Results tagged “npr”

Darling New Neighbors won NPR's contest to create a jingle for Carrie Brownstein's Monitor Mix. Listen to it here.

A respected American humorist, writer, and frequent panelist on NPR's Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, Roy Blount Jr.'s career spans nearly two dozen books (most recently, Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South) and clips in publications far and wide, from The New Yorker and The New York Times to Esquire and Sports Illustrated. He's coming to Austin next week to participate in the live taping of "Wait Wait" at Bass Concert Hall on Thursday, and will also be around the evening before to deliver a special presentation for the Writers' League of Texas.

If you missed the CD release show last weekend for Loxsly's Tomorrow's Fossils, you can get an idea of the record over at KUT today -- "Battalions" is the Song of the Day. Grab it here.

American forces in Afghanistan: Gen. David D. McKiernan out, Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is in. American soldier kills five fellow servicemen at a combat stress clinic in Baghdad. Love among the ruins of Sichuan. During his visit, Pope disappoints many residents of the Holy Land with his lack of specifics. NPR's Adam Davidson argues with bailout monitor Elizabeth Warren. Florida's Governor Crist wants to be Senator Crist. Aziz Ansari on the great IMAX swindle.

n a top 40 world, Austin is a proudly NPR town, so tonight should be a special treat for many of us who enjoy the popular radio show “This American Life.” Tonight only you can catch a live HD simulcast of the show at movie theaters around town. Glass will be there hosting the show, and contributors will include regulars like Starlee Kine, sex columnist Dan Savage, and the hilarious Mike Birbiglia, among others.

Austin label End Sounds has put together a big party to kick off SX music. On Tuesday, 3/17, Red 7 will host Madball, Death In The Park, Reign Supreme, Mike Herrera's Tumbledown, Call To Preserve, True Widow, Bitter End, The Escape Frame, and an ad hoc Minor Threat cover band featuring Zach Blair, Luke Abbey, Frank Carter, and Sam Ghanbar. The show is open to the public and cover is $10.

Tarak McLain, a seven-year-old from Austin, so impressed the producer of NPR's , Sunday, Jan. 18, when it plays on KUT from 7am-9am, or listen to the show online afterwards. [This I Believe]

Paul McCartney's collaboration with producer and founding member of Killing Joke Youth began as an electronic experiment in the early '90s. Their first two releases, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998) were largely instrumental experiments, unacknowledged by McCartney himself. This year's Electric Arguments is a different beast - coming on the heels of McCartney's departure from Starbucks' Hear Music label, as well as a brutal public divorce, the album is direct in ways that restores our faith in rock monoliths. The first Fireman album in ten years, its songs are punchy, rockin' and out, paying subtle homage to everyone from Tom Waits ("Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight") to Brian Eno ("Lovers In a Dream").

American global dominance is expected to decrease in coming years; China, Russia and India may challenge US influence. Attorney General Mukasey collapsed during a speech last night. Verizon workers sneaked a peek at Obama's old cell phone records. We should know Hillary Clinton's status in the Obama administration later today. Maybe. Sarah Palin pardons one turkey, while another unfortunate turkey faces a different fate behind her comments afterward. Best cranberry relish recipe ever? Say it ain't so, ABC! Pushing Daisies cancelled.

The new Riverboat Gamblers album, Underneath the Owl, doesn't come out until March 2009, but SPIN is offering a free download of the single, "A Choppy, Yet Sincere Apology."

Michele Norris, host of NPR's All Things Considered, will be in town next week. The Mary Alice Distinguished Lectureship, William Randolph Hearst Endowment for Visiting Professionals and the School of Journalism at UT Austin are sponsoring her lecture titled "Listening to America in an Election Year: Did the Press Get it Right?" Her lecture next Thursday is free and open to the public.

Thursday Flamingo Cantina takes a break from bringing in bands like The Skatalites and Israel Vibration. Instead, for this free day show they will host the shimmering and sentimental, Swedish alt rock of the Shout Out Louds. You’ll also hear the catchy California rock of Rogue Wave and the love song sing-alongs and quirky experiments of Akron/Family. Sub Pop’s Portland drums-and-guitar duo The Helio Sequence come prepared with spacey indie rock prettiness, and Fleet Foxes are set to impress with charming guitars and melodic tones. Expect a thrilling display from Athens’ psych-folk collective Elf Power.

Primary results from national/state/local races: So even though it seems that Hillary won the Texas primary (it's interesting that Obama led in statewide early voting), Obama may beat her in delegate numbers. In the GOP race, McCain is now the GOP candidate as Huckabee gives up the ghost. In Travis County, Ron Paul won 17% of the vote . . .

SXSW has announced the schedule of events for this year’s official showcases -- start here! Also, check out Greg Hewgill's site for (unofficial) Torrents featuring the various artists playing SXSW 2008 (as well as past years).

• Sex toys are no longer illegal in Texas; federal appeals court overturns the ban.
• McCain adviser tells NPR that if Obama is the Democratic nominee, he won't keep working on McCain's campaign.
• Decapitation wire placed by someone on US/Mexico border fence.

Photo by Herald H. Schoeder courtesty of Essay RecordingsSHANTEL What’s the Deal: Finally, some club music that doesn’t make you want to club yourself for being so easily convinced into going “clubbing.” In case you missed them on NPR’s All Songs Considered, which everyone should be listening to, Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar is comprised of German electronica master Shantel and an ensemble of Balkan sounds. The result of this mix of electronic beats and...

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors I don’t want to say that there’s a right way and a wrong way to celebrate The Holidays. That would be foolhardy and dickish. Especially in a city as diversified as this one (we celebrate Christmas AND Thanksgiving!). But something this chick was crying about on NPR this morning got me thinking...

Image from www.kut.orgBefore you get too bogged down with finals, papers, end-of-the-semester projects, etc., you might consider this for next semester: KUT is currently taking applications for their Spring Break/SxSW Intern Program. Interns in this program will undergo an intensive week-long audio journalism training program under guidance from KUT and NPR staff. KUT is looking for two student journalists to cover Film and three to cover Music during the SxSW Festival. You must be at...

Image from Tom Brosseau’s MySpace Nickel Creek & Tom BrosseauSaturday, November 17Stubbs (801 Red River)$25 Advance; Doors 7 p.m.[info] | [tickets] Singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau brings heartfelt lyricism and mellow melodies to Stubb’s on Saturday. Hailing from Grand Forks, North Dakota, Brosseau’s high pitched voice and gentle guitar complement his sincere storytelling perfectly, and has found him at least one fan in a certain Natalie Portman. Portman picked Brosseau’s “Plaid Lined Jacket” (along with tracks by...

Logo from Austin Jewish Book Fair Keynote Lecture: "Iraq, Al Qaeda, and the Future of Israel" with Jeffrey Goldberg and Lawrence WrightSunday, November 11Jewish Community Association of Austin (7300 Hart Lane)7:30pm, $12 Gen Ad, $10 Students/Seniors/JCC Members[info] | [tickets] Austin Graphics and Comics Night with Paul Benjamin and Terry and Patty LaBanThursday, November 8Barnes and Noble Westlake (701 S. Capital of Texas)7:30pm, Free[info]Less than four days are left in the 2007 Austin Jewish Book Fair,...

*The views expressed in The Laurie Show are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole.* -ed. note Once again, I am plagued with the thought of: "Why is everything happening this weekend?! WHY, I ask you?!" Literally, it's packed with such a wide variety of live musical entertainment that your brain will explode. It can be a good dilemma to have, though. I'll try to summarize as best I...

Providing hours and hours of entertainment to the city of Austin daily, KOOP 91.7 FM requests you to join them this evening at The Scoot Inn for a multi-talented line-up of local acts. And all for a mere five bucks of your hard earned money for all the fun. Not bad a deal, we think. Hosted specifically by Now Playing Austin (which airs every Thursday at 6 p.m.), headliners on the night include Peel and...

Bishop Allen The Broken String (Dead Oceans) So, the Brooklyn-based (man, it gets tiring typing that out every week) blog band Bishop Allen are a sort of east coast Voxtrot in that they've wet the pop-frenzied masses with a series of well-received EPs over the last couple of years. Instead of releasing an album full of highly anticipated new material, however, they've polished a bunch of old tracks (and previously only available live songs)...

Black Nasty Feed From Me It's hard not to start by saying "This music is totally offensive, completely cringe-worthy, and absolutely not appropriate in almost any situation you can imagine." There, we didn't start by saying that. Feed From Me is a maxi single (not an EP, CD or regular single, these are different times, folks) with ten songs that push the boundaries of what most normal people consider music. Influenced by the olden days...

Lady Bird (Claudia Alta Taylor) Johnson was the oldest living former First Lady before her death this afternoon in Austin. The widow of LBJ will be fondly remembered for her love and work for the environment (promoting the highway beautification bill, raising money for Town Lake Park, and co-founding a national wildflower center). She had not been in top health since her first stroke in the early '90s, but still made rare public appearances around...

After a month of guesswork, the ACL Fest lineup is here. And it's quite a good one. While the wild speculation of headliners like Neil Young and Stevie Wonder once again proved false, the key items one sees this year are depth and balance. Having spent yesterday looking over the roster, we have the following observations on the 2007 edition of ACL. The Good: A Great Top 10. Had you told us that we'd...

There are times when it is difficult to look at a band without thinking of what might have been, and Son Volt is undoubtedly one of them. When the wildly influential alt.country group Uncle Tupelo disbanded into two camps, Son Volt was one resulting act. The other was Wilco. In 1995, the Jay Farrar-led Son Volt released their debut album Trace, one of the best albums of the 1990's bar none. At the time, it seemed that Farrar had trumped Jeff Tweedy's Wilco, whose debut A.M. is probably the weakest offering in their catalog. In the decade since, Tweedy has proven far more musically adventurous, while Farrar has essentially churned out diluted and inferior versions of the wonderful Trace.

Followers of the indie-rock scene may be a little shocked to find out that it has only been two years since Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's debut demos stormed across the blogosphere. The decidedly scruffy demos were a revelation, full of Talking Heads-like vocals, soaring minimal guitar lines, and (perhaps most importantly) a very danceable rhythm section that sounded quite different to the many Interpol-derivatives of the day. Having seen the then-unknown CHYSY win...

The penultimate speaker in KLRU's 2007 Spark Series is the ever-fascinating Douglas Rushkoff, a hugely prolific author, teacher, and documentarian who's written extensively on new media, pop culture, religion, and technology as it pertains to society in general. Rushkoff first exposed the world to the emerging cyberculture phenomenon with his 1994 book, Cyberia, and has since published at least ten best-selling books, including Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism (2003) and Media Virus: Hidden...

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors It was supposed to end by now. We’re supposed to already be past this. Many believe they saw it coming before it hit, and many more than that read through the lines to see the “conspiracy” for what they believed it was. Have you heard that Del Monte or Chiquita or some...