Lite + Brite: 24 Metaphysical Austin Events 3/19
Hello, what’s up, and welcome to the Lite + Brite newsletter.
We made it! The busiest week of the year is over and we’re all in one piece. We’re both exhausted having seen dozens of musical acts over the last week, but nonetheless there’s so much to do! If you’d still like to see bands there are a handful of events in Festwiz to check out and shows at places like Chess Club, who is celebrating their anniversary.
Maybe you want to see live music with live art + sober activities, or live costumed dungeon synth bands, or with an assortment of metaphysical activities. Well you can! There’s also a black light queer country dance party, a rave in an abandoned sausage factory (we couldn’t make this stuff up, folks!), projection mapped dance floors, a tour of Austin’s finest catios (aka cat patios), pirates, an anarchist book fair, martial arts movies w/live hip hop re-scores, old silent films with live synth re-scores, and storytelling about NASA, with accents, + with bikes.
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Let’s do fun stuff!
—Leila + Brian
liteandbriteatx.com
WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO
Oh my lord. What HAVEN’T we been up to?
Over the past week, Leila saw 38 bands. Brian saw 50. We saw bands at bars and in parking lots and at convenience stores. We saw more shows at Resound venues than you can shake a large collection of sticks at, a SPIN-curated lineup featuring DAIISTAR (a local band whom we love because they’re reminiscent of the Stone Roses); and a Peelander-Z-curated lineup (whom we love because we like pretending to be mad tigers); a band with four(!) drummers, and a slug-themed Howdy Gals-curated lineup (whom we love because they do good local programming all year round) that came complete with wrestlers. For the April Monthly, we’ll put together a playlist of some of our favorite discoveries, so keep your eyes peeled for that in a couple weeks.
We also went to PARTIES! Goodness, did we party. We went to a party on the roof of the Contemporary and ate too many churros, and a party at Callen that had six parties nested inside of it (including a frat party and a Kentucky Derby party). We walked too far and stood for too long and pushed our phone batteries to the brink, but we were so happy.
That’s a wrap on SXSW, y’all. Let’s do it all again next year.
EVENTS WE’RE EYEING
Friday 3/20
- Electric Equinox at Sky Candy
DJs, projection-mapped dance floor, art vendors, + tea lounge - Furnace 3 at an abandoned sausage factory
Get lost amidst dancing, DJs, + a faint hint of sausage in the air - Can I Kick It? at Republic Square
Watch a martial arts film w/DJ creating a new hip hop + soul score - Spring Equinox Synth Night at Tiny Minotaur
Dress up w/fantasy-costumed dungeon synth + drum & bass live acts - Unbecoming at East Side Performing Arts
“Runway fashion meets contemporary dance” w/live music, spoken word
Saturday 3/21
- Catio Tour at homes throughout Austin
Tour some of Austin’s finest cat patios (aka catios) for fun + inspo - Buddy Can You Spare a Meme at Co-Lab Projects
Art that satirically skewers meme culture w/live musical accompaniment - Pirate Night at Tiny Minotaur
“No blaggards or bilge-rats allowed” at this pirate costume party - Austin Anarchist Bookfair on North Loop
Check out books + talks on anarchist + anti-data center topics - 8 Year Anniversary Party at Kinda Tropical
Celebrate KT’s bday w/crawfish, hot rods, + vinyl DJ - Recovery Takeover at Mohawk
Zero alcohol day party w/live bands + live art - Spring Equinox Metaphysical Fair at Ani’s Day + Night
Live music, sound bath, tea service, yoga, tarot, + spiritual activities - Traitors at Fallout Theater
Improv comedy inspired by the popular reality TV show - PowerPints at the Highball
“Drink + learn things” at comedic talks on a variety of esoteric topics - Texas Roller Derby at the Thunderdome
Roller derbyists murderously smash their way through a banked track - Unbecoming at East Side Performing Arts
“Runway fashion meets contemporary dance” w/live music, spoken word
Sunday 3/22
- After the Light Leaves at Festival Beach Food Forest
Improvisational site-specific modern dance at dawn and dusk - Escape the Box at City Hall
Play an outdoor time travel escape game for charity
Monday 3/23
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari at Austin Central Library
Watch classic silent horror film w/live re-score
Wednesday 3/25
- Bike Story Night at Hold Out Brewing
Bicycle-themed storytelling + group bike ride
Thursday 3/26
- Nerd Nite at Barrel O’ Fun
Hear nerdy high-caliber talks on a variety of NASA-centric topics - Queer Film Theory at the Highball
“Basically, we ruin films for straight people + yell about the characters that made us feel gay” - Neon Rainbows’ Glowdown at Elysium
Queer country dance party under black light - Glamp Glamp at Lynny’s
“Queer performative weirdness” a la camp talent shows - Accent Unmuted at Studio 1A
A storytelling night focusing on the accented voices of immigrants
NHA272
A New Machine
On this episode of No Humans Allowed we explore formative post-punk, synthpop, + new wave sounds of the early 80s and late 70s.
Tracklist
Young Marble Giants – N.I.T.A.
Gary Myrick & the Figures – She Talks in Stereo
Wide Boy Awake – Slang Teacher
Gina X Performance – No G.D.M.
Genesis – Keep It Dark
The Flying Lizards – Move on up
The Aller Værste – Dans Til Musikken (Rune Lindbæk Edit)
Tuxedomoon – New Machine
Chumbawamba – Unilever
K.U.K.L. – Dismembered
Section 25 – The Process
Patrick Moraz – Primitvisation
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 Liz, 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 and Side by Sideshows 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.