Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. Mike graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1979 with a degree in government. He wrote for various publications, including Trouser Press, Third Coast Magazine, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Austin Chronicle. In 1997, he joined Texas Monthly, where he has won two Texas Gavel Awards from the State Bar of Texas and four Stephen Philbin Awards from the Dallas Bar Association. He was named Writer of the Year at the City and Regional Magazine Awards in 2015. His stories have appeared in The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Da Capo’s Best Music Writing, the New York Times, and Men’s Journal. Mike is also a musician and has played in Austin bands the Wild Seeds, the Setters, the Lollygaggers, and the Savage Trip. He pitches for the Burkas, the Texas Monthly softball team.
In 1955 Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” transformed the sound of popular music and made him an international star. Twenty-five years later he was forgotten, desperate, and dying in Harlingen. How did one of the fathers of rock and roll land so far outside the spotlight?
Fifty-eight bands from around the world play Austin Psych Fest 4 April 29–May 1. Michael Hall sits down with the Black Angels, founders of the festival (and the “Reverberation Appreciation Society”) and rejuvenated psychedelic godfather Roky Erickson.
For nearly sixty years, a succession of obsessed blues and gospel fans have trekked across Texas, trying to unearth the story of one of the greatest, and most mysterious, musicians of the twentieth century. But the more they find, the less they seem to know.
When the legendary Liberty Lunch club closed in July 1999, senior editor and musician Michael Hall came up with a way to say goodbye to an era—play “Gloria” for 24 hours straight.
Investigators and social workers in the Mineola Swingers Club cases have admitted that there was plenty of evidence that never made it into the first three trials that resulted in three life sentences. Will it make a difference?
Location: Fort DavisWhat You’ll Need: Cowboy hat, canteenThe pleasures of Fort Davis aren’t as arty or oddball as the ones in nearby Marfa or Alpine, but that’s not to say that things aren’t strange. For example, which is weirder: that Fort Davis and Jeff Davis County, in
Was the quaint East Texas town of Mineola home to a horrific child sex ring? Were the three people sent to prison last year for running it guilty? Was justice served? Depends on which district attorney you ask.
Fifty years ago, a plane carrying Buddy Holly crashed in a remote Iowa cornfield. This month, hundreds of fans will gather at the ballroom where he played his final show to sing, dance, and mourn the greatest rock star ever to come out of Texas.
Someone killed Melissa Trotter and dumped her body in the Sam Houston National Forest. But according to six forensic experts, that someone was not Larry Swearingen.
Summer vacation is right around the corner, but that doesn’t mean you should panic. We’ve rounded up 68 of our favorite things to do with your toddlers, teens, and every kid in between. Dance the hokey pokey. Rope a horse. Eat way too many hot dogs. Zip down a waterslide.
All over Dallas are working-class dreamers with more will than wallet, would-be entrepreneurs who’d start their own businesses if only they had savings, good credit, home equity. That’s what brings them to the PLAN Fund.
These six entrepreneurs are members of a unique Dallas program that is bringing the promise of microcredit to the Untied States: one small business at a time.
Of the many things the first black district attorney of Dallas County is doing, none is more important than rethinking the concept of guilt and innocence.
And for these 8 one-hit wonders, including Balde Silva, of Toby Beau, that’s a good thing: Thanks to wildly successful singles they released many years ago, what might have otherwise been forgettable careers are anything but.
The number one thing you need to be a good running back is a good mind-set—you have to think that you can do whatever you need to. You can’t doubt yourself for a minute. If a guy’s fixing to come knock your head off, and you know he’s fixing to
For twenty years, the Southwestern Writers Collection, on the campus of Texas State University, in San Marcos, has gathered up manuscripts, personal papers, photos, and other mementos from various icons and at least one outlaw. Want to have a look-see?
More than anything, we hated the moves, the long drives in a hot car with squabbling siblings, then getting to the new post and having to be the new kid all over again.
In the state with the nation’s most celebrated concealed carry law, is it any wonder that the annual convention of pistol packers, peddlers, and promoters was number one with a bullet?
Whether burned, shot, or blown up, the brave soldiers who leave Iraq on a stretcher and start to rebuild their lives at Brooke Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, have a lot of fight left in them.
He was, for a while, and look what happened: Today one of the great songwriters in the alternative-rock universe is a 44-year-old manic-depressive living with his parents in Waller. And the worst thing about it is that he’s about to be famous again.
A century after the cowboys and ranchers moved in on the local Apaches, Comanches, and Tejanos, the West Texas town is adjusting to a new breed of excitable invaders: Hollywood fashion arbiters, New York art- world youngsters, Houston superlawyers, and the like. Cappuccino, anyone?
When Sul Ross State University professor Larry Sechrest called his neighbors and students idiots and inbreds, the entire town of Alpine rose up against him. Not that he's changed his mind.
That would be 75-year-old Robert Hughes, who has amassed more victories while coaching in Fort Worth than anyone in high school basketball history. For most people, that would be enough.
Can one man change the world's largest Baptist university? He can if he's controversial preacher-president Robert Sloan, Jr. And, just maybe, one man can destroy it too.
Ten years ago, on a mountaintop in Africa, about to be burned alive by tribal warriors, a teenager saved himself the only way he knew how. Even today, he wonders why he survived.
PASSED BALL The national pastime is as much about the past as the present—and that’s a good thing for Texas baseball fans this season. The Rangers were sent to the cellar almost immediately, and the Astros, even with their fast start and the addition of slugger Jeff Kent, are doomed
Unless otherwise noted, all places take credit cards.ABILENE: Harold’s Pit Bar-B-Q We didn’t catch pitmaster Harold Christian singing gospel songs to his customers, but we’re told that isn’t an unusual occurrence. This cozy little room, packed with nine picnic tables, seven booths, and a congregation of athletic trophies, is where
