Snapshots from Sunday's Zilker Kite Festival...

This Sunday, grab a friend, grab a kite and head down to Zilker Park for a local tradition that is over 50 years older than SXSW and over 70 years older than ACL Fest. If we're talking about true Austin, the Zilker Park Kite Festival can't be beat....

Looks like ACL Fest organizers have chosen Groundhog Day to release their mildly discounted multi-passes. 3-day passes priced at $150 including service charges are on sale now at ACLFest.com. ...

Photos from opening night of the Trail of Lights in Zilker Park. Visit the city's Trail of Lights events page to find out about the various festivities taking place this year. Photos courtesy of Keith Gaddis. If you can't view the Flash slideshow above, an alternate version appears after the jump.......

Photo courtesy austinsantaspeedorun.com Santa Speedo Run at Trail of Lights 5kSaturday, December 8Zilker Park6pm[info]During next weekend's Trail of Lights 5k Run, Zilker Park's festive arrangement of lighted scenes won't be the only eye candy on display. Some steely individuals will get together to participate in Austin's first annual Santa Speedo Run, wearing, as you might have guessed, nothing but the trademark Lycra swim briefs. It's all in the name of good fun, while (informally) fundraising......

Image from Zilker Park Residences. Sandwich king John Wooley is building a condo for himself and 73 of his closest market-selected friends near the shores of Barton Creek and Lady Bird Lake. Beloved Austin icon Wanfu Too will be displaced. Check this website later for details about the Save Wanfu Too Benefit Concert. In a surprising twist, Wooley appears to have support of the Zilker Neighborhood Association, partly because the project will require no variances......

Photo from City of Austin Tree Planting CeremonySaturday, November 10Zilker Park Rock Gardens (2100 Barton Springs Road)(9am, Volunteers Welcome)[info]In observance of Veterans Day, the City of Austin's Parks and Recreation Department is getting together tomorrow morning to plant 57 trees at the Zilker Park Rock Gardens: A special ceremony will honor the dedication and sacrifice of men and women who have fought to preserve our nation's liberty. Following the ceremony, volunteers organized by Tree Folks......

If braving the Texas heat and wading through crowds of festival-goers at ACL isn’t your thing or you just couldn’t afford it, but you still want to get out of the house and your dancin’ shoes are beggin’ for some wear and tear, feel free to visit Emo’s Friday night. ‘Free’ being the most important word there, because it is. The Clientele, Oakley Hall and Zykos are offering a varied night of art pop,......

With the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival set to take over the town shortly, it’s worthwhile to note that the music will naturally not be restricted to the fenced confines of Zilker Park. "Official" ACL-Fest after shows and sexy time aside, downtown should be bumping with a plethora of quality events. The wonderful folk from FactoryPeople and DFA Records present one such extravaganza on Friday at Red 7. The Outdoor Stage will feature quality......

Given that Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" has become resolutely unfunny over the past month (even before she canceled), the title of "band with that one hit song that everyone loves" at ACL has fallen squarely on the shoulders of Sweden's Peter, Bjorn, and John. The group have been plugging away at their charming blend of pop, rock, and indie since 1999, and are anything but an overnight sensation. Their breakthrough hit "Young Folks" is actually......

The Funniest Filmmaker in Austin contest returns to Cap City Comedy Club, with semifinals emceed by Bryan Gutmann, winner of the 2007 Funniest Person in Austin contest NYC's uber-scenesters The Misshapes hold court at Beauty Bar with Riot in Belgium and KidIndie Zilker Park hosts the very last installment of KGSR's Blues on the Green, featuring Marcia Ball & Band DJ Mel spins the killer 80s jams at the quarterly Rock the Casbah dance......

Brooklyn based The National will grace our town with their presence at the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival. The band is comprised of Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, and Scott Devendorf. (Yes, that’s two sets of siblings!) The National expertly combine catchy riffs and appropriate strings with affecting lyrics (sometimes poignant, while seemingly abstract on other occasions). Although we feel that their music is best suited for a late night,......

Since their inception in 2001, Portland's The Decemberists have channeled a unique and wide-ranging set of influences (be it R.E.M., Irish folkfore, or Russian literature) into classic indie-pop that has found a large and fervent fanbase. The group's 2006 major label debut The Crane Wife both amazed and shocked music critics, who loved the material but could hardly believe the band's audacity, as two 11-plus minute epics were featured on the disc. The bold......

Just like last year, Austin's in for another rainy July 4th. With Lake Travis still hovering around 700 feet above sea level and an estimated 2-4 inches of rain on the way, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) is keeping all area lakes closed for boating, including Lake Austin and Town Lake. "Debris and high water from floodwaters make the lakes unsafe," reads the news bulletin post to LCRA's site this afternoon. "LCRA will......

After maintaining a low profile since their "Night At The Opera" at Hogg Auditorium in January and SXSW showcase, hometown dance-noise champs Ghostland Observatory are unleashing a triple kung-fu combo punch on Austin this summer. On Wednesday, they'll play a "secret" show at Emo's as part of the club's anniversary celebrations. Then in mid-July, the band will tape an episode of the PBS series Austin City Limits - call the ACL hotline on 475-9077......

This morning marks the release of the ACL 2007 schedule grid. This is probably the most stressful day of the year for the avid ACL festivalgoer, as hopes of seeing every act one likes are dashed when seeing how many of your favorite bands are playing at the exact same time. It's impossible to program such a big festival without a couple of conflicts, but three stand out to us this year as particularly......

The Austin Outdoor Wireless Mesh Project, which previously covered a large section of the downtown area, was today extended to an enormous part of East Austin. The new coverage area runs from I-35 to a few blocks west of Pedernales St, and from Town Lake to East 7th St. A separate pocket of coverage also exists in the East 11th Street Revitalization Area, near the Longbranch Inn. “The expansion of the Austin Outdoor Wireless Mesh......

After years of dormancy and abandonment, the old Treehouse restaurant and nightclub -- a swinging joint back in the 80s, now an eyesore in a prime development location -- will finally be replaced with something new. Construction on the project -- a high-end, luxury condo building called 1155 Barton Springs -- will begin by the end of this year. For over seven years, developers Elisabeth and Steffen Waltz and their partners have butted heads with......

If you tried out in last week's ACL Fest presale ticket raffle, your odds of "winning" a pair of bargain $50 passes are considerably worse than we initially anticipated. According to one of our B-School buddies over at UT, the head of Capital Sports & Entertainment reportedly announced during a lecture yesterday that an astounding 90,000 people had entered the contest. No headliners have been announced for the fall festival, but the good folks......

The Sunday afternoon sky was littered with hundreds of plastic birds, Supermans and Technicolor stingrays (above) as The 79th Annual Zilker Kite Festival took over Zilker Park. If you aren't familiar with the kite festival, it's first and foremost a family affair filled with moon walks and puppet shows, face-painting and rock climbing. Aside from enjoying a day in the park, it's basically the quickest way in Austin to meet absolute strangers--all day long......

Unless you frequent the Hike and Bike Trail or attend Austin High School, you may not have noticed the recent construction of a lime green wall and several over-sized pieces of fruit on the southwest corner of Veterans Drive and Lake Austin Boulevard. These new additions to a popular West Austin corner, already host to Magnolia Cafe, Thundercloud Subs and Deep Eddy Cabaret, are attributed to the good people at Daily Juice down on......

The City of Austin has taken all the recycled Christmas trees and made them into a nice green, free mulch. The mulch is available at Zilker Park on a first-come, first-serve basis. It has been available since Tuesday, but there is still a large pile for the takin'. If you go to pick up mulch, bring your own gloves, bags and such, because you're on your own getting it in your vehicle. The city......

The annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day, taking place this year on Saturday, January 13th, was created to honor the memory of the civil rights hero and encourage the public to carry on his legacy of volunteerism through community service projects. Locally, what began as a grassroots effort by State Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin) to clean up East MLK Jr. Boulevard in 2000 has blossomed into the citywide MLK Day of Service. The 2007 clean......

For those of you who thought that the weather at the Stones was purrfect, and how nice it would be to have ACL during the fall, or have just not figured out that Festivals happen at the end of summer…skip to the next post. Austin City Limits Festival, Pollstar’s Festival of the Year in 2005, has announced dates for the 2007 Fest. The festival will take place at Zilker Park from September 14-17. Start scheduling......

Today's big news is the FunFunFun festival, but there are also several new shows in this edition of the concert update. Kasabian, Ben Folds, Mates Of State, and others have all announced Austin shows, and there are tons more on tap for late fall. Have a look: October: 10/21 Pet Shop Boys (The Backyard) 10/21 Ladytron (Stubb's) 10/22 Rolling Stones (Zilker Park) 10/22 Method Man (Emo's) 10/23 Jenny Lewis + Watson Twins (Stubb's) 10/24......

- Wild Horses Couldn't Sell Those Cheap Seats: Charles Attal must be having some trouble filling those far corners of Zilker Park, because KGSR sent out an email this week offering four Rolling Stones tickets and four concert T-Shirts for $199. If you're keeping score, this is roughly half of the original $95 ticket cost. If you'd like to take advantage of the offer, head over here. - New Concerts Going On Sale his......

For years, the Austin Film Festival has been one of our favorite events of the year. In the true independent spirit of the town which name it bears, the festival is committed to nurturing and celebrating the work of aspiring filmmakers. Their vision includes the celebration not just of directors and actors, but of the people behind the scenes, most notably, the unsung heroes - the screenwriters. They announced their unbelievable lineup today, and......

Fans of the indie-rock will find much to like in the latest concert update. Flying V lovers My Morning Jacket, the willfully obtuse Fiery Furnaces, and alt.country godfather Jay Farrar have each been added to Austin's fall music schedule. As we've mentioned, the sheer volume of shows is unprecedented, so get out and enjoy the fact that every band you like is coming to town in the next two months. Thanks as always to......

FRIDAY [15] music • Ghostland Observatory and Thee Emergency at The Mohawk (912 Red River) ® party • Earthdance at NiaSpace (7:30pm-10pm, $15) party • Eastside City Limits party with Pink Nasty, Tnlons Fort, I Kill Cars, Missing Tapes, Brothesr and Sisters, Til We're Blue or Destroy, The Black at Red Scoot Inn and Old Austin Daze Compound (9pm-4am, FREE) ® party • Teleport Door presents the Pop Yo Colla' party with DJs Daniel......

Didn’t want to spend your hard-earned cash for ACL ducats this year? Or maybe you have to work, and can’t get away from that computer to which you’re chained. Whatever the case may be, if you aren’t heading down to Zilker Park this weekend, you can still catch several of the ACL performances broadcast live over the intranets. AT&T will be airing exclusive content at their Blue Room portal beginning tomorrow with the first......