Austin

Folk Hero

He’s one of the most influential men in American music. So why haven’t you heard of Alan Lomax?

CD and Book Reviews

Hot CDsDistancing themselves further still from their earlier banjo-punk novelties, Austin’s Bad Livers go with what they know on Industry and Thrift (Sugar Hill). There is too much attitude and eclecticism at work to call this traditional bluegrass, yet despite a couple of electric interludes, the musical leanings of composer-singer

Luann Williams

Luann Williams, the editor and publisher of Pop Culture Press, isn’t the type who waits for opportunity to knock. “In the mid-eighties I was working at a Memphis record store and loved music magazines,” says the thirtysomething Tennessee native. “I was looking at a couple, and I thought, ‘You know,

CD and Book Reviews

Hot CDs“You’ve got to market this music like you were a dope dealer.” So goes a line in “Village Idiot Savant,” the opening track of The Right to Remain Silent (Heiress Aesthetic) by Cottonmouth, Texas, the nom de guerre of Jeff Liles, who was rapping when Vanilla Ice was still

Two for Texas

Candidates Rick Perry and John Sharp donÕt agree on much, but they both say the race for lieutenant governor is the most important one on the ballot this fall. They’re right.

Running Right

Forget about the hair (and the tattoos). Ricky Williams has his head screwed on straight, which is why he’s still playing football at the University of Texas.

Joel Coen

I came to Austin in 1979 because I was married to a woman in the graduate program in linguistics at the University of Texas. I enrolled in the graduate film school there, but after one semester I quit. I had just gotten out of New York University, and my leaving

Watch Out

Advice for the new coaches of the Dallas Cowboys and the UT Longhorns.

War Is Hell

Why the Austin American-Stateman’s film critic is under seige.

CD and Book Reviews

Hot CDsI was already familiar with James Brown’s Say It Live and Loud (Polygram), which was recorded live at Memorial Auditorium in Dallas on August 26, 1968. I was there, a couple of rows back from the front, and hearing it all over again is one sweet pleasure: the tight,

Music: Shawn Colvin

Grammy came home.

Whistle-Blower: Jennifer Long

Auditing the IRS.

Lori Heuring

Lori Heuring has a very pragmatic view of the very unpredictable world of show business: It’s a target, and right now she is in one of the large outer circles. “The bigger the circle, the more room you have to move around,” she says. “That’s where I am now—acting and

Success by Design

At Texas’ top industrial design firm, the old style-versus-substance debate is a nonstarter: Why choose when you can have both?

Scorched Earth

This summer’s hot topic? Weather.

Off With the Show

An epilogue to Austin Stories: Why did MTV cancel the critically acclaimed slacker sitcom?

Slammin’

Poetry slammers descend on Austin.

Unconventional

From Lee Otis Johnson’s arrest to Ben Barnes’s ascent, 1968 was a hell of a year in Texas.

Less Is Mauro

Barring a miracle, Garry Mauro will lose to George W. Bush in this November’s gubernatorial election. So why is he acting like a winner?

Cecil Winzer, Eben Miller, Rex Staples, and Frank Livaudais

The Austinites who founded the Collegestudent.Com Web site say the idea came to them as brilliant ones often do: over a beer. “We were griping about how hard it was to find housing, especially in the heat,” says Eben Miller, who at the time was a student at the University

Situation Wanted

Headline: Situation Wanted by Evan SmithThe revolving door between politics and the media is swinging furiously in New York and Washington, D.C., so why should it be any different in Austin? In this year’s race for attorney general, for instance, the major party candidates have hired journalists as their spokespersons:

The Pickup Basketball Diaries

It has its own language, a distinct culture, and codes and standards that transcend race and national identity. uls it’s ebhilarating—even in the Texas heat.

Br-u-u-ce!

A cyberpunk writer’s sterling career.

Roads to Nowhere

The myth of the NAFTA superhighway.

Low Talk

Where Microsft wants to go today.

Alternative Weakly

Texas newspapers go to war.

Walker, Texas Writer

Mary Willis Walker’s mysteries aren’t exactly original, but she crafts real moments of tension. That’s why they sell so well and win so many awards.

Texas Twenty: Dealey Herndon

Dome, sweet dome.

Border Music

A veteran filmmaker’s new documentary looks at the rich history of tejano.

LaFave Rave

Jimmy LaFave’s great new CD might propel him from Austin to the big time—if that were what he wanted.

A Killer Sequel

Sorry, Bob Dole. Austin director Robert Rodriguez’s follow-up to El Mariachi may be violent, but it’s also art.

Tiger’s Beat

An Austin attorney tears into the government’s case against a suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Fee, Fie

Call Me Clevio

I had everything it took to win the Mr. Romance Cover Model pageant—except for the looks and the body.

Barton Springs Celebrants, Austin, 1990

Entrance of the Zapatista Army into San Cristobal, 1994

Word of Mouth

Never mind the bullocks, here’s Sincola: An Austin band tries to live up to the hype.

Net Worker

When Susan Hadden was murdered, the country lost a visionary thinker on the information highway and the Internet.

A Fan’s Notes

For sixty years, Austinite Raymond Daum befriended Hollywood’s biggest stars. Now he’s selling off his memories.

Darkness Audible

Shawn Colvin, the latest pop émigré to land in Austin, sets the record straight on her long and difficult road to stardom.

Bummers

Moving Pictures

Great Mexpectations

Roky Road

Breaking the Bank

Gambling became a way of life for young Josh Levine. When he got in too deep, he came to believe that only a holdup could get him out.

The Battle for Barton Springs

A determined developer’s big plans for Austin’s cool, clear water hole is bringing out extremes on both sides.

Texas Primer: Lyndon’s Lincoln

Can you picture Lbj in a Datsun?