate more funds for Iraq war as requested by the Bush administration, without timetables for withdrawal or other constraints on occupation, other than nonbinding security “benchmarks” for Iraqi government
Fool and Final
New Bollywood crime comedy.
Day Trips
Once closed to the public, Fort Chadbourne – located between San Angelo and Abilene – is now open for tours
Rock & Roll Books
Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, The Definitive Biographyby Chris Salewicz Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 619 pp., $30 “The job of being Joe Strummer, spokesman for the punk generation and frontman for the Clash, never sat easily with the former John Mellor,” writes veteran UK journalist Chris Salewicz, a former contributor to famed music…
Live Shots
Animal CollectiveAntone’s, May 27 Animal Collective made a sold-out crowd at Antone’s feel like a rave for about five minutes. Kind of a weird feeling, but so is Animal Collective’s music, an unclassifiable yet aurally engaging spawn that shape-shifts with every album. Opener Sir Richard Bishop’s solo guitar performance silenced the mostly under-21 crowd, many…
Sally Shipman, R.I.P.
Former City Council Member will be particularly remembered for devotion to preserving and enhancing city’s neighborhoods
Once
This delicate Irish import, which stars the frontman of the Frames, is an insightful and endearing reimagining of a familiar genre: the musical.
Soccer Watch
The Austin Lightning wins, Beckham’s back, and more
Rock & Roll Books
Babylon’s Burning: From Punk to Grungeby Clinton Heylin Canongate, 694 pp., $25 That “Certs-is-breath-mint-Certs-is-a-candy-mint” debate about whether punk began in the UK or U.S. isn’t at issue in the second of Clinton Heylin’s lengthy tomes about alt-rock’s roots. In 2005’s From the Velvets to the Voidoids, his thesis was that “modern music begins with the…
Happenings
May 31-June 6
Jindabyne
The Australian director of Lantana returns to similar psychological terrain with this drama based on a Raymond Carver short story and starring the fantastic Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Flossing for life and marrying in absentia
Rock & Roll Books
Nirvana: The Biographyby Everett True Da Capo, 635 pp., $19.95 (paper) Nirvana. Three syllables, three members, three proper albums. The most influential group to hit pop music in three decades, this publicity-shy Seattle trio who wasn’t even from Seattle, supplanted Michael Jackson at No. 1 in January 1992, perhaps the least of their accomplishments. They…
Voices of Deep Eddy
Conversations with those who helped restore the historic bathhouse
Point Austin: Craddick Unbound
The House speaker retains his chair, but at what cost?
Adam’s Apples
Pitting a skinhead against a priest, this Danish comedy, like most of that country’s dramas, is dark, dark, dark.
The Common Law
Austin speed racer – resolving a traffic ticket
Rock & Roll Books
Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Musicby Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor W.W. Norton, 375 pp., $25.95 “The real deal.” “Sellin’ out.” “Keeping it real.” All are appraisals of artistic expression but perhaps no more than in music, where authenticity can be more important than talent. Due to its thorny nature, it’s no…
Raising the Roof
Major donors to the Deep Eddy project
Beside The Point
Rethinking our old water treatment plant, and other feces-related topics
Place of Honor
Twelve rounds between Hiroko Shimbo and Tyson Cole
Rock & Roll Books
Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, & Dogen’s Treasury of the Right Dharma Eyeby Brad Warner New World Library, 255 pp., $14.95 (paper) My So-Called Punk: Green Day, Fall Out Boy, the Distillers, Bad Religion – How NeO-Punk Stage-Dived Into the Mainstreamby Matt Diehl St. Martin’s Griffin,…
The Hightower Report
The Offshoring of Local News; and Come On, Democrats, Shape Up!
TCB
Redrawing Austin’s musical map with Roadhouse Rags, Rabbit’s, and even a word or two from the state Capitol
Bocaditos
Cissi’s Market Kohana Coffee and Austin Slow Burn Green Chile con Queso
Rock & Roll Books
Third Coast: Outkast, Timbaland, & How Hip Hop Became a Southern Thingby Roni Sarig Da Capo, 336 pp., $16.95 (paper) Pimps Up, Ho’s Down: Hip Hop’s Hold on Young Black Womenby T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting New York University Press, 200 pp., $22.95 To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aestheticby William Jelani…
Developing Stories: The Long Capitol View
The Downtown Commission and Heritage Society of Austin square off over Capitol-view corridors
A Life of His Own
Diving right in with Tab Hunter
Making It Happen
The 2007 class of the Austin Arts Hall of Fame
Bocaditos
Cissi’s Market Kohana CoffeeAvailable at Cissi’s Market 1400 S. Congress, 225-0521 www.cissismarket.com Cissi’s Market, recently opened on South Congress, is a small, upscale grocery designed to cater to the occasional gourmet needs of the surrounding neighborhoods. Like many microgroceries popping up in Austin, Cissi’s sports a coffee bar and pastry counter; unlike the others, Cissi’s…
Rock & Roll Books
Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Lifeby John Sellers Simon & Schuster, 215 pp., $23 Any book bearing the subtitle How Indie Rock Saved My Life begs for caution. And so it is with New York-based freelance writer John Sellers’ well-meaning if incredibly narcissistic memoir. Sellers tracks his progression, or regression, from…
The Key (Chain) to Chief Ellison’s Heart
Hey, who wants an Austin Police badge?
Taking You to Ninja School
Seven reasons why Naruto is kicking everybody’s ass
ASO Concerts in the Park: The gift at the gazebo
The Austin Symphony is again presenting its summer series of concerts in Wooldridge Park, and the musicians love getting out of the concert hall and inside that park’s gazebo
Bocaditos
Austin Slow Burn Green Chile Con QuesoAvailable for $5.99 at Whole Foods, Central Market, Grape Vine Market, Farm to Market Grocery, Tears of Joy Hot Sauce Shop, and Cissi’s Market www.austinslowburn.com “I want to bathe in it. I want to eat my body weight in it. I want to marry it and have little queso…
Rock & Roll Books
Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Readby Adam Goldsher St. Martin’s Griffin, 201 pp., $13.95 (paper) Chicago bassist and freelance writer Adam Goldsher’s first mistake was to write a book on Modest Mouse without the band’s consent. Without access to his subject, Goldsher is forced to cobble together previously published interviews with the Modest Mouse himself,…
The Power of Poetry
Johnston High English teacher makes poets out of school’s urban immigrant youths
Me, Ange, and the Interlocking Shadows of Trees
Why do I love Naruto? Because I love my daughter.
Austin Figurative Gallery/Pump Project: Something old, something new
Two gallery events, one focused on past Texas masters and one featuring artists creating new work in real time, show us where we’ve been and where we’re going
Food-o-File
Tentatively galvanizing news for the vegetarian community and a KLRU programming update
Rock & Roll Books
You Don’t Love Me Yet: a novelby Jonathan Lethem Doubleday, 224 pp., $24.95 Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Jonathan Lethem’s new novel shares its title with a Roky Erikson song. After all, You Don’t Love Me Yet is the humorous tale of a young indie rock band and its members’ search for art and love.…
Bucks for Bullets: Federal minimum-wage raise approved
When Congress passed Iraq war spending bill last Thursday, it approved a raise in federal minimum wage for first time in a decade
AFS’s Other Minds, Other Worlds
Global Sci-Fi Cinema
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
This third Pirates outing is an empty vessel haunted by the ghosts of its sabre-rattling betters.
Wallace Shawn’s ‘A Thought in Three Parts’: The author approves
After making a special visit to Austin to see Rubber Repertory’s production of his play A Thought in Three Parts, Wallace Shawn called it ‘an incredible moment in his life’
Event Menu
June 1-7
Rock & Roll Books
Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys’ Founding Genius by Philip Lambert Continuum, 404 pp., $26.95 (paper) Unless you can swim laps around music theory, this is not the best Beach Boys book to bring to the pool this summer. Eschewing familiar biographical territory, Baruch College music…
On the Lege
The last days of the session: a rebellion and a budget
Film News
Incentives (except for any production that “portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion”)!
Bug
The Exorcist‘s William Friedkin directs this psychological thriller that never really gets under your skin.
Arts Review
Zachary Scott Theatre’s Jesus Christ Superstar/Jesuchristo Superestrella transcends the usual ascension into the heavens of rock & roll to become an anthem of Mexican tradition
Rock & Roll Books
All the Townes Van Zandt, Texas Troubadours, Southern hip-hop, Zen punk, and Phil Spector, Warren Zevon, and Joe Strummer you can shake a bottle of sunblock at
Rock & Roll Books
Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man, an unauthorized biographyby George Case Hal Leonard, 293 pp., $25 Unraveling the occult mythos and lore of Jimmy Page’s notoriously enigmatic life is as difficult as deciphering the esoteric meaning of the pagan’s infamous Zoso sigil. Magus, Musician, Man aims to elevate the “Wagner of the Telecaster”‘s life and work…
Final Budget: Pork for Me, Not for Thee
Property owners – particularly wealthy homeowners and major businesses – came out on top in the new two-year state budget, thanks to lawmakers’ eagerness to use the lion’s share of a $14.3 billion surplus to cover future cuts in school property taxes. The $153 billion budget passed easily in both houses, despite earlier threats by…
DVD Watch
Seraphim FallsSony, $26.99 Like some Old West Dante’s Inferno, director David Von Ancken’s Seraphim Falls chronicles a descent into a mythical hell. Three years after the end of the Civil War, a former Confederate colonel – Carver, expertly portrayed by Liam Neeson – hunts former Union Capt. Gideon – the gruff and unkempt Pierce Bronson…
Luv Doc Recommends: Republic of Texas Rally
There are so many ways to kill yourself: Warm bath, razor blade; big baggie of barbiturates; exhaust rerouted through the car window; DIY hanging; high rise swan dive; shotgun blowjob (a celebrity favorite: Hemingway, Cobain). Yes, there are plenty of stylish and inventive ways to do yourself in, but if you want to go with…
