Results tagged “austin”

Free Week 2010 Slideshow

Happy New Year!

With October's Tour De Vin at Whole Foods and November's Big Reds and Bubblies at The Driskill, fall is already the favored season for swanky wine and food pairing events in Austin. A new entrant to the mix this year is the Austin Cellar Classic, a 2-day event hosted by Max's Wine Dive combining a pairing dinner on Friday with the main event of a grand wine tasting on Saturday. For this post, we're solely focused on the big wine tasting.

It was quite the change from years past. The dusty fields replaced by a lush green meadow and now, the insistent rain to ensure that heat exhaustion was no longer an issue. A wet day two at the 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival was never going to dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd, already enjoying Flogging Molly at the AMD Stage despite the relentless downpour during the late afternoon hours. En route to the Xbox 360 Stage for …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead’s set at 5 p.m., we couldn’t help but admire the assorted rain gear, casting color below the grey sky. …Trail of Dead has been around for over a decade, starting out with just Conrad Keely and Jason Reece in the mid-90’s and plying their trade as a six-piece of late. Their catalogue encompasses a few different genres but the underlying aspect is that these guys just plain rock out. Be it ethereal soundscapes, punk thrashers, epic prog-rock, or the occasional tender ballad, …Trail of Dead deliver an amazing live show, two drummers and all. The locals kicked off with “Will You Smile Again?” and what followed was a 50 minute blitzkrieg consisting of choice tracks from the band’s extensive discography. Reece and Keely swapped vocal duties at times, each showcasing his distinct style via “Days Of Being Wild” and “How Near, How Far” respectively. While Keely seemed content swaying side to side, Reece pranced all over the stage like a man possessed, pounding his drums, picking up the guitar when needed, jumping down to the photo pit to sing to his audience, and even playing cheerleader occasionally. The highlight had to be the raucous “A Perfect Teenhood” although we were pleased that fellow Madonna selection “Clair De Lune” was included. All in all the band was in fine form and it is heartening to see them get some love from their hometown. They deserve it.

Watch Black Joe Lewis perform "Sugarfoot" live on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Shawn Gillespie completed the city's newest, and perhaps longest, mural, called "The Austinites" on September 16th. As Gillespie was dabbing on the last bits of purple paint, Leslie Cochran dropped by to inspect his portrait. Leslie, best known for his minimalist approach to cross-dressing, then said, “I really like your art, but could you give me a little more hair?” The artist obliged, but drew the line at larger breasts. Now you will always know where to find a formally attired version of Austin's best known street person: the south wall of the Hickory Street Bar and Grill.

Don't want to stay in but not sure you want to go out? Split the difference tonight at the Cole Street House and see four talented bands from near and afar.

Amidst the sticky rhetoric and hysterical screaming that surrounds the current debate over health care, it's refreshingly difficult to argue with the good intentions and good times planned for the Heart Beats fundraiser this Sunday.

Nine years ago, the Damnations played for Intel engineers at a Republic Square groundbreaking. Unfortunately, Intel’s Design Center grew to only a shell of its imagined self. Wednesday, September 2, four U.S. Congressmen tapped deeper pockets and gathered under a white tent with hundreds of federal workers for another groundbreaking ceremony. Three bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled; a dozen or so Austin policemen, including chief Acevedo, watched from the shade of oak trees; four Marines from Camp Mabry’s 1st battalion, 23rd Marines, presented the colors; speeches were given. In the end, eleven shovels turned a patch of powder-dry dirt. And sometime in 2012, with the help of stimulus money, a new Federal courthouse will open.

• Louisiana Pastor says Jindal should reimburse taxpayers for his helicopter trips to church.
• President Obama to address Republican attacks on health care.
• Out of work? The government is hiring, maybe.

A leaked screenshot from one of Sprint's internal websites indicates that Austin is among the cities targeted for early WiMAX deployment, and is slated to get access to the "4G" wireless technology this winter.

This year, volunteers at ACL will need to pay a fee to participate. The fee ($10) will go toward enhancements to the volunteer program.

G8 set global warming targets (while we swelter in Austin). Help the homeless survive the heat. Young punks: two teenagers responsible for the loss of 150,000 gallons of water in Johnson City and 420,000 gallons in Blanco. Sen. Cornyn could care less about what you think of his travel expenses. LA's tax dollars hard at work to remember MJ. Madoff won't appeal because he is about to hop the next jet to Ken Lay's private island. The size of the signs will definitely do the trick.

Buddy Holly, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Janis Joplin, Townes Van Zandt, Roky Erickson, ZZ Top, Spoon, the list is endless. Texas has nurtured plenty of legendary musicians over the course of the century and it could be argued that Powell St. John merits a mention in the annals of state’s esteemed music history for his songwriting alone. He has penned a number of ditties for the 13th Floor Elevators and many of his songs have been covered by the likes of Joplin, Erickson, Doug Sahm, and Boz Scaggs. A prodigious harmonica player, St. John was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame in 2005 during SXSW; and while he was in town, he recorded Right Track Now, his first solo disc containing new material as well as a few gems he had written in the past.

A recent Nielsen report listed Austin as the fourth least-prepared city in the country for the upcoming DTV transition. In less than two weeks when television stations end their analog transmissions and broadcast only a digital signal, up to 30,000 Central Texas households could lose their television reception.

If you've ever been caught in traffic caused by weekend road closures around town, then you'll want to take a look at the latest online offering from the city of Austin: a site dedicated to providing a one-stop resource for special events and related street closure information.

Chaos in Tejas 5 is well underway and hopefully you were able to catch the likes of Propagandhi, Trash Talk, The Bellrays, Black Panda, Cro-Mags, Annihilation Time, and Extra Golden at The Mohawk, Beerland, and Emo’s last night (Snapshots). The punk-hardcore fest rages on all weekend and the schedule for Friday evening contains some of the best action. Of course there is The Thermals show at the 'hawk (read our interview with Kathy Foster from the band here) and there’s a countless number of ferocious bands at Emo’s and Beerland. But there’s a couple of late night extravaganzas this evening as well -- catch Japanese band AI along with Austin’s World Burns To Death at the Broken Neck after hours or head over to the Lamar Pedestrian Bridge late at night for Canadian punk band Career Suicide and a special guest.

An Iranian lawyer and former judge, Dr. Ebadi (pronounced ah-ba-DEE) spoke to over 300 UT students, faculty and visitors Monday night, April 27th. This was the first of four public events in Austin. As she stepped to the podium at the AT&T; Conference Center, the crowd stood and clapped loudly. Then, speaking through a translator, she began: “Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to say a few words about democracy.” To her, democracy is the rule of the majority, but within the framework of human rights. Not surprisingly, Dr. Ebadi believes progress must come from within a country and in small steps rather than applied by force from outside. The audience nodded in agreement.

Have you seen that three-story, squat brick building at the north-west corner of 18th and Guadalupe with the broken windows? It is the color of a UT dorm. On Monday night, the Historic Landmark Commission will hold a hearing on a demolition request by the owners, Travis Hotel Group, LLC. The owners have proposed that it be torn down; city staff has recommended initiating a historic zoning request. How can a Texas building containing the name “Travis” ever be a candidate for the wrecking ball? Are they planning on using cannons?

Could a 90 minute train trip between Austin and Dallas someday be possible? Today the popular choices are plane (50 minutes), car (three hours), bus (four hours), and train (best-case about 4 ½ hours). On Thursday, April 16, 2009, the President offered another alternative: his vision of multiple high-speed rail corridors within the United States that included Austin. “My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America. We must start developing clean, energy-efficient transportation that will define our regions for centuries to come,” said President Obama. A down payment on the plan of $8B was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and another $1B was added in the proposed FY2010 budget. Cost estimates for the high-speed rail range from $250B to $500B.

Trade association TechAmerica reported a 0.6 percent decline in Texas during the last three months of 2008. The rate of job loss in the nation's private sector was 1.3 percent during that same period.

Hey look, here are more free, unofficial showcases comin’ at ya, involving pizza, RanchO RelaxO, and Trailer Space Records, though not necessarily in that order.

Used to be the word “garage” was the template and the starting point for most if not all of rock and roll. Whether the garage was literal was irrelevant - the term could apply to a basement, empty room or vacant storage space/warehouse, or really anyplace a band could put their roots down, plug in equipment and then plug away at songs without disturbing the peace. Back then, rough demos were cut onto cassette tape (putting a pillow over the built-in microphone helped stifle cymbal noise), and “in the garage” recordings were the first and easiest way to get the word out about a project.

Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group.

Emo's has a strong, loud lineup planned for this evening, featuring veterans and newbies alike. Air Traffic Controllers has been a project of Gerard Cosloy's for almost fifteen years, and has mutated a significant amount of times.

Who are The Visitations, and why might you care? If you've got any stock in the southern pop renaissance of Elephant Six, you probably will.

Centuries from now, aliens from Alpha Centauri will land on our post-zombie-apocalypse-ravaged planet, digging beneath the gnarled metal of rusted Hummers and blood-spatteredPlayboy magazines to unearth the only surviving artifacts from a glorious civilization gone awry.

• Girl accuses boy of eating all the Girl Scout cookies, boy chokes girl with a Wiimote.
• Are you missing a pricey bike?
• Barry Bonds used steroids (according to documents released yesterday).

We caught up with Dead Earth Politics (also a part of the evening’s line-up), and quizzed singer Ven Scott on the current state of metal music in Austin, among other things.

Austinist Weekend Music Preview Slideshow!