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Austin Wall Street protest October 6
10.04.2011
02:06 am
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Occupy Wall Street continues to spread across the nation.

There will a be show of solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement in Austin this coming Thursday starting at 3 P.M. at Austin City Hall.

Visit the Occupy Austin website for updates.

There will also be gatherings in Dallas and Houston on the 6th.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.04.2011
02:06 am
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Butthole Surfers live in Austin September 11, 2011
09.12.2011
06:06 am
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Emo’s, Austin’s venerable, historic and aging rock venue, has opened a new state-of-the-art space that launched last night with a classic performance by the Butthole Surfers.

In the early 80s, BHS formed in San Antonio, an hour drive from Austin, and drew inspiration from Austin’s psychedelic musical past, particularly from the Crown Princes of Texas-style mindbending rock and roll Roky Erickson and The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. It seemed karmically ordained that BHS should christen Austin’s newest church of rock.

At tonight’s gig, BHS did what they’ve been doing for the past 30 years: creating sonic shamanistic magic with Paul Leary’s acid-infused guitar licks, looped feedback, gut rattling rhythm from Jeff Pinkus and King Coffey, and lead singer Gibby Haynes’ Echoplexed and bullhorn-mutated vocals. Throw in a diabolical light show and you’ve got a Devil’s brew of rock and roll voodoo.
 

 
Last time I visited with Gibby, he was 30 pounds heavier, I was 30 pounds lighter and we were both 20 years younger. In my case, the weight difference could be the hair.

 
I’m excited by the new Emo’s. It raises the bar for live rock and roll in Austin. It’s got great sound, air-conditioning, a huge dance floor and a stellar staff. I predict that bands from all over the planet will embrace this fabulous new club that offers both the artists and the audience a perfect environment to exult in the power and glory of rock and roll.

Despite the sentimental notions of a bunch of punk rock nostalgists, playing in shitholes doesn’t give you hip cred, it gives you the crabs.
 
I shot this video expressly for Dangerous Minds’ readers and I hope you dig it. Watch it in high definition. And crank up the fucking volume!
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.12.2011
06:06 am
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Emo’s East: Austin’s new rock venue gives audiences and musicians some respect
09.07.2011
04:38 am
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The closest thing Austin, Texas has to a CBGB-style rock venue is the venerable shithole Emo’s, a dilapidated, barn-like dump with bathrooms that come close, but not quite, to the urine-soaked hell-holes of Hilly Kristal’s legendary Bowery punk venue.

Like CBGB, Emo’s has established itself as one of the great rock and roll venues in the world and, like CBGB, it’s a lousy place for bands and audiences to experience rock and roll. Fuck street cred, we’ve all outgrown rock venues that charge $30 and more for a ticket and in return offer an environment suitable for firing squads and hangings.

I’ve been pissing and moaning for years that rock audiences are masochists, willing to put up with the worst kinds of settings in which to listen to the music they love. I can’t imagine theater goers, opera or ballet fans lining up to take a shit in port-o-johnnys that are belching methane like over-stuffed plastic cows or suffering through security checks by no-neck thugs looking to find contraband like bottled water and video cameras.

I guess Emo’s arrived at a similar conclusion: rock audiences need to be treated with respect and so do the bands that entertain us.

This coming Sunday, Emo’s will be opening a new state-of-the-art music club with a performance by The Butthole Surfers and I think the new venue will be great for the bands and the fans.

What the audience will pay for (and, hopefully, benefit from) includes elephant bark flooring (great for acoustics and soft on the feet), 100 tons of A/C, a group of tiled bathrooms, three large bars, double sheetrocked walls (again, for sound), a large outdoor smoking patio and 500-plus parking spots.

The bands will kick back in a green room with flat screen televisions, a washer and dryer (life on the road is tough) and shower facilities; and, of course, they’ll have ample tour bus parking with a private back entrance.

For smaller acts, the 1,700 capacity room can be partitioned into one with an 800 cap.

Great for both band and ticket-holders? A 48-foot ceiling that transitions back to a 12-foot height, meaning there is hardly a bad line of sight in the house.

The Butthole Surfers’ gig is a test run for the venue, not its official opening. The fact that the Surfers wanted to do this on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 seems either perverse or perhaps something else…we will see. I’ll be there and get back to you.

In the meantime, here’s Alex Winter’s homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre featuring Gibby and the boys.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.07.2011
04:38 am
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Super high quality video of Stiff Little Fingers tonight in Austin
08.20.2011
05:30 am
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Stiff Little Fingers played a rousing set at Emo’s in Austin tonight. Founding member Jake Burns, with support from SLF veterans Ian McCallum and Steve Grantley and newcomer Mark DeRosa, brought a fist full of revolution rock to Texas at a time when the Lone Star state could use some punk insurrection

Their performance tonight reminded me of their significant place in punk rock history and I was jazzed by their commitment to keeping the energy alive. There aren’t too many punk bands from the late 70s who are still taking it to the streets.
 

 
Thanks to Jim McCabe.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.20.2011
05:30 am
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She texted, they kicked her out
06.06.2011
10:29 pm
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At the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas, when they say “no talking” or “stop texting” during a movie, they really mean it. This is hilarious:

As many of you know, I really can’t abide people who talk during a movie. A couple of years ago I was accosted in the Village parking lot by a patron who was warned for talking in a movie. I’ve nearly come to blows more than a few times over the years with rude customers over the same issue. When we adopted our strict no talking policy back in 1997 we knew we were going to alienate some of our patrons. That was the plan. If you can’t change your behavior and be quiet (or unilluminated) during a movie, then we don’t want you at our venue. Follow our rules, or get the hell out and don’t come back until you can.

Recently, we had a situation where a customer persisted in texting in the theater despite two warnings to stop. Our policy at that point is to eject the customer without a refund, which is exactly what went down that night.  Luckily, this former patron was so incensed at being kicked out, she quickly called the office and left us the raw ingredients for our latest “Don’t Talk or Text” PSA. You can check it out below, or come to the Alamo this weekend where the video will be playing before all of our R-rated movies.

Ma’am, you may be free to text in all the other theaters in the Magnited States of America, but here at our “little crappy ass theater,” you are not. Why you may ask? Well, we actually do give a f*$k.

Sincerely,

Tim League
Founder/CEO
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

 

 
Thank you Adam Parfrey!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.06.2011
10:29 pm
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Top 10 US cities for live rock music in 2010
11.18.2010
06:16 pm
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Songkick posted this chart on their blog and it confirms something I’ve known since I moved to Austin: it’s one rockin’ little city.

The biggest surprise: no New York City.

We analyzed rock shows per capita in 2010–where rock includes everything from emo to indie. We hope you’ll agree that the list is surprising. Austin really earns its title of live-music capital of the world. It’s also nice to see Denver, Seattle, Portland, and Nashville on the list, since our hunch was that they’re hotbeds of good live music. (If our lean start-up nerdery has taught us anything, it’s measure measure measure and validate assumptions… Pity the fool who doesn’t use metrics.) The average rock show ticket prices are surprising too. Who knew it was so expensive to see a rock concert in Las Vegas?
To compute the Rock Score, Songkick analyzed its database of more than 1.8 million concerts for rock artists’ 2010 tour dates, where rock includes alternative, indie, punk, classic rock, metal, emo, and rock. Songkick analyzed which cities have the most rock concerts per capita, giving the top city, Austin, a score of 100. All other cities are then ranked against this score—Madison has 78% as many rock concerts per capita as Austin, New Orleans 57%, and so on.

The ten most rocking cities in the U.S. by number of live rock shows per capita include:

• Austin, Texas – 100 Rock Score; average ticket price of $23.30

• Madison, Wisconsin – 78 Rock Score; average ticket price of $13.05

• New Orleans, Louisiana – 57 Rock Score; average ticket price of $16.89

• Las Vegas, Nevada – 51 Rock Score; average ticket price of $62.76

• Denver, Colorado – 44 Rock Score; average ticket price of $33.24

• Milwaukee, Wisconsin – 38 Rock Score; average ticket price of $17.66

• The Twin Cities Minneapolis – 36 Rock Score; average ticket price of $11.36

• Seattle, Washington – 35 Rock Score; average ticket price of $11.75

• Portland, Oregon – 35 Rock Score; average ticket price of $10.33

• Nashville, Tennessee – 34 Rock Score; average ticket price of $20.13

Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.18.2010
06:16 pm
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Fantastic Fest re-imagined as a video game: Austin is amazing
10.02.2010
04:17 am
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South Alamo Drafthouse movie theater, Highball bowling alley, and the strip mall their located in, replicated in a video game that was playable at kiosks at this year’s Fantastic Fest. If you’ve been to Fantastic Fest you’ll recognize these venues.

Via zapwizard

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.02.2010
04:17 am
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