Photo by mirsasha on flickr In June an APD officer sped 139 miles/hour through a funeral procession on Mopac; he resigned in November. Ford recalling over a million trucks and SUVs because of a faulty engine sensor. The Austin Energy Alt-Car Expo is coming next October. Texas Legislative Conference (who?) names Lt. Gov. Dewhurst as Texan of the Year. New state law set to go into effect January 1 charges $5 per each strip club......

The ritzy new Qua Bottle Lounge in the Warehouse District opened this month to much fanfare, thanks in large part to the club's fancy choice of flooring: a 19,000-gallon aquarium filled with reef sharks and stingrays. The 25-and-up nightclub boasts that its giant acrylic tank—the "largest ever installed in a nightclub"—is perfectly suitable for marine animals, citing a 3" barrier between the tank and the dance floor directly above as well as some impressive-sounding technology......

The University of Texas raised $26 million in athletic donations in 2006, putting it 16th among all U.S. universities. A study by The Chronicle of Higher Education found that money for athletics accounts for more than one-quarter of all contributions to some universities. The Chronicle survey reported that the country's largest athletic departments and booster clubs raised more than $1.2 billion in 2006 and 2007. The University of Texas wasn't the top athletic fund-raiser in......

If you happened to be downtown two weekends ago, you might have found yourself startled, amused, or even aroused (it’s okay, you’ll be totally accepted at some clubs in Japan) by the sight of four human forms wandering the streets in golden, skin-tight zentai suits. There must be something in the way head-to-toe spandex outfits cling to one’s body, because clubbers all over downtown were completely enamored with the mysterious beings - perhaps it......

Two news items coming out this afternoon relate to Chester's, the East Austin nightclub near where a fatal shooting occurred earlier this summer. First off, Sgt. Michael Olsen has been cleared of any possible charges related to the shooting; the grand jury decided that Olsen's killing of Kevin Brown was not criminal. Brown had been patronizing Chester's before being shot as he raced from police. Secondly, and perhaps more damning to the club and......

Last March, Birmingham, England's Editors made quite an impression on those who attended their packed SXSW showcases. An airtight quartet, the band blazed through their sets with energy and precision. A measured mix of post-punk and UK arena rock, Editors project intensity and a dark mood throughout their recorded output. Their debut album The Back Room went gold and produced four Top 40 singles in the UK, and American hipster mag The Fader liked......

First things first, people: enough of this “stop shilling Emo’s all the time” nonsense! You can shout “scene/lifestyle” all you want, but the fact remains that there just aren’t many clubs downtown that attract big-time touring bands and assemble kickass local bills for under $20. Case in point: tonight’s performance by Toronto avant-punks F*cked Up. The notoriously obscurist five-piece, who write 8-minute progressive hardcore anthems about things like anarchist computer hackers and the Chinese......

THE STOOGES - THE WEIRDNESS Within the first twenty seconds of The Weirdness, the first Stooges album in nearly 40 years, Iggy Pop sneers "rock critics wouldn't like this at all"; but the sentiment deserves to be far more generous than that. The first proper recording (following two quickie live albums) by every punk's favorite reunited oldies act, The Weirdness sounds less like the group's early-70s classics than it does the wet thwok of a......

Two weeks ago saw the launch of Forward Austin, a new publication geared towards gay and lesbian professionals in the business community. Produced by the AGLCC (Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce), the debut issue of Forward Austin can currently be found at Bookpeople, Progress Coffee, and a handful of other venues around town. We recently engaged AGLCC President Jimmy Flannigan in a brief interview about the fledgling magazine. Below and after the......

Microsoft rolled into town yesterday on its Family Gaming bus, stopping at the state capitol as part of a national marketing campaign showing off "appropriate gaming and entertainment choices for their family." The "Safety is no game. Is your family set?" campaign sees the software giant partnering with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Best Buy to teach parents how to limit their kids' exposure to raunchy video games and movie content. "With success......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

Hot on the heels of Emo's being listed as one of Playboy.com's top rock clubs, Nightclub & Bar magazine today published their annual Editors' Choice Top 100 rankings of bars and clubs in the country. VICCI and Stubb's BBQ both made the list. The two venues couldn't be more different: the former is a ritzy, bleached-blonde dance club in the swanky Warehouse District, while the latter serves up Texas-sized helpings of rock and roll......

Emo's has made it onto Playboy.com's A-List of America's Ten Best Rock Clubs, chosen from among thousands of venues by musicians, music journalists and industry insiders. "One of the main venues for the annual South By Southwest booze-and-music bacchanal in the spring, Emo's remains at the center of this bohemian college town's vibrant music scene all year round," reads the gushing post, further clarifying that "the club's name is no indication of the genre......

"What people don't realize is that the so-called Seattle grunge scene grew out of several close-knit gourmet supper clubs - we would only pick up guitars to pass the time while our dishes were simmering, baking, boiling, etc." - Kurt Cobain For those Austinites looking to escape a (warm) hip town full of rock and roll, coffee shops, tech geeks and weed for another (rainy) hip town full of rock and roll, coffee shops,......

Have you caught up on sleep from last year yet? Because SXSW is only 90 days away. The 2007 edition looks to be as big as ever, as all hotels within three miles of downtown are already sold out. The rumor mill and early confirmations are now trickling in, with no announcement bigger than that Pete Townshend will both deliver the keynote address and participate in an acoustic showcase with girlfriend Rachel Fuller. SXSW......

Well, it certainly feels like winter. This marks a usually slow time on the roadshow scene, as bands head home for the holidays and clubs close up shop. Not so fast, though: December is still unusually active this year on the Austin music calendar, so have a look below and see which acts you should bundle up and head out to. December: 12/01 FunFunFun: Spoon, Peaches, Prefuse 73 + more (Waterloo Park) 12/01 Dressy......

The first-ever Fun Fun Fun Fest is this Friday, December 1st, at Waterloo Park. Over two dozen great acts are on the bill, including Spoon, Peaches, The Black Angels, Prefuse 73, and DJ Mel. Tickets are $20, and can be purchased online. Gamblers perform on the punk stage at 6:55. --The Editors How's Volcom treating you? Any Riverboat Gamblers skate decks in your future? Volcom has been great! They give us lots of socks,......

Call us smut snobs, but we never could get into the fake blonde hair/fake tan/fake boobs look that has dominated the world of pornography for the last couple decades. Maybe it has something to do with having a hard time finding the real beach blonde underneath, or maybe it was just that we wouldn’t have given said beach blonde the time of day anyway – nor, let’s be honest, would she have had much to......

It took an official study paid for by the Downtown Austin Alliance and City of Austin to conclude the obvious: East Sixth Street has an overabundance of bars. Washington, D.C.-based consultants at ERA/Downtown Works, already working with the city on other downtown retail strategies, recently conducted a survey of the college-friendly span of Sixth Street from Congress Ave to Red River. According to their findings, the five-block-long area has a whopping 57 bars -- most......

As Elvis Costello might say, we just don't know where to begin. Even if you are skipping ACL, the fall is turning into a music wonderland. Acts of every genre and size are booking Austin's clubs up like there's no tomorrow, leaving music lovers with many questions on how to spend both time and cash this fall. Trust us, you can't see it all, so pick your favorites and buy tickets in advance to......

First they made it family-friendly. Then they tried to chesse-glitz it up for the shiny-shirt crowd. Tourists, total tourists. And we don't mean people on vacation who don't actually live in Vegas, we mean tourists. In the pejorative sense. Now they're trying to make America's favorite city for bluehairs, frat boys and porn skanks into a rock n' rollers' dream. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas usually sucks, so we hope that Emo's......

With our wine loving in-laws in town for the month of July, there were plenty of opportunities to drink bargain wines. After all, when you're sitting on the back porch nightly with a glass or two of red each for four people, those $25 bottles just aren't a fiscally sound option. This led to the pleasant discovery that there are many great bottles at the $10 point on the shelves of Austin's wine sellers.......

Fake cable repairmen, firefighters and cowboys are drawing the wrath of local officials. Austin police and lawyers for the city say that the lewd dancing taking place over at La Bare on Congress and Riverside has gone too far. And with the club located within 1000 feet of a school (Texas School for the Deaf) and a public park (Town Lake), officials say they have the right to close down the gauche pink neon-clad building.......

Hooters has a conscience about selling a $200 bottle of champagne to a FEMA aid-recipient, so they're reimbursing the agency. We can't wait until those strip clubs pony up the money spent there by disaster victims. Those debit cards- a disaster indeed. A Brooklyn artist posted his backyard tree house for rent as a gag but the housing market there is so competitive, he actually had a few seriously interested parties. Check out the......

Austinist was heavy-hearted to learn this week of the passing of Warren "Ryder" Schwartz. As has been much reported in the press, Schwartz was stabbed to death in south Austin last weekend. Ryder Schwartz -- a nickname that seemed to grow from "Red" (he had quite the coppertop), to "Red Ryder", to most casually "Ryder" -- was a juggler of unusual talent. In 1987, at the age of 21, when he heard that the......

The throngs descended upon Flamingo Cantina last Saturday night to celebrate “The Comeback Issue,” the first release in the second volume of Misprint Magazine, and to imbibe free Lone Star tallboys. The beer-fueled mirth was supplemented by DJ Sex Machine's ample spinning and spirited performances from Pink Nasty, Golden Bear, The Channel, and Acadia. For those of you who are unaware, Misprint Magazine “is a bi-monthly cultural publication from Austin” and a trove of......

A memorial show honoring Clifford Antone will be held tonight at his club, starting at 4pm. The free tribute includes performances by Double Trouble, Malford Milligan, Guy Forsythe and Cyril Neville. News8 Austin considers Antone's long-lasting influence on Austin's music scene in a piece published earlier this morning: "He brought blues clubs here in the '70s when no one else was doing that. He brought leading musicians from around the country and sometimes from around......

A reader recently brought our attention to some very disturbing news regarding the 24 Hour Fitness Club at Hancock Center. The events recounted in the following message come from a woman who was the victim of a sexual predator at the 24 Hour Fitness Hancock Center location. Her description of the events, found on her MySpace blog, has been making the rounds on NeighborNet all day. While she was swimming at the 24 HF, she......

In case you've missed it, there's a comedy revolution brewing in New York right now. Comics like Todd Barry, Demitri Martin, and Aziz Ansari have been drawing huge audiences of hipsters and regular folk alike with satire that owes far more to the silliness and irony of Steve Martin and Eddie Izzard than to the lowbrow Comedy Central/Def Comedy Jam nonsense that's infested comedy clubs for a decade. Among the brightest lights of the......

The Paul Green School of Rock started in Philly back in 1998 as a "performance-based, interactive music school," a place where kids could learn the theory and specifics about rock music by playing rock music. In rock clubs. With smoke machines. Founder Green and the original school (of which there are now branches all over the states) was the subject of "Rock School," a hilarious, scary, and altogether impressive documentary that came out last year.......