Lite + Brite: 14 Honking Austin Events 1/12
Hello, what’s up, and welcome to the Lite + Brite newsletter.
I did not find very many events to list this week. Does this just mean that it’s a quiet time in Austin, or does it mean that I am losing my edge? Hopefully the former. Anyway, don’t despair; we do have our dance party in the dark tonight, a dance-off with our favorite touring soul DJ on Saturday, a celebration of MLK Jr. Day on Monday, and a staged reading of a punk musical satirizing Texas’s very own governor. It’s not nothing. Scroll down for details on all this and more.
If you’re not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you want to be, click here. We do one newsletter a week, usually on Fridays, plus a bonus edition around the start of each month. If you enjoy this newsletter, please support us by contributing to our Patreon and by forwarding this email to your friends who enjoy things like listening to music and leaving the house sometimes.
Let’s do fun stuff!
—Leila + Brian
liteandbriteatx.com
OUR STUFF
Our first 2024 No Lights No Lycra is tonight! If you’ve never been, NLNL is the dance party we throw in near complete darkness in the big backroom at West China Tea. Brian Blackout spins a broad mix of anthems, obscurities, + guilty pleasures across many decades. You can listen to a live recording of the last show we did to hear how it sounds, or scroll down for the full tracklist and more info.
This week on No Humans Allowed, Brian took a look back at personal musical discoveries in the year 2023 across various weird and wooly synth genres like library records and MIDI jazz. Stream the show here or scroll down for the tracklisting. NHA broadcasts live every Wednesday at 6pm CT on kpiss.fm.
What is No Lights No Lycra?
Austin’s twice-monthly, judgment-free, substance-free, high-impact dance thing in the dark. It’s a DJ night that’s not at the club, a workout that’s not at the gym, a personal meditation that’s anything but silent. It’s produced by us, your kindly L+B overlords, and usually one or the other of us is on the hook for DJ duties. Read more about us in the Austin Chronicle. You can listen the kind of music we play over on Brian’s Mixcloud.
EVENTS WE’RE EYEING
Friday 1/12
- HONK! Prom at Spider House Ballroom
Dress up for a high school prom, only with brass bands playing - Line Upon Line Winter Composer Festival at Crashbox
Percussion played on a wide array of objects + instruments
Saturday 1/13
- Soul Clap Dance-Off at the 13th Floor
One of our favorite dance parties from our NYC days, killer vinyl soul DJing - Art Tramp at Bastrop State Park
Art, tramping (*not* hiking), camping, tiny houses, + eating - Second Saturdays at the Blanton
Enjoy some live music while you check out art at the Blanton - Goat Cuddles & Coffee at the Hive
Cuddle or watch tiny animals while sipping warming beverages
Sunday 1/14
- Interview with the Vampire Sip & Shop at the Glass Coffin
Watch the TV show, enjoy themed “blood bags” + do some vampiric shopping - Sip & Snuggle at Hopsquad
Goat cuddling accompanies many beverages, including pints of beer
Monday 1/15
- Young Greg Abbott: The FuQusical Reading at Trinity Street Playhouse
Satirically reimagining Abbott’s early days in a musical theater format - MLK Jr. Community March and Festival at Huston-Tillotson University
Commemorate MLK’s legacy by marching + donating - Black History Bike Ride at UT’s MLK statue
…Or celebrate MLK with a bike ride through Austin’s Black history - (weekly) Hyperreal Film Club at Hotel Vegas
Can we love aliens? What if they were hot? This comedy asks the hard questions
Thursday 1/18
- Boyz of Austin at Elysium
Unthemed fun from “Drag King + gender diverse” burlesque troupe - Queer Film Theory 101 at Barrel O’ Fun
Esteemed film nerds turning a “queer eye toward first crushes”
No Humans Allowed 177
Discoveries 2023
So many best-of year end lists are the best songs that came out in a year, but for the second year we’ll be cataloging some of our favorite personal music discoveries of 2023. From Dutch synthpop torch ballads and late night MIDI jazz, to sports-themed library jams to bedroom R&B apologies to William S. Burroughs giving advice over squelchy 90s techno beats. We’ve found a heap of fun, take a dive with us into some synth-drenched kitsch.
Tracklist
Lisa Edwards – Cry (Seedy J. Tearjerker Edit)
Chris Blackwell – Destiny Version 3
Ronald Langestraat – I’m Ready for Dancing
Waffles – 007A
Nona Hendryx – Why Should I Cry?
Laura Michele – You Always Hurt the One You Love
Time Bandits – Endless Road
SSQ – Walkman On
Page 2 – Interface City
Nick Heyward – You’re My World
Beard in Dust – Señor Paraíso
William S. Burroughs – Words of Advice for Young People
No Humans Allowed is Brian Blackout’s award-winning, dodgy European news coverage receiving, weekly robots-themed radio show on internet station KPISS.fm. Machine vibes 4 machines. Songs for robots, androids, mandroids, cyborgs, AIs, cylons, skinjobs, roombas, wifi routers, smart devices, anything colored Bondi blue, and virtual assistants. Humans not required. Broadcasts live every Wednesday at 6pm CT on kpiss.fm, with over 150 episodes now streamable in the archives on topics like and Beach Simulations, Roomba dance parties, undersea adventures + Cyber Texas.
No Lights No Lycra ATX 159
w/Brian Blackout
Recorded live in the dark at West China Tea House on December 14, 2023.
Listen to No Lights No Lycra 159
Tracklist
Madi Diaz – Trust Fall (Jensen Sportag Remix)
The Supreme Jubilees – It’ll All Be Over (Ron Basejam Edit)
P.M. Dawn – Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine
Claudia Telles – Foi como um Sonho (Patchouli Brothers Edit)
Icehouse – Electric Blue
Rod Stewart – Do Ya Think I’m Sexy
Róisín Murphy – Something More (Soulwax Remix)
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince – Ring My Bell (Hula & K. Fingers club mix)
Buzz Compass – Copa for Fun
Madonna – Vogue
Depeche Mode – Enjoy the Silence
Kornél Kovács – Pantalón
Lauer – Make It Stay (Gerd Janson Remix)
Kylie Minogue – Love at First Sight
Ibibio Sound Machine – Something We’ll Remember
Bollywood Freaks – Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get to Bollywood
Boys Don’t Cry – I Wanna Be a Cowboy
Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark (Arthur Baker Mix)
The Knack – My Sharona
Joe Bataan – Subway Joe
Mitski – The Only Heartbreaker
The The – This Is the Day
The Killers – Mr. Brightside
Home – All at Once
PATREON THANKS
A huge thank-you to our Patreon subscribers Katie Green, Christina Jue, Colleen MB, Lilly Ettinger, Lena Long, Amalia Litsa, Jacob Rosenberg, Alexander Freed, Spencer, Kristen Backor, Timon A., Kate Murray, and Amy Wilde. We’re deeply grateful for your support, which allows us to do things like “pay our Mailchimp fee” and “spend hours researching Austin events when technically we should be working.”
If you’d like to support us on Patreon and get access to exclusive member-only benefits, you may do so here.
SOCIALS
Recent weeks found us celebrating “Bouncemas” at UT, partying with Art Island at the Coral Snake, and admiring art lamps at Highland Collective. Follow Lite + Brite on Instagram to keep up with our adventures. And come chat with us and the rest of the L+B community on our Discord server!
ABOUT US
How do we choose which events to feature?
Honestly, it’s pretty random. We might include anything in Austin that we, personally, would conceivably want to go to, generally excluding normal concerts, comedy shows, and movie showtimes because there are many other good resources for finding those. (We especially recommend Showlist for live music, The Darker Side of Austin for goth and metal stuff, and the 60+ Weirdest Things in Austin for exactly what it sounds like). This list is by no means exhaustive; it’s just stuff that caught our eye this week. If you have an event that you want us to consider including, send it over.
Who are we?
We make this newsletter. We do our own events, most prominently No Lights No Lycra (every second and fourth Thursday of the month). We once got called “local Austin couple” by KXAN. We do some other stuff here and there. We love going out to creative events in Austin, and we want you to join us. Visit us at liteandbriteatx.com, and support us on Patreon if you like what we do.