Cover Story
Islamophobia as Political Strategy
Ali Sohail Ishaq, an Austinite and practicing Muslim in his 40s, remembers growing up playing Call of Duty with his childhood friends, firing shots through virtual war zones set in majority-Muslim countries. “Islamophobia is something that American Muslims are familiar with – we’ve all grown up with it,” Ishaq said. But it’s becoming increasingly present…
News
Substantial Rule Changes Slated to Rock the Hemp Industry
In 2012, VFW State Commander Dave Walden’s wife drove home to find him wandering around the neighborhood, carrying his cane as if it were the rifle that he used while serving the country in Iraq. He was suffering from opioid-induced cognitive impairment from taking what he estimates was “about 30-something pills a day.” Six years…
Austin Processes Cesar Chavez Abuse Accounts
Bertha Rendon Ortiz, born and raised in East Austin and still here after 47 years, is proud to be the daughter and granddaughter of farmworkers and labor organizers. Her father was an Austin Brown Beret, part of the resident militant group that defended Mexican American residents in East Austin from police brutality through the Seventies…
D.A.’s Office Accused of Withholding Key Evidence in 2020 Protest Case
A defense attorney attempting to get a criminal case against an Austin police officer dismissed is now asking a judge to take a step further: examine whether the prosecutors who brought the case violated the law. APD Officer Chance Bretches was indicted in 2022 on charges of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury by a…
The Week’s Biggest News in Brief: March 19-25
JD Vance in Austin: Vice President JD Vance visited Austin on Monday, March 23, to attend the Republican National Committee fundraiser campaign, according to Axios Austin. The event was hosted by Palantir co-founder and GOP megadonor Joe Lonsdale. Axios reported that the organization required a $50,000 buy-in to attend the event and $250,000 for those…
Music
Music Notes
The Knocks & Dragonette Thursday 26, Emo’s Electronic music duo the Knocks first collaborated with singer-songwriter Dragonette on the 2022 release “Slow Song.” Last year, the partnership blossomed into a collaborative synth-pop project titled Revelation. RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10 winner Aquaria will perform during the headlining set, with opening support coming from local DJ…
T Bird & the Breaks Keep Punching
T Bird & the Breaks hits with a swift slap of encouragement from a strange but wise man you just met on a dirty street corner. The outfit’s new self-titled album delivers the unpolished, surreal vintage funk the group has been crafting here in Austin for the better part of two decades. Tim Crane’s gruff…
Welcome to the World of Carolyn Trowbridge
A regular member of Hard Proof, the Azmaris, and the Alex Coke/Carl Michel Sextet, vibraphonist and percussionist Carolyn Trowbridge has amassed credits with Adrian Quesada’s Boleros Psicodélicos, Black Pumas, Graham Reynolds, Conspirare, and the bizarre steel pans cover band Pan Rocks. Finally leading her own band, the omnivorous Trowbridge uses her debut album Found Memories…
The Canary Introduces Jet Cemetery’s Electronic Dystopia
The Canary opens with an ominous synth growing closer and closer, like the footsteps of an intergalactic supervillain. Shrouded in a ray of ethereal light, our “Eagle Rider” hero, vocalist Lars Wolfshield, parts the clouds overhead and welcomes listeners into an apocalyptic world where lyrical upheaval and despair are concealed by effervescent vocals and neon-pulsing…
2026 Live Music Fund Awards $7.1 Million to 399 Grantees
Community uproar! Bureaucratic chaos! It’s not a reality television show, it’s the rollout of the city of Austin’s Live Music Fund. After pausing in 2025 to launch Austin’s Arts, Culture, Music, and Entertainment (ACME) department, the program has announced $7.1 million in grants will be distributed to 399 artists, independent promoters, and venues this spring.…
Arts + Culture
Awards and Accolades, Plus Parisian Cafes – and SXSW Complaints
ACME’s Artist Access Program is now open for applications through April 13. By partnering with creative spaces across the city, like the Asian American Resource Center, Dougherty Arts Center, the George Washington Carver Museum, and Zilker Hillside Theater, the city office provides free or low-cost spaces and equipment for artists to organize rehearsals, performances, workshops,…
Banned Bodies Broadcasts Trans Visibility on Red River
Trans Day of Visibility comes this Tuesday, March 31, but celebrations from our local transgender community begin even earlier. One such show is Banned Bodies, a music & drag extravaganza highlighting Austin-area trans artists that’s been going strong since its start in 2023. Organized by Haus of Trans mother Era Steinfeld – known by stage…
Screens
Miroirs No. 3 Review: Lost Woman, Found Family
The German actress Paula Beer has a delicately expressive face. In her now-four collaborations with writer-director Christian Petzold, she’s registered vast emotions and emotive styles across that lovely face – tremolo as an abandoned wife in an authoritarian state in Transit, stormy as Undine’s titular nymph falling in and out of love, easygoing and open…
Food
Van Horn’s: Nimbly Balancing on the New Upside-Down Food Pyramid
Recipe time! Here’s how to cook a steak: Buy a decent cut (ask the H-E-B/CM/WF folks), take it home, sprinkle it with salt, slap it in a skillet, sizzle some butter on there, flip it, poke it, chuck it in the oven for a couple minutes, eat. Steak is one of the simplest things to…
Columns
Day Trips: The Phoenix Saloon, New Braunfels
The Phoenix Saloon in New Braunfels still makes a mean bowl of chili after 134 years. Texas chili wasn’t invented in New Braunfels – that honor is generally bestowed on the Chili Queens of San Antonio – but authentic Texas chili flavor was put within the grasp of home kitchens in a cafe in the…
Opinion: When a Symbol Breaks: What This Moment Asks of Us
The recent reporting on Cesar Chavez has shaken many, especially within Latino communities for whom his name has long represented dignity, struggle, and possibility. For some, this is a moment of deep betrayal. For others, confusion. For many, grief. And for survivors of sexual violence, it may reopen wounds that were never fully given space…
The Luv Doc: Lo-Fi Beats
Dear Luv Doc, Is it a red flag if the person you’re seeing brings a Bluetooth speaker to the spillway at Barton Springs? I was having a perfectly lovely, meditative afternoon pretending I don’t live in a capitalist hellscape, and my date decided to blast a “Lo-Fi Beats to Study/Relax To” playlist. I feel like…
Feedback: March 27, 2026
Jesus Wept With Laughter Dear Editor, Thank you, Joseph Gonzalez, for the delightful cover story on Michael Medford [“Heavy Metal Jesus Rages On,” Arts, March 20]. In a world gone wrong, y’all made me laugh, repeatedly. Paul McMullen Jesus Christ Superstar Dear Editor, Joseph Gonzalez’s story about Heavy Metal Jesus Michael Medford was great! [“Heavy…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
In Georgian England, interior walls were often painted in pale greens, soft blues, and creams designed to amplify the glow of a single, expensive candle. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, Tesla’s Texas robotaxis crash four times more often than human drivers. According to a study published in Current Biology, scientists learned that a…
Austin FC Teammates Become Rivals in World Cup Playoff
We’re fewer than 80 days shy of kickoff of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, and it’s finally starting to feel like it. That feeling will only grow over the next week, which marks a critical milestone in the final preparations for the tournament. Over the next several days, 22 nations will compete for the…
Qmmunity: Give Us Our Rights, Dignity, and $20
I come to you right before Trans Day of Visibility Weekend, which I’m capitalizing because I’m a fun guy full of whimsy, with a few bulletin board-esque updates. Take heed of them, pass ’em to someone whom they might suit, or ignore them and skip to the massive volumetric event tonnage bearing down on the…
What Is Best of Austin?, and Six Other Questions Answered for First-Time Voters
Greetings! In this week’s issue, we kick off a new year of Best of Austin polling. Whether you’re new to the paper or just need a refresher, we’re here to demystify the process. What Is Best of Austin? First started by The Austin Chronicle in 1990, the annual Best of Austin Awards celebrate community excellence…
Fun + Games
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries poet Maya Angelou proclaimed, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” In that spirit, Aries, I urge you to tell everyone everything – all your secret thoughts, hidden feelings, and private opinions. Post your diary online! Confess your fantasies to strangers! Share your unfiltered inner…
