Cover Story
A Guide to Austin Stand-Up
Who makes the jokes, where you can see them, and who keeps the scene running in a city where laughing matters
Anti-Choice Lawmakers Divert Millions From TCEQ To Crisis Pregnancy Centers
House swaps $20M from TCEQ to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers
MondoCon Heads Downtown
Pop culture print gathering to occupy Statesman space
No Headline
April 19-22, 2017 www.austintheatre.org/moontower-comedy Some of the best names in comedy? Yes – from right here in Austin and across the country, all set for a weekend of breaking your funnybone into a million quivering pieces.
Texas Burlesque Festival Does the Whole Shebang!
Bumpin’ and grindin’ into the Paramount for 10th anniversary
Official Drink of Austin Returns
Tickets now on sale for cocktail celebration
Five Different Things To Do In Austin This Weekend
Art! Theatre! Dance! You know: What the enemy hates.
Q&A: Henry Threadgill
Master improviser speaks on sustaining creativity
Day Trips & Beyond: April Events Roundup
Seize the day … trip
Drink Drank Drunk
Though the days when journalists kept a bottle of hooch in the desk drawer have since passed, that doesn’t mean we’ve lost our thirst for drinking, or thinking about drinking. The Drink Drank Drunk Issue mulls over alcohol at every angle, from haute mixology to the history of Jägermeister and rock, from our forefathers’ booze…
Austin Black Pride Wraps a Successful Second Year
Celebrating the evolution of Austin’s Black LGBTQ community
City’s Racism Task Force Unveils Report
Group focuses on five issues to combat institutional racism
Hot Luck Announces Musical Talent, More Chefs
Aaron Franklin’s inaugural fest keeps getting bigger
Float Fest Lineup Makes Landfall
Zedd, Weezer, Mac Miller tube into San Marcos
Slack Capital 2 Breaks Out Go Fever
Sample “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”
Yoshi Okai Makes Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs List
Otoko chef to be featured in July issue of Food & Wine
Merck in Austin?
Pharma firm considers “Innovation” location, Austin city incentives
Ethan Embry Licks The Devil’s Candy
Cheap Thrills star on his very heavy metal Austin horror
Pink Elephant Puts Black LGBTQ Artists Center Stage
Austin’s queer hip-hop fest returns for year two
Life
Astronauts discover that a wall won’t keep out a new alien life form
The Boss Baby
Alec Baldwin voices corporate infant
My Scientology Movie
Another doc on L. Ron Hubbard’s cash cow
The Belko Experiment
A gory social experiment gone wrong
CHIPS
The California Highway Patrol rides again
Power Rangers
A new generation of teens with superpowers must save the world
A Guide to Austin Stand-Up: Comics
The stand-up people behind the city’s comedy scene
Texas Platters
Transona 5 came of age during Denton’s space rock boom in the late Nineties, but this isn’t the psychedelic noise of Mazinga Phaser. Rather, it’s the sound of Major Tom’s space capsule orbiting some obscure moon, oxygen slowly running out. This double LP combines highlights from singles, EPs, and 1998’s Duffel Bag album with rehearsal…
Soccer Watch
The U.S. got the four points it needed from the two World Cup Qualifiers over the long weekend, with an effervescent 6-0 romp over Honduras in California, followed by a pretty evenly played 1-1 draw in Panama. Clint Dempsey had four goals in his return to international play, and teamed so effectively with Christian Pulisic…
How to Raise Worker Wages
Organize, arrive, persist, persist, persist
A Guide to Austin Stand-Up: Venues
Where to find the funny in town
Oops!
An editing error in last week’s story “Senate Speeds Through Anti-Choice Bills” referred to a Senate bill to ban the abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation as SB 145. In fact, the bill is SB 415, as properly listed earlier in the same paragraph. Also, last week’s Public Notice column said that NW Austin…
Quote of the Week
Yes, he really said that
Texas VegFest Returns to Austin
Any time a bunch of vegans get together, you can bet it will be a party
A Guide to Austin Stand-Up: Behind the Scenesters
The people behind the people behind the mic
AISD’s FABulous Facility Plan
The Facilities and Bond Planning Advisory Committee has a few recommendations to consider
Headlines
City Council’s Vacation No regular meeting this week – next is April 6, when they’ll hold a public hearing on the Austin Strategic Housing Plan, hoping for 135,000 new units over the next 10 years. See “Council: Mucho Housing Needed,” March 31. Adler on Immigration Mayor Steve Adler was in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to…
Biographer Tamara Saviano’s Guy Clark Revelations
The dean of Texas songwriters’ final days, the forthcoming documentary on him, and more
A Guide to Austin Stand-Up: Showcases
Laughs on the regular
Short Shelf for Short-Term Rentals?
The Texas Hammer never sleeps
Public Notice: Housing Bubbles in the Air
Conjuring affordable housing from thin air
Council: Mucho Housing Needed
Council braces for the next big number crunch
A Guide to Austin Stand-Up: Podcasts
So local you don’t have to leave your house
Death Watch: Bobby James Moore at SCOTUS
SCOTUS overturns Houston native’s death sentence
Lege Lines – The Texas Legislature: Not Enron
Passing a state budget when one side’s “cooking the books”
Parks Department Implements ID Cards
PARD says “everyone is welcome”
Point Austin: The Mayor’s Tightrope
Tip-toeing our way toward a consensus on housing supply
Alex Jones Apologizes!
Slander against politicians is one thing; against pizza shop owners, another
A Guide to Austin Stand-Up: Annual Events
Festivals aren’t just for music and film
Body Cam Blues: Utility Ousted, Not Out
Company loses at 3rd Court, hangs hope on appeal, co-plaintiff
Jeff Sessions’ Empty Threat Against Sanctuary Cities
Immigration fearmongering continues for our intrepid AG
Vigilante
Gaming bar rolls the dice with mixed small plates
Texas Platters
Imprisoned glam rock pioneer Gary Glitter would be devastated to hear Sweet Spirit’s new single. “The Power” not only unfolds with the same pounding floor tom as his signature “Rock & Roll Part 2,” it threatens to unseat the 1972 opus as the genre’s most compelling offering. The song, already dominating local airwaves, contains all…
Bill of the Week: Silencing Survivors?
Joan Huffman’s bill may have an adverse effect on survivor psyche
Dear Glutton: Hot Happy Hours
Where to go for an after-work drink
Texas Platters
“What are you listening to?” The question, posed on the opening track of Ruthie Foster’s eighth LP for Austin’s Blue Corn Music, tingles with post-breakup curiosity and finds the 53-year-old local folk and blues singer answering back on a bold set of songs ranging from Chris Stapleton, Mississippi John Hurt, and Stevie Wonder to Black…
The Luv Doc: Salad Fork
The salad fork is only the sixth-longest fork
Texas Platters
Fifth full-length, 2015’s Transgressor showcased Quiet Company shifting from swelling pop balladry to a more aggressive rock stance. The ATX quintet’s new EP fulfills that vision, three songs that bite and explode, but also continuously contorts in fascinating changes. “Celebrity Teeth Poacher” opens charmingly then gives way to an angst-rattled chorus, and “Get Beside Me…
The Vortex Repertory Company’s Underground
Driven by Lisa B. Thompson’s powerful text and masterful acting, this new drama drops a truth bomb
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
In dental parlance, the top front six teeth are known as “the social six.” According to Foreign Policy, “give a clock” sounds like “attend a funeral” in Mandarin, so gifting a clock is highly taboo. According to Stars and Stripes, as late as 1985, the Defense Logistics Agency still had about 120,000 refurbished Purple Heart…
Texas Platters
Walker Lukens’ madcap pop drifted through stylistic explorations beginning on 2013 debut Devoted before finding sure footing with producer Jim Eno, who’s helped wrangle his fellow local’s eccentricities into sharp pop nuggets. Like November EP Never Understood, that Spoon influence rides high behind jagged riffs, unexpected turns, and uniquely powerful hooks. Opener “Love Me Tender…
Page Two: Frogs Were the Second Plague
The Time of the Toad, and a time to dance
Mustang Island Premieres at Dallas International Film Festival
Craig Elrod and Nathan Smith screen their latest starring Macon Blair
Texas Platters
Difficult to separate Christina Cavazos’ songs from her age (17), but only because they encapsulate a gorgeous teenage ennui and angst without becoming maudlin or trite. The mellow pop of her debut EP offers a polished, youthful perspective, “17” and “Stay” drawing tender melodies with poise and insight, and “With All My Heart” lilting a…
Day Trips: Schilo’s Deli, San Antonio
For a century the German deli has served the rye bread fresh and strudel à la mode
Vigilante Gaming Bar Welcomes Both Novices and Experts
New tabletop haven might be your next favorite watering hole
Texas Platters
Eighteen years into ornate, orchestral, instrumental ambiguity, My Education adds an unhinged edge. Eighth full-length Schiphol pushes the locals’ cinematic sprawl past trademark sonic borders into throbbing enormity. Chamber rock never sounded so refined and feral all at once. “Coordinates” starts off twinkling, then crashes a tense violin line over cacophonous drums and shrill, distorted…
“ART for All + ALL for Art” at Art for the People Gallery
Truth is one of the rewards of this showing of work by artists who have lived on the streets
Texas Platters
Commensurate with Knife in the Water’s back catalog, the Austinites’ first studio LP in 14 years takes its time in unfolding. Fifth album overall, Reproduction simmers with the same atmospheric, noir folk and country of earlier releases, led by a handful of players from the original lineup: Aaron Blount’s drowsy guitar and voice, Bill McCullough’s…
Gay Place
Black Pride is here, and it’s queer
