With an event entitled See a Little Light With Bob Mould: An Evening of Music and Reading, this is clearly not a typical Bob Mould show - or even a typical concert. That’s because the veteran singer/songwriter/guitarist (still best known for his stint in Hüsker Dü, despite that band having been defunct for nearly a quarter of a century and Mould having built a catalog every bit as strong since, both solo and with Sugar) isn’t promoting a new album on this trek. Instead, he’s hitting the road with both guitar and reading glasses in tow in celebration of <em>See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody, a frank, powerful autobiography that is as compulsive a read as his records are a listen. As such Mould will treat the audience to passages from his book as often as test the tolerance of the sound ordinance. (Mould is one of the few performers whose audience requires earplugs even when he’s playing acoustically.) Given the general brilliance of both the musical and prose sides of Mould’s pen, this gig is likely to be something special. more ›

There's a lot of ground to cover on this subject and how jazz and western culture helped to "win" the Cold War, and tonight KUT DJ and Chronicle writer Jay Trachtenberg and Rabbi Neil Blumofe (a musician and historian who has recorded with saxophonist Alex Coke and percussionist Jason Marsalis) will engage it as part of the Cactus Café's Brews and Views series. more ›

You all know and love local literary legend Spike Gillespie—if not for her popular column on this site, then for one of the other six thousand things she does in the Austin community. Tonight's your chance to get up close and personal with Spike as she hosts “Bitch, Bitch, Bitch,” a free, one-night, Dick Monologues-esque reading at which she and ten others will share their thoughts on that rude word. more ›

Singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier, who will be playing at Cactus Cafe tonight, shares her thoughts on songwriting and her first concept album. more ›

In February, we first reported on the decision of the Texas Union Board of Directors to close the Cactus Cafe, a venue and bar situated in the Union building at the University of Texas. After no small outcry from supporters of the venue, public radio station KUT announced a partnership with the Cactus, and at that time KUT announced in a press release that they would "assign a full-time manager to oversee the Cactus Cafe operation and to develop year-round programming and a sustainable business model." more ›

• A story about the alleged Baylor undergraduate days of Rand Paul, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky.
• The Bayport Cruise Terminal in Houston hasn’t done an iota of bizness yet! Looks like that’s 81 million down the drain!
• Shrimp season opens in the Gulf... and things could be better.

Recently, KUT has hosted a series of meetings-- Cactus Conversations-- inviting a couple of dozen folks into a conference room to discuss the future of the Cactus Café, which KUT is taking over. I think I got an invitation courtesy of my loud mouth. Ironic, then, that at the first meeting I attended (I’ve now been to two) I was told by KUT’s spokesperson not to write about the meetings. While I didn’t sign an NDA, I did agree to remove my journalist’s hat for the sessions. Toward that end, I’m won’t give a blow-by-blow of what I’ve heard so far. (Though I did give a few quotes in a Chron article that ran last week.) I do want to share some impressions, though. Overall, I get the sense that nearly all in the room—and I include myself here—hold a notion that we each know exactly how the “new” Cactus should be run. Some think that to foster great change would be disastrous. Others rally in the opposite direction. While no one has yelled, you can still feel a lot of tension. For me, the tension begins at the beginning—sitting in a institutionally lighted conference room in a meeting moderated by a guy in a suit with one of those deep, authoritative radio voices. All this to discuss the fate of a red, velvety, dimly lit venue best loved for bringing us voices of a different sort: clever, thoughtful, sweet, and inspiring— voices not always sans authority, but certainly as far from a corporate sensibility as you can get. more ›

• Austin volunteers spent Father’s Day fixing up Flo’s Comfort House, an unofficial community day care center serving kids in the Montopolis neighborhood. (Picture number three in the related photo set shows how dirty these volunteers were after spending a day cleaning and repairing the place!)
• The Cactus Cafe isn’t closing, but supporters wonder if it’s really “saved.”
• Actress Meggan Anderson was arrested at a PETA protest in Dallas, "for trying to incite a crowd." The Dallas Observer reported that the event involved 20 protesters, and at least eight cops arresting the topless girl. As one commenter asked, “how many DPD officers does it take to arrest a naked chick?

Today, it was officially announced that KUT will partner with the Cactus Cafe to continue the venue's legacy as a historic piece of Austin's live music scene. more ›

• UT starts on plan to cut $14.6 million from their budget.
• Wastewater leak closes Barton Springs temporarily, means Sunset Valley residents need to boil water.
• Austin City Council to vote on Arizona travel ban this week.

• Evan Smith on the Texas textbook issue.
• Luci Baines Johnson is in the ICU at the Mayo Clinic with an autoimmune illness.
• Do the numbers really add up for closing the Cactus Cafe?

• All about the Waco trial of country singer Billy Joe Shaver...For up-to-the-moment coverage, Statesman Courts Reporter Steven Kreytak is live-Tweeting Shaver’s trial.
• Is there a Cactus Cafe/KUT partnership in the works?
• Oh no! Variety Fair 5 & 10, better known as “the dime store in Houston’s Rice Village” will be closing in June!

• Dallas needs to start getting ready for the next Super Bowl!
• Michael Jackson's Houston-based doctor now charged with involuntary manslaughter.
• New exhibit of the work of modern Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan will be showing at the Menil Collection in Houston. This looks super-fun!

• Heartbreaking story from San Antonio, where a mother told the police, “I just killed my babies.” The boys were 1 and 3 years old.
• Yikes! Former coach, teacher, school board member in La Porte, Texas has been accused of allegedly downloading and sharing hundreds of images of child pornography, some of children perhaps as young as 2 years-old.
• A report on that Tuesday town hall meeting about the future of UT’s Cactus Cafe.

• Toyota's problems widen: now investigating brakes on Prius models.
• Roadside bomb kills three US soldiers in Pakistan.
• AIG pays hefty bonuses to employees despite government bailout.

The Save the Cactus Café organization started over the weekend as a Facebook group and is now over 13,000 members strong. They're gathering this afternoon at a town hall meeting to try to persuade University of Texas president Bill Powers to save the iconic venue and its courses. more ›

The Texas Union Board of Directors announced on Friday its support of a phase-out of the Cactus Cafe and Informal Classes program. According to the Board, "The decision to close the Cactus Cafe and the Informal Classes program was made to minimize the impact of budgetary reductions on students and to protect student core services. President William Powers Jr. recently asked all university departments to prepare plans that prioritize reductions." more ›

The legendary singer/songwriter and founder of the Modern Lovers will play the Cactus Cafe on January 25 and 26, then head to the Continental for a two-night stand on January 27 and 28. These nights kick off a full year of touring with new drummer Tommy Larkins. He'll be supporting his 2008 release Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild and putting finishing touches on an as-yet-unnamed 2010 full length. more ›

For maybe four years running—until I got overwhelmed with being so popular and having too much work— I think I could count on my nipples the number of times I missed the regular Wednesday night gig Matt the Electrician plays with Southpaw Jones, a running residency going on something like seven years now (and currently held at Flipnotics on Barton Springs Rd). I never, ever, ever get tired of hearing either M or SP play. And I’m so happy to tell you that this week Matt’s sending a new record out into the world, Animal Boy, with an official CD release party Friday, October 9th, at the Cactus Café. The disc is pure brilliance from the rich horns that open the first song— and you have to have cojones muy grande to open with a cover of Journey’s Faithfully and pull it off the way Matt does—right on through to the end. Matt somehow manages to consistently spin the equivalent of a multi-plot novel in four minutes or less, and he can rhyme and sing while he’s doing it. The imagery in his songwriting is nothing short of cinematic so that you find yourself in each song, interacting with the cast of characters that inhabit his tales: a naked valedictorian at graduation, an arrogant leash-loathing dog owner, giddy girls on bicycles in Osaka in the rain, an underpaid yet terribly kind Walmart employee saving the day, a truck driver peeing into a Gatorade bottle. In Animal Boy (the song) we get a spectacular view of a child looking back at some of the curious rules and choices offered by the grownups at dinnertime. more ›

In Austin we oft find ourselves spoiled with an array of music on any given night. With all the big-name bands coming to town it's hard not to get overwhelmed and lured in by the indie rock scene. (See: Cake, Death Cab, Ra Ra Riot and Mates of State all playing just this week) But, those washed out tired of crowded shows can find solace at Cactus Cafe tonight with some down to earth down-tempo folk rock. more ›

Last month, far from the maddening SXSW crowd holding court downtown, an ensemble of six actors and two musicians presented a three-performance only show at a house tucked away in a quiet neighborhood off of Cameron Road. The house could only hold an audience of about twenty (and that was very tight). Which means that roughly sixty people got the intense joy of witnessing Big Head House: Breath in the dreams of The Amphibious Gods. And then it went away. The musicians in the show—Lisa Shawley and Michael Shay—make up the band The Just Desserts. Shawley plays accordion and flute and sings, and Shay plays cello and tenor banjo and sings. As a testament to their talent, understand that Big Head, written by Michener Fellow Frances Ya-chu Cowhig—who just won the massively impressive honor of receiving the 2009 Yale Drama Series Award for her Guantamo-themed Lidless—has no dialogue. None. Not only that but each character is restricted to essentially one emotion per person, as the massive masks they wear are smooth, white, larval visages, frozen in one expression or another. And while the incredible physicality of the actors involved certainly conveyed much of the story, it was the dramatic work of The Just Desserts that gelled the piece. more ›

Cactus Cafe, an intimate venue located inside UT’s Texas Union, has hosted many a legend in its 30 years of existence. Just a quick glance at the posters on the wall outside the room can give one the goose bumps -- Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Lucinda Williams, Loudon Wainwright III, Alison Krauss -- the list of famous past performers at Cactus Cafe is endless. And a good amount of these legends tend to play Cactus Cafe again whenever they return to Austin. Richard Thompson is another to have performed at the venue in the past, and he returns for two sold-out shows this Sunday and Monday. more ›

Son of Steve Earle, named for Van Zandt, Justin Townes Earle is one of the most prominent faces in the world of genre-bending Americana. Effortlessly building from influences like Jimmy Reed, Kurt Cobain, The Replacements, Ray Charles and The Pogues, Justin is coolly redefining what it means to be a roots-man in Nashville. more ›

JD Souther was raised in Amarillo, and grew up to be a multi-instrumentalist, rock and country singer, and songwriter for such luminaries as Eagles and Linda Ronstadt. As a young guitarist, he was influenced greatly by Roy Orbison, and spent much of his early career emulating him. He eventually moved out to L.A. to seek his musical fortune, and luck hit right away: he met a young guitarist from Detroit who also loved R&B and old country music, and they immediately bonded and began working together. That guy's name was Glen Frey, and after months of working together on songs, they became roommates, renting a flat one floor above Jackson Browne's, who would later become a friend and collaborator. more ›

I first saw Southpaw Jones back in ’04 when he was playing in the tin roofed barn behind the original Moxie and the Compound. The very first song I ever heard him sing was The Cruelty of Teenage Girls, and in that moment my life radically and permanently changed for the much, much better. And I’m not even saying that because I read a recent article in Wired telling me that hyperbole is the path to more page views. I’m saying it because, thanks to Southpaw Jones, I got my picture in the New York Times, I was afforded the privilege of home ownership, I collect royalty checks for decent sums of money, and—I am not shitting you—I regained the ability to walk again. more ›

Dean and Britta have that certain je ne sais quoi, do they not? They're good looking, look and dress like Europeans, and dig artists like Joy Division and Nancy Sinatra. Hell, they even did The Squid and The Whale's soundtrack for Noah Baumbach. Their music is similarly themed: it's minimalist, beautiful, effortless, and full of an icy cool. (If one wishes to puncture the image, it's amusing to know that Britta Phillips was the voice of 80's cartoon icons Jem and the Holograms.) Dean Wareham, of course, has legions of fans from his work with Galaxie 500 and Luna, and this certainly isn't a huge departure from his signature sound. Expect dreamy and reflective tales with some irony and beautiful melody lines sprinkled throughout. The duo are touring behind 2007's Back Numbers, which combines some D&B originals with like-minded covers of The Troggs and Lee Hazlewood. Simply put, if you enjoyed Luna, you'll have a good time here. And for Wareham's more ardent fans, he has recently written a memoir about his life in music titled Black Postcards which will be published in March by Penguin. D&B arrive tomorrow at the Cactus Cafe for a pair of shows at 7 and 10pm. more ›

Austin's Balmorhea released River's Arms last week, and kicked off their tour here in town. Their tour to support the record will follow the east coast, and land them back here in time for some SXSW gigs. Sample some of the instrumental band's lulling, hypnotic tunes c/o Western Vinyl, and check back here for a full-length review very soon. more ›

Image from Ringo Deathstarr’s MySpace It’s no secret that Austin is home to one of the most prolific artistic scenes in the country, Live Music Capital of the World or not. Any weekend in the city promises a number of day time occurences and a plethora of evening events. A quick browse through this weekend’s notifications leads one to fun activities for the kids at The Flying Theater Machine’s Wang Dang Doodle Hour or a... more ›

While working as the label manager for Misra records, Phil Waldorf released albums by many notable local acts like Centro-matic and Shearwater, not to mention records by Athens mainstays Marshmallow Coast and The Mendoza Line. When Waldorf decided to leave the Misra label to start his own Dead Oceans imprint, he took a few bands with him, including Phosphorescent, another Athens project with a big, country-psychedelic bent. Matthew Houck is the main man behind... more ›

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Mike Doughty's name may not instantly register with you, but you have undoubtedly heard him before. In the early 90's, he founded the alt.radio staple Soul Coughing, who had hits with "Super Bon Bon" and "Circles" before disbanding in 2000. Far from the throwaway status of the Marcy Playgrounds and Harvey Dangers of the day, Soul Coughing used samples, drum loops, jazz references, and experimental producers like Mitchell Froom on their recordings. This... more ›