Cover Story

Reading Menu

Hazan’s latest title keeps on satisfying with little effort on the reader’s part

by Mick Vann

Arts Review

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a riskier production in Austin this year than this strange string of ballads and mysteries

by Barry Pineo

Off the Record

Inquiring into the city’s new music program manager position, trick-or-treating with the Butthole Surfers, and introducing Thenewno2

by Austin Powell

Reading Menu

Not content simply to watch the locavore craze from the sidelines, Carpenter became a player in the game

by Dorsey Barger

Texas Platters

Tia Carrera The Quintessential (Small Stone) Five mammoth jams on five different labels, not including singles and compilation tracks, culminate in spontaneous metallurgists Tia Carrera’s The Quintessential for Detroit rock indie Small Stone Records. The barely harnessed monster-truck pull of the local trio’s 2003 debut on Perverted Son, The November Session, a radioactive sandstorm (34-minute…

by Raoul Hernandez

Texas Platters

Molina & Johnson (Secretly Canadian) Affectionately dubbed the Phantoms of Folk, Magnolia Electric Co.’s Jason Molina and Will Johnson of Centro-matic and South San Gabriel have a collected output on par with Neil Young’s Archives. Written and recorded in 10 days, this debut collaboration is a testament to just how deeply these two songwriters sympathize…

by Austin Powell

Day Trips

The Aquarium at Rockport Harbor offers a glimpse into the underwater world along the Texas Gulf Coast

by Gerald E. McLeod

Texas Platters

Matt the Electrician Animal Boy It’s no coincidence that Matt the Electrician performs before Bob Schneider at the Saxon Pub and teams with Southpaw Jones at Flipnotics. That’s the opportunity to play to those who appreciate his endearing parade of characters inhabiting worlds of Animal Boy from Wal-Mart (“For Angela”) to Japan (“Osaka in the…

by Margaret Moser

High Texas Rider

Before the Sir Douglas Quintet and Texas Tornados, the Lone Star State’s voice of the Vox organ, Augie Meyers, was San Antonio’s Lord August & the Visions of Lite

by Margaret Moser

Oops!

The wrong photo accompanied last week’s story, “Fire Contract May Herald New Hiring Policy.” That was not Austin Fire Department Capt. Bob Nicks.

by Chronicle Staff

Saw VI

Jigsaw’s grand scheme is finally understood. Promises, promises.

by Marc Savlov

Texas Platters

Radney Foster & The Confessions Revival (Devil’s River) Ten years ago, with See What You Want to See, Radney Foster wrote about personal circumstances and struck a universal chord. Revival finds the Del Rio native again facing life-changing events and writing some of the best songs of his career. Foster’s now dealing with the death…

by Jim Caligiuri

Three Stories About Three Augie Meyers Songs

‘Hey Baby Kep Pa So’ “Before I met Sara, I was in New York, staying at my son’s, sleeping on the couch. I was playing accordion, and this woman [I was seeing] said, ‘Why you always playing that Mexican music?’ I said, ‘I like it.’ “She said, ‘I don’t,’ so I said, ‘There’s the door,…

by Margaret Moser

Texas Platters

Following up 2007’s lovely Hello, Avalanche, the Octopus Project’s new five-song EP, Golden Beds, on formerly local label Peek-A-Boo, tastes the rainbow, running the spectrum from thrashy guitar (“Wet Gold”) to more familiar ambient territory (“Half a Nice Day”), but it points to OP’s desire to break its electro mold. It also marks the appearance…

by Audra Schroeder

Record Review

Augie Meyers Country (El Sendero) Whatever genre Augie Meyers lays pretense to, his defining Vox Continental organ cuts it eclectically with the classic Tex-Mex sound running rampant through his keys. Country lays its roots in honky-tonk but settles equally at home in the cantina, even brandishing touches of Meyers’ San Antonio R&B. At its core…

by Doug Freeman

No Impact Man

Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, and his cooperative family are the subjects of this documentary about their yearlong project in environmental sustainability.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

Texas Platters

Mammoth Grinder has two speeds: “seek” and “destroy.” Eschewing the more experimental passages of its 2008 vinyl debut, Rage and Ruin, the local trio takes dead aim at the latter on sophomore 12-inch Extinction of Humanity (Cyclopean Records), a Texas chain saw massacre at 45 rpm. “Societal Collapse” charges behind Brian Boeckman’s grindcore thrashing and…

by Austin Powell

Headlines

• The yogurt shop murder case disintegrates. District Judge Mike Lynch on Wednesday dismissed murder charges against Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, who were awaiting a retrial in the 1991 slaying of four girls at a North Austin yogurt shop. • There’s no City Council meeting this week; the merrymakers will be back Nov. 5…

by Chronicle Staff

Earth Days

Directed with a flawless eye and judicious craft, this documentary is an informative and nonpolemic look at the birth of the modern environmental movement.

by Marc Savlov

What’s in HB 873? The New Incentive Levels.

If the new terms of the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program in House Bill 873 can be boiled down to three words, they would be: better, faster, more. The big change in scope is that the new rules add educational and instructional videos to the eligible pool and drop the qualifying criteria for minimum…

by Richard Whittaker

TV Eye

‘V’ is for ‘vroom!’; plus Nancy Schiesari’s stunning documentary about inked soldiers, Tattooed Under Fire

by Belinda Acosta

Naked City

Breaking Up La Familia Austin Police and Texas Department of Public Safety investigators were among thousands of law enforcement officers to play a part in last week’s two-day, nationwide bust of members of the Mexican La Familia drug cartel. In Austin, APD says four members of the gang were arrested and six kilos of cocaine…

by Chronicle Staff

Luv Doc Recommends: Zombie Ball

Hopefully by now you already have your balloon boy costume put together. Good show. Your friends and random acquaintances will surely have a marvelous time secretly trying to burst your bubble. Don’t pout. When was the last time you had so many people trying to poke you? Besides, they appreciate the effort. It’s not like…

by The Luv Doc

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