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ACL Music Fest Friday Review

Bostich + Fussible Bulevar 2000 (Nacional) Norteño techno, as practiced by the four-headed Nortec Collective, put the neon in accordion. Bulevar 2000, second serving from Bostich (Ramón Amezcua) and Fussible (Pepe Mogt) following the duo’s debut Nortecan spin-off, 2008’s Tijuana Sound Machine, introduces trombone, trumpet, and tuba to the drum track. “Radio Borderland,” opening kaleidoscope…

by Raoul Hernandez

ACL Music Fest Sunday Review

Trombone Shorty Backatown (Verve Forecast) No New Orleans party album this. Housewarming, maybe – holiday, probably – but either way, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews, 24, on jazz giant Verve, throws down a serious career blueprint. Allen Toussaint (“On Your Way Down”), guest Lenny Kravitz (“Something Beautiful”), Prince (“One Night Only (the March)”), and Linkin Park…

by Raoul Hernandez

ACL Music Fest Friday Review

Robert Randolph & the Family Band We Walk This Road (Warner Bros.) Sacred steel spirit walker Robert Randolph had already fallen prey to the secular after two studio LPs for Warner Bros. – until We Walk This Road reversed course. One of studio Svengali T Bone Burnett’s more successful production jobs marries ancient blues and…

by Raoul Hernandez

ACL Music Fest Sunday Review

Richard Thompson Dream Attic (Shout! Factory) The twist to Dream Attic, Richard Thompson’s latest opus, is that it was recorded live in front of audiences during a West Coast swing earlier this year. As all new songs, one would never know it’s concert recordings except for the snippets of applause that follow each performance. Thompson’s…

by Jim Caligiuri

Vinyl Platters

One Against Many Take My Pound of Flesh and Sleep Well (Metastasis) This Austin hardcore quartet gets down to brass tacks with a six-song spike. Opener “Stabbed in the Back … Again” offers little hope that the RPMs will slow down, and by closer “Salvation or Damnation,” the blast beats have rattled eyeballs. In between,…

by Audra Schroeder

Case 39

Renée Zellweger stars as a social worker who protects a child whose family has created dark forces around her.

by Marc Savlov

ACL Music Fest Sunday Review

The Flaming Lips & Stardeath and White Dwarfs Dark Side of the Moon (Warner Bros.) The Flaming Lips’ 2009 triumph Embryonic will be remembered as the off-kilter Okies’ Dark Side of the Moon, a dark, dense, insanity plea at war with the machines and mystics. Recorded around the same time but released in physical format…

by Austin Powell

ACL Aftershows

Friday 8 Mayer Hawthorne & the County, Kings Go Forth, Antone’s Deadmau5, Calvin Harris, Austin Music Hall Black Lips, Those Darlins, the Ettes, Emo’s out; Givers, Cults, TV Torso, Emo’s in Robert Earl Keen, Lucero, Ruby Jane, La Zona Rosa Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses, Gary Clark Jr., Momo’s (sold out) Monsters of Folk,…

by Chronicle Staff

Barton Springs Pool Info

With summer on the run, it’s now time to repress the memory of four months in the near-triple digits. That can be a challenge in the blazing sun of Zilker Park, where it sometimes feels like no hat brim is quite wide enough to protect you. All of a sudden, the memories of sweating through…

by James Renovitch

Never Let Me Go

The children in this story are born into a system that values them for their disposable body parts, not their discrete personalities.

by Kimberley Jones

Restaurants Near Zilker

Estimated meal cost per person: $=<$10 $$=$10-25 $$$=$25-40 $$$$=$40+ 1) TEX-MEX: Chuy’s Barton Springs With hubcaps, colored lights, and a velvet Elvis, this is Austin-style Tex-Mex at its tacky, funky best. Almost always busy, but the creamy sauce and chips are worth the wait. 1728 Barton Springs Rd., 474-4452. www.chuys.com. $$ 2) TEX-MEX: Baby Acapulco…

by Chronicle Staff

Secretariat

Saddle up for some old-fashioned inspirational movie entertainment with Diane Lane in the lead as the owner of the famed Triple Crown winner.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

Khaleja

New Telegu movie is the story of a cabdriver who becomes involved in a complicated set of affairs despite his inclination to remain aloof.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

ACL Music Fest Saturday Review

Lissie Catching a Tiger (Fat Possum) The look Lissie Maurus gives from the cover of her full-length debut sums it up: She’s a blonde waterfall of come-hither Southern beauty that might be ready to sock you one. Following last year’s promising Why You Runnin’ EP, Catching a Tiger evokes Neko Case’s thousand-yard howl (“Bully”) and…

by Audra Schroeder

Essential LPs

Centro-matic Love You Just the Same (2003) A testament to the lasting endurance of Centro-matic, the then-Denton quartet’s seventh studio album triumphs through ragged determination. Co-producer Anders Parker of Varnaline helps harness some of the band’s most memorable work, including “Flashes and Cables,” “The Mighty Midshipman,” and “Breathe Deep Not Loud.” It’s a riot of…

by Chronicle Staff

ACL Music Fest Saturday Review

The Gaslight Anthem American Slang (Side One Dummy) One man’s sincerity is another man’s Springsteen. Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon’s guest grand slam on the Jersey godfather’s recent London Calling: Live in Hyde Park DVD for “No Surrender” bridged two generations of Garden State homeboys with their hearts on their Fenders. Like Green Day’s Billie…

by Raoul Hernandez

Field of Dreams

“Mandatory on the Attack,” Centro-matic, Redo the Stacks (1997) “The bastard child of Archers of Loaf and Bob Pollard, this one makes me want to hurl a full Lone Star can towards the stage in some shitty bar in Denton, with a P.A. that can’t hold them back.” – Phil Waldorf, former manager of Misra…

by Chronicle Staff

Buried

Buried takes place entirely inside a coffin where a man is buried alive.

by Marc Savlov

ACL Music Fest Saturday Review

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals (Hollywood) Rock hasn’t scared all the ladies away, and armed with a formidable voice, Grace Potter could share stages with blues-rock mama Susan Tedeschi. Potter and her Vermont-based band the Nocturnals plumb similar depths on their self-titled album, favoring big 1970s sounds (“Hot Summer Night,” “Medicine,” “Only Love”). There’s an…

by Margaret Moser

Vinyl Platters

Cargo Cult/Texas Biscuit Bombs (Modern City Records) Austin post-punk quartet Cargo Cult (1985-1987), starring former Big Boys mouthpiece Randy “Biscuit” Turner (1949-2005) and future Jesus Lizard guitar machinist Duane Denison, cut demos at Ben Blank Studios for what the band hoped would follow up its Touch and Go debut, Strange Men Bearing Gifts. Mixed off…

by Raoul Hernandez

Headlines

� It’s Austin City Limits Music Festival weekend, and a new economic impact study by Angelou Economics estimates the three-day event has dropped some $316 million into the local economy each year since 2006. � City Council is off this week, returning to the dais Oct. 14 to name its top choice among firms angling…

by Chronicle Staff

ACL Music Fest Friday Review

Chief Modern Rituals (Domino) Formed at NYU, Chief is yet another profiteer that headed west in the current gold rush of indie folk. The Santa Monica quartet has the right look and sound, with relaxed harmonies that suggest CSN&Y by way of Fleet Foxes, especially in sun-kissed opener “The Minute I Saw It.” The band’s…

by Austin Powell

ACL Music Fest Friday Review

Sarah Harmer Oh Little Fire (Zoë/Rounder) Sarah Harmer knows the benefit of a bubbling-under profile, having been one of Canada’s pet singer-songwriters since her days with college radio faves Weeping Tile. Her fourth album, Oh Little Fire, warms with a radio-polished gloss that doesn’t play quite as close to Harmer’s musical heart as 2006’s I’m…

by Margaret Moser

ACL Music Fest Friday Review

JJ Grey & Mofro Georgia Warhorse (Alligator) While generally lumped in with the unsinkable jam band scene, JJ Grey & Mofro are another creature entirely. Their fifth disc, Georgia Warhorse, is named after a particularly resilient type of Southern grasshopper, surely a simile for the Florida-based Grey’s career. While there are nods to the Allman…

by Jim Caligiuri

Behind the Scenes at ACL’s Austin Eats

People who attend the Austin City Limits Music Festival are usually too busy walking from stage to stage to pay close attention to the food court. When it’s time to eat, they stand in line, wait their turn, get some grub, and go on their way without giving much of a thought to what it…

by Claudia Alarcón

ACL Music Fest Sunday Review

The Constellations Southern Gothic (Virgin) What’s in a title? When breezy, droning opener “Setback” chops up Beck-tacular rhymes over “Tomorrow Never Knows” psychedelic Beatles beats, it may leave you wondering where the Southern Gothic is. It’s been saved up for “Perfect Day,” a greasy piece of backroom noir that sets up the Atlanta ensemble’s sleazy…

by Richard Whittaker

ACL Music Fest Sunday Review

Foals Total Life Forever (Sub Pop/Warner Bros./Transgressive) Even before hyperbolic 2008 debut Antidotes, Foals, on breakaway singles “Hummer” and “Mathletics,” had already mapped out its signature sound: clipped, skittering guitar lines, throttling post-punk bass, and brash bursts of percussion synched with Yannis Philippakis’ blunt, repetitive vocals. The Oxford, England, quintet’s dedication to its glossy, 21st…

by Austin Powell

Luv Doc Recommends: Texas Freedom Network’s 15th Anniversary Celebration

In the world of politics, activism beats apathy every time. A small, well-organized group of complete nut jobs has a much better chance of forwarding its insane agenda than an unorganized multitude of like-minded, reasonable, uninvolved intellectuals. Don’t believe it? Consider Hitler. People are every bit as likely to vote with their guts as they…

by The Luv Doc

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