Cover Story
Season of Risk
What can be done to stop the rising rate of HIV in Austin?
Fun Fun Fun Fest 2015 Lineup Astounds
Wu-Tang Clan, Jane’s Addiction, D’Angelo, and Venom top the list
Royal Thunder Q&A
Mlny Parsonz wails
ALC Steaks Food Truck Totaled
Shoal Creek waters overwhelm parked vehicle
Other Worlds Austin Hears The Quiet Hour
Director Stéphanie Joalland on a very British apocalypse
Jimmy Buffett Surfs Stubb’s
Energized Parrothead king kicks out the jams
Campus Carry Passes, Abortion Insurance Ban Fails
Dems strike last minute deal after hours of chubbing
Flood Closes Some Lamar Restaurants
Cleanup effort ongoing
Elvis is Coming to Town
For a good ol’ Texan backyard BBQ
Judge Dismisses Pressley Lawsuit
Grants summary judgment on grounds of “no evidence”
DVDanger: Let Us Prey
Star, director on strong women, evil, and rape in film
The New Omelettry Now Open
Longtime fans flock to soft opening
Blackbird & Henry Starts Community Supported Restaurant
Eatery offering membership rewards
Sweet Spirit Tour Diary
On the road with Spoon
Someone’s Got a Soul Grudge and It’s Gonna Hurt Like Whoa
Blue High Machine Mid-Southern Wrestling Coalition brings the pain
The AggreGAYtor: May 26
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
News Roundup: Can’t Stop the Rain
Or the Lege, for that matter
Anti-Abortion Bill Aimed at Minors Advances
Senate gives preliminary nod to bill restricting judicial bypass
Flood of Memories
Memorial Weekend flood waters hit home
Dear God, What Hath Monofonus Wrought Now?
The Austin indie media company gets all epistolary with Thor Harris
Memorial Weekend Flood Assistance
Resources for folks hit by the Memorial Weekend floods
One in a Crowd: Satanic Panic
Book seeks crowdfunding, plus Short Term 12 returns
House Delays Closure of Austin SSLC
Amendment scraps SSLC closure
H. R. Giger, the Dark Star
Full Q&A with documentarian Belinda Sallin
Austin Cooks for Nepal
Two food events raise money for humanitarian aid
“Love in Action”
Florence’s Comfort House is the Best of “Weird Austin”
Food-o-File: Friday Lagniappe
A little extra Austin food news
Summer Fun: Coaster Enthusiasts
Thrill seekers embark on Memorial Day pilgrimmage
The Luv Doc: Friends With Benefits
Dear Luv Doc, My friends say I am cold because I only call my FWB to have sex. Do you ever call FWBs for anything else? – Bitchy FWB Dear Bitchy, Are you one of those people who likes to separate all the foods on your plate? Peas in one pile, carrots in the other?…
Tomorrowland
Seeming more like a calculation than a flight of fancy, this adventure tale has both hits and misses
In the Name of My Daughter
The Affaire Le Roux, a famous missing-person case, is the subject of this French drama
Saint Laurent
The celebrated fashion designer is tracked from 1967 to his death in 2008 in this live-action biopic
Slow West
A whimsical and wistful fable follows a young romantic and a hard-nosed realist out West
5 Flights Up
Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton play a long-married couple who consider moving from their apartment
The Unwanted
Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire story Carmilla is given a Southern Gothic edge
Tall Tales and Texas Rising
Fact battles fiction in new History Channel miniseries
Texas Platters
Titular nod to the Minutemen, this exemplary local compilation bottles a moment in musical time. Eleven Austin acts explore the bleeding edge of avant-punk, electronic, and noise against a backdrop of top-heavy economic prosperity threatening to banish the vaunted “weirdness” that helped summon homegrown vibrancy in the first place. Ghetto Ghouls’ “Plants” sets the tone…
“Shrine of Inevitable Forces”
This exhibition in an abandoned church shows how time and pressure can reshape objects into rich new forms
Tape Deck
ATX fretboard phenom Jamey Simms spikes Detroit-style rock & roll with soulful speed on his new cassette. Check Side A sweet spot “Convolution,” Chuck Berry high on the MC5, and tempo-shifting epic “Oh Yeah,” showcasing Amplified Heat drummer Chris Ortiz’s preternatural skill. Simms’ reverb-stained yelps slice through the gain on the New York Dolls-like strutter…
Lege Lines: Billpocalypse!
Bills start dying as sine die draws near; schools get new A-F grading system; and more
Tape Deck
Inside this plain white cassette with a stick-on label spools a garage rock band writing songs no one else would think to. “Nightmower” justifies yard maintenance after dark, and “Great Interplanetary Romance” conceptualizes Graham Goodman and Carol Ann Willhite concocting a familial relationship between celestial bodies to UFO synth buzzes. The singing’s graceless and music…
Bill of the Week: House Bill 2474
Bill would require additional reporting of vaccine-preventable diseases
Tape Deck
Atop a dramatic cadence of dark synth and minimalist beats, Marie Davidson’s enchanting French-Canadian accent betrays her chilling, spoken-word poetry: “When we got back to the room I knew he’d wait for us – the crazy man at the bar, whispering, ‘We … are … all … burning.'” For Montreal’s experimental electro chanteuse, working locally…
Anti-Sharia Bill Dead, but Sentiment Alive
HB 562 unlikely to make it out of the House, but the Islamophobia behind it is here to stay
Tape Deck
The strangest tape in any collection, absurdist troupe Night Viking’s latest offers 42 jumbled tracks of warped sample collages, incoherent freak folk, and out-of-key jams on unpracticed instruments. Highlights from the Alabama side include shambolic fife-n-drum dirge “No Such Thing as Outer Space” and Zappa-gone-wrong clip “Celestial Flesh.” Burrito Arena’s epic mishmash of anti-songs is…
Speculation Surrounds the Cancellation of MACC Awards
Did choice of emcee lead to cancellation of annual Latino excellence awards?
H.R. Giger’s Sublime Nightmares
Doc profiles the late surrealist artist
The Ballad of Davy Jones
Hickoids guitarist keeps breathing
Is Something Rotten at Wheatsville Co-op?
Workers call for co-op to implement living wage standard
Help Desk
Is it possible to find friends on Tinder?
Council: Taxes Are Challenging
Council prepares to challenge TCAD
Written in the Stars
Inside Austin’s Yelp Elite
Bribery Bakery’s Sweet Talk
Jodi Elliott’s next chapter
Waco Motorcycle Shooting Fallout
Questions remain after Waco motorcycle gang shoot-out
Food-o-File
Another Austin growth spurt
Council Proposes ABA Coverage
Advocates persuade Council on autism treatment benefits
An HIV and Treatment Acronymicon
APAP: Austin PrEP Access Project AZT: Azidothymidine (or zidovudine), a medication used to delay or prevent development of AIDS in patients infected with HIV; used in antiretroviral therapy (ART) CDC: Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based in Atlanta FDA: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, issues approvals of human drug therapies HAART: Highly Active…
Joke ‘Stache
Danny Palumbo wins Funniest Person in Austin 2015, advances equal rights for facial hair
Suffer the Children
Anti-abortion Lege targets vulnerable minors in judicial bypass bill
Local HIV/AIDS Resources
AIDS SERVICES OF AUSTIN Testing, case management, dental services, Helping Hands Food Bank and Nutrition Services, judgment-free access to tools for safer sex and drug use, healthy relationships and daily skills counseling. 7215-A Cameron. 512/458-TEST (for testing); 512/458-AIDS (for service info). www.asaustin.org. AUSTIN DIAGNOSTICS CLINIC Nutritional counseling. 12221 MoPac Expressway N. 512/901-1111. www.adclinic.com. AUSTIN REGIONAL…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
During the Cenozoic Era, ground sloths, mammoths, and gomphotheres ate avocados whole, pits and all. There’s a good chance you’ve heard the song, “Gwine to Run All Night.” The song’s more popular name is “Camptown Races.” There is a life-sized bronze statue of actor Peter Falk as TV detective Columbo and his dog on Falk…
The Hightower Report: Obama’s Bizarre Sales Pitch for TPP
Obama’s trying to sell the TPP; Hightower’s not buying it
Texas Platters
Okra Candy arrives as Shinyribs’ third LP, but it’s the first since Austin root supergroup the Gourds went on hiatus in 2013. Their co-frontman Kevin Russell now focuses full time on Shinyribs, and that devotion here translates into energy, adventurousness. His madcap personality still brews potent lyrical wit driven by a lean Southern rollick. From…
Austin Chronicle Adult Spelling Bee
Shockingly, the possibility of rain once again threatened to derail the Austin Chronicle Adult Spelling Bee at Threadgill’s on Thursday, May 14, but the 13th annual event went on as planned. A few droplets appeared during setup, and the sound equipment was quickly covered with tarps, but the clouds were just teasin’. A lively crowd…
Civics 101
Thursday 5/21 #BlackWomenMatter An opportunity to stand with our sisters and confront attempts to erase the lived experience of black women. 7pm. Rosewood Park, 2300 Rosewood. www.fb.com/events/454189758078460. Friday 5/22 Child Passenger Safety Car Seat Check Have a certified child-passenger safety tech make sure your car seat is in working order. 9am. Gabriel Life Center, 1625…
Texas Platters
Stoner rock isn’t just a sludgy variation on heavy metal. House band at the Armadillo World Headquarters in the Seventies, Greezy Wheels thus crafts South Austin stoner rock. This Greezy edition continues to star originators Cleve and Sweet Mary Hattersley leading three members of the New Bohemians – bassist/saxophonist Brad Houser, drummer John Bush, and…
Soccer Watch
The Austin Aztex host Tulsa this Saturday, May 23, 8pm at House Park, 13th & Lamar, looking to rebound from a tough 3-2 loss last weekend at Arizona, in which they squandered a 2-0 lead in the first 15 minutes. With that, the Aztex’s home schedule in USL will be halfway done, though they’ve only…
Public Notice: Golf and Taxes at City Council
Proposals before Council suggest change is in the air
Playback: Austin’s Revamped Record Convention
The Austin Record Convention – the biggest in the country – returns Downtown
Texas Platters
This rustic excursion from ex-Orange Mothers plays like a deeper meditation on their former band’s oblique handling of universal subject matter. Largely recorded in a Vermont farmhouse, the duo’s 12-song debut unfolds slowly and deliberately, concentrating on the finer grains of both joy and sorrow at a pace foreign to city life. Sparse, acoustic guitar-driven…
Day Trips: Southfork Ranch, Dallas
Big hats and big hair are remembered fondly at the Ewings’ house
Point Austin: The Appraisal Scam
TCAD can’t accurately appraise commercial properties – and the Lege likes it that way
Gay Place
Roasting Ursula
Texas Platters
Boho beatnik Abram Shook warrants a closer look. For his sophomore LP, the native Californian unplugged from technology to take daily walks among the parks of South Austin, his pup companion for company. The eight-year local then channeled that naturalistic influence on Landscape Dream. Remote, celestial guitar commences opener “Never Die,” which blooms from dreamlike…
At the End of Lonely Street
Pairing of Krapp’s Last Tape and Hughie reveals haunted old men and masterful acting by Michael Stuart
Headlines
Stuffed agenda for City Council today (May 21) with the next step in challenging Travis County commercial property valuations, a proposal to raise the minimum wage for city workers, and the return of taxi franchises and Decker Lake golf. See “Council: Taxes Are Challenging.” Speaking of property taxes, the city released a consultant’s report this…
Mary’s Pop Shop
Neighborhood eatery is mostly solid
Texas Platters
Gifted a silver touch and legitimate swagger, the Happen-Ins build on their derivation of R&B-fueled rock & roll with Glamour Shots, the Austin quartet’s second long-player. “Same Mistakes” dusts off scarves and leather jeans in True Believers mode, all melodic riffs and glam energy, and “Gap” pumps up soulful balladry on a brash guitar attack.…
“Bobby Scheidemann: Together at Sunset”
Scheidemann’s rush-hour portraits of people in cars reveal the character of both individuals and highway
Quote of the Week
“Those of you graduating this afternoon with high honors, awards, and distinctions, I say, ‘Well done.’ And as I like to say to the C students, ‘You too can be president.'” – Former President George W. Bush, joking at the SMU commencement May 16
