Lite + Brite: 45 Homebrewed Austin Events 6/26

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

Hello readers! Summer’s well underway now and that means hot temps + lots to do. Some of you may be out of town beating the heat (half of L+B HQ is currently). If you’re around Austin though, we’ve got some ideas for what you might want to get up to.

Celebrate the the end of Pride with a bang by sharing gay awakenings, roaming the Drag (the campus one), viewing Queerotic art, jumping into a pool, picnicking, or skittering through the trash. Beat the heat by alternating biking and swimming, performing poolside aerobics, participating in a watermelon eating contrast, or watching a moonlit floating concert. You could also swap seedlings, hear pro wrestlers pitch “suplexes as a service,” or take in drag tributes to the Strokes, Japanese city pop, + Ariana Grande. Or keep scrolling for our huge, ever growing, pulsating events list that rules from the centre of the ultraworld.

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

Enough touching grass. Have you ever touched art, bruh? We have—last weekend, we went to Almost Real Things’ annual collaboration with the Texas School for the Blind and the Visually Impaired. It was a true sensory smorgasbord. It’s up through July 12, and if you’re looking for an air conditioned, hands-on, all-ages experience created by local artists, this is for you. This week there’s a future funk-themed concert/DJ experience happening there, even.

Brian returned to his roots with an 80s synthpop show on No Humans Allowed this week. Click here to hear known + obscure synthpop tunes from around the globe.

EVENTS WE’RE EYEING

Friday 6/26

  • Terry’s Kissa at Factory on Fifth
    “Curated hifi records and pop up bar, snacks, craft treats + rugs”
  • Sapphic Rats Night at Tiny Minotaur
    “Costume night for ladies (of all kinds) w/at least a passing affinity for one another, + a deep affinity for SKITTERING THROUGH THE TRASH”
  • Immersive Projection Show at Kuya Wellness
    Live ambient + cello music w/immersive NASA footage
  • Saul Ravencraft’s Damned Show at Nature’s Treasures
    “Wizard provocateur” leads variety performances in a talk show format
  • Latino Moonlight Serenades at Lady Bird Lake
    Paddle out for a floating moonlit live musical performance
  • Student Exhibition at dadaLab
    “Inspiring digital art + electronic music from dadageek students”
  • Deep in the Heart Release Party at Raw Paw
    Live zine printing, release, + DJ sets w/free drinks
  • Strokin’ It at Cheer Up Charlies
    Get your mind into the gutter w/Strokes-themed drag + dance party
  • Body Mechanics at 4211 Todd Ln.
    DJs happily blurring the lines between a dance party + a fetish party
  • PowerPints at Radio East
    “Drink + learn things” at comedic talks on a variety of esoteric topics
  • Queer Film Theory at the Highball
    “Basically, we ruin films for straight people + yell about the characters that made us feel gay”
  • Mochi Mochi: City Pop at the Highball
    Drag performers pay tribute to beloved era of 80s Japanese music + culture
  • Homebrew Austin at Brushy St. Commons
    Wide variety of events across drag, comedy, cosplay, + dance
  • Austin Asian American Film Festival at AFS
    Fest that “highlights new Asian and Asian American film”
  • Storytelling Through Dance Making at Festival Beach
    Learn to tell your own personal stories using choreography

Saturday 6/27

  • Austin African American Book Festival at the Carver Museum
    Book fest celebrating Black voices + empowering aspiring authors
  • Pride Picnic at Pease Park
    Vendors, art workshops, + book swap to celebrate Pride
  • Fight Opera at Beerworks Sprinkle Valley
    Wrestlers explore business opportunities and “suplexes as service”
  • Embodied at KMFA
    “Multicultural night of live music, dance, art, poetry, + film”
  • Tour de Splash at splash pads throughout Austin
    Cycle around town w/your peloton posse jumping into the water
  • Art in ATX Pride Market at Central Machine Works
    Vendors, “community weaving workshop,” tie dye station + more
  • Wet Hot Watermelon Summer at 2940 Eckert
    A watermelon eating contest, an open mic, + a BBQ walk into a bar…
  • Ariana Grande Drag Tribute at Cheer Up Charlies
    Celebrate pop/film star’s Austin tour date w/drag tributes 
  • Future Funk Space Disco Concert at Almost Real Things
    Live music + DJ combine with immersive + touchable art
  • Tracks + Tapes at Sound Sanctuary Austin
    BYO vinyl to share a song + listen to others’ picks, reel-to-reel demo
  • Strange Hearts at Stage Austin
    “Queerotic art through pole dance, burlesque, + more”
  • Photo Walk at Barton Springs
    Join a pack of shutterbugs capturing moments of Summer
  • Creative Departures at the Millennium Youth Entertainment Complex
    Phone-free conversations on art + art-making environment
  • Film + Friends at Hyperreal Film Club
    Austin filmmakers showing six new works w/Q+A
  • Story-oke at the Highball
    Sing a song + talk about it. Basically DIY VH1 Storytellers
  • Plant Swap at Tillery St. Plant Co.
    Trade in some surplus seedlings for something new w/giveaways
  • Opening Hours at Sherwood Forest Zine Library
    An extensive library of zines in someone’s house, friendly cat included
  • Oddities + Curiosities Expo at the Palmer Events Center
    Take in oddities, taxidermy classes, + unsettling vendors
  • Homebrew Austin at Brushy St. Commons
    Wide variety of events across drag, comedy, cosplay, + dance
  • Austin Asian American Film Festival at AFS
    Fest that “highlights new Asian and Asian American film”
  • Dear Dickies at Hyde Park Theater
    “Love/business letter to Dickies workwear” in theatrical form

Sunday 6/28

Monday 6/29

  • PowerPints Teacher Night at the Highball
    Raise funds for education nonprofits w/comedic talks from schoolteachers
  • Full Moon Swim at Austin Motel
    Swim for free in the full moonlight w/DJ spinning summery indie genres

Tuesday 6/30

Wednesday 7/1

  • B Is for Bitch at Yellow Jacket Social Club
    Delightfully chaotic adult spelling be complete w/DJ + drag hosts

Thursday 7/2

NHA285
Microchips on My Shoulder

A tour of synthpop from all across the world during the first half of the 1980s. Lots of lesser known gems we found during the early music blog era plus a few favorites thrown in for good measure.

Stream Microchips on My Shoulder

Tracklist
Vitamin Z – Dancers of Eve
Soft Cell – Chips on My Shoulder
Bamboo Industry – Hypnotized
Thomas Dolby + Ryuichi Sakamoto – Field Work
The Puppets – The Way of Life
Nancy Nova – Made in Japan
Trio – Da Da Da
Robert Marlow – The Face of Dorian Gray
Arielle Angelfred – Cauch’mar Bizarre (Cap’ Edit)
Thirteen at Midnight – Other Passengers ft. Valerie
The Wake – Of the Matter
Joe Jackson – Steppin’ Out

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, and Kristen Backor. We’re deeply grateful for your support, which allows us to do things like “pay our Beehiiv 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 Superfantastica for weird Austin places + things. 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 2026). 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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