Mardi Gras and Carnaval fun top the best events in Austin this weekend. You can raise a glass at Toast & Roast or party all day at Carnaval Brasileiro. For a full list of happenings, visit our events calendar.
Thursday, February 23
Texas Theatre and Dance presents Momentum The Dance Repertory Theatre explores the influence of African-American culture on 21st century contemporary dance at the Oscar G. Brockett Theatre. This is your last chance to see Momentum in Austin. Performances run through February 26.
Saturday, February 25
Banger's presents Mardi Gras Smoke Out Let the good times roll at this special Mardi Gras edition of Banger's Sausage House & Beer Garden's regular Smoke Out. The shindig features a whole hog served up Cajun style, beers from Abita Brewing Company, and live music all day. Continue the festivities on February 28 with Fat Tuesday fun.
Austin Oyster Festival The fifth annual Austin Oyster Festival is taking over the French Legation Museum this weekend. Your ticket includes oysters prepared in a variety of ways, cocktails, and a chance to groove to live music.
Carnaval Brasileiro The Carnaval is coming to the Palmer Events Center with electric rhythm, samba drums, and exotic costumes. Attendees to the all-day blowout will enjoy live entertainment, including acrobats, burlesque dancers, and a special performance by Brazilian musician Dandara Odara.
Sunday, February 26
The Wine & Food Foundation of Texas presents Toast & Roast Spend a luxe afternoon at Stonehouse Villa, toasting the 2016 winner of the Texas Wine of the Year award presented by Texas Monthly wine editor Jessica Dupuy. Guests will also enjoy a sips from the best wines in the state and delicious bites by top local chefs.
Shimmy and shake at Carnaval Brasileiro at the Palmer Events center this Saturday.
Photo by Merrick Ales
Shimmy and shake at Carnaval Brasileiro at the Palmer Events center this Saturday.
Annabelle Chairlegs fell into a concept album this time...or did she wake up to it?
Austin-based singer-songwriter Lindsey Mackin, a.k.a. Annabelle Chairlegs, is coming to consciousness and greater prominence with her third LP, Waking Up, out January 30. The dreamy album is appropriately hard to pin down but easy to listen to, a continuation of what the local artist has become known for over her 12 years in Austin so far.
Waking Up contains four singles — "Heavy Sleeper," "Concrete Trees," "Ice Cream On The Beach," and "Patty Get Your Gun" — six more regular tracks, and two bonus tracks for 12 in total. This release is her first with Todo Records, which is based in Austin with photographer Pooneh Ghana as well as New York City with Simon and Meesh Halliday.
This album cover was collaged in real life and shot in floating layers, a video shared on social media revealed.Album cover of Annabelle Chairlegs
"This is the first time I've ever released anything with a label, and it's interesting to have perspective," says Mackin. "They all voted for ["Heavy Sleeper"] as a single. And I was like, 'No way!' ... That's one of the oldest songs I've written on the album. So I think I just had a lot of space from it, and I was kind of forgetting about her a little bit."
It seems fans partially have the label to thank for the stylistic diversity of this album, but it's also Mackin's calling card. Los Angeles guitar savant Ty Segall surely had something to do with it, too, as the album's producer. Experimental moments like a stiltedly panned vocal intro in "Waking Up," the opening track, and an electrical insectoid buzz in "Shoo Fly" are scattered throughout, making the sweeter side shown in tracks like "Above It All" and "Sally" all the more surprising.
"Ice Cream On The Beach," one of those gentler tracks, recalls late-aughts indie rock and dream pop, ushering in a nostalgic feeling early in the record. Mackin says it's "a very different track than I've ever released before," and she enjoyed the "hard turn" into "Concrete Trees," which memorializes friends and family who have passed away. For "Heavy Sleeper," the songwriter was picturing racing cars and Quentin Tarantino films.
Hardly any artist escapes replicating styles from earlier times, but Annabelle Chairlegs — on this album in particular — seems to consciously wink at decades of music history while fusing, but not fully blending them: a grimy hipster take on 60s pop, something sonically descended from The Go-Go's in the 80s.
Mackin attributes this sensibility to studying acting in college and developing a love for musical theater, in an explanation where she charmingly slides 10 years at a time from talking about Vaudeville to 90s grunge.
"I love, love, love girl groups — like, 50s, 60s girl groups, and things like that," she says.
With all these touchstones, the visual imagery, and the album's evocative title and cover art, it's hard not to call it a concept album. She also talks about wanting to "color or paint" her home state of New Jersey using sound.
"I had recorded a full album a few years ago ... and then as I wrote other songs, I was like, 'Oh, these are all starting to make sense in this world together,'" Mackin explains. "So I scrapped the other album and sort of ripped it in half. [I took] the same-world songs and put them together, and then the other half the album is some other [theme]."
The proto-album was called Heavy Sleeper, and in newer songwriting, more positive themes started emerging from the "more dreamy and dark" primordial abyss. Waking Up, then, was the natural evolution. "It kind of turned into more of a concept as time went on," Mackin says. "It's fun to think about that now."
Fans have a couple of weeks to soak up the album before the release show at Mohawk on February 13. Annabelle Chairlegs will also play a show in-store at Austin's Waterloo Records on February 4, and another at Austin Psych Fest on May 9. After that, she'll embark on a European tour.
Waking Up is available to purchase on vinyl or as a download via Todo Records at todomusic.net. It is streaming on major services, and music videos or a visualizer for all four singles are available on YouTube.