Cover Story
Clear-Cutting Austin
Rapid growth laying waste to city’s urban forest
Hope, Going Solo
U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo, on coach Greg Ryan’s decision to bench her in favor of Brianna Scurry for what turned out to be a disastrous game against Brazil: “It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that. There’s no doubt in my mind I would have made…
Top 20 Panhandling Hotspots
Top 20 spots to spare some change – or not.
Hurry Up and Wait (Updated)
Stop-start action at City Hall today.
Green Events: Sept. 28-Oct. 3
If you can’t make it out to Fredericksburg this weekend for the Renewable Energy Roundup, be sure to catch one of the keynote speakers, Greg Pahl, in town Saturday talking about his newest book, The Citizen-Powered Energy Handbook. Also, don’t forget to break out your weird for Friday’s Weirdest Commute Contest, and do check out…
Crestview Residents can Stay Home
Item postponed.
Cornyn Takes Wimpy Stance on Border
Senator addresses Border Trade Alliance via video at annual International Conference
Is The Interim Over Already?
Speaker Craddick hands out the interim committee appointments.
Samba Time
Brazil 4, U.S. 0 And it was just about that one-sided. The U.S. was two goals down within 27 minutes, the first one a demoralizing own-goal by midfielder Leslie Osborne. Then they went a player down just before halftime, when Shannon Boxx was sent off for a questionable second yellow card. And the entire second…
Road Dog
The Places and Ralph White host a benefit.
Why Rick Went to Israel
Texas and Israel talk launch new trade talking shop, but Gov. Perry really wants to talk about Iran.
Opposition to Immigrant Detention Centers Mounting
Approximately 100 people convened at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., on Sept. 15, after a weeklong 105-mile march to protest treatment of detainees at the private, for-profit facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America, under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The rally was organized by the Prison and Jail Project based…
Spector’s Well-Hung Jury
Phil Spector’s murder trial gets hung.
Homeless Advocates Oppose Panhandling Ban
Organized opposition to new panhandling laws emerges.
How Green was My Legislator?
State reps and senators judged on their voting record by Texas eco-group.
WWC: And Then There Were Three …
Defending champ Germany outclassed Norway, 3-0, to win the first Women’s World Cup semifinal Wednesday, but all of the talk around Hangzhou was about the Thursday semifinal, the much anticipated USA-Brazil game (tomorrow morning, 7am Central). And in particular, about U.S. coach Greg Ryan’s late decision to bench goalie Hope Solo in favor of veteran…
Horns: Watch Me Crank Dat Robocob!
When I do dat Soulja Boy, I lean to the left and crank dat thang.
Austin Past and Present Blows Your Mind
“City to unveil, launch electronic historical kiosk project linking Austin’s past, present and future” – whoa!
Die With Your Boots On
The clean-cut young twentysomething stood over a garbage can near La Zona Rosa’s front entrance and heaved pulpy orange liquid in spasmodic waves. No one paid him any heed. When he was finished, he straightened, wiped his mouth on his tee sleeve, and exhaled as if to say, “There, that’s done.” His eyes were clear,…
Immigration in Illinois
Another law challenges the exclusive federal right to create immigration legislation.
Austin City Limits: TV on the TV
The Austin City Limits schedule is up.
Newt Online
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is taking his conservative revolution to the web.
Parks Under Pressure
Will a recent presidential executive order mean more hunting on federal land?
City Council Notebook
A rundown of what’s happening at City Hall this week.
Enola ‘Gay’, as in ‘Homosexual’
The outrage over Ken Burns’ The War has not yet hit the queer community. Why?
Why Fred Went
Rep. Hill explains why he’s not running for the lege again.
Austin Outer Limits
Looking into the Wyndham Garden Hotel’s Austin Music Project.
Fearsome Freshmen Phenom Fantasies
In the old days before scholarship limits, the University of Texas fielded a separate freshman team that played its own schedule, kind of like a junior varsity high school team, to smaller but no-less-boisterous crowds. That crazy nostalgic Mack Brown brought that old tradition back Saturday as the UT freshman team wiped the field with…
DREAM a Little Dream
U.S. Senate may debate DREAM act this week.
Texans vs. Colts: the Game Plan
The game plan for the Houston Texans is relatively straightforward: emulate division rival Indianapolis. The Colts like to keep games close for the first two quarters, make adjustments at halftime, blow the holy hell out of the challenger in the third quarter, and chew the clock within the fourth. This strategy has been effective for…
Suffocation Hazard: Do Not Leave Children Unattended With This Press Conference
The movement to ban plastic bags in Austin continues.
Weaving Worlds
Weaving Worlds 2007, NR, 57 min. Directed by Bennie Klain. Local filmmaker Klain’s documentary, with lovely camerawork by UT professor Nancy Schiesari, will be shown as part of the museum’s Navajo rugs exhibit, which is on display through Sept. 29.
Coyote Funeral
Coyote Funeral 2006, NR, 87 min. Directed by Phelps Harmon, Jason May, Starring Jono Young, Zach Freeman, Nikole Salas, Elizabeth Wilson, Lonnie Shelton. With sequences filmed along the way from Vidor to El Paso, this Texas-made film oozes Lone Star State atmosphere. Stops at Greune Hall and other regional spots add to the flavor of…
Lucky Lisa
Republican mayor of San Diego personalizes the gay marriage debate.
Westward Ho’s
That kind of Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.
Diary of the Undead
Hopping from one film festival to another is certainly the way to live – but it does cause one to adopt a certain diary-of-the-undead feeling. Which is perfect for my return to Austin from Toronto (and anyone wondering about that sticky passport situation I had … let’s just say that it proved disturbingly easy to…
WIN!!!!! Two VIP Passes to CapCity Rodeo RIGHT NOW!
WIN! 2 VIP passes to this weekend’s Capitol City Rodeo! Part of the TGRA: Texas Gay Rodeo Association.
Sha-booyah ROLL CALL!
Meet our new blogger, Andy Campy!
WWC Quarterfinal Preview: Sat-Sun, 4 & 7am
Especially good 7am games each day: Saturday because it’s USA-England – Revolutionary War II and all that … Sunday because it’s Brazil, which has started to really play like Brazil. Saturday, 4am: Germany-North Korea On paper, the best game of the round: No. 2 vs. No. 5. Germany’s 11-0 opening win awed everyone, but they’ve…
The Motel Life
Richmond Fontaine’s Willy Vlautin comes to BookPeople.
Austin and LCRA: Was it Good for You?
What’s up with the Lower Colorado River Authority?
Bye-Bye, Fred
Another confirmed exit from the State Lege: Rep. Fred Hill to stand down.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
The Legendary Soul Stirrers Not just any group can put the word “legendary” in its name and mean it. Formed in Trinity, Texas, 1926, the Soul Stirrers have, over time, featured both Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls. Now lead by vocalist Willie Rogers, the Chicago-based quintet had no trouble persuading the assembled to jump for…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Bob Dylan & His Band Stubb’s, Sept. 15 Bob Dylan & His Band Zilker Park, Sept. 16 As Bob Dylan & His Band indulged in the clatter and claptrap of Modern Times’ “Thunder on the Mountain,” their first encore during Sunday night’s closing set of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, a roadie shuffled up…
New & Noteworthy
VegAustin.com
Beside the Point
Something’s gotta give with city’s at-large voting system
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
M.I.A. In the end, M.I.A. really did pull up the people. At her urging, half the crowd climbed onstage during “Birdflu,” from her latest tribal scream Kala then, as a cosmic testament to her lyrics, was promptly told to get down by security. The Sri Lankan-born, South London-raised Maya Arulpragasam sounded disappointed, and the energy…
Eastern Promises
In Cronenberg’s film about the Russian mob in London, the director and star Viggo Mortensen relates a corker of a story.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
St. Vincent With nothing but a guitar, sampler, and two mics, Dallas’ Annie Clark stood onstage just as cute as a button, a brave and ballsy one-woman band. Although not nearly as impressive as her debut, Marry Me, St. Vincent’s set straddled blues, jazz, and indie rock, but none was enough to captivate the curious…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Best ACL set Shawn Badgley: Cary Ann Hearst & the Gun Street Girls Greg Beets: LCD Soundsystem Jim Caligiuri: Ocote Soul Sounds Thomas Fawcett: Björk Doug Freeman: Björk Melanie Haupt: Devotchka Raoul Hernandez: Andrew Bird David Lynch: Arcade Fire Austin Powell: Björk Audra Schroeder: Björk Darcie Stevens: Arcade Fire Jay Trachtenberg: Gotan Project Best cover…
Point Austin: Double or Nothing
Cap Metro fumbles the ball … again
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Joss Stone What do we do with the conundrum that is Joss Stone? On the one hand, she’s got a powerful, whiskey-deep voice that’s far womanlier than one might expect. On the other hand, she’s a very young, white Briton who hardly has the life experience to validate her soulful ethos. Her Friday afternoon set…
Milarepa: Magician, Murderer, Saint
This is an old-school heroic drama from Bhutan about an 11th century Tibetan saint whose tale begins with greed and vengeance.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Andrew Bird Andrew Bird must have freaked his shit: Three years ago he was solo at Hole in the Wall during South by Southwest, and here he led fellow multi-instrumentalists Martin Dosh and Jeremy Ylvisaker through a rapturous ACL set. Like fellow Midwesterner Joseph Arthur, Chicago’s Bird got noticed as an emotive singer-songwriter who paints…
Readings
Mordecai Richler once remarked that ‘the novelist’s primary moral responsibility is to be the loser’s advocate.’ It’s difficult to imagine how anyone who takes that dictum to heart could outdo Junot Díaz here.
Tweaking the Tree Ordinance
Major provisions of Austin’s Tree and Natural Preservation Ordinance include: • A “protected tree” is defined as one having a circumference of at least 60 inches (a diameter of 19 inches), measured 4½ feet above natural grade. • “Removal” comprises actions including uprooting, severing the main trunk, damaging the root system, and/or excessive pruning. •…
Seven Days in Heaven and Hell
Getting a white-knuckled grip on the third annual Fantastic Fest
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
The Dynamites Nearby smoldering trailers and melted Porta Potties had the WaMu tent smelling like smoke before the Dynamites ever stepped on it. Then they set that shit on fire. The Nashville-based Dynamites delivered a burning old-school soul revue with dynamic frontman Charles Walker leading the ninepiece like a choir conductor. Dressed in his Sunday…
Sydney White
Teen popularity traumas are translated here into a loosely updated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Steve Earle Though his friendship with Townes Van Zandt was notoriously contentious, Steve Earle still proudly invokes the songwriter’s legacy, beginning his afternoon set with a rambling reminiscence before launching into “Rex’s Blues” and his own TVZ tribute, “Fort Worth Blues.” The superb acoustic half of the show established an intimacy even among the thousands…
After a Fashion
Does Stephen feel like a jackass for wearing mules to ACL?
Trees Protecting the Neighbors?
We’ve heard stories of protesters lying in front of bulldozers to save trees; if Responsible Growth for Northcross is correct, it could be the trees themselves that stop the bulldozers. The city’s Tree Preservation Ordinance is one of four key pillars in the lawsuit RG4N has filed to kill Lincoln Property’s plan to build a…
Death Note
From page to screen
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Peter Bjorn & John If Peter Bjorn & John were the first act you saw Friday afternoon, your ACL 2007 experience got off on the good foot. The lovable Swedish threesome bounded onstage and kicked off an infectious, exuberant set largely comprising tunes from their Writer’s Block with “Let’s Call It Off” before apologizing for…
In the Shadow of the Moon
This documentary is a cheery restorative that recalls hazy memories of America’s finest, boldest hour, when we went to the moon, again and again.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Sound Team What a show to go out on. After six years, a major label rise and quick fall, and a mountain of pain, Austin now-fivepiece Sound Team opened its last show with the anthemic “Handful of Billions” and its refrain, “One more time before this is over!” It was some of the best sound…
The Common Law
Austin Dispute Resolution Center
Developing Stories: The Mistake on the Lake
The ‘Save Town Lake’ lawsuit turns up a legal mystery at City Hall
Reefer Madness
Good news! Marijuana use remains steady.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Gotan Project Gotan Project doesn’t visit North America often, but they kicked ass in Austin, squeezing in a pre-ACL Stubb’s show the night before. If anything, this burgeoned the festival faithful from crowded to packed. As the golden hour began, the big band – lady vox, string quartet, bandoneón (tango accordion), grand piano, two DJs,…
In the Valley of Elah
Paul Haggis and Tommy Lee Jones deliver a scorching film that’s part police procedural, part family melodrama, and all about our national failures in Iraq.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Stephen Marley/Ziggy Marley Let’s face it: Most people see Bob Marley’s sons perform because it’s the closest thing to seeing the late reggae prophet himself. Neither Stephen nor Ziggy run from their father’s enormous shadow, but they’re both unique talents in their own right. Younger brother Stephen played the AT&T stage in the scorching Saturday…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Urine + wheat = girl, and more
Life Story
Ethan Hawke on The Hottest State
Blind Justice
UT law clinic provides due process for Guantánamo detainees
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
The Del McCoury Band “Here’s one by a bluegrass songwriter named Bob Dylan,” Ronnie McCoury announced with a laugh before launching into a mandolin and high-lonesome harmony version of the festival headliner’s “Walk Out in the Rain.” The Del McCoury Band was all bluegrass class, the suited, all-acoustic fivepiece comfortably jovial despite the heat and…
Lady Chatterley
This new French version of the D.H. Lawrence story is tastefully presented but not nearly as scandalous and coarse as the published novel.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Charlie Musselwhite All evidence to the contrary, the blues are alive and well in Austin. At least where harp-blower supreme Charlie Musselwhite is concerned. The Mississippi native and his electric trio blew the roof off the WaMu tent, almost making up for the dearth of other bluesmen this weekend. Concentrating on his latest disc, Delta…
Taking the World Stage
How more theatre made Here is getting Out There and what that means
Film News
Beth Sepko brings home an Emmy, plus things are about to get horrific here
Media Watch: The Improbable Rise of Dana Perino
Dana Perino took a circuitous path to job of Bush spokeswoman
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Homer Hiccolm & the Rocketboys Homer Hiccolm & the Rocketboys take their name from the unlikely success story of the West Virginia coal miner’s son turned NASA engineer popularized by the film October Sky. That’s fitting given the Abilene sextet found their way to ACL as winners of the inaugural Sound and the Jury competition.…
Sea of Dreams
She’s married to the sea, and he belongs to the earth: This Mexican film relies on prehistoric folk myths and a delightful color palette for its impact.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
DeVotchKa Denver might seem like an unlikely locale for a renaissance of Eastern European folk idioms, but Devotchka’s festival circuit ascendancy is sure to change that. Initially formed as a backing band for burlesque dancers, the multi-instrumentalist quartet’s unique currency crosses the Old World with the Wild West and a vast sense of romantic longing.…
Road Worriers
So what’s it like for the Austin groups who are doing the actual touring? “Insanely fun” (Rude Mech Lana Lesley) or “You find out what you are made of out there, that is for sure” (also Lesley). Apparently a little of both. (“I think we are made of rubber bands: a lot of stretching and…
DVD Watch
Production began in 1974, but due to financial constraints, it wasn’t finished until 1987. What exactly the money was spent on is unclear.
Naked City
Quote of the Week “Just put some bleachers out in the sun, and have it on Highway 61!” – Bob Dylan has come, sung, and gone, along with 130 or so other bands and 65,000 (times three) Austin City Limits Festival fans, leaving ecstasy, exhaustion, sunburn, and mountains of trash in their wake. Headlines •…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
The Paul Green School of Rock Music Although they followed Big Sam’s Funky Nation conducting a spirited version of the “Hokey Pokey,” there was nothing cute about the Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars. The local teenagers’ unadulterated barrage of sex, drugs, and classic rock & roll may have been somewhat unsettling, but it was…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Common A massive crowd didn’t seem to mind that Rodrigo y Gabriela canceled their Sunday ACL appearance. While that duo cited exhaustion, their replacement, Common, was full of energy. From the moment the Chicago MC strutted onstage – fist raised high – he bounced around in a powder-blue button-down looking thrilled with the chance to…
Shirley Jones: Keeping up with the Jones
There’s so much more to the stage and screen star than Mama Partridge
Off the Record
Fanning the flames of the ACL Music Festival 2007
Austin’s Corn-Powered Cop-Car Conundrum
Did climate-change concerns trump common sense when the city decided to rush a nearly $3 million order for new cop cars?
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Crowded House Detractors claim that Crowded House’s latest LP, Time on Earth, the Aussie quartet’s first in 13 years, suffers a lack of pop punch, possessing a stifling, melodramatic ambience. From the first notes of this performance, it appeared as though Neil Finn and company were bent on eradicating that complaint with the brisk “Mean…
‘The Taking of Red Oak’
Excerpts from Tom Penn�s video
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Ryan Shaw Ryan Shaw burst onstage with no introduction and launched into a soaring a cappella rendition of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” The folks who had hunkered down in front of the AT&T stage eight hours early waiting for Bob Dylan were on notice – a revival was about to go down.…
Dolly Would: Here you come again
An encore run for Getalong Gang’s dance salute to Tennessee country queen Dolly Parton
Arts Review
Staging of Fo’s farce never quite musters the urgent lunacy of its Looney Tunes inspiration
@Chronic
MC Cracken’s favorite ACL pick
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Spoon Britt Daniel chose the wrong day to wear a long-sleeved, black button-up. With the sun blazing down on the Austin band, Spoon took to the AT&T stage with one of their best-sounding sets short of Thursday night’s La Zona Rosa preshow. Whipping through songs from sixth LP Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga – opener…
The Hightower Report
Hey, Clinton: Be a Democrat; and Labor Law Lawbreaker
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Fionn Regan Of all the stages at the festival, the Austin Ventures stage suffered the most from sound bleed. This didn’t bode well for Ireland’s Fionn Regan, a sweet and melancholy folk singer with a delicate touch. Nevertheless, with Yo La Tengo squalling in the background, the young singer-songwriter took to enrapturing the gathered, a…
Black Arts Movement: BAM! The sound of creativity
Who’s bringing the dance, theatre, spoken word, and jazz to ProArts’ second BAM! performing-arts festival
Arts Review
Twenty-first century tech doesn’t serve Mozart’s 18th century opera, but the human artists make magic
ARA Gets a Dressing-Down
Private developer under consideration for completing redevelopment of East Austin’s 11th and 12th street corridors
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Arcade Fire Montreal’s pop orchestra appeared at their sophomore Austin City Limits Music Festival riding high. The Merge recording artists are David Bowie and U2 faves, and the te-piece ensemble taped an ACL TV segment the day before their stage-closing festival set. Like Pavlov’s dogs, fans slobbered. And not because founding members Win and William…
TV Eye
Race, Class, and War
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Amy Cook What better way to start the last day of ACL 2007 than with a watermelon shaved ice, a cool bottle of water, and the Emersonian stylings of Austin (via Marfa via Los Angeles) singer-songwriter Amy Cook? Dressed in a white tee with matching jeans and butch aviator glasses, Cook swung into action with…
Culture Flash!
Austin Museum Day turns 10, and TCA names a new director
Arts Review
Art teachers can do more than teach, as two companion exhibitions on the UT campus show
Opposition to Social Security ‘No Match’ Letters Mounting
Activists take action against Department of Homeland Security plans to turn Social Security ‘no match’ letters into a vehicle for immigration enforcement
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Arctic Monkeys Given that their 2007 sophomore effort, Favourite Worst Nightmare, improves on last year’s celebrated debut, it’s no longer feasible to dismiss the Arctic Monkeys as a flash in the power-pop pan. The Sheffield-bred quartet’s main-stage ACL set drove home that notion with slippery, dynamic aplomb. Aside from being nut-tight musically, the Monkeys are…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Regina Spektor Regina Spektor is cute and funny, quirky and talented, but she’s nearly a carbon copy of Nineties queen Tori Amos without all the controversy. Just another chick at a piano, right? The difference between Spektor and her contemporaries is pure sincerity. The Russian-born New Yorker seemed overwhelmed as she looked out over a…
The Real Road to Wellville?
Two strange and inspiring stories of the healing power of food – and how terribly it can hurt us
Page Two: Personalizing the Mythic
How a former president’s understated decency and the hectic birth of rock & roll electrified Toronto screens
Happenings
September 20-26
The Hottest State
Ethan Hawke writes and directs this story based on his own novel about a lovesick narcissist in New York City.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Aterciopelados It’s difficult to convey the appeal of Aterciopelados. One of Bogotá, Colombia’s best-known rock acts, the duo of guitarist/vocalist Andrea Echeverri and bassist Hector Buitrago cuts a wide swath of Latin sounds, though it’s often lumped into the hackneyed rock en Español category. The trajectory from the duo’s earliest punk sounds into electronic, funk,…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
The National The National’s 2005 breakout, Alligator, was a predatory beast, slowly gaining momentum into a critical force and culminating with this year’s exceptional Boxer. The Brooklyn group’s songs build along a similar trajectory, gradually swelling into an epic ferociousness. Though their tortured, conflicted anthems demand dark drunken halls, the surging crescendos of violin, guitar,…
Event Menu
Sept. 21-27
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Our latest batch
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Björk Touring with a tenpiece, all-female, Icelandic brass section, outfitted in DayGlo dresses and Blade Runner-esque face paint, plus beat yielder Damian Taylor, keyman Jonas Sen, and drummer Chris Corsano as her sort of Parliament Funkadelic, Björk skipped onstage wearing matching war paint, a ruffled, gold bag-dress, and matching gold leggings. The electro-grunts of opener…
Dragon Wars: D-War
Based on a Korean legend, Dragon Wars is the fantasy story of a reporter who unearths the truth about catastrophic L.A. earthquakes and sets off to save the city.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Back Door Slam “We’re gonna play some blues kinda stuff for you,” said teenage guitarist Davy Knowles as Back Door Slam kicked off a scorching Saturday afternoon set at ACL. Hailing from the Isle of Man, Knowles, bassist Adam Jones, and drummer Ross Doyle conjured up the blues-forged power trios of the classic rock era.…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Wilco Midway through Wilco’s twilight set, Jeff Tweedy quietly began an acoustic “Via Chicago,” his voice barely carrying across the packed field. Suddenly, an eruption of drums and guitar crashed behind him as Glenn Kotche and Nels Cline attacked the song in a discordant, hit-and-run burst, Tweedy continuing unperturbed. It was an appropriately unsettling reminder…
Food-o-File
Barbecue, competitive kolache eating, and more new babies
Day Trips
Monahans Sandhills State Park is a treasure among public properties in Texas
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective For Andy Palacio and band, Austin City Limits was uphill: mic-ing the tree-trunk-sized lanigi garawon (heart) drum sprouted problems, their seventysomething patriarch Paul Nabor couldn’t make it, and during the opener, the bass amp went belly-up. All in a day’s work for these global touring veterans. And heat? No…
Good Luck Chuck
Pitched somewhere between Farrelly brothers-lite and some oddball National Lampoon outing, this comedy is as familiar as it is charming, which isn’t to say it’s a good film.
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Beausoleil After this breathtaking performance, it’s no wonder Lafayette, La’s BeauSoleil is considered the pre-eminent Cajun band of our day. Their extraordinary musicianship combined with an ability to spice their traditional sound with other forms of music make for an innovative and rare combination. The fact that they accomplish it with propulsive energy that forces…
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
Midlake Denton fivepiece Midlake was born for festivals like this. Tim Smith’s calming voice coaxed the clouds out from behind The Trials of Van Occupanther’s Seventies-tinged title track, echoing the harmonies and keys of Fleetwood Mac. “Bandits” ran with it, hypnotizing and soothing the burnt. Sticking primarily to the aforementioned guitar-driven third LP, Midlake hit…
DaVine Foods
Leigh Recchia and partner Michael Shattah have put together an impressive menu of vegetarian, vegan, and living foods, with those suffering from food sensitivities in mind
Soccer Watch
Typhoon Wipha interferes with the Women’s World Cup, and much more
ACL Music Fest Live Shots
The Mighty Clouds of Joy As the sun set behind the WaMu tent Friday evening, it was easy to recall Mavis Staples’ transcendent performance there on the first night of ACL 2003. Despite nearly identical climatic conditions, the Mighty Clouds of Joy couldn’t quite conjure the collective rush of skin-tingling exhilaration that characterizes a standout…
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Assassination of Jesse James may be the world’s first epic of misguided hero worship.
Luv Doc Recommends: Ink Fest Tattoo & Piercing Convention
After three full days of slogging through the dirt, sweat, noise, and smell of Austin City Limits, you’re probably experiencing a touch of “acute anxiety” just like Meg White. You might feel extremely anxious about going outside again. In fact, you might just want to stay in the shower all day scrubbing yourself vigorously with…
