Daily - The Austin Chronicle (2024)

TODAY'S EVENTS

Austin Cantorum at Cloud Tree

Austin Vogue Nights at Swan Dive

MUSIC | MOVIES | ARTS | COMMUNITY

Supposedly, somewhere under all the day parties, free booze, shmoozing and all-round, get-out fun of SXSW, there's some industry panels (remember them? They're the reason your company sprung for all those airline tickets here in the first place?)

So heading up the extensive selection of experts that have been so lovingly gathered together was The Real Story Behind Snakes On A Plane. For those of you still waiting on your photo badge, here's the quick skinny on what you missed at 2007's first panel:

Line of the Day: "User-generated content. Can we come up with a better name for that sometime over the next week?" - Corey Denis of internet music geniuses, the Independent Online Distribution Alliance.

Buzz word of the Day: Crowdsourcing - when creative types can get audience response to their work before they're done, and alter the final product appropriately.

What -was- the real story behind Snakes on a Plane?: Great web buzz, but New Line took too long to release the actual film.

Best Moment of Audience Participation: When moderator Alex Williams of Splashcast got everyone to do the SoaP cheer. "Give me an S. Give me an S. Give me an S. Put 'em together, what have you got? Ssssssssssss ..."

The pedestrian-friendly Domain – like so many other pedestrian-friendly Austin destinations, a place people have to drive to get to – has spiffed their digs with the works of local artists/craftfolk. So far, we've seen butterfly benches by Bill Twitchel, some frenetic kinetic art sculpture by Wimberley artist LaPaso, and "container installations" at the new Polo store by Big Red Sun.

Tonight is the official Grand Opening.

Good day, my pupils. We need to dive right into the heart of our subject. Since last we met, much has happened all across the NFL, but no team has made a splash like Detroit, and the cold waves can be felt from coast to coast. By trading defensive end James Hall to St. Louis, then scoring DE Dwayne White in free agency, the Lions have altered the landscape of the draft and the entire NFL offseason. The kings of this jungle now have options at the No. 2 overall pick, and are likely to trade down. St. Louis, formerly hungry for DE aid is no longer obligated to draft in such a manner. This forces all other teams dreaming of DL relief to wake up and activate new strategies.

But this is what novelists call “foreshadowing” and we have more rosters to read of before the draft. Today, we have the newly formed NFC South, which brags the explosive Saints, and three other teams that owe a refund to season-ticket holders for the sad performance of the 2006-07 season. Let us indulge in Southern Comfort, shall we?

Sure, there’s that festival coming up, but this weekend allows one big local lick of the underbelly. Flip off those soccer mom-i-vans with the Keep Austin Weird bumpers stickers on your way to Salvation Pizza for the Noise by No Wave Musick Fest. Midori Umi, Primordial Undermind, Low Red Center, and the Devil Bat rock Friday night; Rotten Piece, Stephen Marsh, and the supremely bizarre Night Viking take over Saturday. The return of headliners Order of the Crimson Owl will no doubt involve some sort of ritual sacrifice. One of their spokespeople provided this potential situation of mass destruction:

“Shortly after the beast appears with an actual pig fetus, all hell breaks loose. The strobe light illuminates the owl and a struggle ensues between the beast and the ordained one. He slays the beast and evil is conquered by evil for no apparent reason.”

Dorkbot takes place Saturday at Brush Square Park off Fifth and Neches, a circuitous festival of hackers, junkers, robot makers, and singing tesla coils. You might even meet your soul mate and become the human masters of a new robot race.

If you’re still ready to rage, then head downtown Sunday night for the annual Yeast by Sweet Beast experimental soiree at Plush. The lineup boasts headliners A Pink Cloud, featuring members of Rusted Shut, Helios Creed, and one former Pain Teen. It also goes down Monday night with headliners Aurora Plastics Company, Moray Eels, Chromosome Damage, and many more. And if you stand on the corner of Red River and Seventh at just the right moment, you can almost smell the vomit.

If you have ghosts, Roky Erickson once posited, then you have everything.

I’m borrowing that lyric as the title for this bloggerly endeavor because we’ll be talking a lot about the ghosts of music’s past here – particularly the obscurities and curiosities that never got their due the first time around – along with an ephemeral frosting of everything else.

So let’s heat it and eat it, shall we?

Concord Music Group’s reactivation of Stax Records hits jamming speed Thursday night when Isaac Hayes, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, and Booker T & the MGs roll into town for the “Stax 50” SXSW showcase at Antone’s. It’s a shame Johnnie Taylor won’t be there with them.

Taylor died of a heart attack at Dallas’ Methodist Charlton Hospital in 2000 at age 62. Although he was born in Crawfordsville, Ark., Taylor lived in the Dallas area for many years and was a DJ on Soul 73 KKDA-AM. In Texas, that’s more than enough to claim an artist as our own.