In a few hours, throaty troubadour Jeff Klein plays a final hometown show before heading off with Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan to the ends of the earth (and, beyond that, Portland). Like Dulli, his mentor, Klein is in the business of sustaining the Great American Break-Up Song by wrapping it in chain-maille and dousing it in all varieties of kerosene and rye. But Dulli excels at pulp and back-alleys and big, fat crimes that make the street cleaners work overtime. Maybe Klein can walk and talk like a (hard-boiled) duck, but he still has a soft underbelly. No one ever seems to die in his songs, they just live through hell; and regardless of what side he’s on, Klein always writes with compassion, even for the most sinister would-be femme fatales. ...

One of Texas' most popular and oldest independent craft breweries — Saint Arnold Brewing Company — is hot off a gold medal win at the Great American Beer Festival. Judges at the annual festival in Denver awarded Fancy Lawnmower Beer the gold medal in the German Style Kölsch/Köln Style Kölsch category. This is the first gold medal win for Saint Arnold's. Lawnmower beers, for the uninitiated, are light, crisp, and ideal for hot weather drinking.......

Two weeks ago, Katherine Gregor's Chronicle column discussed a recent study by professors Louise Harpman and Jason Sowell from UT Architecture, sponsored by the Downtown Austin Alliance. The study concluded that Wooldridge Square Park (between Guadalupe/San Antonio and 9th/10th Street) needs more community support, event programming, and landscaping improvements. Wooldridge Square, along with Republic Square and Brush Square, was one of four public squares included in the original grid for the city of Austin......

Tomorrow marks the 30th year of the American Cancer Society’s day-long Smoking Cessation program, The Great American Smoke Out. The premise of the day is to get smokers to quit smoking for just one day. The hope is that with each passing hour, smokers will want to "Stay Quit," and resist the urge to light up until smoking addiction is no longer an issue. It doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to tell you what you......

Jane Jacobs, the original urban planner who helped save Manhattan from an evil plan to cover it with highways, died this morning in Toronto. We at Austinist mourn her passing. Her vision of a livable downtown environment, explained in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, was a major factor in the rebirth of downtown living in the United States. Austin has just begun to reap the benefits of her insight. *Image......

Happen to be working on the Next Great American Comedy? Want to share it with the public, and pull in a little dough to boot? Our esteemed colleagues at the Austin American Statesman will put their money where your mouth is...or something like that. They're hosting the XL Funnywriter Contest, for which you can win $500 for writing the funniest "600-word scenario or dialogue script — on political, musical or evergreen subjects." Semi-finalists will......

A few weeks ago, Death Cab for Cutie played two sold-out, back-to-back shows at Stubb's in support of their latest album, Plans. We had a very brief chat with their bassist, the affable Nick Harmer, and discussed a wide variety of topics: their recent move to Atlantic Records, being on the road, Death Cab pushing their mid-forties, writing the Great American Novel and more. Read on for the interview! --- So we’d might as......

Let's just cut to the chase: everyone knows that smoking kills. Then again, so do stress, vodka, charcoal and high fructose corn syrup. But this isn't a public service board, nor do we care to proselytize - we'd just like to point out that today is the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. And unlike the other Great American Smokeout a few months from now, this one's designed to do your body a bit......

Van Horn, Texas: population 3000, 460 miles west of Austin. The town exists as a waypoint for travelers making the trek from El Paso to the eastern half of Texas, which is evidently sufficient to sustain the 17 motels and 16 gas stations along the main street - a somewhat ambitiously misnomered "Broadway".It was here that we previously discovered the color-soaked eclectic treasure trove that is Texas' Only Van Gogh Gallery. The store's description stems......