Austin Town Hall

I have a feeling that like most of you out there, the headliners for ACL aren’t the real reason for going to the festival. At first glance, this year may be a bit weak, but even early walk-ins will find excellent acts like Cults, Telekinesis, The Head and the Heart, The Antlers, An Horse, and so on. The middle of the lineup is great with Cut Copy, Kurt Vile, Smith Westerns, The Moondoggies, TV on the Radio, The Walkmen, Broken Social Scene, Empire of the Sun – I could go on. The headliners are left with the task of clearing the venue, the triggers for the long walk back to the car, the soundtrack for a mosey. Here are my Top 5 (anticipated) songs from this year’s Headliners to make me head out.

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It seems that all over the college sports landscape nowadays, all we hear about are conference realignments, TV deals, advertising packages, and student athlete sponsor scandals. Somewhere along the lines, the good old fashioned spirit of the game got lost in the shuffle and with that came the sad realization that these young athletes are mere pawns in a much wider international game of economics. Regardless of what side of Lee County you set your allegiance or which color lucky underwear you wear on game day, let’s all remind ourselves about what the whole ‘Hullabaloo’ is about in the first place; dirty, evil money. Like the song says, ‘it’s the root of all evil today’ and there’s plenty of evil to go around in college sports these days. Just ask the U, tOSU, Oregon, Auburn…well for the sake of you, the reader, I couldn’t possibly list all 122 of them here. So, in light of Texas A&M’s indecisive decision to take their markets elsewhere and to mark the anticipated beginning of the 2011 season, here are the top 5 most ridiculously relevant songs that feature our corrupting currency as a common theme.  Now, where’s the tailgate party? I’m about to make it rain.

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You seem like the modern sort. I bet you have 80 bazillion digital music files don’t you? Wow, you have 90 bazillion? That is impressive. How in God’s name do you listen to that many songs? Let me answer that for you: you don’t. You’re a fickle song skipping beast. It’s okay, I do it too. It’s the only way to cope with such an overwhelming amount of music. I’m liable to skip any track on a whim, but there are certain types of songs I find myself skipping all the time. Here are the types of tracks I’m talking about:

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This may not seem like the most important subject in the world, but you’re wrong.  Nothing is more important than what one must do after they’ve spent hours pickling their livers and watching a good old rock show.  Admittedly, I probably hit up the JITB or Whataburger far too often out of convenience, but I definitely have my favorite places to hit up in Austin after a good show. Read on for my suggestions on where you should go after you’ve hit the town for some booze and rock n’ roll.

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Little known fact, wrestling in the ’80s and early ’90s is really the only time period of the “sport” worth watching. Maybe it’s because I really don’t even like wrestling but rather good theatre, music and show. In those days, guys put some serious thought and passion into their characters and rarely strayed from the persona they created. Every little detail was important; the hair, the clothes, the way you spoke, and, more importantly, your entrance music. Even better, most of these guys had music written specifically for their entrances and themes. Screw all this Linkin Park, Nickelback, “hardcore music”, etc. or other junk from popular wrestling these days. My list will stick to mostly ’80s and ’90s characters who gave a damn about a little thing called entertainment. The Miz? Isn’t he on Real World Miami or something? Macho Man is literally turning in his grave… Follow the jump for more.

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When the humidity is so thick you can cut it with a knife and the seats of your car actually burn your skin, it can be hard to enjoy summer. We have all been dealing with this 100+ degree weather that continues to make us miserable, so might as well suck it up the rest of the summer and listen to some tracks that makes us forget how high the temperature really is. The heat ain’t nothin’ new. These old tracks have captured the meaning of summer, love, and the sweltering heat; and make the heat a bit more bearable.

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I am not just referring to @austintownhall or facebook.com/austintownhall.

There was big news recently about Spotify bringing their all-you-can-eat music service to America hammering the tech sites and delighting music fans.  Now, this concept is nothing new to me as a long time subscriber and advocate of Microsoft’s Zune Pass.  It has however been a chore to evangelize the merits of renting your music catalog.  Let’s face it, there is a warm fuzzy around “owning” your music, isn’t there.  But let’s go over the Top 5 reasons why you subscribe to a music service, especially as there are now several great multi-platform services to choose from.

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It’s no secret to native Texans, but to all you recent immigrants to the Lone Star State may have noticed lately, it’s F-ING RELENTLESSLY HOT OUTSIDE! With Temperatures hovering above 100 and no relief in sight, it’s hard to stay pleasant. Heat waves and droughts like this one are so damned oppressive, and may make you just feel flat-out angry and depressed at the world, your fellow man, and especially those teasing bastard clouds, hanging there just laughing at us and our collective misery. F those assholes, seriously its thundering as I write this with no rain to show for it, WTF?!. As unfortunate as it is, the summertime blues are a universal feeling as we all pine for the blissful 80 degree temperatures and rain of October. With the unyielding Texas sun beating down on us like its red headed step-child, it felt only right to create a FT5 for the Dehydration Blues. Crank the A/C, grab an Arnold Palmer, and try not to move an inch. Don’t worry; our sole day or two of autumn is right around the corner.

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