Cover Story
Passing the (Queer)Bomb
What’s the future of the June celebration for Austin’s LGBTQ community?
Down to the Last Pitch
Seven cities, seven mayors, $50 million
Opening the Book on Roller Derby
Local photographer Kickstarting history of Texas Rollergirls
Doors Guitarist Robby Krieger Rallies
ROT thunderdome enlists some “Roadhouse Blues”
ATX Television Festival: Denis Leary
Rescue Me, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, and blue collar blues
Chris Woolfrey’s Got Issues With Intellectual Property. You Can Help.
You think information really wants to be free? That view may cost us all.
Raise Your Glass to Negroni Week
Drink a cocktail, do some good
Børns Raises Dopamine Levels at Stubb’s
Electro-pop breakout puts on a heroic sell-out
Ben Snakepit Releases His Manor Threat
New collection of diary comics debuts at Beerland this Saturday
Breaking Down Barriers for Inclusive Fashion
Designers Leo Roux are creating affordable trans-focused fashion
Texas Awaits Supreme Court HB 2 Ruling
Attorneys voice confidence in SCOTUS striking abortion law
Inside Blackout
Memoir author Sarah Hepola returns to BookPeople Tuesday
Video: A Drive Through Austin – June 1996
A visiting Scot takes us back in time
Hikes and Boyfrndz Mosh McAllen
Austin twofer ventures far south on a Lone Star trek
Big Bill’s Oddball Odyssey
A robot’s epic adventure getting to tea in “Mainly Manly” video
DVDanger: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
Hate piano practice? Dr. Seuss’ oddity is for you
Quesoff Call For Entries Open
Daily Austin food news
Almost Holy
Doc chronicles one pastor’s mission to keep Ukrainian kids off the street
Presenting Princess Shaw
An American YouTube songstress finds an unlikely champion in an Israel experimental composer
Sunset Song
A woman comes of age in this rugged Scottish saga set in the early 1900s
Weiner
An eye-popping, jaw-dropping doc about sext-happy ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner
Housefull 3
Three suitors beg one papa for permission to marry his daughters in this Hindi-language comedy
A … Aa
Telugu romantic comedy
AC Food Fight: Pimento Cheese
The grate war
Texas Platters
If you’ve ever seen Joe Ely, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Eliza Gilkyson, or other famed Austin singer-songwriter types perform, there’s a good chance Jeff Plankenhorn was onstage with them. A maestro on resonator guitar as well as “The Plank,” a stand-up lap steel he invented, the stringbender’s SoulSlide finds him out front on his own songs.…
Soccer Watch
Copa America is the championship of the Americas: national teams from all 10 nations in the South American federation, plus the top six teams from North and Central America and the Caribbean: U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Jamaica, and Haiti. The centennial edition is being played in the U.S. for the first time, all across…
Grounded
Two local foragers find work-life balance with De la Terre supper club
Texas Platters
Eight years have passed between albums, but Pick It Up, Jim Stringer’s 14th, feels like he never paused. The man simply revels in from-the-heart country music that’s elegantly played and presented with a broad sense of humor. An album about making choices and their consequences, Stringer and his all-star band can play heartbreak (“This Time…
Headlines
City Council continued budget work sessions and committee meetings this week, with the next regular meeting scheduled for June 9. Meanwhile, five incumbents who drew two-year terms have kicked off their November campaigns, beginning website prep and fundraising. See “Plenty of Work, and Campaigns.” Among the questions to be addressed at Council next week is…
The Take-Out
Drinking habits can be a tough thing to swallow
Force of Circumstance
Houston honky-tonks + Americana surrealism = Robert Ellis
Notes on Kamp: Cowards
Why is the right wing so scared of voting rights?
Playback – Lift to Experience: Back at the Crossroads
Lift to Experience returns to Texas-Jerusalem, X Games music crashes, and Prince-a-plenty
Point Austin: In Memory
The dead we remember, and the lessons we still need to learn
Texas Platters
Even after a decade rustling around Austin, Jeremy Nail still hasn’t knocked the dust off boots used to treading his family’s ranch in Albany, northeast of Abilene. That authenticity coats My Mountain, as the local singer-songwriter effortlessly, um, nails the alt.country aesthetic big-city boys shoot for. Initial effort since putting a burgeoning career on pause…
Quote of the Week
“Butt out, Radioman. Your mouth won’t run our town.” – Fort Worth Star-Telegram editors, in response to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s demand that FWISD Superintendent Kent Scribner step down or be fired because of his inclusive policy on transgender students.
On the Fringes of Cinema
Zack Carlson celebrates the creative spirit with new Vice series Outsider
Council: Plenty of Work, and Campaigns
November elections are coming soon
Texas Platters
When a humpback whale headlunges, it’s on the verge of breaching the water’s surface, but doesn’t fully emerge. Austin’s electro-pop scene swims the same cusp. Capyac’s debut LP Headlunge represents a valiant endeavor to bring the genre to the forefront, but even though Delwin Campbell and Eric Peana pull off nonstop dance parties in clubs,…
Rundberg Reblend
Groups remake North Austin neighborhood one bridge at a time
Texas Platters
Evolving out of North Texas’s Blackstone Rangers, Austin trio Pale Dian indulges a fetish for British underground sounds on debut Narrow Birth. The opening “Intro” starts with an old-fashioned drum machine, an electronic pulse, and programmer Ruth Ellen Smith’s detached coo. Soon enough, dirty guitar feedback clouds the issue, Derek Kutzer sending a sonic Valentine…
Death Watch: The Merits of Hypnosis-Induced Testimony
Attorneys argue Charles Don Flores’ conviction is rooted in junk science
L’Amour Pour le Weekend
New French Cinema gems courtesy of AFS
A Level Playing Field
Due to a city loophole, a charter school can build a campus in less than half the time AISD can
Breaking Down the Bond
The basic numbers of the mayor’s mobility bond proposal
Texas Platters
“People kept saying to me, ‘We need an all-female mixtape.’ [Then] I realized we already had one – in my catalog.” So explains ace Austin femcee Anya about her women’s empowerment project, CAKE (Creativity, Abundance, Knowledge, Elevation). Featuring diverse and infectious production, as well as some of ATX’s best vocalists, CAKE skillfully pitches a group…
The Hotel Vanya, or A Metaphysical-Paradigm at the End of Everythingness
For a getaway steeped in Chekhovian longing and ennui, The Hotel Vanya is the only place to stay
Cameras for Cops
Will City Council get a policy in place on June 9?
Texas Platters
The last stragglers awake at a high school friend’s party gathered around a sticky table. The person you like is leaving town. Summer tinges with the specific melancholy found in the suburbs. All of these tiny feelings make up the 24 minutes of Taster. The debut from local duo Hovvdy offers unfiltered sadcore, a quietly…
Penfold Theatre Company’s Clybourne Park
This company has vibrant success with Bruce Norris’ racial drama that shows how far we haven’t come in 60 years
How Much Does a Witch Hunt Cost?
The state has spent tens of thousands investigating Planned Parenthood
Texas Platters
Veteran MC Adam Protextor, now going by his surname, makes some of Austin’s more thoughtful, slightly off-kilter alt-rap. The Iowa native has mastered his version of the singsong flow, with its unique herk and jerk. He’s a gifted lyricist, vice-gripping words and emotion into each bar. On Shift, he covers a lot of somewhat uneven…
“Ann Johnson: Converse: Real Talk” at Women & Their Work
The artist has created a valuable space in which gallery-goers can sit and discuss racism in America
Pedestrian and Cyclist Advocacy Information
How do we make Austin’s streets safer for everyone?
Texas Platters
Acclaimed in Houston where he’s won a slew of awards, John Evans remains mostly under the radar locally. That should change with seventh release Polyester, a collection inspired by his daughter Abigail, who died of a rare skin disorder in 2013. Part Americana (“Grandma’s Chair”), part guitar pop (“Instant Society”), Evans reveals himself as first-rate…
Gay Place
Saturday marks Austin’s seventh annual Queerbomb, a free, all ages, all inclusive queer celebration
Shooting Blind
City needs more economic analysis of density bonus programs
The Luv Doc: Real Choices
The Luv Doc is a bad planner
Day Trips: USS Lexington, Corpus Christi
Old Navy warhorse retires to beachfront property and life as a military history museum
Grove Parks Not (Yet) Superior
Developer has more work to do if it wants staff’s blessing
Texas Platters
While Anne Ducharme-Jones has contributed to her husband David’s recordings and appeared onstage with him before, Strangest Things is the first time they’ve collaborated on all aspects of record-making, from co-writing to co-producing. David remains a formidable guitarist, but this set becomes one shopworn love letter after another. Some folk-pop moments stand out, like “Red…
X Games Austin 2016
This year’s iteration of ESPN’s X Games will be the third and final year hosted in the ATX, so don’t miss your last chance to catch the biggest skateboard, moto X, and BMX stars in action and up close as they land tricks that shouldn’t be humanly possible. There’s a light lineup Thursday with the…
The Hightower Report
What does it mean to gig American workers?
The Common Law
You can’t do what on Lady Bird Lake …?
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
As the divorce between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard proceeds, it looks likely that their two dogs, Pistol and Boo, will remain with Heard. William Shakespeare made a grammatical error when he included the phrase, “between you and I” in The Merchant of Venice. In May 1671, Thomas Blood tried to steal the Crown Jewels…
Hornography
Garrido Steps Down Of course, the big news of the last week is the relinquishment of head coaching duties by Texas Longhorns baseball coach Augie Garrido. Though adamant in saying he’d never step down under any (normal) circumstance, the 77-year-old eventually has, while taking on new as-yet-unannounced responsibilities as special assistant to Texas athletic director…
Page Two: I Am Trump, You Are Trump
“Turns out I was a vampire myself In the devil town” – Daniel Johnston, “Devil Town” I In these truly hallucinogenic political times, there are so many disconnects giving one pause that the feeling is as though moving forward in a stop-motion animated film where the characters jerkily glide along, every movement unnatural. The uproar…
