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Andy Langer

Writer-at-large Andy Langer has written about music for Texas Monthly since 1997. He also hosted the magazine’s National Podcast of Texas, an interview-based podcast spotlighting Texas news-makers, entertainers, authors, legends, and rising stars, from Nolan Ryan to Brooklyn Decker, Tanya Tucker to Senator Ted Cruz, Admiral William McRaven to Dan Rather. By way of Texas Monthly’s partnership with the New York Times, Langer was the music columnist for the paper’s “Texas pages.”

Langer can be heard weekday afternoons on Austin City Limits Radio (97.1 KGSR), a station he helped transition from the legendary KGSR to its current brand-sharing agreement with the longest-running music television show in history, PBS’s Austin City Limits. From 2002 to 2016, he was a contributing editor and the music columnist at Esquire—a run that included anchoring eight special music issues, four music/fashion packages, and a rare Q&A with Apple’s Steve Jobs (later documented in Walter Isaacson’s Jobs biography). For six years, Langer also hosted the magazine’s Esquire Minute for SiriusXM. Langer’s print work has appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Bon Appétit, Southern Living, and Billboard. He also hosted the XM music variety show The Armadillo Radio Hour and served as a weekly contributor to NPR’s Bryant Park Project. In March of 2021, his interview with American icon Willie Nelson served as South by Southwest’s keynote address. He lives in Austin.

241 Articles

Music Review|
January 20, 2013

New Bohemians

Edie Brickell never seemed to like her fifteen minutes of pop stardom very much, so perhaps it’s fitting that the return of the original New Bohemians should end up such a well-kept secret. The same lineup that helped revitalize Deep Ellum in 1985—and made “What I Am” one of secretary-rock’s

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Business|
January 20, 2013

Bare Assets

How members of the heavy metal group Pantera turned their adult nightclub into a sound investment.

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Music|
September 30, 2012

Making an Austin City Limits Debut

Terry Lickona, the television show's executive producer, talks about some of the acts that will step on the Austin City Limits stage for the first time, including Radiohead and Kat Edmonson.

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Music|
August 31, 2012

Not Fade Away

Can a posthumous release of Waylon Jennings’s last recordings keep his legacy from disappearing?

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Music|
April 30, 2012

Like Father, Like Son

Andy Langer talks with Willie Nelson and his youngest son, Lukas, about "The Family," Willie's new album (Heroes), and passing the torch.

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Music|
December 1, 2011

Need Some Gift Ideas?

We got you covered. Representatives from three independent record stores in Texas recommend recent releases from local artists to give as gifts to music fans.

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Music|
August 31, 2011

Behind the Lineup

Who is Amy Corbin? Oh, just the person who booked Stevie Wonder—and all the other bands you're stoked to see—for ACL.

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Music|
July 31, 2011

Crossing State Lines

With a new album, a wildly popular single, and sold-out shows all over America, the Eli Young Band is one of the state's few homegrown acts to transcend the Texas Country Scene.

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Music Review|
March 1, 2001

Toadies

Like ZZ Top or AC/DC, the Toadies have become almost instantly identifiable. But it’s not because the Dallasites have flooded the market with similar-sounding albums. Instead their breakthrough single, 1995’s “Possum Kingdom,” has enjoyed a Spam-like shelf life. It has served as one of the top recurrent tracks on alternative,

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Music Review|
February 1, 2001

Double Trouble

As Double Trouble, bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton have been everything a classic rhythm section should be: tasteful, selfless, and steady. It’s been enough to not only inspire countless Stevie Ray Vaughanabees but also warrant their own album and more than a dozen high-profile admirers to play on

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Music Review|
January 1, 2001

Barbara K

Austin’s Barbara K is something of a late bloomer. Now 43, she’s just getting her singer-songwriter card punched. Since the early eighties, she allowed the songwriting half of the equation to take a backseat to marriage, motherhood, and the unenviable task of holding together Timbuk3, her quirky combo with husband

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Music Review|
November 1, 2000

Beaver Nelson

Austin’s Beaver Nelson has never been at a loss for songs, just for albums to put them on. By his mid-twenties he had lost his next-big-thing glow by twice signing record deals that failed to yield records, though the bulk of his fans (critics and fellow musicians) would have gotten

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Music Review|
September 30, 2000

Willie Nelson

Hyping Milk Cow Blues as Willie Nelson’s first official blues album is smart marketing, but these days Nelson simply makes Willie Nelson records—his legend and aesthetic transcend genre and concept. Milk Cow Blues is interesting not because it’s blues-oriented but because it so often can’t help but sound like pure

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Music Review|
July 31, 2000

Into the New

What the burgeoning rock en español market lacks is the bilingual answer to a band as radio-ready as Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, or Bon Jovi. That’s the contention of Latin pop producer Emilio Estefan, Jr., who signed Austin’s Vallejo as the first rock act on his label. Vallejo has the requisite

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Music Review|
June 30, 2000

Peep Show

Austin’s Goudie has built a reputation for melodic pop, but its major-label debut is surprisingly rock: Peep Show wallows in thick walls of guitar and arrangements constantly on the verge of collapse. While it’s not the kind of bombast you’d expect on Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich’s Elektra imprint, rarely do

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Music Review|
April 1, 2000

Wrestling Over Tiny Matters

EVER SINCE SISTER SEVEN moved from Dallas to Austin in 1991 and became one of Texas’ most consistently popular and hardest-touring bands, their curse has been that of every post-Dead “jam” band: great improvisational players don’t often fare well in sterile studios, and rubbery funk grooves rarely add up to

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Food & Drink|
April 1, 2000

Hot Sauce

How the Stubb's barbecue empire outlasted the death of its namesake—and proved that spice guys sometimes finish first.

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Music Review|
March 1, 2000

and all the colors . . .

Over the past decade, Ian Moore has done everything a young Austin guitarist is supposed to do: he apprenticed in Joe Ely’s band, jammed at Antone’s with Double Trouble, toured with ZZ Top, and closed sets by showboating all over Freddie King’s “Me And My Guitar.” Now, like Charlie Sexton

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Media|
August 31, 1999

Schmooze Paper

What do gossipeuse Liz Smith, politico Paul Begala, and Hollywood hotshot Robert Rodriguez have in common? They all worked—and networked—at the hundred-year-old Daily Texan.

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Music|
March 1, 1999

Rockonomics 101

Purely in terms of record sales, the Austin band Fastball hit a home run in 1998. But does that mean its members are going to get rich? Not necessarily.

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