Lite + Brite: 25 Star-Spangled Austin Events 6/28

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

Our nation, such as it is, is about to have a birthday, so we’ve got a lot of patriotic fervor to dispense for better or worse. But before everyone starts blowing stuff up, as usual there’s a weekend worth of stuff that has very little to do with Murica for you to check out. Also as usual, we’ll have a monthly newsletter heading your way next week, so keep an eye peeled.

We’re giving away a pair of tickets to Rocket Cinema’s screening of Robocop tonight, which will start with a local comedian trading insults with AI. May it go better than other extremely recent instances of insults being traded by robotic-seeming humans! If you want this pair of free tickets, reply to this email by noon, and then we will randomly select a winner

In addition to AI-generated insults, this weekend also offers opportunities to take the ART bus vintage shopping and to the grand opening party for a mosaic studio. Enjoy Asian cultures by attending the 16th annual Austin Asian American Film Fest, snacking your way through a Filipino potluck, or contributing to a community-created lion dance installation. Play retro video games, choose a burlesque storyline via a giant 20-sided die, cheer on Austin’s best interdimensional wrestlers at a luxury nightclub, or watch some of Austin’s other best wrestlers present a show called “It’s Just Gay!” If you want a little bit of everything, you will not get bored at Pease Park’s Pride Picnic or the Swedish Midsummer Festival. Our favorite name for an event this week is 1-800-CLOWN-TOWN, which promises “drag burlesque comedy circus arts horror performance art mischief.” (I cannot tell from the spacing and punctuation on the flyer whether that is one single thing, or nine separate things.) Scroll down for details on all this and more, and don’t forget to eat hot dogs until you’re physically ill, as is the American way.

What are you listening to while you engage in these summer shenanigans? Is it our collaborative summer playlist? Cool, glad to hear it. Is our collaborative summer playlist still missing your personal Song of the Summer? Don’t let that happen; add your pick today!

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

The event that we (Lite+Brite) put on is going to be moving soon and we are holding one final No Lights No Lycra at West China Tea House on July 11th. No Lights No Lycra is a dance party held in near complete darkness, with the idea being that you can dance like no one’s watching. Unfortunately the room we’ve been holding it in has a skylight which means it doesn’t get fully dark at the beginning of our event, instead it slowly gets dimmer before hitting the real dark darks. It’s 90 minutes long and there is dance music from many different eras and genres, with both cheesy songs everyone knows + less known dance songs everyone totally should because they’re great. If you want to hear how it usually sounds you can listen to a recording of it here or scroll down for a track listing. We’re not ending the party, only moving it, and we’ll have more to say on where the event moves to in time but for now this is the only NLNL that’s happening for a while so this is your best chance to go.

We’re at the beach this week so No Humans Allowed had the week off too. Last week featured a chaotic mix of synthesizer-laden weirdness. Slo-mo boogie, library madness, Eskimo disco, 303s overflowing their limits + spilling acid burbles all over the place. You can stream Hallucinating 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 6/28

Saturday 6/29

  • Austin African American Book Festival at the Carver Museum
    “Community gathering + cultural celebration of African American writers”
  • Pride Picnic at Pease Park
    Outdoor Pride celebration w/DJs, vendors, + lots of different activities
  • 1-800-CLOWN-TOWN at Kick Butt Coffee
    Countercultural circus-themed burlesque, comedy, + circus arts
  • Midsummer Festival at the Old Bakery & Emporium
    Celebrate non-horror-themed Midsummer w/flower crowns, DJ, Swedish fare
  • Slam Portal at Superstition
    Some of Austin’s biggest wrestlers teleport into a fancy club. Hilarity ensues
  • Uncanny Attractions at Highland Lounge
    Pride-themed pro wrestling + drag performers. Which will be campier?
  • Flowmagin Celebration at Flowmagin
    Closing party w/DJ, tea serving, sound healing, + “possible drum circle”
  • Vintage Shopping ART Bus Tour meeting at Almost Real Things HQ
    Take a tour of Austin’s thrift locales aboard the ART bus
  • Plastic Bag Lion Dance Papier-Mâché at the Museum of Human Achievement
    Help make papier-maché lion heads for upcoming traditional Chinese dance
  • Joy Sticks at We Luv Video
    Watch a raunchy 80s movie about arcade games, play retro games, + DJ
  • Daft Disko at Empire Control Room
    DJs spinning French house + nu disco in the style of Daft Punk
  • Pinoy Potluck at MASS Gallery
    Celebrate art opening by a Filipino-American artist w/Filipino food
  • Deep in the Heart of Derby at Travis County Expo Center
    Rollerderby athletes compete to ascend to their Global Championships
  • Austin Asian American Film Festival at AFS
    Fest that “highlights new Asian and Asian American film”

Sunday 6/30

  • Dÿke Swim at Cheer Up Charlie’s
    Waterslide, kiddie pools, DJ, + burlesque performers
  • Opun Mic Night at Coldtowne
    Take the stage w/puns, improv, + other forms of comedy
  • Deep in the Heart of Derby at Travis County Expo Center
    Rollerderby athletes compete to ascend to their Global Championships
  • Austin Asian American Film Festival at AFS
    Fest that “highlights new Asian and Asian American film”
  • (weekly thru 7/21) Splash Dance at the Austin Motel
    Poolside aerobics with Austin’s most creative aerobics instructor

Thursday 7/4

  • Star-Spangled Fest at Vic Mathias Shores
    Activities for kids, live music, DJs, + live symphony during fireworks
  • Hot Dog Eating Contest at Hotel Vegas
    Watch people make terrible hot dog-centric decisions + live music
  • Art Happy Hour at Paper Work
    Fan-making station, live music, jewelry, + free beer

No Humans Allowed 196
Hallucinating

On this episode we’ve got a wild array of synth chaos. Slo-mo boogie, library madness, Eskimo disco, 303s overflowing their limits + spilling acid burbles all over the place. Buckle up + get ready to hallucinate.

Stream Hallucinating

Tracklist
Sneak E. – Land of Stuphph
Vangelis – See You Later (Lovefingers Edit)
Gigi Flag – Nymphomaniac (Boys from Patagonia Edit)
Bot’Ox – 2.4.1
Saint Pepsi – Look at the Dog
The Residents – Smack Your Lips (Clap Your Teeth)
Charanjit Singh – Raga Madhuvanti
Quantum Jump – The Lone Ranger
Glass Candy – Covered in Bugs
Power, Wonder & Love – Afro Acid (remix)
B.T.B. – Bad Base
Blank Banshee – Visualization
Johnny Chingas – Phone Home (instrumental)
Cosmo Vitelli – Edit Service 3

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 nearly 200 episodes now streamable in the archives on topics like and Beach Simulations, Roomba dance parties, undersea adventures + Cyber Texas.

No Lights No Lycra ATX 169
w/Brian Blackout

Recorded live in the dark at West China Tea House on June 13, 2024.

Listen to No Lights No Lycra 169

Tracklist
Duett – Lifestyle
Vektroid – Calm
Fern Kinney – Baby Let Me Kiss You
Airbird & Napolian – In the Zone ft. Erika Spring
Warren G – Regulate (Jamming Remix)
Tupperwave – Make It Be Summer
Velella Velella – Brass Ass
Men Without Hats – Safety Dance (Italo Brutalo Edit)
Taylor Swift – Lavender Haze (Pepsi Sine Rework)
The Phenomenal Handclap Band – Do What You Like
Bee Gees – Night Fever
Sophie Ellis Bextor – Murder on the Dancefloor
Tatsuro Yamashita – Silent Screamer (Max Mason & Nayla Rework)
Talking Heads – Girlfriend Is Better (Bit Funk Edit)
CeCe Peniston – We Got a Love Thang
New Love Ltd & Interstate 95 – So Much to Talk about (Tudo Bem) (Chuggin Edit)
The Juan Maclean – Happy House
LCD Soundsytem – Losing My Edge
The Rapture – House of Jealous Lovers
David Bowie – Rebel Rebel
The Killers – Mr. Brightside
Home – All at Once

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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