Austin (Texas)

The Sword's John Cronise: Metal Fans Deserve Better Than the New Black Sabbath Album

By Darryl Smyers Formed in Austin nearly a decade ago, The Sword is one of the heaviest bands to emerge from that scene. Full of monstrous guitar riffs and typically bombastic sci-fi themes, the four Sword albums are intense, thought-provoking and filled with good humor. The band's most recent effo ... More >>

Protesters From New York and D.C. Were Bused In to Support Texas' Anti-Abortion Bills

As you've no doubt heard by now, a set of draconian anti-abortion measures have been winding their way through the Texas Legislature for the past couple weeks. (Last week we explained why you, sitting here in New York, should give a shit about that.) If they pass (and oh, they will), the twin bills ... More >>

The Best Shows at SXSW This Year

This year, our sister papers the Dallas Observer and Houston Press teamed up to document the SXSW madness for your amusement and/or edification. Here are the 12 best shows and moments they saw.

Sad You Aren't at SXSW? Here's What You Could Be Missing...

Awwwww, I know it is a shame you aren't here with us at SXSW in Austin. I can only imagine the aching and longing in your heart for walking aimlessly and standing in long lines for no reason, and sweating through your cardigan to see a band you heard on one of the Twilight soundtracks. You don't w ... More >>

How To Do SXSW Like A Grizzled Old Man

SXSW is in full-swing this week down in Austin, and that means a constant blast of updates in your news feed from your friends and colleagues maxing out their annual diarrhea expense accounts. Many publications are eager to tell you the best ways to enjoy your time at the festival. All of those peop ... More >>

50 Things To Know About Austin Before SXSW

I love Austin. It's simultaneously wonderful and totally infuriating. The city meets every cliché about it almost effortlessly, to the point where the onslaught of weirdness can be almost numbing. I once saw a unicycle brigade spin down the street, and it honestly took like 15 minutes until I reali ... More >>

BrisketTown Jumps on the Austin Breakfast-Taco Bandwagon

You can get up early on a Saturday and enjoy this smoked-brisket taco as early 8 a.m.! When I wrote about Dan Delaney's new BrisketTown a month ago, I hinted that the place is a kind of laboratory where menu experiments would be ongoing. At the time pies were the subject of experimentation, and no ... More >>

UNSIGNED HYPE

Rebel Diaz and friends host the first South by South Bronx

The Story of Kolaches

The apricot version at Brooklyn Kolache Co. After high school in Dallas I went to college in Austin, so for the first couple of years I hitched rides between the two places several times a year. For UT students, there were several popular stopovers on the four-hour ride, including a little bakery ... More >>

My 5 Favorite NYC Breakfast Tacos

The huevos con chorizo breakfast taco at Tacombi The breakfast taco is a Tex-Mex specialty that originated in Austin (some say San Antonio) probably in the 1970s. In both cities it is firmly fixed in the breakfast firmament, and a recent trip to Central Texas suggested you could get one in nearly ... More >>

READY, SET, LOOP

SBTRKT brings the beats to Webster Hall

Muscling in at SXSW

What happens when music's big names want to be rediscovered?

Live: The Village Voice Hosts An 18-Band Marathon In Austin

Village Voice SXSW Showcase Red Eyed Fly, Austin Saturday, March 17 Better than: Drinking green beer on Sixth Street. During South by Southwest, musicians, industry folks, and people who want to have a particularly music-filled spring break head to Austin in order to soak in the less-threatening M ... More >>

The Worst Moments From SXSW 2012

Over the last few days, Village Voice Media's music editors have been regaling you with stories of the best from Austin's South By Southwest Festival. But with the best must come the worst, and our critics unfortunately came across the following borefests, technical problems, and insults to their in ... More >>

Lil Wayne, Skrillex, And Others Fire Up Austin On Day Two Of SXSW

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in this planet's many happenings, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. To break down the chaos, a few of Village ... More >>

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

EMA skips SXSW for NYC

Heading to Austin for SXSW? Here's Where the Locals Say to Eat

SXSW (South by Southwest), the film, interactive, and music festival is in full swing right now in Austin, lasting through March 18. If you happen to be down at the festival at this very moment, or, perhaps, are boarding a plane on your way there, be sure to check out Our Man Sietsema's 10 Favorite ... More >>

Whirlybird's Austin-Style Breakfast Tacos

$3 for this beauty, $4 with chorizo (click on image to savor) It's like a little bit of Austin, Texas, detached itself and floated up here. At Whirlybird, the seating area out front consists of two benches and several tree stumps. Inside a laid-back vibe pervades, the counter-guy is eager, and all ... More >>

Bombay Curry Kale Chips From Rhythm Superfoods

​The bag flaunts a litany of food obsessions: Gluten-Free, Vegan, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Cholesterol-Free, GMO-Free, Raw. Remember last year's foodie parties? When everywhere you went, the host would produce a bowl of fresh farmers' market kale that had been slicked with the best olive oil, c ... More >>

Remember When Austin Was Cool? The Commodification of a Town in Echotone

The Black Angels: Reed Scholars

The Black Angels take time off from planning their festival to play ours

The Best Things I Ate While at SXSW Interactive

​The kimchee fries from the Chi-Lantro BBQ truck made a magnificent lunch one day. At the SXSW Interactive festival -- which started last Thursday, and concluded today -- I represented the Village Voice at a panel called "Bite Me" organized by chow.com concerning the ethics of food writing. ... More >>

Posts of the Week

Huzzah, it's Friday afternoon. Time for a little bit of nostalgia: We ranked Our 10 Best Vegetarian Street Foods. Just in time for South by Southwest, Our Man Sietsema provided an eating guide for New Yorkers who find themselves in Austin. A battle of the ostrich burgers between Bare Burger and E ... More >>

Week In Review: "This Was A Weird One, Folks."

​Charlie Sheen dominated the wild and weird this week but the rest of the world proved able keep pace. Lady Gaga birthed some sort of goey monster-baby while blood-covered panda bears danced with leather-bound vampires at the Cradle of Filth show. Suffice it to say we felt the stirrings of a t ... More >>

James Beard Awards Restaurant and Chef Semifinalists Announced

opentable.comThe product of blood, sweat, and tears​It's almost time for the Oscars. That is, the Oscars of the food world: the James Beard Foundation Awards. Today marked the announcement of the restaurant and chef semifinalists, who were chosen from a record 28,000 online entries. Finalists ... More >>

Total Badass/Hell on Wheels: In the Gutter and on the Roller Rink With Austin Double Feature

Air Waves Singer Nicole Schneit Says Goodbye to New York

"I'm moving away from this city in two weeks," said Nicole Schneit last night, between songs at Zebulon. "It's been nice living here." Schneit is the leader of the Brooklyn indie pop band Air Waves, whose second full-length will be released this fall through the label Underwater Peoples. The albu ... More >>

Voxtrot

Harlem

How Fucked Up's Savvy SXSW Post About Artist Exploitation Applies to Other Venues (Like, Um, the Internet) Too

​Very smart post up today written by guitarist Mike Haliechuk at the Canadian band Fucked Up's blog, talking about the economics of Austin's South By Southwest music conference. The gist of it is an attempt to answer a simple question, one that a person could easily ask about CMJ or other, sim ... More >>

Posts of the Week

It's sweet, sweet Friday. An ideal time to look back, through the wind and rain, at the best posts of the last five days. Alone in the kitchen with a pig's uterus... Pulino's Beth Ann Simpkins talked about pizza, bi-coastal pizza obsession, and her 100 percent carbohydrate diet... ...While Eugene ... More >>

Great Barbecues of Texas: The Salt Lick in Driftwood

​What's that curious yellow fluid? Read on to find out. In many ways, the Salt Lick Bar-B-Que in Driftwood, Texas is the odd man out among Central Texas barbecues.

Austin Plane Crasher: Is This His Suicide Note? (Updated: Looks Like It Is)

twitpic via jeff_lake​They're still trying to figure out why that guy stole took off in a plane and crashed it into an office building in Austin, Texas*. A suicide note is being circulated that some believe was written by the pilot, though. (Update: The admin has taken the site down "in com ... More >>

Todd P's Mexico Fest, the MtyMx All Ages Festival of Art and Music, Is Fully Confirmed; Tickets On Sale Now

​There had been speculation about this show going all the way back to December. Privately, Todd P began confirming it this week. And now comes the official announcement about one of the more ridiculous bits of derring-do ever attempted by a local DIY promoter: an outdoor, two stage, three day ... More >>

Todd P Now Making Promotion Excursions Into Mexico?

All photos via Todd P's Facebook.​Local mega-promoter Todd P latest quixotic venture? An proposed outsized south of the border post-SXSW festival in Monterrey, Mexico, a five or six hour drive from the weeklong Austin, Texas music festival from which he will be presumably drawing most of his a ... More >>

Take That, Daily Fork!

​Our sister blog Daily Fork was recently amused to find a coffee spot with the name Bad Ass, and wondered just how bad ass it could really be. Well, right back at you Daily Fork...

...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

Todd P Announces Free Day Show SXSW Line-Ups, Broke-Ass Austin-Bound Kids Rejoice

The back patio in 2007 Let it be known that Todd P's deftly orchestrated unofficial all-day parties are one of the SXSW's undisputed highlights, tucked a few blocks away from the main Sixth Street drag on the back patio of Ms. Bea's, the best dive bar South of Rosemary's Greenpoint Tavern. So we a ... More >>

SXSW's 2009 Partial Performers List: If You Can Afford to Go, You Must Be Running a Ponzi Scheme

Dark Meat at last year's SXSW, photo by Rebecca Smeyne See, it's totally lame, don't worry, you're not missing a thing South by Southwest just firebombed everybody's inboxes with a partial list of names playing this year's barbecue-and-booze blitz. A quick scan reveals the midsize marquee names to ... More >>

Epic Fail: Times Square Thriller Beat by Texans, Others

SXSW: Unacceptable Souvenirs for Your Sweetie Back Home

Bisexuality Storms Bush Country in New Film!

The Whole World in Our Hands

Activist fest takes on global warming, suburban sprawl and, as if war weren't enough, AIDS in Iraq

Cortex-Cutting Cobras

More desperate gutter psych-rock from Texas

Competing With Life

Annual clusterfuck pulls in hordes except when it doesn't

Got Goat?

The Art of Fainting in the Hill Country

Auto-Erotic Fixation

Here in Her Car, It's the Only Way to Live

Opposing Forces

Austin City Limitless

Muff Diving in Our Time

Lesbian Public Sex Beyond the Bars

Work To Do