Lite + Brite: 31 Auroral Austin Events 5/10

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

Listen, we’ve got a lot on our plate over the next few days. Tonight we’re hosting No Lights No Lycra, our dance party in the dark. Saturday morning Leila is on a panel at the first-ever Greater Austin Book Fest. Then that afternoon we’ll be eating cardamom buns as we watch Sweden host this year’s Eurovision Song Contest (which, by the way, Leila has just written about for SPIN).

If you, too, would like to have a lot on your plate over the next few days, you can join us at NLNL or GAB Fest. And/or you can watch drag shows honoring cult darkwave bands and one of the best actresses on The Sex Lives of College Girls; you can hear true stories from your fellow Austinites at the latest installment of Hyde Park Storytelling (the creators of which we recently interviewed for this newsletter); you can enjoy gender-bending comedy wrestling for a good cause; you can see a ballet about climate change or a DIY punk play about UFOs; and you can watch some of our nation’s best pun artists go for gold. Should you want, your plate can be full too. Scroll down for details on all these events 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

No Lights No Lycra, our dance party in the dark, returns to West China Tea tonight! Wondering what NLNL sounds like? Listen to Brian Blackout’s DJ set from the last edition here, or scroll down for more info.

This week for his radio show, No Humans Allowed, Brian used AI to generate another ridiculous sci-fi screenplay about the detective Seamus O’Cyborg, whose exploits have taken him to an undersea city full of italo disco clubs. Set to a soundtrack of music in the Italo idiom, Seamus follows every trope imaginable on his quest to rid the city of cybermafiosi. Stream Disco Depths from the Kpiss archives here or scroll down for the tracklist. 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 5/10

Saturday 5/11

  • Food Fight at Hi Sign Brewing
    Comedic pro wrestlers + drag performers unite for a good cause
  • Pun-Off World Championships at Brush Square Park
    Wordplayers from all over the world pun competitively
  • Where Does Peace Begin? at Collection Rert
    Artists tackle existence in a world where terrible things happen
  • Hyde Park Storytelling at Batch Craft Beer + Kolaches
    Storytellers ply their trade in a local craft beer spot
  • Imole Fantasy Faire at Tiny Minotaur
    An otherworldly market w/questing + fantastical creatures
  • Greater Austin Book Fest at the Austin Central Library
    A new book fest feat. local authors
  • The Big Squeeze at the Bullock Museum
    Live accordionists compete by playing conjunto, polka, + zydeco
  • Ladybird Suite at the Wildflower Center
    Site-specific musical performance examining historical figures
  • Sigma Tauri Art Show at Canopy
    Opening for art show featuring three local artists + cocktails
  • Opening Hours at the Sherwood Forest Zine Library
    Read from Sherwood Forest’s library of zines + make yr own
  • Malum Malus at the Vortex
    Wicca-inspired “occult-based burlesque performance art”
  • Aurora at the Paper Plate Gallery
    A DIY play mixing small-town Texas life and UFOs
  • Moonfall at dadaLab
    “Immersive + interactive mythic fantasy ballet”
  • Your Sexts Are Shit at Crashbox
    “Gloriously rude” one-woman show about sexting + dirty letters
  • (weekly thru 5/25) Overheard on a Train at the Downtown CapMetro Station
    Participate in immersive theatre while exploring public transit
  • (weekly thru 5/25) Doom Metal Goat Yoga at Jester King
    “We call out to the beasts of the land to come forth and JOIN US!”
  • (weekly) Open Hours at the Stuffed Animal Rescue Foundation
    Meet, greet, adopt, + pet stuffed animals

Sunday 5/12

  • Tea and Chocolates at West China Tea
    Local chocolatiers partner w/local tea house for delicious pairings
  • Your Sexts Are Shit at Crashbox
    “Gloriously rude” one-woman show about sexting + dirty letters
  • Aurora at the Paper Plate Gallery
    A DIY play mixing small-town Texas life and UFOs

Monday 5/13

  • Classical Jam at Batch Craft Beer
    Like open mic night but for classical musicians + fans
  • ATX Short Film Showcase at the Spider House Ballroom
    The films are short, the filmmakers are Texan + of varying heights
  • (weekly) Hyperreal Film Club at Hotel Vegas
    Watch an arty Saudi film about a dystopian future involving sacrifice

Tuesday 5/14

  • Silent Book Club at Nomadic Outpost
    Silently read books together + optional sharing

Wednesday 5/15

Thursday 5/16

No Humans Allowed 190
Disco Depths

Join our AI-generated detective, Seamus O’Cyborg, as he uncovers a wave of crime under the waves of the ocean in the italo disco-loving undersea metropolis of Acqua Città Futura. Soundtracked by some action-packed music in the italo disco idiom, Seamus seeks to unravel the work of the undersea cybermafiosi and set the nightclubs free. Join us for an exceedingly dumb story only an AI could write, with a shimmering italo soundtrack only a human could produce.

Stream Disco Depths

Tracklist
Mito – Droid
Boys’ Shorts – Days Without You
Amin Peck – Coda
Brian Auger – Night Train to Nowhere
Righeira – Tanzen mit Righeira (RFX Edit)
Sylvester – I Need Somebody to Love Tonight
Sally Shapiro – I Know
Kay-Chi – VHS Grid
Lauer – Law High
Los Angeles T.F. – Everliving Fever
N.O.I.A. – True Love (Kaos Dub-Edit)
Purple Flash – We Can Make It (Darshan Jesrani Lavender Lamp Mix)

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 166
w/Brian Blackout

Recorded live in the dark at West China Tea House on April 11, 2024.

Listen to No Lights No Lycra 166

Tracklist
Risqué – Starlight
Studio – Self Service
Lisa Edwards – Cry (Seedy J. Tearjerker Edit)
Prince & the Revolution – Pop Life
Taylor Swift – Lavender Haze (Pepsi Sine Rework)
Dusty Springfield – Baby Blue (Horse Meat Disco Re-edit)
Claudia Telles – Foi como um Sonho (Patchouli Brothers Edit)
Phoenix – Lisztomania (Holy Ghost! Remix)
C+C Music Factory – Gonna Make You Sweat
Queen Latifah – Come into My House
Ssion – At Least the Sky Is Blue (Johnny Jewel Remix)
Dolly Parton – 9 to 5 (Butch le Butch Remix)
Whitney Houston – I’m Every Woman
Quando Quango – Love Tempo
Anita Ward – Ring My Bell
The 2 Bears – Bear Hug
Kylie Minogue – Love at First Sight
Sophie Ellis Bextor – Murder on the Dancefloor
Scarlet Fantastic – No Memory ’14 (Luke Million Remix)
Talking Heads – Burning Down the House
The Midnight – Gloria
Bruce Springsteen – Dancing in the Dark (Arthur Baker Mix)
The The – This Is the Day
David Bowie & Queen – Under Pressure

PATREON THANKS

A huge thank-you to our Patreon subscribers Bones Malones, Amy Hayes, Katie Green, Christina Jue, Colleen MB, Lilly Ettinger, Lena Long, Amalia Litsa, 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 watching brass bands at HONK!TX, watching the eclipse at Bobo’s Snack Bar, and watching dancing forklifts at The Way of Water at Onion Creek. 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 are Leila + Brian. We make this newsletter. We do our own events, most often No Lights No Lycra (every second and fourth Thursday of the month), + also BYOT, a party where we share very good YouTubes (here’s a playlist from the last one). We go very hard seeing bands at SxSW (here are playlists of our favorites from 2024). 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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