Levitation
Thursday 31 – Sunday 3, Various locations
Shoegaze, noise rock, metal, post-punk, indie rock, chillwave, electroclash, and, yes, psych rock – there’s something for everyone on the lineup for this year’s Levitation, which takes over venues across Downtown and beyond this Halloweekend. The Far Out Lounge is particularly stacked with shows featuring Gang of Four, the Jesus Lizard, Dry Cleaning, Slowdive, and Drop Nineteens. Locals like Die Spitz, Grocery Bag, Porcelain, Witches Exist, Farmer’s Wife, and festival co-founders the Black Angels brush up against international favorites for a homegrown, but outward-looking, ode to alternative music. Choose your own adventure with individual show tickets, or snag a four-day pass for about $400. – Carys Anderson
Fatboy Slim
Thursday 31, The Concourse Project
Let’s be honest: You’ve probably heard Fatboy Slim’s “The Rockafeller Skank” more than you’d like – at H-E-B, the outlet mall, or the actual mall, when we used to do that. You loved it each time but were alone, dancing in your head as a guilty pleasure. Now you’ll love it again, living your truth with many people just like you. 1998’s fantastic and sample-rich You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby will feature heavy, as it should. 1996’s genre-averse Better Living Through Chemistry also stands as a uniquely singular listen, with its spectacular collages of rare samples and 303 drum loops, some of which still haven’t been found with the album. – Kahron Spearman
Cumbia Halloween Party
Thursday 31, Sahara Lounge
A purple, Mardi Gras-sportin’ calavera adorns the pan dulce-colored vinyl 7-inch for “Vudú y Chachacha,” whose ghostly cavalcade of Latin percussion, levitating organ, haunted mansion piano, a beheading solo, and spectral brass make for a graveyard belly rub. Austin’s cumbia sovereigns El Combo Oscuro deliver all that and more – and make it look easy. “Here in the genre’s live music capital,” opined a Chronicle review, “its progressive futurism crackles the cedar-laden air with electric current, moving Austinites palpably – universally. La Danza de las Sirenas as El Combo Oscuro’s debut long-player ferments that moment potently.” Scare up that soundtrack at Sahara’s “vudú” shack with DJ Guira King. – Raoul Hernandez
L’Inferno with Montopolis Live Score
Friday 1, Cloud Tree Gallery
L’Inferno proves that from the beginning, recording technology has been used to show the utter depravity of mankind. Italy’s first feature film, L’Inferno follows Dante into Hell, the poet Virgil guiding him through an array of creative torments. Full of writhing bodies and horrific torture, it’s astounding to see what movie magic was capable of in 1911. It’s only enhanced with a live score by local sound wizards Montopolis. The chamber group adds in spooky audio effects and driving dramatic tones to an already mind-bending visual experience. It’s a perfect melding of music and cinema. – Cat McCarrey
Austin Jazz Hall of Fame Awards
Friday 1, State Theatre
The Austin Jazz Society is pulling out all the stops for this star-studded award show honoring and inducting Austin-born swing piano legend Teddy Wilson, Grammy-winning Count Basie vocalist Carmen Bradford, and Strait Music owner Dan Strait. There will also be a tribute to the late Dr. James Polk with live performances by his band Centerpeace, Church on Monday, and the jazz orchestras of both Huston-Tillotson and Texas State University. The evening will be highlighted with a set by Bradford along with the Butch Miles Memorial Big Band. KAZI’s Jabari Warfield emcees this not-to-be-missed event. – Jay Trachtenberg
Rulitos, Other Vessels
Friday 1, Cactus Cafe
Spanglish lyricism, celestial synth, and serene guitar strums – each are key ingredients in the delicious songwriting recipe of Rulitos. Citing ambient great Ryuichi Sakamoto and acoustic touchstone Nick Drake as equal influences, frontman Daniel Sanchez brings experience from dreamy midtempo act Turtle Pond to his solo endeavor. Released via Flyer Club Records (the local outpost behind releases from TC Superstar and Cloud Companion), late June drop EP 1 saw Sanchez shine on double-tracked standouts like “Envuelto en tus Uñas.” The fingerpicked serenity continues with Other Vessels, who charmed with February debut Empty Afternoon. – Genevieve Wood
Frankenstein With Live Score
Friday 1 – Saturday 2, Doc’s Drive In/dadaLab
When James Whale’s Frankenstein came out in 1931, it didn’t have a score. Seventy years later, composer Michael Shapiro was commissioned to create one to complement the film starring Boris Karloff. And now, Density512 presents a dual-day treat, offering screenings with the haunting accompaniment played by a live orchestra Friday at Buda drive-in theatre Doc’s and Saturday at Eastside arts hub dadaLab. Both screenings also feature the premiere of a short film by Dave Brick, scored by jazz composer Jackie Myers. – Kat McNevins
Pistachio Fest
Friday 1 – Saturday 2, Hole in the Wall/Billy’s on Burnet
Pistachio Fest hasn’t much to do with pistachios, except for the lineup being absolutely nuts. And for PFest 6, the Gen Xer Austinite’s dream music fest expands to two days after five iterations being just one. Friday night, bounce between the front and back stages at Hole in the Wall for “Pistachio Electric” featuring can’t-miss New Sincerity sets from Cher UK, Wannabes, Doctors’ Mob, and lots more. Saturday you’ll need to make some tough calls or else hang outside at Billy’s for 10 hours: Local alt-rock legends Shoulders cap off a day of tunes from the likes of Mike McCoy, Hilary York, Melissa Bryan, Kathy McCarty, Jennifer Cook, Jon Dee Graham, the Stayres … and how I could go on. Make the scene! – Kat McNevins
Been There 3
Saturday 2, Radio/East
Through films like Home Free – screening Fridays this month at Eastside Cinema – and this month’s third annual music festival, local nonprofit Been There raises money for unhoused Austinites while uplifting local creatives. This year’s gig features local hip-hop duo Riders Against the Storm, Grateful Dead tribute act DeadEye, bluegrass group Appalachian Dinosaur Exhibit, blues guitarist Carolyn Wonderland, and theatrical prog collective Grandmaster; Jurassic 5 rapper Chali 2na, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, and NOLA funk legends Galactic fly in from out of town. Proceeds benefit The Other Ones Foundation’s Esperanza Community, which offers the unhoused shelter and vocational training. – Carys Anderson
Penny Festival
Saturday 2, Sam’s Town Point
Sam’s Town Point offers a full day of pre-Election Day distraction with Penny Festival, a country sampler mini-festival that harkens back to that mythical simpler time that politicians keep telling us about. There’s the new-generation disciples of their genres: Western swing through the Sentimental Family Band; the je ne sais quoi, y’all, of French-Austin import Theo Lawrence; and the sprawling desert psychedelics of Rattlesnake Milk. And there are the standards: the irresistible dance-floor beckoning of Cajun accordion legend Jesse Lége; Melissa Carper’s sepia-washed, radio static soprano; and Ramsay Midwood, whose song “Monster Truck” feels apt for ballot season. The stacked lineup won’t fix America, but it could steel your soul heading into a frenzied news cycle. – Abby Johnston
Austin Classical Guitar: Raphaël Feuillâtre
Saturday 2, The Rosette
Born in Djibouti, Africa, and raised in Cholet, France, Raphaël Feuillâtre fell in love with a plastic guitar at 7 years old, changing his life. Studies at the Cholet Conservatory and travels through European competition brought him the José Tomás and GFA prizes, which in turn gave him chances to record. Now signed to renowned German label Deutsche Grammophon, the 26-year-old Feuillâtre is touring label debut Visages baroques, on which his graceful technique and exquisite sensitivity colors pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer, and more. Unmissable, especially in the intimate space of the Rosette. – Michael Toland
Pink
Sunday 3, Moody Center
Blessed with muscular and versatile contralto, Pink, born Alecia Hart, has been a trailblazing mainstay since the early Aughts. The blue-eyed soul/pop/R&B phenom launched with 2000’s Can’t Take Me Home, which spawned her first big single, “There You Go.” “Lady Marmalade” (alongside Christina Aguilera, Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim, and Mýa), released for the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack, earned her a Grammy. After a slight dip, her three-album run of 2006’s I’m Not Dead, 2008’s Funhouse, and 2012’s The Truth About Love cemented her as a pop icon, built on fearlessness and empowerment. 2023 release Trustfall features Pink in familiar pop-rock and folk-lite territory. Maren Morris opens. – Kahron Spearman
Yngwie Malmsteen
Sunday 3, Come & Take It Live
Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck represents an almost disproportionate amount of heavy metal. Now 61 and embarking on a 40th anniversary tour, Stockholm’s loss – thanks, Florida! – garnered Hendrix-like acclaim for his neoclassical shredding beginning in the late Seventies. Hear that lightning burn still on pandemic release Parabellum, Yngwie Malmsteen’s 22nd album since Eighties guitar jawdropper Rising Force. Both reduce his instrument to a tangle of wooden kindling and steel wire. While English and American colonialism created root musics here adopted globally, metal originates continentally so a figure such as this Stratocaster icon basically knows no practical limits as both a genre and instrumental pioneer. – Raoul Hernandez
Lonesome Heroes Residency
Wednesday 6, Hole in the Wall
Fifteen years ago, before the White Horse or Sagebrush, the Lonesome Heroes forged a local alt.country scene with their Wednesday night residency at the Hole in the Wall, helping catalyze the fringes of an emergent Americana in Austin. Now the band’s ever-evolving lineup around troubadouring frontman Rich Russell celebrates its 20th anniversary with a new album – the nostalgia-ripped Almost Aluminum – and makes HITW home base once more throughout November. The first Wednesday showcase gathers the Beth Chrisman and Silas Lowe folkgrass collaboration Lost Patterns and David Longoria’s mellow melodies and provocative guitar-picking as Longriver. – Doug Freeman
Little Mazarn & Jolie Holland
Thursday 7, Central Presbyterian
Little Mazarn’s annual Central Presbyterian shows are intimately stunning affairs, serenading the slow turning of autumn in the hushed sanctuary of the Downtown church. Lindsey Verrill’s soft banjo and Jeff Johnston’s saw meld in meditative lulls, lyrical narratives of subtle natural beauty set against poignant revelations. This year’s show recruits Jolie Holland, whose eighth LP, 2023 Buck Meek collaboration Haunted Mountain, wraps her weighted folk with experimental flourishes and distinctive smoky drawl. Holland’s songs strike simultaneously harrowing and uplifting, winding in a constant deep search both spiritual and physical. Hemlock kicks off behind new album 444. – Doug Freeman
Music Notes
by Derek UdensiMarshall & Warren Hood
Friday 1, Waterloo Records
Champ Hood played in Americana group Uncle Walt’s Band during the Seventies and early Eighties. Son Warren and nephew Marshall tribute the band in celebration of Thought You’d Never Ask: The Complete 1975 Armadillo Records Recordings, which is set for release on Nov. 1. The new compilation features 19 unissued songs recorded during a 1975 session at Arthur Smith Studios.
Nite School
Saturday 2, Cheer Up Charlies
The monthly series showcasing dark electronic music celebrates its 14th anniversary. Los Angeles’ BOAN headlines, with DJ Inhalt and Mr. Pharmacist serving as selectors on 1s and 2s.
Austin Coffee Field Day
Saturday 2, the Long Time
This first-time event serves as a fundraiser for the Austin Coffee Collective. Coffee shop representatives do battle in a range of activities harkening back to end-of-year field days in elementary school. Musical acts include Alexi 8bit and Junerise.
LP Giobbi
Thursday 7, End of an Ear
The Oregon-born DJ – who spent some time living in Austin – is currently on tour supporting her latest album, DOTR. Catch her at this free performance and record signing before she hits the Concourse Project the following day.
Want to see all of our listings broken down by day? Go to austinchronicle.com/calendar and see what’s happening now or in the coming week.
This article appears in November 1 • 2024.
