Cover Story
The 2020/2021 Austin Music Awards Came Bearing a Pandemic Stimulus
Hop in the Winner Wagon and see who we surprised with this year’s unique awards
Grand Jury Indicts APD Officer in Shooting of Michael Ramos
Christopher Taylor faces first-degree murder charge
Austin FC Announces First Road and Home Games
Debut MLS club dives into preseason training
Texas Strong Relief, St. Patrick’s Day, Persian New Year, Intero’s New Pizza, and the Hospitality Howdy-Do of Marriott International
All the news that’s fit to get your taste buds quivering
Watch Now: Zach Person “Can’t Stop Running”
ATX guitarist rips with Lenny Kravitz flair
Monica Ceniceros and those atxGALS
The Cathedral? Creative Box Studios? All that art? This is them.
Chaos Walking, From Page to Screen
Author Patrick Ness revisits his book as an older, wiser writer
St. Patrick’s Day Could Chase the Snakes of Your Blues Away
Annual celebration of all things Irish brings new shenanigans
Day Trips & Beyond: March Events Roundup
Travel news a year into the pandemic
Council Recap: A Not-Just-Symbolic Promise to Lift Up Black Austin
Apologies and remedies for a long legacy of oppression
Aviary x Sour Duck: Burger Pop-Up on Tuesday & Wednesday
Gourmet noms to benefit snowpocalypsed Texas farmers
My Salinger Year
Life inside a literary agency, with novel dreams
Best Innovation / Business Pivot
(Sponsored by Becky Beaver) Drive-in concerts never showed up on the planner … until pandemic hit. Like many of 2020’s philanthropic upstarts, Love & Lightstream’s drive-in concert series reacted to COVID’s near-obliteration of the homegrown music industry. Origin org Austin Love & Light planned a stacked local showcase at Scholz Garten during South by Southwest,…
Sophie Jones
Coming-of-age drama never escapes its influences
Best Nonprofit
(Sponsored by Capital Metro) In a year when canceled performances and venue shutters destabilized the so-called live music capital, the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians remains an argument for the latter to stick around. You play here, you live here, you get free or low-cost health insurance. The golden ticket is HAAM membership, open to…
Lucky
Kafkaesque horror-comedy blows the rape-revenge fantasy apart
Band of the Year
(Sponsored by Dulce Vida Tequila) How high up in the stratosphere can one Austin group ascend? Sky’s the limit for the Black Pumas. The local soul-rock septet, energized by the electric emotion of singer Eric Burton, became ubiquitous enough on 2020’s national stage that when they were heard in a Super Bowl commercial collaborating with…
Musician Who Went Above & Beyond
(Sponsored by The Soup Peddler) Jackie Venson personifies perseverance by relentlessly ascending the music industry’s creaky, overcrowded, and failing ladder. The Northwest Austin native undoubtedly “Went Above & Beyond” during a year defined by despair and death. Unable to cast her trademark joy on physical audiences due to pandemic, the ever resourceful independent artist maintained…
100 Days to Live
Suicide isn’t painless in this throwback thriller
Hip-Hop Artist of the Year
(Sponsored by BeatStars) “I use my lungs to rap y’all – simply can’t risk that.” That’s Megz Kelli on Twitter last summer shutting down Magna Carda’s live performances. Even so, her acclaimed rapper/producer duo with Dougie Do now bags Austin’s Hip-Hop Band of Year for the fourth consecutive year. The young, Black, and gifted pair…
Best Livestreaming Artist
(Sponsored by Luxe Refill) Jackie Venson personifies perseverance by relentlessly ascending the music industry’s creaky, overcrowded, and failing ladder. The Northwest Austin native undoubtedly “Went Above & Beyond” during a year defined by despair and death. Unable to cast her trademark joy on physical audiences due to pandemic, the ever resourceful independent artist maintained a…
Musician of the Year
(Sponsored by Trashless) Jackie Venson personifies perseverance by relentlessly ascending the music industry’s creaky, overcrowded, and failing ladder. The Northwest Austin native undoubtedly “Went Above & Beyond” during a year defined by despair and death. Unable to cast her trademark joy on physical audiences due to pandemic, the ever resourceful independent artist maintained a virtual…
Best Online Series
Shutdown caught Alejandro Rose-Garcia in the midst of building out his new studio, lovingly dubbed Hello Gorgeous just southeast of Austin in Goforth. He then took advantage of the moment to offer up a revealing, endearing series with his bandmates and crew as they establish their new musical sanctuary. “This is me wanting to film…
Songwriter of the Year
(Sponsored by Desert Door Distillery) No local artist built as steadily to earn an Austin Music Award for Songwriter of the Year than David Ramirez, and 2020’s My Love is Hurricane finally sealed the honor for the raw and real troubadour. The Houston native writes with unrivaled emotional grit, fearless in confronting his own doubts…
Best Virtual Event
(Sponsored by Weird Homes Tour) Luck Presents, the production company of Matt Bizar and Willie Nelson’s grandniece Ellee Fletcher Durniak, offered a path forward as one of the first organizations to reset to the new livestream reality for live music. The crew quickly adjusted with the March cancellation of their SXSW-adjacent Luck Reunion to present…
Album of the Year
(Sponsored by Real Ale Brewing Co.) Jackie Venson personifies perseverance by relentlessly ascending the music industry’s creaky, overcrowded, and failing ladder. The Northwest Austin native undoubtedly “Went Above & Beyond” during a year defined by despair and death. Unable to cast her trademark joy on physical audiences due to pandemic, the ever resourceful independent artist…
Winner
(Sponsored by Strait Music Company) “Iron Age are very important to the history of Texas hardcore and metal,” Blake Ibanez, guitarist for beloved Dallas thrash revivalists Power Trip, told the Chronicle in 2019. “It’s safe to say we wouldn’t be a band if it wasn’t for them.” Led by singer/conceptualist Jason Tarpey and late guitarist/composer…
Song of the Year
(Sponsored by Real Ale Brewing Co.) A triptych of wistful nostalgia, prophetic counsel, and a requiem for the modern age, “Revolution” triumphs into a six-minute spiritualist wonder. Marking the Heartless Bastards’ return after six years following Restless Ones in 2015, the stand-alone single came out via Austin imprint Spaceflight Records on July 3, with a…
Video of the Year
(Sponsored by Real Ale Brewing Co.) Written years ago when singer Lindsey Mackin began performing in Austin, the ambient anxiety of Annabelle Chairlegs’ sophomore LP Gotta Be In Love was predetermined long before the pandemic. Maybe the surfy, jittery set of forceful rock songs, particularly “Outside,” held out for such isolated circumstances. As a Jetsons-ish…
Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry
Forget the details, relish the intimacy of this music documentary
Best Local Label
Chicken Ranch Records owner Mike Dickinson told Chronicle writer Greg Beets in a 2007 profile he preferred “eclectic music.” “I like bands that aren’t afraid to do their own thing,” admitted the affable record man. That’s certainly what he had in mind when he moved the label with him to Austin in 1996, two years…
Tom and Jerry
Your favorite cat and mouse duo are back and in NYC
Best Radio Personality
“Connection.” So resounded Laurie Gallardo’s one-word explanation for radio. Graciously coiffed, eyes alight, protective tenor bobbing, weaving, and jabbing same as it transmits Monday-Thursday, 1-5pm, on KUTX 98.9FM, the afternoon deejay sent a depth charge through the early morning UT class this January. Goosing Zoom constitutes a near miracle in our new day and age,…
Raya and the Last Dragon
Disney’s new Southeast Asian fantasy is a landmark, but loses its way
Best Radio Station
(Sponsored by BMI) “Connection.” So resounded Laurie Gallardo’s one-word explanation for radio. Graciously coiffed, eyes alight, protective tenor bobbing, weaving, and jabbing same as it transmits Monday-Thursday, 1-5pm, on KUTX 98.9FM, the afternoon deejay sent a depth charge through the early morning UT class this January. Goosing Zoom constitutes a near miracle in our new…
Chaos Walking
Interstellar YA adaptation brings a new gender twist to the formula
Best Record Store
March 11, 2020, Austin Music Awards night at the Moody Theater: Waterloo Records takes home Best Record Store as it has every single year since the category debuted on the Austin Music Poll in 1982. To many that Wednesday evening, the show proved their final live musical attendance for the year. Five days after Mayor…
Stray
It’s not such a ruff life in this story of Istanbul’s canine residents
Best Recording Studio
Yes, Arlyn Studios boasts immaculate microphones, amps, audio gear, and a behemoth mixing board born out of grafting the vintage Neve from Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studio with an equally covetable API console. Still, glorious equipment alone doesn’t make a studio special. Environment, space, vibe all add up to magic. The 7,000-sq.-ft. space on Academy Drive,…
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
Back to Bikini Bottom for another laugh-filled roadtrip
Best 2020-Themed Song
(Sponsored by Precision Camera) As documented in the christening entry of the Chronicle’s popular and populist pandemic series Checking In last year, COVID-19 hadn’t fully revealed its hand before Shinyribs captain Kevin Russell spray-painted the writing on the wall himself. This week one year ago, South by Southwest canceled upon orders from city health officials…
Mandabi
Seminal Senegalese social satire from the father of African film, remastered
Best Fundraising Effort
In a year when canceled performances and venue shutters destabilized the so-called live music capital, the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians remains an argument for the latter to stick around. You play here, you live here, you get free or low-cost health insurance. The golden ticket is HAAM membership, open to any working musician, music…
Public Notice: Taking a Mulligan?
Hancock Golf Course/Park plans seem to be off the boil
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
June Foray, who from 1959 to 1964 did the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, later was included on President Nixon’s “enemies list.” In 2019 the average McDonald’s drive-through took six minutes and 18 seconds, but in 2020, the company trimmed that to five minutes and 49 seconds. On…
Headlines / Quote of the Week
Gambling With Our Lives: Beginning next Wednesday, March 10, Texas will lift its statewide mask mandate and other COVID-19 restrictions, per Gov. Greg Abbott’s new executive order, GA-34, announced this week. Read more. Battle of the Ballot Language: The Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Austin City Council to modify the ballot language for the…
Supporting Local Farmers and Ranchers Helps Everyone
Back to the soil
Day Trips: McFaddin-Ward House, Beaumont
Beaumont home is a museum to pioneer Texas family
Council, City Utilities Continue to Soften Blow of Storms
Reason to relieve
Bored, Unemployed, and Extremely Online: Textile Artist Finds the Silver Linings
After losing her office job, Odalys Vargas turned a quarantine hobby into her artform
Abbott Lifts COVID Rules: Will a Surge Follow?
Governor’s move seen as premature, reckless by local leaders, businesses
Qmmunity: OUTsider Arts Fest Gets Weird N’ Queer This Weekend
Plus, Trans Crowdfund Live fundraises for gender-affirming care for LGBTQIA Austinites of color
Court Orders Change to Camping Ban Ballot
Following a ruling from the Texas Supreme Court, City Council changes ballot language
Amplify Austin Is Needed Now, More Than Ever
This annual fundraising program amplifies the arts
New Austin Music Worth Your Bandwidth This Week
What we’re listening to
Soccer Watch: More Players for Austin FC
Austin FC announced two more player acquisitions as we go to press Wednesday, strengthening their roster and building on their youth strategy. First came Slovenian left-back Zan Kolmanic, who despite being just 21 has already logged four seasons with top Slovenian side NK Maribor, plus 39 youth national team appearances. He’s on loan from Maribor…
Austin’s Best Food and Drink Events This Week
Dinner parties, farmer’s markets, beer, wine, and more for the week of March 4, 2021
Drive to Unionize the Statesman Newsroom Prevails
Strength in numbers
Zombies, Oprah, and Zoom, South By!
2021 SXSW EDU Online expands its scope
Films and Shows at SXSW by Austin Residents and Veterans
Fill your schedule with ATX @ SXSW
Free Will Astrology
Your weekly horoscope, March 5-11
New Studio Brings the Technology Behind The Mandalorian to Austin
Co-Production House brings science to the set
The Common Law
Minors getting ink: Can an under-18 teenager get a tattoo in Texas with parental consent?
We Have an Issue: And The Award for “Loosiest-Goosiest Award Show Reimagining” Goes To …
For a lot of people, last year’s Austin Music Awards is time-stamped as the final public outing they enjoyed before the pandemic hit. Back in the fall, when we first started talking about this year’s AMAs, we sure liked the idea of the 2021 ceremony marking a kind of welcome back to being together again,…
“Strong-Mayor” Proposal Divides Austin’s Progressives
Power to the people?
Opinion: We Need to Prioritize Our Service Workers
Olamaie Executive Chef Michael Fojtasek: “The way to ensure the health and livelihoods of service industry people is through vaccination”
What’s on the May 1 Ballot?
Voters will decide “strong-mayor” leadership, public camping ban, and other local propositions
Faster Than Sound: Only in Austin: The 2020-2021 Austin Music Award Sweepstakes
Austin Music Poll’s 40th anniversary inspires mobile sweepstakes and emotional write-ins
Arts Listings
Virtual galleries, streaming improv, and more
Artist Ender Martos Celebrates His Past, Present, and Future in “Veintiuno”
The virtual exhibition marks the 21st of the 21st in the 21st …
Austin at Large: At the Bottom of the Well
Greg Abbott’s still making horrible things happen, but at least now he’s in charge!
The Luv Doc: Pay My Rent
Three strikes and you might be the messiah
Abbott Don’t Care, Real Fish and Faux, Crave Improves Pville, Everybody Requests Freebirds
All the news that’s fit to get your taste buds quivering
Travis D.A. Announces New Policies to Support Rape, Abuse Survivors
D.A.’s Office commits to culture change to aid access to justice
