Lite + Brite: 31 Lunar Austin Events 2/2

Hello, what’s up, and welcome to the Lite + Brite newsletter.

This is a week of celebrations. You can celebrate the kickoff of Black History Month with a block party or a bike ride. You can celebrate Lunar New Year with acrobatics, dragon dancers, and vendors. You can celebrate Mardi Gras with a nearly 50-year-old Austin tradition. You can celebrate Groundhog Day with comedy. You can celebrate the unknown with a ghost tour or a paranormal gathering. And you can celebrate the fifth anniversary of our dance party in the dark, No Lights No Lycra! If you’re not in a celebratory mood, we have non-celebratory stuff, too; just scroll down.

We’ve listed 31 events in this week’s newsletter, but if you want EVEN MORE, remember that we maintain an advance event tracking spreadsheet that our Patreon supporters get exclusive access to. Currently the spreadsheet includes 83 upcoming arts events going through the summer, and we’re adding new ones whenever we find them. Just a little something to bear in mind if patronage is something you’re considering!

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

Thursday is the FIVE-YEAR anniversary of our dance party in the dark, No Lights No Lycra. We started the Austin chapter the first week of February 2019. (The first NLNL started in Australia way back in 2009, but that was before our time.) We kept it running all through the Covid lockdowns, when we broadcast weekly on Twitch. A livestream is not the ideal way to experience a dance party, but that’s just how committed we were to keeping this thing going. And here we are at five years. We hope you’ll come out to West China Tea on Thursday to celebrate this milestone with us.

If you read our monthly newsletter earlier this week you might have noticed we’re going to be doing both a subscriber meetup and also a party where we watch very good YouTubes together, which is totally free + coming up on February 25th. We’ll have more to say as we get closer.

Inspired by digging through his YouTube archives, Brian Blackout did a radio show based around esoteric YouTube vids. Some music videos (minus the video part) as well as cheesy computer movie clips, pinball documentaries, and space cartoons. It was a wild ride! 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 2/2

Saturday 2/3

  • Black History Kick-Off Block Party at the Carver Museum
    “Interactive arts + crafts,” vendors, + vinyl musical selections
  • Lunar New Year at the Asian American Resource Center
    In honor of LNY, buy goods from local Asian American makers
  • Lunar New Year Party at Fierce Whiskers
    LNY celebration w/acrobats, folks on stilts, vendors, + performers
  • Carnaval Brasileiro at Speakeasy
    Celebrate Carnaval+Mardi Gras w/traditional music, costumes, + dancers
  • Ghost Tour at Pioneer Farms
    A haunted hike through 19th century farm buildings
  • Gothic Hearts Dark Valentine’s Dance at Elysium
    Celebrate romance w/DJs spinning goth tunes + go-go dancers
  • Karaoke Underground at Knomad
    Sing karaoke to your favorite punk, indie + alt classics
  • Electric Avenue Dance Walk at Casa de Luz
    Celebrate love + “live out your music video dreams” by dance-walking
  • Opening Hours at the Sherwood Forest Zine Library
    Read from Sherwood Forest’s extensive library of zines
  • House Tours at Casa Neverlandia
    Get a tour of a unique Austin home + the cover of “Weird Homes”
  • Texas Spirit Gathering at First Spiritualist Church of Austin
    Lectures on the history of spiritualism + the occult from here in Texas
  • Portal into the Mind: The Starseed Experience at 10203 Old Manchaca Rd.
    Art + sculpture meets live visuals, DJs, + performers
  • Fusebox Presents: FOOD at the McCullough Theatre
    Food: it’s not just a thing we eat. Now it’s also an immersive dinner party experience
  • (weekly thru 2/17) Frontera Fest Best of the Week at Hyde Park Theatre
    “Alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre”
  • (weekly thru 2/17) Sextet at ColdTowne
    “Improvised romantic comedy” centered around love + coupling

Sunday 2/4

  • 17th Annual Chili Cook-Off at Jo’s Coffee
    Judge + eat chili + debate the existence of chili w/beans
  • Black History Bike Ride at Waterloo Park
    Celebrate Rosa Parks’ birthday by biking + learning Austin’s black history
  • Landmarks Art Tour at UT Campus
    “Celebrate Black artistry” by touring UT’s sculptures + landmarks
  • Hysteria at ColdTowne
    An irreverent comedy show about abortion + benefit for repro rights
  • Jane Austin Improv at Fallout
    Improv comedians dress up in period attire + riff on Jane Austin’s works
  • House Tours at Casa Neverlandia
    Get a tour of a unique Austin home + the cover of “Weird Homes”
  • Portal into the Mind: The Starseed Experience at 10203 Old Manchaca Rd.
    Art + sculpture meets live visuals, DJs, + performers
  • Fusebox Presents: FOOD at the McCullough Theatre
    Food: it’s not just a thing we eat. Now it’s also an immersive dinner party experience

Monday 2/5

Tuesday 2/6

  • Lunar New Year at UMLAUF
    Celebrate lunar New Year w/traditional Asian music, dance, also karaoke
  • One Page Salon at Radio Coffee & Beer
    Hear local writers read their works in progress
  • ART Club Social Hour at Art Direct
    Meet + mingle with artists + other artsy fartsy types

Wednesday 2/7

Thursday 2/8

Our SxSW 2024 Picks

SXSW is in five weeks, and resident wristbands are now available! $149 for a Music Festival wristband and $120 for a Film Festival Wristband—it’s 1/10th as expensive as a badge, and all of us Austin residents are eligible.

Brian’s Pick
Discovery Zone
Berlin-based Bedroom synthpop with a unique sense of wonder. A highlight from SxSW 2022

Leila’s Pick
The View
Scottish indie rock ‘n’ roll. I last saw this band in 2008 and am so excited to see them again.

No Humans Allowed 180
Mining for Video Gems

No Humans Allowed dives deep down the rabbit hole of esoteric video clips hosted on the interwebs. Feast your ears on music videos bereft of their video shell, cheesy computer movie clips, pinball documentaries, and space cartoons.

Stream Mining for Video Gems

Tracklist
Chaz Jankel – “Number One”
Captain Kremmen clip
Kenny Everett – “Captain Kremmen”
Rockets – “Electric Delight”
Bianca Neve – “Prince Kiss”
Computer Beach Party horoscope scene
Noosha Fox – “The Heat Is on”
Suzanne Ciani composing “Welcome to Xenon”
The Venetians – “Sound on Sound”
Bill Murray technology rant

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 161 – Indie Sleaze Special
w/Brian Blackout

Recorded live in the dark at West China Tea House on January 25, 2024.

Listen to No Lights No Lycra 161

Tracklist
Velella Velella – Brass Ass
Spoon – I Turn My Camera On
Modest Mouse – Float On
Munk – Kick out the Chairs (Whomadewho Remix)
MGMT – Electric Feel (James Rutledge Remix)
Shocking Pinks – Us Against the City
CSS – Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above
Junior Senior – Move Your Feet
The Rapture – Sister Saviour (DFA Remix)
Justin Timberlake – SexyBack
The Juan Maclean – Give Me Every Little Thing
Justice vs Simian – We Are Your Friends
Bag Raiders – Shooting Stars
Annie – Anthonio
Miss Kitten & the Hacker – Nurse
Benny Benassi & the Biz – Satisfaction
Chicks on Speed – Glamour Girl
Mylo – Drop the Pressure
LCD Sounsystem – Yeah (Crass Version)
Soulwax – NY Excuse
Hot Hot Heat – Talk to Me, Dance with Me
The Faint – Glass Danse
Bloc Party – Banquet
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.

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK, CHAMPIONS

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