A wildfire traveling through trees (image via Getty Images) After Mayor Kirk Watson declared a state of disaster August 15 due to rampant wildfires, Council is considering a major investment in wildfire prevention to the tune of $3 million at its Thursday meeting. Austin is uniquely vulnerable to wildfires because of extensive damage to the tree canopy from the winter storm this year, plus extended drought conditions that Central Texas has been experiencing for months. To address that vulnerability, Austin Energy wants to contract with Pano AI Inc .

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-10-06/council-to-consider-3-million-five-year-contract-for-wildfire-prevention-tech/

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Photo by Erica Devin Snyder Since forming in 2014, NYC folk-pop sibling trio has cemented lush vocal harmonies as the centerpiece of their music. From the tour-tested soul runs of debut Thrilled to Be Here to the experimental falsetto on follow-up Tired Hearts , they continue to challenge the boundaries of their voices. 'There's something about sibling harmonies that, if you have it, you shouldn't sleep on it,' says bassist Daniel . 'Even though our voices are really different, they [matched] in the perfect way that we were like, ‘Holy shit!'' In an alternate universe, Daniel, his twin brother David (drums), and their younger sister Julia (vocals/guitar) might have appeared on a Randy Jackson-piloted reality series about sibling bands.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-10-06/acl-interview-family-band-bailen-talks-three-part-harmonies-and-sibling-shenanigans/

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's Ellie Livingston at the 2023 Austin Music Awards (Photo by Jana Birchum) Alongside the requisite Asleep at the Wheel kickoff performance, this year's Austin City Limits Festival lineup welcomes its usual block of Texas talent. Stateside names like and the Mars Volta hold it down across both weekends, October 6-8 and 13-15. Meanwhile, heat-mapped locals spread across the opening spots around noon. Arrive early to support the quintessential up-and-coming Austinite bucket-list spot and stroll through the gates without waiting in line.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-10-06/17-texas-artists-to-see-at-acl-fest/

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After nearly a decade in Nashville, has experienced a whirlwind couple of years. A viral cover of the Highwomen's 'Crowded Table' launched the powerhouse vocalist from backup singer to the spotlight, and her EP Compassion and single 'Sober & Skinny' introduced rich and vulnerable songwriting to match her stunning voice. She attempts to capture some of that journey on her humbly titled debut LP, My Stupid Life , slated for release on Electra early next year. 'I can't take myself seriously,' Spencer laughs of the album's title.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-10-06/acl-interview-nashville-singer-songwriter-brittney-spencer-isnt-taking-herself-too-seriously/

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Dear Luv Doc, I am the proud dog Dad to two young very cute Chihuahuas, a brother and sister. They bark a little bit, not too much, and we are readily working on correcting that behavior without being too punitive. My next-door neighbor has renamed his Wi-Fi networks "NoisyDogs," "NoisyDogs Guest," and "MyNeighborHas2NoisyDogs." I have not responded to this and am asking should I, or should I just take the high road and just continue to smile? To give you a little more insight, this same neighbor blacks out his entire house on Halloween to avoid giving out candy and has never ever put up Xmas lights.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2023-10-06/the-luv-doc-noisydogs-guest/

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Another election is upon us – this one to alter our state constitution, plus maybe-or-maybe-not supply Travis County with enough money to fix some roads and buy some parkland. You've got a precious few days left to register to vote if you haven't yet, and we're here to help with everything you need to know to participate in our democracy next month. Getting Registered If you want to vote Nov. 7, you'll need to have been registered to vote by Oct. 10. If you're new to town, know that you don't need a Texas driver's license to register or vote in Texas.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-10-06/election-day-is-right-around-the-corner-register-quick/

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photos by Gerald E. McLeod A search of the official Guinness World Records website says there are 768 results for Texas, and it's growing. The real number is somewhere south of there considering duplicates and out-of-date entries, but here are four in Texas you can visit. The Guinness Book of World Records was founded in 1954 by employees of the Guinness Brewery as a reference book to settle barroom arguments. The name was shortened in 1999. The publisher maintains more than 62,000 records of the first, largest, longest, fastest, and so on.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2023-10-06/day-trips-guinness-world-records/

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Hot Topix guest judge Syd Prescot (photo by Manuel Gonzales Jr. / Courtesy of AIDF) Don't raise the dead this October; help Austin International Drag Foundation raise funds at Hot Topix , their new drag competition hosted every second Tuesday at Valhalla . Started in 2015, the org is the first and only 501(c)3 nonprofit catering only to drag artists and the art of drag. But all that work for the drag community doesn't come cheap, and neither does their big multiday Austin International Drag Festival , which collects drag stars from all over Bat City.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2023-10-06/qmmunity-fund-raising-hell/

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The OPO has a new leader (photo by John Anderson) Austin's Office of Police Oversight has a new, permanent director at a critical juncture in the fight over civilian oversight of the Austin Police Department – but it's unclear to us how and why she was selected. The permanent appointment of Gail McCant – who was previously appointed OPO's interim director in May by Interim City Manager Jesús Garza – follows the departure of two previous interim directors. Like his predecessor Spencer Cronk , Garza told the public that the city would conduct a national search to find the best candidate for the job.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-10-06/interim-city-manager-selects-police-oversight-chief-without-public-input/

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On this week's cover, Austin band Nemegata is gathered in a tableaux bursting with color and embedded meaning. Musician Víctor-Andrés Cruz explains, "Here identity, ethnicity, diversity, and ancestral symbolism came together in an artistic narrative." "Latin America – or as we now call it, 'Abya Yala' – is a constant act of resistance to the Western world. Every second. Our wealth is our ancestral heritage and our connection to our territories as communities. This is a gesture to express that no matter what happens, or what we go through, we are still connected to our origins, and we acknowledge this with pride.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-29/abya-yala-the-story-behind-the-photos/

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A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin's independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community's political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. Support the Chronicl

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-29/review-skam-no-name/

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Hays County D.A. Kelly Higgins (Courtesy of Kelly Higgins) The 19-year-old district clerk who tried to take out Hays County's sitting district attorney has withdrawn his challenge. Two weeks ago, Avrey Anderson sued to have D.A. Kelly Higgins removed from office, alleging the D.A. had neglected his duties. Anderson dropped his lawsuit on Sept. 22, hours after Higgins filed a response with allegations of its own. Anderson's suit was filed under House Bill 17 , the recently enacted "rogue prosecutor" law.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-09-29/hays-county-teen-district-clerk-drops-suit-against-d-a/

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(l-r): Kelly Wourms and Claire Harbutt founded Austin Bicycle Meals (photos by Jana Birchum) When it's in the hundreds outside, a Popsicle can change your day. It's a Saturday in early September, the last blast of summer, and a procession of bicycles rolls by a grassy median in Downtown Austin where a dozen folks are posted up in the shade of an oak. A woman of about 30, stylish and sweaty, clearly experiencing some degree of hardship, is walking toward the group venting loudly to no one in particular.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/food/2023-09-29/austin-bicycle-meals-offers-pedal-powered-distribution-to-the-streets/

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Rest assured: This is not the end. already confirmed as much. But the band's seventh studio album and first in seven years isn't a new beginning, either. EITS' twin peaks, 2003's The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place and 2007's All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone , played out as album-length epics, unfurling in acts and waves, cresting and falling with tidal serenity and unmistakable emotional pull. The band's more recent output has been more singular in focus, capturing fleeting scenes in lieu of complete stories.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-29/review-explosions-in-the-sky-end/

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The Umlauf's Starlight Soirée Help support Austin's Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum by enjoying – among all the upscale finery of the Domain, no less – an alfresco dining experience with a tasting menu of appetizers, entrées, and desserts from more than 15 local restaurants. Also, beer, wine, and bubbles, live music from Plush, prize giveaways, and more. Thu., Oct. 5, 6-9pmThe Domain, 11410 Century Oaks$125-175 umlaufsculpture.org "dARKagEs" Leon Alesi and John Mulvany aim to unearth, uncover, and breathe new life into images and artifacts that may have seemed invisible, hidden, and unknowable.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2023-09-29/five-big-nights-out-for-the-visual-arts/

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Table for three (l-r): Fabián Rincón, Víctor-Andrés Cruz, César Valencia of Nemegata (Photo by Beatriz Lopez) "Bring earplugs!" It might get loud. Like, really loud. In a 15-by-15-foot acoustically padded and carpeted box at Space ATX in South Austin, Colombian trio Nemegata finally finishes loading in and faces off. Fabián Rincón runs a drumstick up and down the scratcher on his cymbal stand as César Valencia picks up the bass and Víctor-Andrés Cruz stokes melody out of his Telecaster.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-29/nemegatas-folkloric-futurism-boosts-austins-budding-colombian-music-scene/

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(l-r) Ben Wolfe, Sarah Fleming Walker, Lowell Bartholomee, and Sarah Zeringue in Austin Playhouse's The Norwegians (photo by Steve Rogers Photography) For decades, the vast majority of characters on Broadway who identified as LGBTQIA+ were portrayed by actors who did not. And for decades, the vast majority of mentally or physically challenged characters were portrayed by actors without those same challenges. Things have changed significantly on Broadway and locally in matters of inclusion and representation, thanks largely to social and political activism, the influx of minority-written, -directed, and -produced productions, and actors refusing to take on roles that take jobs away from those who are more authentically suited.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2023-09-29/review-austin-playhouses-the-norwegians/

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Duncan Carson and Brendan K. O'Grady, the funny men who defined Austin stand-up with long-running showcase Sure Thing (photo by Jana Birchum) Two transplants arrive in Austin and meet at a coffee shop open mic. A friendship forms. In June 2012, they launch a weekly stand-up showcase. 512 shows later, the longtime friends and co-hosts, Brendan K. O'Grady and Duncan Carson, announce that the October 6 Sure Thing at Fallout Theater will be the final one. Sure Thing has featured over 500 comics, delighted over 50,000 audience members, changed its name from the Laugh Lounge, witnessed one marriage proposal, been lit by smartphone light when the electricity went out, endured one mouse running onstage while escaping a rainy downpour (causing one terrified comic to perform while standing on a chair), survived one fight threat from an audience member, missed only nine weeks (not counting COVID lockdown or venue closures), held one official Sure Thing Tour Thing (in support of Sure Thing Records' release of Mac Blake 's debut album, Bird Drugs ), and released 17 full-length comedy recordings.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2023-09-29/austins-longest-running-stand-up-showcase-ends-after-a-decade-of-making-stars/

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Dear Luv Doc, My wife and I have been married for 26 years. About 10 years ago my mom finally gave my wife the original secret family recipe for the traditional birthday cheesecake. A few years back my wife used the recipe card to make my birthday cheesecake. When my son's birthday came around, she couldn't find the recipe card to make his cheesecake. Instead she made a cheesecake from scratch and memory of the original recipe. It was outstanding and delicious. Sometime later I was cleaning out the kitchen and found the secret recipe card in a stack of old papers.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2023-09-29/the-luv-doc-secret-traditional-family-birthday/

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Pandemic-formed act seems to have fallen from the sky, crash-landing its layered neo-psychedelia into a record deal three years later with London label Fuzz Club (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, the Black Angels). The shockwave continues on the quartet's 10-track debut, produced by Angels bandleader Alex Maas. Good Time deals in familiar revelries, fleshing out traditional counterculture ethos (" Fuck the man/ This is our time ") with shoegaze lilts and gritty, industrial guitar tone. Distortion whittles guitarist and vocalist Alex Capistran's voice down to sweet rock candy, melding a Damon Albarn whine with inflection-averse nonchalance.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-22/review-daiistar-good-time-fuzz-club/

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A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin's independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community's political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands. Support the Chronicl

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-22/review-ben-buck-back-burner-97/

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Heather Graham in Suitable Flesh (courtesy of Shudder / RLJE) Joe Lynch seems to love adding the pressure of expectation to his movies. The filmmaker made his Fantastic Fest debut in 2007 with the U.S. premiere of bloody hilarious slasher sequel Wrong Turn 2: Dead End and gave the low-budget redneck horror franchise its best entry and gnarliest kills. He came back seven years later with the hyperviolent Everly , a script that had languished on the Black List of brilliant but unfilmed (and seemingly unfilmable) scripts.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/screens/2023-09-22/joe-lynch-is-bringing-sexy-back-with-suitable-flesh/

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Dear , I got married to an incredible woman last year. I love her with all of my heart. She is from South America. I am an American that just happened to be born and raised abroad. (Think of the area where Asia, Africa, and Europe meet.) We knew pretty early in the relationship that we wanted to be together forever. Everything was going well until the day my wife had to have an immigration medical exam. The S.O.B doctor asked my wife to undress. Our attorney stated that this so-called doctor is a sick person.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2023-09-22/the-luv-doc-a-sick-person/

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' Sincronizada burger (Photo by @obsidian_photography512 / Courtesy of ) Beto Robledo, the owner and founder of critically acclaimed Mexican food truck Cuantos Tacos, has put the Austin food scene on notice with the recent opening of his new concept, , in the Arbor Food Park. A born-and-raised Austinite who attended Lanier High School, Robledo has had the concept brewing for years. "I originally had several food concepts that I was considering. Cuantos Tacos was the last one I thought of, and it was the one I ended up moving forward with.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/food/2023-09-22/first-look-cuantas-hamburguesas/

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Liz Cheney interviewed for Texas Tribune Festival in 2022 (photo by Jana Birchum) The Texas Tribune Festival returns to Downtown Austin this week, Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 21-23. The festival brings nearly 300 scheduled speakers together to examine trends in policy and politics; among the weekend's 152 events, here are five of the most interesting. Select events may be accessible through livestreaming platforms as listed on the Tribune's program details. Tickets ($50-$750) are available on the festival's website at festival-platform.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2023-09-22/we-sorted-through-150-tribfest-events-these-five-stood-out/

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photos by Gerald E. McLeod The Buffalo Soldier Memorial stands across a busy street from Fort Concho National Historic Landmark in San Angelo , where many African American soldiers served. Ten stone pillars along a walkway in a shaded grove honor men and women who helped open the western frontier of Texas to settlement. A project of the San Angelo NAACP , the memorial was dedicated on July 28, 2023 – National Buffalo Soldiers Day . Organizers of the project say it is the only memorial in Texas dedicated to the Black enlisted soldiers who served in late 19th-century Texas.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2023-09-22/day-trips-buffalo-soldiers-memorial-san-angelo/

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(l-r) Nathan Daniel Ford, Paul Sanchez, Blakeney Mahlstedt, Helyn Rain Messenger, Amber Quick, and Jeremy Rashad Brown in Zach Theatre's The Girl Who Became Legend (photo by Suzanne Cordeiro) Many of us have witnessed and some of us are living proof of the graying of the performing arts audience, the result of one generation of ticketholders not being replaced by the next. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., has been striving to stem this tide with its New Visions/New Voices program, which serves to stimulate and support the creation of plays, musicals, and operas for young audiences.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2023-09-22/review-zach-theatres-the-girl-who-became-legend/

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Hershey Felder in Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone (courtesy of Hershey Felder Presents) What exactly is American music? A century ago, long before rock & roll, hip-hop, or Americana, what constituted American music was much different than today. It tended to be a blending of European classical, Broadway show tunes, minstrelsy, ragtime, perhaps a bit of country and blues, and, of course, a healthy dollop of that relatively new sound known as jazz. Arguably, no one put all these elements together with the flair, finesse, elegance, and panache of George Gershwin.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2023-09-22/review-zach-theatres-hershey-felder-as-george-gershwin-alone/

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Marking her 70th birthday – and the 45th anniversary of her debut LP, There's a Light Beyond These Woods – receives proper reissue of her first four albums, previously out of print, and a stellar tribute release. Griffith, who passed away in 2021, helped define Austin's singer-songwriter scene in the late Seventies behind her vivid, piercingly poetic lyrics and immaculate voice, and the four-LP box set Working in Corners resurfaces those early years building toward breakout fourth album, 1986's Grammy-nominated The Last of the True Believers .

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-22/review-nanci-griffith-working-in-corners-various-artists-more-than-a-whisper-celebrating-the-music-o/

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The Breaks hosts Aaron "Fresh" Knight and Confucius Jones (photos by Jana Birchum) In the fall of 2012, the UT-Austin Board of Regents unanimously voted to purchase a second FM signal to accompany the university's existing National Public Radio station. The established KUT 90.5 would transition to full-time news programming, while the newly purchased frequency promised to tune listeners into the "Austin Music Experience." On January 2, 2013, with an experienced brain trust of DJs including Jay Trachtenberg, Jody Denberg, and the late, great John Aielli , KUTX 98.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2023-09-22/10-years-on-kutx-celebrates-staying-fresh/

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