ANNAINAUSTIN...and Company!

Covering Music, Film and Pop Culture

Category: music

Austin / madmen / music / Texas

Every Era Gets The Magical Elsewhere It Deserves.

Recently there was an article in the Huffington Post by David Landsel, about how Austin is way overrated, and Houston is a lot better. I wasn’t even slightly surprised when I read this article. I don’t think the article has much truth or insight to it, it’s just blowback from the fact that the locus of our collective Americian fantasy of the “magical elsewhere” happens to be currently located in Austin, Texas.

Every era gets the magical elsewhere it deserves. The magical elsewhere is the spot where you don’t have to work overly hard and dreams come true. It’s the land of milk and honey and the promise of romance and paradise and a certain loosening of the older strict moral codes.

Essay and Opinion / highschool / music / sxsw

Music forges family ties that bind

When I saw that the English electronic band Depeche Mode (known for their hit song “People are People”) was going to be to doing their first-ever showcase at the South By Southwest Music Conference...

Austin City Limits Music Festival / Europe / events / festival / media / memory / music / summer / sxsw / Texas

The Time Wayne Coyne and I Called Latvia, Woke Up My Friend, and Gave the Latvian Tabloids Some Copy!

When I heard the Flaming Lips were playing a SXSW show at Auditorium Shores, I couldn’t help think about the last time that the Flaming Lips played a large show in Austin.

Back in 2010, I was working on a column about people with disabilities at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. I ran across Wayne Coyne, the lead singer of the Flaming Lips in the festival’s media area. He was waiting for an interview with MTV, I was trying to stay in the shade so I didn’t melt.

Arts / Austin / Austin City Limits Music Festival / behindthescenes / blog / events / music / Texas

Old Enough to Play the Austin City Limits Music Festival…But Not Always Old Enough To Vote

Of all the artists playing the 2012 Austin City Limits Music Festival, Abby Torres, 16 and Carla Pantoja 16, may be the only performers who managed to squeeze in a marching band competition that October weekend.

Torres and Pantoja are members of the Lanier High School band who also study music via Anthropos Arts, an Austin-based non-profit providing music lessons to dedicated young performers from at risk backgrounds. The project’s supporters include musician Esperanza Spalding, who popped by the Anthropos booth at ACL to pose for pictures after her Friday afternoon show.