Lite + Brite: 31 Wide Open Austin Events 1/16

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

Number one most important thing: We’re hosting the first Lite + Brite reader meetup of 2026 next weekend, and we’d love for you to join! Sunday, January 25, at Double Trouble. Click here for details.

Second most important thing: We’re leaving our 2026 reader survey open for one more week. If you have a minute to fill it out, please do. It takes very little time, you can skip any questions that you don’t want to think about, and it will be a big help to us. Go here and check some boxes!

Other important things: Turns out a lot of influential people were born this week. You can celebrate the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe with a gothic dance party and psychic readings; the birthday of Dolly Parton with a lookalike contest and live bands or with drag, baking contests, glam, and a “wig-snatching competition”; the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., with a community march and festival; and the birthday of David Lynch with live music, a vendor market and costume contest, or curated video clips screened in a microcinema. This weekend also brings to town one of the world’s finest vinyl DJs, Jonathan Toubin, with his all-45s soul dance party; a brilliant Chicago-based troupe of Shakespearean improvisers; a Brooklyn-based modern dance group performing to the works of Burt Bacharach; and a panel of experts who could probably tell you what it takes to work on Heated Rivalry, if that happens to be your goal.

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

WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO

Last weekend was Free Week, an annual event in which the Red River Cultural District brings nearly 100 local bands to a dozen venues along Red River, all at no cost to audiences. It is a great reminder of how fortunate we are to live in a city that supports so many musicians and independent music venues. We went to Elysium, picked up copies of the first issue of The Red River Zine, and watched performances by Jet Cemetery (dark, moody, serene synthpop) and J’cuzzi (chaotic, inexplicable, highly costumed). 

In addition to Free Week, we also went to Drinks Lounge’s 11th annual Bowie Bash. DJ Sue spun an all-vinyl set of exclusively David Bowie songs, and the crowd came ready to party. So much glitter, so much singing along. Drinks Lounge doesn’t often host big dance parties, but we wish they did—they’re really good at it!

Coming up, we’re hosting our first reader meetup of 2026 at Double Trouble next Sunday, January 25. If you are reading this now, you are invited! We love to meet Lite + Brite readers in person, and to give y’all the opportunity to connect with one another.

For the last two weeks, Brian has been looking back on 2025 on his radio show, No Humans Allowed. Two weeks ago he featured his favorite songs to have been released in 2025, which included Texans like Jet Cemetary, Modernform, Nuclear Daisies, + Temptrix, as well as L.A. by way of Italy’s Nuovo Testamento who’s coming to Austin in April. This past week he played all of his favorite vintage italo, house, + synthpop, discoveries of the last 12 months. Both are now streamable on the Kpiss archives.

EVENTS WE’RE EYEING

Friday 1/16

  • Soul Clap Dance Off at the 13th Floor
    Feted NYC (by way of ATX) soul DJ visits w/45s + live music
  • The Serpents Fly at Sundown at the Texas Capitol
    It’s a “giant lantern puppets alert” on the Capitol grounds
  • La Dolce Vita at the Electric Church
    DJs spinning italo disco + other sublime 80s dance genres
  • Honkers II at Elysium
    Drag peeps throw “sexiest slimiest clown party this side of Red River”
  • Barbarian Night at Tiny Minotaur
    “Please refrain from pillaging” at this barbarian costume party
  • What Follows What Remains at dadaLab
    Meditative immersive live music + live visuals experience
  • The Improvised Shakespeare Company at McCullough Theatre
    Touring improvisers concoct a Shakespeare play on the fly
  • (weekly thru 2/7) The Wolf You Feed at the Vortex
    Watch a Wild Things-inspired play about punk wolves

Saturday 1/17

  • Edgar Allan Poe Ball at Elysium
    Poe ball w/themed drinks, costumes, DJs, + “Edgar Allan Hoes”
  • Fantasy Drag at Tiny Minotaur
    “All trans cast” of drag kings + queens inspired by fantasy + lore
  • Texas Roller Derby at the Thunderdome
    Roller derbyists murderously smash their way through a banked track
  • Frisky Business at Captain Quack’s
    “No refunds if not delighted” by fetish-inspired burlesque troupe
  • The Look of Love at Bass Concert Hall
    Famed NYC modern dancers perform to the music of Burt Bacharach
  • Dolly Parton Birthday Tribute at Sagebrush
    Celebrate 80 years of Dolly w/live covers + lookalike contest
  • Fragile Rock at the 13th Floor
    Live band of puppets perform new sensitive rock. Zero Fraggles
  • Crimewave at Empire Control Room
    DJs spinning goth, darkwave, + 80s new wave
  • Opening Hours at Sherwood Forest Zine Library
    An extensive library of zines in someone’s house, friendly cat included
  • The Improvised Shakespeare Company at McCullough Theatre
    Touring improvisers concoct a Shakespeare play on the fly
  • (weekly thru 2/7) Frontera Fest Best of the Week at Hyde Park Theater
    “Alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre”
  • (weekly thru 1/31) Escape the Box at Fareground
    Escape the box only there’s no box, there is Austin fun + time travel
  • (weekly thru 2/7) The Wolf You Feed at the Vortex
    Watch a Wild Things-inspired play about punk wolves

Sunday 1/18

  • Intimacy Coordination Educational Panel at Hyperreal Film Club
    Learn about one of the fastest growing parts of the film + theatre industry
  • Games Y’all at Captain Quack’s
    Try out indie games in development + meet the folks who make them
  • Hecate’s Bazaar at Fortune Teller
    “Witches market w/fire performances + a fire eating magician”
  • (weekly thru 1/31) Escape the Box at Fareground
    Escape the box only there’s no box, there is Austin fun + time travel
  • (weekly thru 2/7) The Wolf You Feed at the Vortex
    Watch a Wild Things-inspired play about punk wolves

Monday 1/19

Tuesday 1/20

Thursday 1/22

  • City Pop Nite at Elysium
    DJs spinning Japanese city pop, future funk, + vaporwave
  • Fusebox Artist Salon at dadaLab
    “Art community conversations” w/immersive + experimental artists
  • Latte Art Throwdown at Peaches Coffee
    Latte art bracket for prizes, DJ, flash tats, + vendors
  • (weekly thru 2/7) The Wolf You Feed at the Vortex
    Watch a Wild Things-inspired play about punk wolves

NHA266
Discoveries 2025

This week on No Humans Allowed was our annual Discoveries episode. We’ve panned for gold and came up with diamonds. We collected all of our favorite music from 1978-2020 that was new to our ears in the year 2025. Italo disco, cosmic disco, synthpop, house, techno, new beat + even a little Hungarian prog rock. Press play to hear the best of the best.

Stream Discoveries 2025

Tracklist
Stephen Schlaks – Cascades
Locomotiv GT – Embertelen Dal
Sandra – Hi! Hi! Hi! (James Rod Re-edit)
Morenas – Hazme Soñar
Apparel Wax – LP001D2
Cabaret Voltaire – Searchin’
Barrabas – Lovers in the Rain (RFX Edit)
Time Modem – Suono Elettrico
Bryan Ferry – Zamba
Marcella Bella – Nell’Aria (Cap’ Edit)
Ray Cooper – Breakdown

No Humans Allowed is Brian Blackout’s award-winning, 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 200 episodes now streamable in the archives on topics like and Beach Simulations, Roomba dance parties, undersea adventures + Cyber Texas.

PATREON THANKS

A huge thank-you to our Patreon subscribers Melissa Dunn, Kat, James Gray, Emily Heddleson, Andrew Creswell, Robert B., Roman Gonzalez, Nick Ivons, Molly Fonseca, Lilly Ettinger, Michael Sales, Zach, Gino Scaramuzza, Erica Speegle, Thomas Refferson, Bones Malones, Katie Green, Christina Jue, Colleen MB, Alexander Freed, Kristen Backor, and Timon A. 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 attending a dance party in a storage unit, marching in a Greek mythology-themed Halloween parade thrown by a bat crew and a rat crew, and watching a troupe of gigantic leftist puppets from New England. Follow Lite + Brite on Instagram to keep up with our adventures. We’re now on Bluesky too. Yay federation! And come chat with us and the rest of the L+B community on our Discord server (where we sometimes post stuff early too).

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, ATX Theatre for plays, 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, + 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 2025). 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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