Austin Indie Music Fest 2026 - Band List is OUT

Oh, boy!  It's time again to thrill to the list of bands promised for this year's Austin Independent Music Festival - an OmniCorp Entertainment Interests LLC production!

I can get a weekend badge for $1500, or both weekends for $3200.  Beer can be had for the low, low price of $22/ can.  Water is only $16 per bottle.  I can poop and pee in a plastic box with a pool of chemicals in the bottom.  Wash your hands after?  NOPE!  

The bands are great, or might be.  You can never hear them over the frat boys and sorority girls yammering meaningless stories to each other, and can't see the bands anyway from 150 yards away through a sea of flags and selfie-sticks.  But you might just end up in the background of an Austin influencer or "content creator"'s video.  Women will wear umbrella sized hats, which actually makes some sense.  But then pair it with a floor length dress and shoes meant for either a day at the beach or on the pole.  And the guys?  Totally sporting the mustaches of the dads of 1982 on their way to divorce.  As well as shorts that leave nothing to the imagination.

The line-up couldn't be better.  It's all flash-in-a-pan bands no one will remember in five years mixed with a legendary act who will half-ass their way through a set of standards they're now playing at half-tempo for some reason, or re-interpreting those tunes against logic or good taste.  Don't worry - you won't be able to hear them over those folks from Delta House talking about drama between Kayley and someone named "Stink".

The good news is it will be hot as fuck.  Just brutally, insanely hot.  The kind of humidity and temp that lets you know at 11:00 AM on day two: the chafing you're going to get will be crippling.  But!  You have to hold out for "Dingle Rocket" who is playing the Coors stage at 5:30 in blast furnace light and heat.  

You *will* lose at least one person you came with, certain they must have left, until they re-appear next to you during the closing set and say they were "just wandering around all day" with no further explanation, and no reason they weren't responding to texts.

Anyway, can't wait to see Gladys Honeycutt. 

WNBA Pre-Season in Austin: Las Vegas at Dallas

Sunday night, CB, JAL, Tanya, their kid (redacted) and myself went to the Moody Center at the University of Texas to catch a WNBA pre-season game.  

WNBA does play some games not-at-home but in cities where they know there's interest in women's sports - like my own Austin, Texas.  And given my own watching of women's basketball, both college and pro, that tracks. 

The game was well-attended, if not sold out.  I think it holds just over 10,000 when set up for women's games (they don't open the upper tier) and I could see some empty seats, but there may have been a story there as they were in one block in one area.  

This was a game between the Dallas Wings and Las Vegas Aces.  Las Vegas won last year's WNBA championship, and deservedly so.  And, along the way, two of my favorite players became A'ja Wilson and Chelsea Gray.  I watched some of Dallas last year but felt they were being coached horribly - and it became an exercise in frustration.  But this year is clearly a different story.  

Owls and the Circle of Life

I'm going to start with the "good news" portion.

That horrendous looking thing above which seems like something out of a 1970's Toho Studios creature design workshop is, in fact, a Great Horned Owl owlet.  Ie:  a baby owl.  Now it's adorable, right?  Lil' baby owl.

Over here in Austin, we've sort of made the Great Horned Owl that nests at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center a  local celebrity.  We call her "Athena".  And every year for well over a decade, she's found a perch in the planters built into the gateway arch to the Wildflower Center.  In that spot, she lays her eggs and raises some bebes.   

Don't worry - it's safe from people and prying eyes.

Happy Jackie Robinson Day

Today is Jackie Robinson Day across Major League Baseball.

Post B-Day Report Out

Well, I'm 51 now.  Whoo-hoo.  

Every year I do a post on my birthday with a song about the year.  You can listen to the playlist here.

I'm also raising money for the Austin Humane Society, where we adopted Jeff the Cat, Scout and Emmylou.  So feel free to donate a ton of money.

Just imagine being someone who has been reading this blog (and The Signal Watch) since I started posting in 2003.  Good gravy.

I don't hide from the birthdays as they come, but what I want to do for my birthday has changed greatly.   For our 50th birthdays (Jamie is about 3 weeks older than me) we had a joint party.  This year all I wanted to do was nothing.  Like, let me just do the absolutely normal weekend things I always want to do and usually find a reason I can't or shouldn't.  

We Came Back From the Moon!

Emmylou is overwhelmed with the moment

So - our brave astronauts are back from The Moon.

First, I abso-@#$%ing-lutely bawled my eyes out when the parachutes popped and I knew the crew was going to be safe.  Wasn't expecting that emotional reaction at all - but I guess the risks were larger in my mind than I'd wanted to express.  But more than that - it's been so long since it seems like people wanted to try for something bigger than pettiness and cruelty and, frankly, just helping one another survive.  And Artemis II brought that back in ways I haven't felt in a long, long time.

beyond The Moon

NASA's page has plenty of great photography, and I highly encourage folks to take a look.  

We Went To The Moon!

what if it was made out of spare ribs?

The mission is far from over, but today has been a day I wasn't sure I'd see in my lifetime (as a conscious adult).  Today, people orbited the moon.  

The mission is Artemis II, and as I type this, four people are currently doing science aboard the Orion Capsule.  They just witnessed a lunar eclipse in space.  

clockwise from left - Koch, Glover, Hansen, Wiseman

The astronauts are:

• Reid Wiseman - Commander
• Victor Glover - Pilot
• Christina Koch - Mission Specialist
• Jeremy Hansen - Mission Specialist

The crew is notable for containing the first woman to orbit the moon (Koch) and the first Canadian to the moon (Hansen).  

I've been blown away by how well they all seem to communicate ideas, feelings and concepts as they're on their journey.  It's really moving.  If these people are eggheads, they seem to have found the poetry in their souls.  

I'd also mention NASA clearly is hiring when it comes to women in STEM as a great number of the staff in Houston are female - including CAPCOM and Science Chiefs.

So far they've been stunned by the *actual* color of the moon, which is maybe more brown and green than we know (but this may be an artifact of their eyes being in space).  They've seen actual collisions of meteors with the surface.  They've seen the topography, and named a crater after Commander Wiseman's late wife, Carroll, which makes me want to @#$%ing cry just thinking about it.  Imagine being able to name something that may have that name *forever* after the one you love?

The goal is to sort out what else we need to know about the moon and test current equipment before we start on next phases to establish a permanent lunar base.  

Is this a good idea?

I think so.  But I also think it sounds wildly dangerous.  So.  Hopefully we know what we're doing.  

The feed is really good for sharing audio and some images.  The real haul will come probably after the astronauts are safely home - which is scheduled for the 10th.  

For the current feed as of 04/06/2026: