Cover Story
Dueling Banjos
Is old-time music Austin’s next big thing?
Texas Relays, Day 2: Pickler Dominates
Washington State heptathlete powers to fourth-best score in NCAA history
So Much for Transparency
When will Texans find out what happened at Lubbock State School?
Medi-Pot Legal in the Land of Enchantment
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson this week signed his state’s medi-pot bill into law, making New Mexico the 12th state to legalize the use of pot for medicinal purposes by seriously ill patients. The state Department of Health is charged with establishing the New Mexico medi-pot program by Oct. 1 – including the promulgation of…
A Modest ProCHOsal
Mary and Heather are gonna have a baby. Next month.
Houston Dynamo Announce New Mascot, Dynamo Diesel
Following the hoisting of the MLS Championship Cup in their first year in Houston after relocating from San Jose, Calif., the Houston Dynamo finally made the announcement we here at the Score had been not-so-patiently waiting for, the unveiling of their mascot. How they managed to come out on top of the MLS without a…
A Very National League Preview
Our own John Razook brings us his insights on the year ahead for MBL’s National League
Taxi Drivers Redux – We’ve Got a Winner
Lone Star Cab Company is your new taxi company
Finally Zevon
Warren Zevon’s three new reissues
Fighting Music
Noble Brown’s Sunday night fight club on KVRX.
Convention Center Searched
The Austin Convention Center investigation continues
Taxi Drivers
Cabbies crowd City Council chambers.
Day 1 of the Texas Relays
Texas native Diana Pickler leads the heptathlon after the first day of competition at the Texas Relays
European Champions League Quarterfinals, Dynamo Face Pachuca, and More
Well it’s that time of year: more going on than I can fit in this column. European Champions League quarterfinals were the headline action midweek, Liverpool just about clinched their spot in the semifinals, and other results set up some very interesting return-leg matchups for next week. The results: Tuesday: PSV Eindhoven 0, Liverpool 3(!);…
Nut’n but a Queer Thang, Baby.
Homohop hits Austin. OW!
Transit Oriented Development Seminar Today
The future of transit tomorrow is here today
The Toros B.J. Elder Voted to All-League Second Team
In a bit of unqualified good news for the Toros in an otherwise ambivalent kind of season, all-star guard B.J. Elder was voted to the All-League Second Team today, and guard Cheyne Gadson was voted to the Honorable Mention roster. All-League teams are voted on by the league’s coaches. Elder, a former Georgia Tech star…
No Knock and No Crack, Pt. 2
Last week, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington announced new controls over narco cops and so-called no-knock raids, policy changes prompted by the police shooting death last year of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston inside her home. Among the “new” policies, the Atlanta PD will adopt a requirement that “top supervisors” – that is, officers with a rank…
NFL Analysis 101: 100 Years of Epicurean, Hedonistic Hound Dogs
Timothy Braun brings you, dear reader, up to date on the AFC North
California Lawmakers Pushing for Legal Hemp
California lawmakers are moving forward with their second attempt in as many years to legalize hemp farming. The liberal-conservative odd couple of Assembly Members Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, have offered AB 684, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, to reauthorize and regulate agricultural production of the earth-friendly crop. The bill would…
Wal-Martus Interruptus
Wal-Mart’s moving in behind City Hall?
Honky Tonk Heartbreakers Dominate Alamo City All-Stars in I-35 Blowout
Last Sunday the Playland Skate Center hosted two bouts – one thrilling, one a blowout – from Austin’s flat-track Roller Derby league, the Texas Rollergirls. The first bout of the evening featured the Texas Rollergirls’ Honky Tonk Heartbreakers vs. the Las Tejanas, an all-star team from San Antonio’s Alamo City Rollergirls. The Heartbreakers’ fresh faces…
Kay Longcope Is Missed
Texas Triangle Publisher Kay Longcope passed away.
UT Hires Goestenkors Away From Duke
Conradt replaced by another living legend
Going to Waterloo Records? Be Careful.
From jail to an in-store.
Perhaps He Didn’t See That Video About the Policeman and the Priest
Bishop fears gay thugs!
What Does Rick Perry Sing in the Shower?
What potentially embarrassing revelation did Ted Nugent make about Gov. Rick Perry (hint – it’s all about track nine on Double Live Gonzo.)
RG4N Wants to Roll Back Futrell’s Office
The Northcross neighbors have set their sights on Futrell’s possible raise – and her very office.
What Did Austin Do to Dennis?
A City of Austin waste dumping plan got very short shrift from Rep. Dennis Bonnen.
The Cost of Jobs at TYC
A new argument has opened in the Lege over whether to keep TYC facilities open for economic reasons.
80th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays Opens Wednesday
The Texas Relays at UT is one of top track & field events in the nation and the center of a big party scene
American League/Boston Red Sox Preview
The bloggers that be have decided that they would like an American League perspective to abut their brainy National League preview and have asked me to put together a few words as to how I think the American league is going to fall into the Fall. Full disclosure: I’m a Red Sox fan. I grew…
‘I’m Saying I Don’t Want to Say Anything’
When does the right to speak become an obligation to speak?
Public Safety Task Force Starts Today
Mike Martinez dusts off the PSTF.
City Council Notebook
So much stuff before Council this week …
MLB Opening Day
Hello, and welcome to the start of Major League Baseball’s 2007 season. The Mets defeated the Cards last night, 6-1, in a rematch of the National League Championship Series, and there’s a whole buttload of action being televised today. As they like to say, on Opening Day everybody is tied for first. Try telling that…
He’s No Nobby Stiles
David Beckham may not save U.S. soccer – but he’ll look good not doing it
Convention Center Director Canned
Director of Convention Center dismissed amid allegations of mismanagement.
Ow, My Eye: Girls Gone Wild at Dinah Shore
It kills me that most dykes don’t know for whom the famous Dinah Shore Weekend is named.
More Tragedy in West Texas
While the Legislature starts to tackle the systemic problems at TYC, critical failings at the Department of Aging and Disability Services are new being exposed.
It’s Not All Laughs
When it comes to politicians making fools of themselves, it doesn’t always have to be a laughing matter.
Bishop = Pot. Teh Gay = Kettle?
Oh those wacky Italian bishops! They are at it again.
Why Do Most Queer Flicks Suck?
And to think we could’ve spent the night eating in.
This Week’s Crush: Rachel & Keith
Rachel & Keith sitting in a tree…
Utah Supremes Say Search was a Real Stinker
Court reminds cops not to be led by the nose…
Concordia’s Cruising
Concordia seals the deal on their new campus
Astros Defeat the Express, 6-4, in Round Rock
Spend your life writing about music, frequenting bars and nightclubs, hanging out with musicians and other people who think the sun is only a rumor, and it’s easy to forget there’s a lot of people out there for whom that lifestyle is something maybe glimpsed on Behind the Music, if at all. Between trips to…
UT Football Spring Scrimmage This Saturday
Join Mack Brown, Colt McCoy, and your favorite Longhorns as they take part in their annual spring orange-white scrimmage this Saturday, March 30, at noon. The gates at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium open at 11am, and the game will be broadcast locally on Fox Sports Network Southwest and on 1300AM, the Zone. Click here…
2007 ‘Austin Chronicle’ Chipmunking Contest
Of all the Hostess snacks – Twinkies, CupCakes, Chocodiles, Ding Dongs, HoHos, SuzieQ’s, Donettes, Mini Muffins, Fruit Pies, Pudding Pies, and Leopards – arguably the most unappealing, not to say vile, of these processed cakes are the Sno Balls. Packaged in pairs, the chocolate sponge cakes are covered with pasty, marshmallow frosting and then rolled…
More Old-Timers: National Division
New bluegrass DVD and CD releases.
Six Three Times
Six albums in 66 words or less.
Cute Band Alert!
The Carrots hand-clap their way into your heart.
Rainey Street Shock Troopers
What will the redevelopment of Rainey Street mean?
Bloggin’ About Bloggin’
Don’t fear the gay blogosphere.
What a Tangled Web We Weave
Blogging from the front lines of online journalism.
Texas Medal of Arts Awards: The stars at night are big and bright …
Stars fall on Austin April 3 as the Texas Cultural Trust Council hands out its annual Texas Medal of Arts Awards to some of the Lone Star State’s greatest cultural heroes
Food-o-File
What’s cooking in the Central Texas food scene.
Reefer Madness: A Modest Proposal
Houston Rep. Harold Dutton offers up Legislation for downgrading criminal penalties associated with possession of small amounts of pot
Film News
More on the original Alamo Drafthouse’s big move; plus, will a $40,000 incentive be enough to keep the Lights on in Austin?
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts: School of rock
For the second time in two years, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts – a true school of rock – will be auditioning students in Austin
Event Menu
March 30-April 5
Point Austin: One Step Forward
To leave Iraq is a political journey
DVD Watch
The old, weird America and the old, weird comedian
The Hills Have Eyes II
This sequel to last year’s remake is as witless and simpleminded as the irradiated humanoids that serve as the franchise’s bad guys.
Culture Flash!
Two Austin choreographers take over New York’s Ballet Builders, two new pieces of Austin public art get dedicated at once, and Arts on Real blows out four candles on the cake
Beside The Point
Concordia pushes council to the limit
TV Eye
War and remembrance: Part I
The Namesake
Mira Nair’s complex meditation on family, relationships, and identity traces the saga of two generations of an Indian-American family, as outlined in Jhumpa Lahiri’s bestselling novel.
Arts Review
The passionate revival of the 30-year-old Chicano Movement classic La Víctima has to be Teatro Vivo’s strongest production to date
Phases & Stages
Kings of LeonBecause of the Times (RCA) The noticeable fade-out at the seven-minute mark of opener “Knocked Up” may be everything you need to know about Because of the Times. Where 2003’s Youth & Young Manhood kicked in the stall all night, and Aha Shake Heartbreak jolted loose any notion of the proverbial sophomore slump…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “Our PUD process is broken. … Our current way of doing business is broken if we don’t want to have a city that looks like California with a $400,000 housing average.” – City Council Member Brewster McCracken, after a trying, three-day meeting to resolve the Concordia redevelopment zoning negotiations (see “Beside…
TCB
Permits, or lack thereof, cause a huge to-do between FactoryPeople, SXSW, and various city agencies, while musicians spin some hot-rod yarns and the King of Sixth Street abdicates his throne
The Lookout
The Lookout, an odd caper story, marks Scott Frank’s directorial debut after years of working as a screenwriter on movies like Get Shorty and Out of Sight.
Arts Review
The Chronicle‘s visual-arts writers review the second Texas Biennial in dialogue and find the work at the Dougherty Arts Center to be diverse but presented awkwardly
Phases & Stages
Trio MediaevalMcCullough Theatre, March 22 Pure voice, as exemplified by Trio Mediaeval, requires three music stands, two folding chairs facing each other stage left and right, and a glass of water next to each. In another pristine UT PAC listening room, the 400-seat McCullough Theatre, Oslo threesome Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth, and Torunn…
‘Alternatives’ to Abortion Gets More Funding
Given that the first fiscal year of operation was such a stunning “success,” perhaps it isn’t at all surprising that the House Appropriations Committee would go ahead and give the OK for $5 million in additional funding in the state’s Health and Human Services budget to be earmarked for the supposedly “useful” Alternatives to Abortion…
Blades of Glory
This ice-skating comedy demonstrates that just because Will Ferrell is game for anything that might draw a laugh, it doesn’t mean he should follow through with every idea that comes his way.
Cuba Libris
Through Alfredo José Estrada, Havana speaks freely
Phases & Stages
Charlie Louvin(Tompkins Square) Charlie Louvin, 79, has nothing left to prove. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame with his late brother Ira, Louvin influenced generations of musicians with his and his sibling’s pure harmonies and songs. Sadly, his first release in 10 years confirms what his last, Longest Train (Watermelon), made painfully…
Immigration Laws Held Up at the Border
This just in – Texas is not in the immigration business. That’s the news from the chairman of the House committee assigned to consider buckets of mostly anti-immigration bills aimed at punishing working poor people who enter the U.S. under the radar. Dumas Republican David Swinford, chairman of the State Affairs Committee, had asked state…
The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
Documentary from the filmmakers who made Gunner Palace details the story of Yunis Abbas, an Iraqi journalist falsely detained for nine months at Abu Ghraib.
Page Two: SXSW Is for Lovers
Looking for clarity in the hate-intoxicated haze
Phases & Stages
NasHip Hop Is Dead (Def Jam) For a rapper who’s spent the past dozen years failing to meet the lofty standard of his 1994 debut, Illmatic, Nas declaring Hip Hop Is Dead evades all conceivability short of a flaming Napoleon complex. “Afraid not of none of you cowards but of my own strength,” the Queensbridge…
Woodward and Bernstein Make ‘Statesman’ Editor Squirm
Legendary reporters who broke Watergate story question Oppel’s role at Statesman, opinion on confidential sources
Oops!
Our latest batch
Phases & Stages
AirPocket Symphony (Astralwerks) A mood is in the Air. French duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel have always been adept at creating emotion out of sound, but with Air’s fourth proper LP, remnants of pop have been set ablaze in favor of instrumentalist ploys and lullabies. Familiarity resounds in “Once Upon a Time” and “Napalm…
More City, SoCo Cafe Fracas
After busting South Congress Cafe back in February 2005 for unpermitted construction of a decked rear patio and privacy fence that covered city sidewalk and right-of-way, city still at odds with eatery
Letters at 3AM
People in the small towns of the West and Midwest are watching their communities, and their way of life, shrivel and die.
Phases & Stages
Ted Leo & the PharmacistsLiving With the Living (Touch & Go) Ted Leo doesn’t wear his politics on his sleeve. He’s got them tattooed across his forehead. It’s little surprise, then, that for someone closer to 40 than 30, the onetime NYC hardcore punker is more concerned with being a voice of dissent than the…
Anthony Graves Update
10th Court of Appeals says if it has to, it will vacate the gag order that is improperly curtailing the free speech of Graves, awaiting a retrial for capital murder
After a Fashion
Stephen takes issue with “guys”…
Phases & Stages
Radio On(Plexifilm) England’s dreaming, 1979. The line between punk and New Wave is where director Christopher Petit finds the Radio On, with co-producer Wim Wenders and cinematographer Martin Schäfer as the illuminating black-and-white lens. Through it we see late-Seventies Britain, bleak and static, from the buildings and the streets to its citizens. Combine that with…
Guzman Kicks Off AISD Campaign
Local businessman formally declares candidacy for Austin ISD board of trustees
Day Trips
The Independence Coffee Company handcrafts its coffee the old-fashioned way – one small batch at a time
Phases & Stages
Neil YoungLive at Massey Hall (Reprise) Whereas Neil Young’s first installment from his Archives Performance Series, last year’s Live at the Fillmore East, branded the rugged glory of his trails blazed with Crazy Horse, Live at Massey Hall, a stark, solo acoustic set from 1971, revels in the songsmith’s vulnerability often overshadowed by his various…
AISD: Math Fight Resolved … For Now
Board of trustees votes to select middle school math text favored by majority of middle school teachers
Soccer Watch
Euro 2008 qualifying resumed this week – highlighted by Italy’s 2-0 must-win over Scotland, plus revenge of the minnows: Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Liechtenstein all won, former minnow Northern Ireland won two big ones (as did big brother Republic of Ireland), and even tiny Andorra held a wheezy England scoreless for more than half a game.…
A Whacked-Out System
Inmate’s lawsuit focuses on secret and unreasonable Texas paroles
Backassward Birth Control Ruling
8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says contraceptives are intended for use prior to pregnancy, meaning employers don’t have to cover cost of contraceptives for female patients under health plans
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to the Food Marketing Institute, meat was the most shoplifted item in America’s grocery stores in 2005. From 1998 to 2004, surgery to constrict the stomach or intestine for weight loss increased more than 900%. Female ring-finger size correlates with athletic potential, in a study of British twins. This study found that women with…
Developing Stories: Concord – At Last
Up from the muck at Concordia
Happenings
March 29 – April 5
Larger Than Life
The late Luis Jiménez created art on a grand scale – and lived life that way, too
The Common Law
Getting married – what about a prenup?
State Representative: Let’s Hang the Artist!
Borris Miles decides he is the arbiter of taste and free speech at the Capitol.
The Hightower Report
Stand Up To War; and Ignoring Paris
Luis Jiménez: The Texas Folklife Resources Tribute
One of the last creative projects that Luis Jiménez completed was a drawn-on-stone lithograph that he created for Texas Folklife Resources. Titled La Voz de la Frontera, the 21.5-inch by 26.5-inch, black-on-white print was the artist’s gift to the organization to help it raise funds for its Border Radio series, live performances that celebrate the…
In Good Taste
The Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival and the value of terroir
WilCo Budget War Goes to Appeals Court
Constable, county at odds over timing and legality of funding cuts
Safe Cracking
Longtime screenwriter and first-time director Scott Frank on The Lookout
UT Chamber Singers/Austin Vocal Arts Ensemble: Vox Americana redux
American choral music earns more big love in 2007 with back-to-back concerts of American vocal works by the UT Chamber Singers and the Austin Vocal Arts Ensemble
Eat, Drink, Laugh, and Learn With Kate MacMurray
With Kate MacMurray
On the Lege: Budget Rollout
The budget battle begins at the Capitol
AFS Essential Cinema
Spaces Between Realities: The Films of Michael Haneke
Luv Doc Recommends: Louisiana Swamp Thing and Crawfish Festival
Cajuns will eat damn near anything. If it runs, crawls, flies, hops, swims, or slithers, there’s probably a Cajun recipe for it. Cajuns are highly omnivorous – either that or they’re starving. As Charles Dickens once said, “Hunger is the finest sauce in the world,” and even though it’s safe to say Dickens never enjoyed…
