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Ten months of social distancing hardly lends itself to hands-on community volunteerism, but even after the last four years of narcissism and division – and especially in 2020 – Austin recognizes a musical milestone. Meal program and publication from Jazz Mills, Carrie Fussell Bickley, and Jade Skye Hammer, Free Lunch outreaches into Austin to those experiencing homelessness via maximum nourishment. Indie rock firebrand Lolita Carroll (aka Lolita Lynne) and synth-pop peer Dena Hope now take up the standard in a fundraiser matching local ladies of sound with blue holiday cheer. Basically, it s an all lady/nonbinary bill of covers chosen by the artist and written by women! explains Carroll. Our goal is to raise money for Free Lunch and promote their lunch monitor program of regular monthly donations. Free Lunch is very small, but making a big impact on a local level! Jazz is sort of a superstar in the music scene. She s an amazing musician and
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Alongside Austin s Dicks and Big Boys, Houston s Really Red proved as integral to early-Eighties American punk
culture as Black Flag or Dead Kennedys. Lasting 1978-85, the aggregation of singer/frontman Ronnie U-Ron Bondage Bond, drummer Bob Weber, guitarist Kelly Younger, and bassist John Paul Williams rarely followed regulation punk templates. Old enough to recall Texas psychedelia on ramalama like Crowd Control, their trace elements of art-damaged funk and blues seeped into – from 1981 onward – the band s ballistic thrashing à la Bad Brains on tracks such as I Was
a Teenage Fuckup.
Meanwhile, Bond s lyrics engage race, sexuality, police brutality, and resistance to authoritarianism.
In April, with the clubs shut down and musicians feeling adrift, expressive pop artist
Mobley embarked on an ambitious project. He randomly paired 15 musicians and 15 filmmakers to create a visual album with a process structured around the surrealist drawing game exquisite corpse.
In the game, a scene is formed as each player draws a part then folds the paper to obscure their contribution before handing off to the next player. For the visual album, each artist was provided an end clip of the preceding song. They were each given two days to complete their work and the project’s title: “Home Unfamiliar” was their only prompt. Top Austin talents like Shakey Graves, Wild Child’s Kelsey Wilson, Sweet Spirit’s Sabrina Ellis and Spoon’s Jim Eno contributed.
Come and Save It Rally at City Hall on Nov. 19 (Photo by Jana Birchum)
Following rallying by music advocates, city music offices say they re on track to begin rolling out venue relief by the new year. Although applications haven t opened for grants totaling $10 million under the
SAVES Resolution, Music & Entertainment Division Manager
Erica Shamaly said Monday at the
Music Commission meeting that their staff is connecting with third parties to deliver the first round of
Live Music Venue Preservation funds. We should be making an announcement in the next few days, she said. [We] will try to get out emergency aid as fast as we possibly can. We re shooting for before the end of the year.