Cover Story
Party Out of Bounds
Talking reunions with members of Fatbuckle, Squirrel Buddies, and the Amazon and the Milksop
Open House at the Austin Book Arts Center
The city’s epicenter of old-school book tech invites you to visit!
Lala’s Lives!
Funky, festive neighborhood bar to reopen
Two Candidates for AISD Empty Seat
Sump, Wagner in contention after third candidate withdraws
Upgrade Coming for the Contemporary Austin
$3 million renovation coming for the museum’s downtown home
Food-o-File: Early Edition
Planting seeds
DVDanger: The Story of Cinema, Part Two
The Editor and Reality, movies about movies
WobeonFest Slinger: Vieux Farka Toure
Malian guitarist: “We are young, so [we] have to create new styles”
Fantastic Fest Unleashes Final Wave
New films from Charlie Kaufman and Owen Egerton join fest
First Trailer Released for Our Brand Is Crisis
Sandra Bullock and David Gordon Green head to Bolivia
Mulberry Closes, Lenoir Expands
Daily Austin food news
SXSW Interactive Names 10 Featured Speakers
Casey Gerald, Anthony Bourdain added to lineup
Utopia Fest Ignites
Musical campout burns bright
News Roundup: Congress, Council, & Concealed Weapons
Guns in; refugees out
The Color Purple
The Color Purple 1985, PG-13, 154 min. Directed by Steven Spielberg, Starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery. Adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel explores 40 years in the life of Celie (Goldberg) in the rural South beginning in the 1900s.
Food-o-File: Weekend Lagniappe
A little extra Austin food news
Wes Craven, Philosopher of Terror
Remembering the horror innovator
Bess Bistro to Close: Updated
New concept will replace long-running restaurant
Texas Book Festival 2015: The Mighty 300
Authors for Fest 20 include Lethem, Lemony, Pitts, Diggs, Hart
Yard Dog Turns 20
Dream Syndicate and Mekons frontmen art – rock
How Accurate Is Your Water Bill?
Residents complain they’re being overcharged; city disagrees
Fran Kranz vs. the Bloodsucking Bastards
The Cabin in the Woods star returns to horror-comedy
What’s Next?
City Council getting down to the budget nut-cutting
One in a Crowd: Slash
Local filmmaker seeks finishing funds
The Enigma Wants YOU
To be all you can be
No Smoking, Austin: 10 Years Later
Chronicle revisits smoking ban at bars, music venues
Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos
First animated Mexican movie to receive wide release in the States
A Walk in the Woods
Robert Redford and Nick Nolte walk the Appalachian Trail in Bill Bryson’s memoir
Heroes of Dirt
A BMX dirt rider also mentors a troubled teen
Meru
Doc recounts efforts of American mountain climbers to ascend Meru Peak
Learning to Drive
Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley drive a tale of unlikely friendship
Bloodsucking Bastards
Cubicle horrors: Vampires bloody the workplace
Phoenix
In postwar Germany, a woman with a reconfigured face reclaims her identity
Bhale Bhale Magadivoi
Telugu film
Dynamite
Telugu remake of Arima Nambi
Paayum Puli
Tamil action film
Thani Oruvan
Tamil action thriller.
Welcome Back
Bollywood comedy is a sequel to Welcome
7 Chinese Brothers
Jason Schwartzman stars in this comedy from droll Austin auteur Bob Byington
Lights, Camera, aGLIFF!
The New Girlfriend Saturday, Sept. 12, 7:20pm It’s hard to know what aGLIFF audiences will make of The New Girlfriend, the new film from prolific French filmmaker François Ozon, and the fest’s Centerpiece film. As it begins, Claire is mourning the death of her extremely beloved best friend, Laura, whose ghost is as much of…
Gay Place: Last Gasp
The annual Splash Days ritual is back
Perfecting Utopia
Tune-Yards Sunday, 10:30pm, Cypress stage “The world of Tune-Yards was created with intention,” says bandleader Merrill Garbus. “There’s a methodology behind our music, down to every last piece of equipment we use.” The New England native debuted DIY in 2009, releasing her dictation machine-recorded solo LP via recycled cassette tapes. The Oakland migrant’s m.o. has…
Page Two: Picking Up the Conversation
The Chronicle at 34
The Good Word
This Knish combines literature and pastries
Texas Platters
Six years since his last batch of original songs in What I’m For, Pat Green returns, having ditched the major label and lure of the mainstream star track. “I was blind to the game, I sang the wrong songs and disappeared for way too long, but I finally found my way home,” admits the Austinite…
“Alice Leora Briggs: The Room”
The printmaker disregards clean narrative in her masterly woodcuts based on poetry by Mark Strand
Civics 101
Thursday 9/03 Building and Standards Commission Special-Called Meeting A presentation and discussion related to the City Repeat Offender Program for commercial rental properties. Austin Code Dept. Director Carl Smart and UT Law professor Heather Way will speak. 6pm. Rutherford Lane Campus, 1520 Rutherford. www.austintexas.gov/bsc. South Central Waterfront: Design Workshop Help inform designers planning for great…
Beyond Bollywood
Indie Meme’s new film series highlights family ties
Texas Platters
Originally from Virginia, Cooley returned to his home state to hook up with Bob Rupe of Sparklehorse and Cracker fame. Together, they buoy Kings Highway, a production that borders on Ryan Adams Americana (“Leave This Place”), yet features flashes of Sufjan Stevens-like guitar pop (“The Shangri-La”). The 28-year-old local’s seventh album proves he’s a substantial…
Perfecting Utopia
Charles Bradley Sunday, 11:30pm, Arrowhead stage Utopia Fest 2012’s first night ended up a washout. Rains transfixed upon the Hill Country hamlet meant those in attendance trudged through knee-deep mud. Charles Bradley, then an under-appreciated NYC singer whose debut album, 2011’s No Time for Dreaming, sweats soul from Stax’s Seventies, took the stage shortly after…
Point Austin: The Death Cult of the Gun
Slate study shows an estimated 90 U.S. deaths per day result from gun violence
Meet the New Boss
Austin Film Society rolls out their public access plan
Texas Platters
The title of Northern Quarters’ debut describes the band’s fortunes bouncing between Tennessee, Minnesota, and Georgia before settling in Austin. A core trio of Thomas Avery, Bryan Blaylock, and Pierce Saxon handles most of the songwriting/performing duties, which results in a loose, enticing set of Americana that alternates between a gentle country amble (“Lonely Ghost”)…
Day Trips: Concordia Cemetery, El Paso
Old El Paso was dying to get into historic cemetery
Public Notice: Words to the Wise
You have to know the rules …
The Luv Doc: Forest Fires!
Blue hair is flammable. Don’t let any geezer tell you different.
Texas Platters
Lots of promise on Mike Manco’s debut. The youthful songwriter gets ample help from local veterans Ron Flynt, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, and John Chipman in a mix that cycles between grit and radiance. Dark introspection drives the songs. Not quite folk, not really roots, Manco brings fey vocals and smart melodies to a sound that’s…
Playback: Festicular Fortitude
Ten music festivals in 10 weeks? Bring it on.
Headlines
No regular meeting today (Sept. 3) for City Council, after a major budget work session Tuesday and continuing deliberations over a myriad potential budget amendments. Council anticipates actual budget adoption votes Sept. 8, 9, and 10, as necessary, and (if time allows) a regular (mostly zoning) meeting on the 10th. City staff reacted to the…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
In 2014, 45 of the 50 highest-viewed TV broadcasts in the U.S. were football games. The NFL earns well over $9 billion per year, and more Americans follow football than follow MLB, NBA, and NASCAR combined. After the 1066 Battle of Hastings, King Harold II was able to be identified by his tattoos. There are…
Texas Platters
Austin native Marcus Brown graduated from Anderson High. His debut’s decidedly pop vision has its passionate moments, yet rises to full-on rock with the jangling “Set Me Off” and near-punk of “Don’t Let Her Get Away.” The misty title track closes wearing its Coldplay influence a bit too openly.
Soccer Watch
The Austin Aztex play their final home game of the season this Saturday, Sept. 5 – their first game ever against Seattle Sounders 2. And they’re pulling out a variety of stops for the season finale. It’s Youth Sports Appreciation Night, with free admission for all youth sport participants 18 and under wearing their jersey.…
Texas Early Music Project’s Convivencia Re-Envisioned
Spanish Christian music, Sephardic Jewish song, and al-Andalus melodies meld in this special concert
Texas Platters
This five-song EP was recorded on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder. Any lo-fi edge is confined to Offidani’s stark arrangements, usually just guitar strum and barely-there vocals. His songs dig deep into a psyche revealing a warm heart. The ruminations reach their peak with the Gotye-esque “Next Time,” but overall fall short of grasping Offidani’s…
Shortchanged
A lot of belt tightening and creative thinking make getting by with low dollars possible for AISD
Craft Beer, Creekside
Waller Creek Pub House helps revitalize Downtown stretch
Unanswered Questions in Jailhouse Suicide
Since 2012, 100 have suffered self-inflicted deaths in Texas jails
Food-o-File
Town and country
School Finance Before the Texas Supreme Court
The State Supreme Court is expected to make a ruling before the end of the year
APD Tracks Social Media
Local social media monitoring software company met with shady digital spying group
Juliet Ristorante
Does Austin need another Italian restaurant?
The Hightower Report: Preaching to the Choir
You, too, can be part of Scott Walker’s inner circle
Capital T Theatre’s Year of the Rooster
Behind the black comedy of Eric Dufault’s cockfighting play is a stunning indictment of hypermasculinity
Council Wrap-up
Staff not amused by some CMs’ ideas on how to cut the budget
Texas Platters
What’s a guitar slinger to do when the thrill of a solo fades? In the case of Gary Clark Jr., you follow a double live LP heavy on six-string fireworks with a one-man-band studio album that establishes a more distinctive vision by putting the axe in a support position. Self-producing himself locally at Arlyn, Austin’s…
Perfecting Utopia
One-hundred and 16 miles southwest of Austin lies music festival Utopia
(Not) For Rent
With hopes of protection for Section 8 renters dashed, city takes steps to help
Lights, Camera, aGLIFF!
Long-running film fest returns with something for everyone
Texas Platters
Bastrop teens Alex and Glenn Peterson Jr. summon a higher power with burning blues, but they didn’t bottle it here. Leaning on canonical classics in the wake hopefully spreading behind Gary Clark Jr., the brothers’ britches aren’t big enough to fill out the material. Albert King’s “You’re My Woman” opens with tasteful fills, but Glenn’s…
Perfecting Utopia
Leftover Salmon Friday, 10:30pm, Arrowhead stage Saturday, 10:30pm, Cypress stage Formed in Boulder, Colo., at the end of 1989, Leftover Salmon celebrates 25 years of making an aggressive brand of bluegrass dubbed “Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass.” There have been a few lineup changes – founding member and banjoist Mark Vann passed away in 2002 – and…
Adios, Jeff!
Davis statue graces South Mall no more
Lights, Camera, aGLIFF!
Paving the Way With The State of Marriage After the U.S. Supreme Court ushered in marriage equality this summer, igniting widespread celebration among LGBT couples across the country, it may be easy to get swept up in the victory without stopping to think, “How did we get here?” Well, we’re in luck. New documentary The…
Texas Platters
David Ramirez’s 2012 LP, Apologies, clenched lonely, bruising regret while grasping for some sense of redemption. Fables now turns the local songwriter’s pointed confessions toward the self-deluding stories that slowly absorb truth and perspective, from the street-smart awareness of opening “Communion” to the swelling artist determination of closer “Ball and Chain.” Ramirez never veers into…
The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins
The Trainspotting author rips into American culture in his latest novel
A Healthier Workforce
ATCEMS Employees Association head skeptical of EMS chief’s budget plan
Lights, Camera, aGLIFF!
No Rom-Com Gloss in That’s Not Us Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love. Relationships, on the other hand, are a bit more complex than a song lyric. At least, that’s the idea behind Will Sullivan’s semi-improvised romantic dramedy, That’s Not Us. The film follows…
Texas Platters
They call themselves garage-folk, but that’s the Madisons underestimating themselves. After two releases featuring a rotating cast of characters, they’ve settled into a septet of fiddles, trumpets, guitars, and percussion that’s ramshackle in all the right places. No One’s Ever Gonna Know Your Name purports the tale of a young Mexican named Sal, whose childhood…
Perfecting Utopia
Wild Child Sunday, 8:30pm, Cypress stage Wild Child’s home-recorded 2011 debut, Pillow Talk, plays out a bittersweet intimacy, but 2013’s The Runaround, recorded and released by Ben Kweller, polished the band’s embracing folk-pop. For their third album, Fools, due next month on Dualtone, the Austin septet absconded to Savannah, Ga., for nearly a month to…
Quote of the Week
“Recent budget policy discussions reflect that there may be a serious lack of understanding regarding the complexity of our work and perhaps a diminished level of respect for the work we do.” – Sara Hensley, Parks and Recreation Department director, in an Aug. 31 memo detailing city staff’s low morale
