The Statesman brought our attention to a Houston Press story which detailed the ways in which Austin is no longer the cool place it used to be. Once again, it's the age old story about how the good ole days died with the Armadillo, the music scene is too modern, and the traffic is bad (ironic complaint from a Houstonian about our traffic duly noted). Greg Ellis, a record store manager in San Marcos is quoted as complaining: "Tell me what the cool venue is in Austin right now. There’s not one. There’s nothing like Liberty Lunch or the Beach or anything like that anymore. You’ve got the Red Eyed Fly, which is okay, but it’s a hellhole, really. And then you’ve got…um…Stubb’s I guess is the coolest thing that you’ve got. And that’s controlled by [corporate concert promoters] C3, and there you go. You wanna go see Primus at Stubb’s? Well, that’ll be $45. Lauryn Hill? $63. That’s not Austin.” more ›

You bring up the idea of “art”, and you’re definitely begging for some heated shit talking. Opinions are the first to fly, then potentially followed by epithets, then perhaps some brass knuckles. All metaphoric in form, of course. Why must these disagreements come to pass? Notorious MSG comes to mind. It could be said that this is exactly what art and artists, as functional cogs in the machines of social industry, are supposed to... more ›