Little by little, one or two choice tracks at a time, Van Mary has seemingly climbed toward the top tier of Austin rock. If quantity is less of a relevant criterion than quality, then perhaps they’ve officially arrived[…]
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Ear Traffic’s top 10 albums and the HI-35 for 2022
The competition was absurdly tough in choosing Ear Traffic’s top 10 overall albums of 2022 and (especially) for picking the top 35 tracks of the year, aka the HI-35. I suppose that from my perspective,[…]
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Ear Traffic’s best local albums and tracks of 2022
Real quick, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it yet again: The year doesn’t end on Nov. 30. It drives me up … not a wall, but perhaps an easily scalable chain-link fence …[…]
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Interview: Pleasure Venom defines “letting it out” as mental health fuels first full-length
(Photo by Ismael Quintanilla III, www.iq3photo.com) Audrey Campbell won’t offer a lot of specifics about the harrowing personal experiences that have helped make her spiky, four-piece punk animal, Pleasure Venom, the snarling force it[…]
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Interview: Urban Heat’s Jonathan Horstmann spins neurodivergence into gold
Usually, when you interview local musicians at Austin City Limits Music Festival whom you know to be playing their first ACL — like longtime local Jonathan Horstmann — it’s an easy, early warmup question soon after[…]
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ACL overview and Day 3 recap: Avoiding politics without even trying, and the best sets and songs of the weekend
Running around for my final day at ACL Weekend Two on Sunday, I realized just how little overt politics I had seen from any performers. With a midterm election coming, post-Roe America just a few months[…]
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