Subject: Zilker Park

• Speaking of Umbrellas...It's Bumbershoot Time

  August 31, 2007

• ACL Fest: Where the Streets Have No Name

  September 13, 2007

• Drenched In Blog: Goin’ Out West for ACL Fest

  September 14, 2007

• Memories of ACLs Past: The Halliburton Shirt

  September 14, 2007

• Fire at Austin City Limits

  September 14, 2007

• ACL Fest in Photos, Take Four

  September 17, 2007

• LCD Soundsystem, Reverend Horton Heat, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Muse, Wilco and Ghostland Observatory: Chris Gray Closes the Notebook on ACL

  September 18, 2007

• Has ACL Festival Jumped the Shark?

  April 15, 2008

• So There's This Little Festival In Austin This Weekend...

  September 26, 2008

• ACL Is Underway, Rootsy Early On

  September 26, 2008

• Setting the Scene

  September 26, 2008

• ACL Day One: More band photos

  September 27, 2008

• Dispatch From the VIP Grove

  September 28, 2008

• Photos: The Raconteurs at ACL

  September 29, 2008

• Over the Weekend: City of Sin and ACL Fest

  September 29, 2008

• ACL Notebook Dump, Pt. 1: Gentrification, Acid, Obama Shirts and More

  September 29, 2008

• Five Spot: New Kids Are Back, Bitches

  September 30, 2008

• Smiths Reunion Rumored at Morrissey's Jones Hall Show

  Strangeways, here they come: Rocks Off has learned that former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr has requested passes for his ex-bandmate Morrissey's sold-out April 11 show at Jones Hall, leading to speculation that the two will perform onstage together for the first time since the influential Manchester band's acrimonious 1987 split. "Johnny's manager emailed us Monday asking for tickets and backstage passes," a source close to the show's promoter told Rocks Off Wednesday. She asked not to be i

  April 1, 2009

• Austin City Limits Goes Grunge; Tickets On Sale Today

  Just in time for tickets to go on sale - as in now - leaks have conveniently begun to spring in C3 Entertainment's carefully under wraps lineup for this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival, scheduled for October 2-4 in Zilker Park. (Don't worry, Longhorn fans: Unlike last year, that's UT's open date.) So far the biggest name being thrown around is Pearl Jam, whose expanded and remastered landmark first album Ten was recently re-released. According to Austin Sound Check, citing an anony

  April 7, 2009

• Ben Kweller

  September 25, 2008

• Being There

  The Sixth Annual Austin City Limits Festival feels like home...almost

  September 20, 2007

• Playbill

  September 16, 2004

• Festivus Maximus

  The Austin City Limits Music Festival's got a roster that won't quit

  September 18, 2003

• In Search of Lost Time

  Robert Conran jumped from the frying pan and into the fire. Then they turned up the heat.

  June 20, 2002

• Some Further Thoughts on iFest, and Festivals

  Photos by Chris Gray Skyscrapers - something you won't see at Austin City Limits. Western Swing maidens the Quebe Sisters performed in the shadow of the Jesse H. Jones Library.Previously, Rocks Off's idea about what a "festival" should look like, and what to expect, came from his experiences at Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza, various one-offs at Austin's Auditorium Shores and - though he's never been - what he's heard/seen/read about Jazzfest, Coachella, Bumbershoot, et al. Eithe

  April 20, 2009

• ACL Fest Preview: School of Seven Bells and Prescott Curlywolf

  Amanda MertenSchool of Seven Bells​For the next three weeks, Rocks Off will be bringing you two or three short previews a day of artists playing the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park October 2-4. That's right, ACL is 17 days away - where is this year going? (Same place as all the other ones, we suspect.) It's for our own edification as well; we're trying to figure out who among the 120-something acts we're not that familiar with might be worth skipping, say, Thievery Corporation

  September 15, 2009

• ACL Fest Preview: Five Outdoor Music Festivals That Could Have Gone a Lot Better

  The 2009 Austin City Limits Festival kicks off Friday, and many of you are no doubt devising parking strategies and grappling with various permutations of 'How will I make it from the [a] set at [b] stage in time to catch [x]'s set at the [y] stage?' It's a serious dilemma, as ACL always puts together a solid lineup. Our only advice to you is to blow off Dave Matthews and head to the Ginger Man. But aside from that, you probably have other lingering concerns. Music festivals are notoriously cha

  October 1, 2009

• Aftermath: Them Crooked Vultures at Stubb's in Austin

  Photos By Craig Hlavaty​Just a few short hours ago Aftermath saw the rock world's newest supergroup in action as Queens of The Stone Age's Josh Homme, ex-Nirvana drummer/current Foo Fighters helmer Dave Grohl, and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones took the stage at Stubb's in Austin for a warm-up gig before this afternoon's Austin City Limits festival appearance. Thursday night's show was only the second US date for Them Crooked Vultures since their inception this past summer.

  October 2, 2009

• Random Notes from ACL: The Grass Is Always Greener...

  Chris GrayIt's a little more crowded than this at Zilker now, but it was fun while it lasted.​ The grass is especially sweet at this year's ACL festival. The new turf at Zilker Park is nice too.Now we are in the media tent, surrounded by friends and family: Rocks Off's Austin Chronicle mentor (and Lucinda Williams wedding date) Margaret Moser is here, Trail of Dead and Jonathan Tyler & the Northern Lights and Ron Byrd from Prescott Curlywolf, our favorite musical doctor, just stopped by. D

  October 2, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day One: Night Falls

  Photo by Katharine ShilcuttGoodnight moon!​The sun has nearly set over ACL, the fields of Zilker Park filled with the smell of fresh grass (of several kinds...), happy bodies and the oddly soothing sounds of a cacophonous mixture of Andrew Bird, Reckless Kelly and Them Crooked Vultures. (Although from where we sit, Andrew Bird's speakers are winning out.) The first day of ACL may be drawing to a close, but stay tuned to Rocks Off for more coverage tonight and throughout the weekend.

  October 2, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day One: Coheed & Cambria Prog Out With Their Fro's Out

  Photo By Groovehouse​Mid-afternoon on Friday, prog-metallers Coheed & Cambria hit the stage for an hour of guitar histrionics and lead singer Claudio Sanchez's trademark Geddy Lee-style banshee's wail. With a signature sound that usuals coats the walls of any indoor venue the band plays, C&C's clamor was lost somewhere out in the massive confines of Zilker Park.

  October 3, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day One: In Which Rocks Off's Black Heart Is Melted And We Meet Vinnie Testaverde

  With another ACL comes another chance for us to sharpen our snarkening knifes and go out hunting the wilds of Zilker Park searching for only the best in surreal public displays and the fancifully misguided and miscalculated public faux-pas. On with the show! ​These two chill-ass dudes made us wish we would knock someone up soon, because we have so much cool stuff to teach kids, like right now. It has to be most ricky-tick before we got all old and we stop hunting to name our child Spike, Lemmy

  October 3, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day One: Aftermath

  Photo by Mark C. AustinSchool of Seven Bells​Before we start discussing the great music we heard yesterday, we would like to take time to thank the Gods Of Rock for blessing Day One of the Austin City Limits Festival (ACL) 2009 with an amazing afternoon and evening of weather. Anyone who has partaken of this three-day jaunt in the Texas sun in past years can relate horror stories filled with 100-degree-plus heat and rolling dust storms that, for some of Aftermath's friends, occasionally r

  October 2, 2009

• ACL 2009: The Green Scene

  Photos by Katharine ShilcuttYes, those are chickens. At ACL.​The freshly-planted grass isn't the only thing that's green in Zilker Park this year. Since we're in super hippie fun land Austin, after all, it only makes sense that there's a huge emphasis on the environment at the festival. From a display on raising chickens at home to a giant ball of plastic bags, from roving bands of can collectors to enormous solar panels running (although not very well with all this rain) certain festival cont

  October 3, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Two: Phoenix, Robyn Hitchcock and Them Crooked Vultures

  Photo by Matthew Taplinger​The quality of the grass at ACL on Charles Attal's apparent birthday blow out (if projections for "Feliz Cumpleanos" were to be believed) was nothing to sniff at. The great lawn of Zilker Park was emerald and ready to absorb the dance steps of a sold-out crowd with happy feet. The air was redolent with killing kindness, which raised the question of just how family friendly Austin's premiere outdoor music fest really is. Phoenix showed the crowd that there's mor

  October 3, 2009

• Live From ACL: Buckets of Rain, and a Bright Spot or Two

  Photos by Chris GrayThis photo was NOT taken Saturday. Trust us.​ The streak is over. In eight years, Austin City Limits has seen plenty of days of unbearable heat, but hardly any rain. The most significant time was during Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' headlining 2006 set, but even that was more of a lighting show than an actual shower.All that ended Saturday, to spectacular (and disgusting) effect. It started raining in Austin before noon, but the heavens really opened up around 3 p.m.,

  October 3, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Two: Aftermath

  Photo by Mark C. Austin​Was it something we said or did? Aftermath openly gushed about how great the weather was on Friday and how it seemed that maybe, just maybe, we were going to finally attend an Austin City Limits (ACL) that didn't consist of heat and dust. Well, it seems that the powers-the-be misunderstood what our words of thankfulness and decided to perpetuate the lack of oppressive heat and dust by having it rain all day long. As in, Aftermath arrived at Zilker Park just after n

  October 4, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Two: The Decemberists, Dapper and a Little Dangerous

  Photo by Mark C. Austin​If there's one band Rocks Off didn't envy during Saturday's ACL downpour - seriously, Zilker Park smells like a stable today, moreso because the staff just finished seeding the mud-splattered grounds with hay - it was the Decemberists. The Portland collective closed out Saturday on the Dell stage clad in full-on church attire - three-piece suits for the men; long, flowing gowns of both black and white for the women. Just the kind of attire you want to be caught in at a

  October 4, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Three: Everybody Knows What Black Joe Lewis' Name Is Now

  Photo by Katharine Shilcutt​It was almost like being back in Houston: Sunday was sticky and steamy as Rocks Off arrived at Zilker Park around noon, and the only way we knew we could make it through was with a stiff straight shot of Southern soul. Luckily, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears were first up on the AMD stage.Complete with coordinated choreography, Lewis and the Honeybears came out with guitars and horns blazing, updating Clifton Chenier by way of Sonny Boy Williamson on "Big Boot

  October 4, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Two: Who'll Stop the Rain?

  Photo by Mark C. AustinThe Scabs​That was the question on Saturday, when downpours tested the drainage properties of the newly laid Zilker Park sod to test. Curiously, with the air still warm, the crowd seemed to take the growing swamp in stride, but you have to guess that with all the muddy-buddy action (Woodstock 40, friends?) the new field is going to need some attention, stat. One of the positive side benefits of the rain was that it forced folks to check out the off-neglected space th

  October 4, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Three: Aftermath

  Photos by Mark C. AustinDavid Garza​So, what happens to freshly laid grass in a public park after a day full of rain and thousands of people walking back and forth across it at the same time? Well, as anyone who was present for Day Three of Austin City Limits Festival 2009 (ACL) could tell you, it turns into a big muddy, stinking, sloppy mess, one with the power to swallow shoes and small children whole. The stories from this day will mostly revolve around how people were able to survive

  October 5, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Three: Pearl Jam With Special Guests Ben Harper and Perry Farrell

  Photos by Mark C. Austin​Pearl Jam closed out this year's ACL with aplomb, the audience stretching nearly the entire length of Zilker Park to see Eddie Vedder and the seminal band while nostalgically recalling large portions of the 1990s as songs like "Daughter" and "Evenflow" washed over the crowd. Halfway through the concert, Vedder brought Ben Harper -- who had earlier played to a packed crowd on the AMD Stage at 6 p.m. -- on stage for a rendition of "Alive." Pearl Jam further thrille

  October 5, 2009

• ACL 2009 Day Three: Spin the Black Circle

  Photos by Mark C. Austin​It only took one song in to Pearl Jam's Sunday night closing set at the Austin City Limits music festival for it to dawn on Rocks Off that for way too long this band has been forsaken by back-handed hipster discount and radio-influenced apathy. No band from the grunge-era is still honing their craft as well, and continues to thoughtfully subvert their own musical journey as much as Pearl Jam. Opening with "Why Go" from Ten, the band wasn't just firing on all cyli

  October 5, 2009

• ACL 2009: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

  Photos by Mark C. Austin​From the Austin American-Statesman comes word that Zilker Park, which hosted the three-day Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend, will have to remain closed until the end of the month. Why? Because ACL more or less destroyed the park. For the next 25 or so days, the City of Austin will be hard at work cleaning the filthy festival grounds and replanting all the luscious green sod that was obliterated by the thundering herds of crowds, the tractors and trai

  October 5, 2009

• ACL Aftermath, Part 1: Spearhead's "Electric Mudslide" and the Whole "Dillo Dirt" Situation

  Mark C. Austin​ Night fell on the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park this past Sunday under a full moon and over a sea of mud. (It wasn't strictly mud, but more on that in a bit.) Many in the crowd, especially those in the proximity of the Dell stage, responded the only logical way possible - by dancing, or something close to it. Since the squishy, slippery ground made it a little difficult to move your feet - people weren't so much walking through the grounds at this point as gi

  October 5, 2009

• While You Weren't Tweeting: What, No More ACL?!

  ​Whether you helped rip Zilker Park to shreds or you simply groaned inwardly (and rolled your eyes outwardly) every time someone gushed about Them Crooked Vultures, everyone's got their own brand of ACL war story to propagate. But since we know that you suckers actually ruined your Ferragamos just to get a glimpse of Eddie Vedder without a cell tower to tweet of, it's about time you return to the 21st century and find out what you missed on the internets. 'Cause no amount of Torchy's or H

  October 6, 2009

• Million-Dollar Mud

  October 8, 2009

• ACL Just Keeps on Giving: Welcome to the "Poopshow"

  As you may already know if you followed Rocks Off's copious ACL coverage, Austin's Zilker Park is a muddy ruin. We use the term "muddy" loosely, as much of the turf churned into muck by dancing festival-goers was a substance called "Dillo Dirt," which is part recycled sewage. As a salute to the brown soup created by the City of Austin's efforts to go green, we've put together a slideshow of album covers featuring dirt, mud and, of course, poop. Enjoy! ​

  October 8, 2009

• Texas Traveler: Haunted Austin

  Photo by Brittanie Shey​The state capitol holds many secrets gleaned throughout its long history as a center for settlement, trade and politics. Here are a few of our favorite spooky places in Austin. The Driskill Hotel Often cited as one of the most haunted buildings in Texas, The Driskill opened in 1886 as one of the most lush and expensive hotels in the country, and certainly the nicest in Texas. What was meant to be the finest hotel West of the Mississippi suffered from its own hubri

  October 12, 2009

• You Are Your Avatar, UT Study Declares

  ​Attention gamers: If you find yourself overflowing with hatred and killing your virtual teammates when you're supposed to be helping them, you might want to reconsider that Grand Dragon of the Knights of White Purity avatar -- a new study out of UT suggests that your online persona can affect how you play with others in a virtual world.Proving once again how totally necessary and non-ridiculous academia is, Assistant Communications Professor Jorge Pena randomly assigned study partic

  November 13, 2009