Lite + Brite Monthly: January
Hello, what’s up, and welcome to the monthly edition of the Lite + Brite newsletter.
Happy New Year! In this issue of the Monthly, we looked back on 12 months of music and built you playlists of our favorite tracks released in 2024. There’s so much good stuff in here. What a time to be a listener! Join us at 2025’s first No Lights No Lycra tomorrow evening if you want to dance to some of these songs (plus plenty of others). If you made your own 2024 best-of playlist, we’d love to give it a listen—drop the link in the L+B Discord. And, as always, scroll down for a list of upcoming Austin events and activities.
If you’re not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you want to be, click here. We send out one email a week, usually on Fridays, plus this bonus monthly edition around the start of each month. 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
Looking Ahead to Upcoming Events
Our weekly newsletters will include many more listings, but here are a handful of events that we know are planned for the next month. We’re giving you the heads up now in case you want to pre-buy tickets or block off the time.
- Jan. 8: No Lights No Lycra at 3rd Eye Meditation Lounge
Dance w/L+B in the dark + expect to hear lots of our 2024 favorites - Jan. 10-11: Improvised Shakespeare Company at Bass Concert Hall
Touring improvisers concoct a Shakespeare play on the fly - Jan. 11: Prick Up Your Ears at Elysium
DJs spinning early 00s dancepunk, indie, + electroclash sleaze - Jan. 11: Hyde Park Storytelling at Batch Craft Beer
Adult + middle school-aged storytellers ply their trade w/ASL interpreter - Jan. 11: Vivid Parlor at Mesmerize
Art + prompted activities to spark interaction at interactive artspace - Jan. 14-Feb. 15: FronteraFest at Hyde Park Theatre
“Alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre” - Jan. 17: Tim Burton Ball at Richesart
Art gallery becomes Halloweentown w/art, cosplay, + live music - Jan. 18: Edgar Allan Poe Ball at Elysium
Poe ball w/themed drinks, costumes, DJs, + “Edgar Allan Hoes” - Jan. 18: Swamp Ass: A Shrek Party at Tiny Minotaur
“Raunchy (+ non-licensed) celebration of the life and times of Shrek” - Jan. 18: Texas Foremothers Tour at the Texas State Cemetery
Learn about the women of Texas political history (in a cemetery!) - Jan. 18-19: CelloFest at the Cathedral
Cellists perform many genres + eras of music in intimate setting - Jan. 19: Dolly’s Birthday Bash at Sagebrush
Party w/all things Dolly–lookalike contest, drag, vendors + more - Jan. 20: MLK Jr. March, Rally, + Festival at Huston-Tillotson University
Celebrate the legacy of MLK w/marching, music, vendors, + food drive - Jan. 22: No Lights No Lycra at 3rd Eye Meditation Lounge
Our own dance party in the dark returns to 3rd Eye - Jan. 24-26: WEIRD Open 2025 at Austin Sports Academy
Fight historically at “Adult Sleep Away Sword Camp” - Jan. 25: Darkwave Disko at Elysium
DJs spinning italo, post-punk, cold wave, + many dark subgenres - Jan. 25-26: Tribeza Interiors Tour at homes throughout Austin
Tour some of Austin’s best-decorated homes according to Tribeza - Jan. 26: Lord of the Rings Day at BookPeople
Get yr Tolkien on w/LotR-themed trivia, D+D, + baked goods - Jan. 31: Thee Hobogobbelins at Tiny Minotaur
Dress up as a goblin to watch live darkwave + bardic bands - Jan. 31-Feb. 1: m(other) figures at the Dougherty Arts Center
Modern dance performers consider lineage + motherhood - Feb. 1: Austin Anarchist Book Fair at an unannounced location
Anarchists of the world, unite + take over w/books, workshops, organizing - Feb. 2: Fortlandia Closing Day at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Annual interactive installation art exhibition w/a play fort theme
L+B 08 – 2024 Favorites
We’ve each carefully curated a list of our favorite songs that came out in 2024. We found indie, britpop, nu italo, electropop, + post-punk songs from new and old artists, some of whom we heard for the first time at SxSW this past year and some who were longtime favorites. Listen to our playlists here, and if you really want to go crazy Brian’s YouTube link is a special “extended” playlist with over 60 tracks.
Brian: Spotify / Apple / YouTube
Leila: Spotify / Apple / YouTube
Brian’s 2024 Favorites:
Side A
Ginger Root – Only You
Yard Act – Dream Job
The Smile – Eyes + Mouth
Fontaines D.C. – In the Modern World
Sculpture Club – Drive Too Fast
Holy Wire – Lost
Curses – Another Heaven
Desire – Darkside
Pet Shop Boys – New London Boy
Johnny Dynamite and the Bloodsuckers – Straitjacket Summer Love
+/- (Plus/Minus) – Driving Aimlessly (Redux)
Good Looks – If It’s Gone
Gimmy – Bathrooms
Side B
Love Command0 – Night Creep
Luxxury – Strangely Familiar
Nuovo Testamento – In My Dreams
Caribou – Do Without You
Confidence Man – Control
Charli xcx & Billie Eilish – Guess
The Dare – Perfume
Urban Heat – Sanitizer
Psymon Spine – Wizard Acid
Donny Benét – American Dream
Faux Real – Rent Free
Flamingosis – Feel Yourself ft. Marc Rebillet
+ even more extended songs on YouTube
Some Songs Leila Especially Liked That Were Released in 2024
James – Is This Love
Fontaines D.C. – Favourite
The Vaccines – Heartbreak Kid
Taylor Swift – I Can Do It With a Broken Heart
Sports Team – I’m in Love (Subaru)
Charli xcx – Guess
Yard Act – We Make Hits
Marlin Beach – Endless Summer
Two-Man Giant Squid – I Was a DJ in 2015
Los Campesinos! – Feast of Tongues
The Rifles – Starting Monday
Blossoms – Cinnamon
Confidence Man & Sweetie Irie – REAL MOVE TOUCH
Faux Real – Walking Away from My Demons
The Cure – And Nothing Is Forever
All-the-Time Austin Artsy Fun
Our weekly newsletter features upcoming events, but sometimes the activity you’re looking for isn’t an event at all—it’s a place that’s always there. Next time you find yourself with an afternoon when nothing special seems to be going on, you could consider checking out one of these evergreen options.
- Mesmerize
An interactive dream-like world made of site-specific installations by 15+ local artists - Hyperreal Film Club
A clubhouse for weird cinema, with oddball screenings four nights a week - Tiny Minotaur
Drinking and costumed LARPing, Dungeonsynths performing in the dungeon w/lots of lore - The Eureka Room
Uniquely goofy, silly, + fun immersive games you play with a group. No spoilers! - Escape the Box on South Congress
So you think you can escape boxes. Sure, but what about time traveling boxes? - We Luv Video
The Alexandria Library of video rental. It’s community-run, you can rent movies or watch them in a cinema while literally surrounded by VHS tapes and DVDs. - The Goats at Jester King Brewery
More a theme park geared towards folks who like refermented cherries in their beer (me) than a brewery. I have not experienced the Goat Experience, but I have seen their goats, and I approve. - Cathedral of Junk
A towering achievement to collecting weird old stuff that will spark nostalgia and cause you to wonder at your last tetanus shot timing - West China Tea House
In addition to their events, West China is a wonderful place just to chat with interesting and welcoming people and drink some delicious tea - Mayfield Park and Nature Preserve
A lovely park + nature walk that is protected by a crack corps of dedicated peacocks and peahens. Good luck escaping without some flashy, feathery displays. - Laguna Gloria
The Contemporary Austin’s outdoor sculpture garden. Culture + Nature = Profit. - Austin Creative Reuse Center
A nonprofit shop where you can get any art, craft, or office supplies you can imagine for literal pennies. Eat your heart out, Office Despot. - Museum of the Weird
It’s right there on Dirty 6th but worth a visit. From famous fake paleontology to recreations of horror film sets, there’s lots to see. - James Turrell’s Skyspace
Like Turrell’s best works, this is an art experience which unfolds slowly over time. Watch as the changing colors of sunset remake the space.
Thanks to our Patreon subscribers
A huge thank-you to our Patreon subscribers Michael Sales, Zach, Gino Scaramuzza, Erica Speegle, Jarrett Holtz, Thomas Refferson, Dale Markowitz, Jason & Luciana, Bones Malones, Amy Hayes, Katie Green, Christina Jue, Colleen MB, Lena Long, Amalia Litsa, Alexander Freed, 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 visiting the Sherwood Forest Zine Library, admiring the site-specific art at Creek Show, and exploring the city on Austin Studio Tour. 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, Concept Animals’ ATX Art for You for gallery openings + artist talks, 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 Wednesday 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.