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Everyone has an opinion about barbecue. Whether or not you eat meat, cook meat, or sell meat, it inspires people to strike up conversation (arguments, sometimes) and step up their cooking game…

by Chronicle Staff

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

The U.S. is the only country with an advanced economy that’ll see its public debt ratio increase over the next 3-5 years, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund. Experts believe that as the ratio rises, so will tax rates and America’s inability to stabilize its economy during recessions. In 1877, French…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Texas Platters

Sprouted alongside adventurously erudite Austin indie acts including Mother Falcon, Belaire, and the Sour Notes, Marmalakes spends lots of musical capital striving to reconcile intimate moments with grand ambitions. The homegrown folk-pop duo’s full-length debut and first new material in five years addresses the latter with superlative production and enhanced focus on arrangements. That intensity…

by Greg Beets

Headlines

Council, Meet CodeNEXT. There’s no regular scheduled City Council meeting this week, but members will convene Saturday at 10am for the second special called meeting on CodeNEXT. See “CodeNEXT Cliffs Notes,” Jun. 1. I Get Around: On Sunday, June 3, Capital Metro implements what it describes as the biggest service change in its history. Although…

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Kinky Friedman’s return to music remains a blessing for fans of his unique brand of ornery wit and wisdom. 2015’s The Loneliest Man I Ever Met, the infamous raconteur’s first new studio recordings in almost 40 years, revealed a more reflective Kinkster and Circus of Life follows suit with songs more intent on substance than…

by Doug Freeman

Texas Platters

Aisha Burns’ plaintive alto soars above percussive bursts and rolling acoustic melodies in opener “We Were Worn.” Sprawling with gentle lamentations, ethereal timbres, and stringed instrumentation, both the song and sophomore album Argonauta expand upon her 2013 debut Life in the Midwater. Her contributions for local troubadour Adam Torres and big sky instrumentalists Balmorhea inform…

by Alejandra Ramirez

Texas Platters

Lola Tried celebrates the sloppiness of raw feelings, of bruises both emotional and physical. The Austin quartet’s self-titled debut plunges forward, electrified and crunchy, imbued with the ethos of DIY garage rock polished to a glittering, power-pop sheen. Live, guitarist/singer Lauren Burton’s a headbanging blur of red hair and attitude, and that same sass feels…

by Libby Webster

Texas Platters

The wild melange of Afrobeat, P-Funk, and Sun Ra cosmic jazz proffered by the Golden Dawn Arkestra is handcrafted for the stage, where costumes and dancers catch the eye and the band/audience energy exchange shoots for the stars. Capturing the Austin psychedelic cult’s mania on vinyl is thus – unsurprisingly – a challenge. Children of…

by Michael Toland

Texas Platters

Showcasing uncanny vintage wit, Cella Blue fashions a double entendre out of an intruder rifling through her dresser with anonymous sex in standout cut “Who’s That in My Drawers?” That sort of wiener-warming hokum, an old-timey subgenre characterized by innuendo, falls directly in the strike zone of the White Ghost Shivers’ wah-wah-wailing frontwoman. She capitalized…

by Kevin Curtin

Texas Platters

Going on 20 years’ activity and nine albums into a glorious if seemingly low-key career, Jason Boland feels more worthy of the Country Music Savior crown many place atop Sturgill Simpson’s head. Boland would most likely shrug it off, preferring his own path, including recording a full-on punk rocker, “I Guess It’s Alright,” on his…

by Tim Stegall

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