Austin Asian American Film Festival 2009

Last year we watched a couple of AAAFF films, and this year I'm getting more involved by volunteering for a couple of the screenings as well as watching a couple of them.  We are seeing Persepolis, which is a free outdoor screening at the Mexican American Cultural Center.  Several local Asian restaurants will be selling food at the event.  We're also planning to see Li Tong at Alamo South Lamar (many of the screenings are at Alamo South or at UT).  Both look really good, as do most of the movies this year!  Tickets for individual shows are only $8, and all access badges are $50.  The badge is a great deal considering that it gets you entry to every film as well as all after parties with free food & drink.

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Beer Festival 2009

Now here is a great new tradition that I hope will stick around.  This year's beer festival drew tons of people to sample beers from all over.  There were lines at every booth, but they move pretty quickly when you've got a drink in your hand.  You get to keep the tasting glass... but I'm not sure exactly what to do with a glass that's too big for a shot and too small for a regular beer.  Triple shot?

Stay tuned for next fall's beer festival...

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Austin Film Festival 2009

The Austin Film Festival is back for the 16th year. Tickets are available online. The cheapest way to see the films is the $42 film pass which lets you get on the priority line for all screenings (ahead of individual ticket holders).

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Austin City Limits 2009

This year was really muddy...

But still fun!

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Urban Music Festival

This year the Urban Music Festival was on April 4th at Auditorium Shores. Honestly, I don't know how many years this festival has been going on.. all I know is it had a pretty amazing lineup with several blasts from the past. The Sugar Hill Gang, Boyz II Men and Cameo headlined. Check the website next spring to find out when the next festival will be and the lineup.

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SXSW

I'm sure you all already know about SXSW.. it's kind of hard to miss. Either you dived in and enjoyed all of the live music, or you got the heck out of town to avoid the massive hordes of people that descend upon Austin during this week. There are wristbands for sale every year for local Austinites to purchase, there are also many free shows going on for those of us who don't want to spend any money. Red Gorilla is one example of a free series of shows that goes on during SXSW.

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Kite Festival

We've been neglecting this blog for a while, but now we're back! On Sunday we stopped by the annual Austin Kite Festival at Zilker Park. This festival is held every year on the first Sunday in March. Basically everyone hits the park with a kite, and there are also a few contests and such. You don't have to fly a kite, though- you can just go and watch. It's great to look up and see the sky filled with kites.

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Fun Fun Fun Fest

Don't miss the annual Fun Fun Fun Festival this weekend. I don't think we'll make it, my parents will be in town and it's not exactly a parent type of activity! This music festival is from Nov. 8-9 and includes various indie rock, punk/hardcore, and hip hop/dj music on three stages.

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Dia De Los Muertos

This weekend, the Mexic-Arte Museum put on their 25th annual Dia de los Muertos Parade. Watching the parade was free of course, but afterwards there were activity booths and food, which was $5 for adults and $2 for kids. We just watched the parade from a bar on 6th street, which is a recommended way to see it.

About a million people with their faces painted:

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Texas Book Festival

Every year the Texas Book Festival is held in Austin, with many of the events occuring in or around the capitol building.

There were tons of tents with books on display, and authors on hand to sign their books.
We went to see 4 political authors discuss the upcoming election in the state senate chamber. The calendar shows you when various authors are speaking or debating.

A couple of goats help this author to promote Goat Tales:
Inside one of the book tents:

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Austin Film Festival

Ok, so normally we don't post about stuff unless we've already done it and can tell you it's not a danger to your health. But I thought I should post in advance about the Austin Film Festival, which is starting on October 16th. Get your film passes now!

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Austin Asian American Film Festival

This annual Asian film festival is going on right now, and tickets can still be bought at the door for film showings so check the schedule if you want to see one. Tickets are only $8 to most of the films, and many have the director or producer present.

Last night we saw the opening double feature, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" and "Vincent Who?" These films were amazing. They were about the death of Vincent Chin, who was killed in 1982 by two laid off auto workers in Detroit who blamed him for their job loss. Toyotas and Hondas were starting to create stiff competition for American cars, and the men thought Vincent was Japanese. They beat him to death with a baseball bat, and neither of them served a single day in jail. The second movie, "Vincent Who?" discusses how little people today know about Vincent's story.

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Austin City Limits 2008

Yay! Another year, another festival! I can't believe we've been in Austin now for over a year. But here we are at our second ACL festival. This festival had boring headliners this year (Foo Fighers, Beck) compared to last year (Bob Dylan), although I guess it's unfair to compare anyone to Bob Dylan.

Austin City Limits is 3 days of live concerts on multiple stages in Zilker Park.

Note for 2009: press refresh on the ACL website constantly, starting in April, to get the cheap early bird tickets.

Manu Chao playing, with the city in the background:
The Raconteurs playing at sunset:
Some other highlights were David Byrne, the Black Keys, Beck, Foo Fighters, Allison Kraus & Robert Plant, Tegan & Sara, Gnarles Barkley, G. Love and Special Sauce, Blues Traveler, Erykah Badu, and Neko Case.

Don't come to the festival if you're agoraphobic!

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Pecan Street Festival

The Pecan Street Festival is a huge yearly festival held every year on 6th street (cause 6th street used to be named Pecan Street). There are dozens upon dozens of booths-- crafts, artwork, food... you name it, there's a booth for it. There's also a lot of live music at the festival, and it's free!

Sorry for the glum photos, it was getting dark by the time we arrived.
Tommy Tutone!! Yeah- we had no idea that was the name of the band that sings the 80's megahit "Jenny"(867-5309). We definitely stood there through over an hour of Tommy Tutone's new music just so we could hear them perform Jenny.

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Batfest

Batfest is a yearly summer festival. In past years, it's been on Congress bridge, but this year it was on the 1st street bridge a few blocks away. Batfest has lots of live music, shops, art, food, and drinks, as well as some activities for kids. The festival lasts all day Saturday and Sunday, and admission is $5. FYI- if you want to actually see the bats, you have to go to Congress bridge, not 1st.

One of the stages:

View of some downtown buildings from the bridge:
Kids stuff:
Petting zoo:
Small kangaroo in the petting zoo (WTF?):
Second music stage:
Some of the shops:

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Hot Sauce Festival 2008

Every year, the Austin Chronicle hosts a hot sauce festival. There are hot sauce contests for commercial hot sauce and amateur hot sauce makers, as well as tons of booths where you can sample locally made hot sauce and salsa. And of course, there's live music throughout the day. The charge for admission is a donation of 3 canned goods for the food bank.

Some of the booths for hot sauce sampling:

We were only there for the last couple hours of the festival, so we only saw one band. Luckily it was a really good band.
I don't think people were crying because this brand of hot sauce was so hot, they were crying because clowns are freaking scary!!!!!

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Austin City Limits 2007

Austin is known for having tons of music festivals. Even when a festival isn't a "music" festival, there is still most likely live music throughout the festival. For example, the yearly Austin wine festival, or the ice cream festival. Sometimes I think all these dozens of festivals are just excuses for people to get together and listen to live music. Not that I'm complaining!

Anyway, ACL is great because it's 3 days long, features tons of great bands, and is a lot cheaper than the 5 day South by Southwest music festival. For a 3-day pass, tickets are only $135 or $150 if you manage to buy early. Regular price is $170.

The guitars you see below are usually placed strategically all over Austin. For the festival, they bring them all together at the park.

Map of the stages near the entrance:

So many people. In the distance you can see tents, some have merchandise for sale and others have food and drinks.

A couple of the stages.

Bob Dylan, the last performance of the festival. He was pretty amazing to see live, although very old and raspy. Yes I know he's always been raspy. He was especially raspy.

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