Not to shock anyone, but the music here in the Live Music Capital of the World doesn't play itself. A performer's stage persona is often only a sliver of their full reality — and unless they're taking breaks between songs to proselytize, many issues that affect their careers daily never meet the public eye.
Pause/Play, a podcast collaboration between public radio stations KUT and KUTX, is entering its fifth season of uncovering these backstage experiences. This season, which launched April 17, tackles topics that loom large in music industry debates as well as ones that don't seem explicitly connected at a glance.
Some marquee topics are abusive ticketing platforms, climate change, affordability in Austin, AI, abortion, and gender affirming care. Most, if not all (but who's counting?), were listener ideas — a common practice on Pause/Play, and one that helps the hosts know they're representing Austin's real interests. The overarching theme of the season, however, is "change."
Besides having a broader scope, this season was also different because co-hosts Miles Bloxson and Elizabeth McQueen held pre-recording interviews. Of course, it's nearly impossible for any artist, venue owner, or other industry player to be affected by only one of the above topics, so these pre-interviews resulted in more threads than usual running through the season — and hopefully, more of a chance to get to know each local respondent.
Guiding listeners through the grievances and hopeful musings throughout the season is Bloxson's therapist, Bella Rockman. One of the first speakers in the first episode, Rockman talks about the individual and collective trauma following in the wake of COVID-19 shutdowns — drawing a full circle back to the origin of Pause/Play, or "The Pause," as the pilot episode is titled.
"With Bella Rockman being along [for] the ride, you also start to learn ... that all change is not bad," says Bloxson. "Change allows you to grow as a human. Sometimes we're so against changes, and we don't want it, and it causes anxiety ... but at the end of the day, it propels us forward as well."
Indeed, change has been hot on our heels since time immemorial, and it doesn't slow down for podcasters.
The podcast focuses on local venues as well as the people playing there.Photo courtesy of Pause/Play
In 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union counted 510 anti-LGBTQ bills, including drag bans, introduced in state legislatures — nearly three times as many as in 2022. (As of April 19, 2024, it's tracking 487.) In March, more than 100 artists pulled out of their South by Southwest (SXSW) showcases to protest the festival's military ties, the disproportionate killing in Gaza, and unfair pay for performers. On April 15, news broke that the Department of Justice is planning to sue Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation, on anti-trust grounds.
Bloxson, a reporter focusing on Black life in Austin and pop culture, and McQueen, a radio host and former Asleep At The Wheel singer, have been around the Austin industry for long enough to remember when tickets cost a few dollars extra with tax, and misplacing them meant simply no longer having tickets. They've been around for the ups and downs of SXSW, and are gathering personal anecdotes from speakers as well as the history — of ticketing, paying performers, and more — that got us to where we are now.
At ACL Music Festival, Pause/Play interviews J Soulja, an Austin musician who founded a mentoring program for hooking artists up with endorsement deals.Photo courtesy of Pause/Play
These topics and more shape the always-changing season. The co-hosts have prepared a scripted outline and collected quotes, but they're still fitting pieces in and trying to keep up with the news.
"But we do a fair amount of exposition, and so that's where if [news] comes in ... we can still research it and talk about it," says McQueen. "We started this podcast during the pandemic, and literally week-to-week, we would have something totally in the can, and then we'd come in the day before it was going to go up and they would have changed the masking rules, or changed the something. So we're pretty familiar with how to bob and weave when the news changes."
Although all the episodes will be forward-thinking, one toward the end will ask current industry players to take a look back at their careers and offer advice to folks starting out now. McQueen hopes to provide a "roadmap" to New Austin, and Bloxson asks questions about what success means nowadays.
As for this podcasting duo, they're still feeling the change since the beginning of the show. As McQueen grapples with the idea that her weekends are now more for relaxing than for going to shows, Bloxson is living like every city show is her last — and hoping it's not.
"I'm rarely saying no [to invitations] these days, because I want to see what's out there, and I want to enjoy the scene that we have — because I don't know how much longer we're going to have it, to be quite honest," she says. "I know that people think that that's so far fetched, but the numbers don't lie, and a lot of people are moving outside of Austin. Maybe people won't have to come back to Austin to get money for shows anymore, because they've developed their communities. So I'm just trying to take it all in and do as much as I can right now."
Whatever changes are in store for Austin musicians, Pause/Play will be covering them. Tune in at npr.org. Austinites with ideas or questions can contact the podcast via Instagram messages or kutkutx.studio.
The Dog Ridge, Texas section, of course, features dogs.Photo courtesy of ABC
The Glen Rose section has dinosaurs.Photo courtesy of ABC
The Mach family with Great Christmas Light Fight host Carter Oosterhouse.Photo courtesy of Patrick Mach
