Five-year-retrospective-free since 2010.
volume 06
issue 01
august 2010
Jortacular Photo Scavenger Hunt Take a photo of as many of these things as you can and e-mail them to IWantToParty@ShangriLaAustin.com
01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06.
Kiss the goat Take a shot with Bryan and/or Anthony Yourself and someone else's beard (your own doesn't count!) Find the garden gnome Find the flamingo Yourself and a hipster (good luck finding one!)
07. 08. 09. 10.
The shortest jorts you can find The most regrettable tattoo A dude in flip flops Find the Misprint typo
Bonus - Find and wear the 'Iced Out $' hat - Find a tramp stamp
You have two days to submit your photos Prizes for the most completed photos submitted: 1st place: "Emperor for a Day" You and five of your friends drink on the cheap for a night, at the bar 2nd place: $25 gift certificate to Shangri-La 3rd place: 1 high five 1 beer and a round trip ticket to "Shangri-Falls" Last place: One of your photos of our choosing gets posted in not one but both of the port-o-potties!!!! Every entry will receive a free copy of Misprint Magazine and a high five (at the discretion of management) 1016 E 6th street • Open 4pm Monday thru Saturday, 6pm Sunday Happy Hour every day until 9pm Monday night trivia, Two dollar Tuesdays, Douchebag Saturdays more info @ Shangrilaaustin.com
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hollaback@misprintmagazine.com
email to the directors I saw that you guys talked shit about us in your magazine. [Editor's response to Pretty Good Dance Moves, vol. 5 no. 3.] Now, I asked around (a lot of local Austin buds) why a magazine would pull such a poser move. The only trend response I got was "I never even heard of them" or "who cares no one reads that shit anyway." We reach out to folks on a personal level, send personal emails to establish these sorts of relationships. I guess you guys don't like that and need it to be more formal or some shit... Hmm, I dunno. – Demetrios/Pretty Good Dance Moves P.S. Thorazine, Twistworthy, Steve Garcia, those guys had killer 'zines. Those doods represented Austin well, now that was some shit!!
(Editor's Response) Glad you made it to Austin and had a cool time. It is a great town full of great people. But if you bothered to read the rest of the issue, you probably noticed we're old, jaded rock dudes who waste our time publishing words on paper with real ink. Trust me, it's almost as thankless a job as doing PR for some synthesizer band. We live in Austin for reasons that don't involve live music and, as you can imagine, sxsw can become somewhat tedious. So unless you're Neil Young, Oasis or some heavy as fuck beardcore band, it's pretty much a sure thing that we're going to give you some shit. I mean, we can, because it's our ink, right? I'm just saying while everyone else was shitting their jorts over that stupid whistling song that was on Grey's Anatomy, we were wasting our hard-earned ink to spread the word that Peter, Bjorn and John suck our mossy balls. P.S. We know you're like 15 and if you've ever read a copy of Twistworthy I'll eat my fucking hat.
vol 06 issue 01 august 2010
SHITMYJORTS.COM
END LIVE MUSIC
directors
board of advisors
contact
Harvey Merrybottom
Kip Hollingsworth Mannhiem Wasselhoffer L. Fauntleroy Callahan O’Callahan Adolph Curmudgeon Abelard Fiddlebits Miss Theliz Jan Tschichold Yngwie Malmsteen
www.misprintmagazine.com hollaback@misprintmagazine.com
Director of Co-Conspiritories
Chadwick Pennyrich III
Director of Visual Arts & Languages
Bronx Wontgomery Director of Intern R&D
The views expressed here are strictly those of the authors, and do not represent the views of Misprint Magazine, which is kind of weird because the ideas of author and entity are actually entirely codependent of one another, but fuck it. This also applies to all our advertisements.
Send us your free shit! Misprint Magazine c/o The Side Bar (seriously) For inquiries, kudos, hate mail and the rest, e-mail Misprint at the above address.
dropped off at the side bar...
(Editor's Response) It should also be mentioned that this came with a floaty squid pen attached to it. All I can say is Lindsay...let's play.
A few words from the Directors... in the famous words of legendary texan david bowie, “Five years is a long fucking time.” Long enough to build the pyramids. Long enough for Joseph Stalin to personally jumpstart Soviet heavy industry through systematic persecution of ignorant peasants. Long enough for you to drop out of college. And perhaps most significantly, long enough for Misprint Magazine to rise from our humble handphotocopied ‘zine beginnings to this, our five-year-anniversary issue. Chadwick Pennyrich III
Harvey Merrybottom
And what a five years it’s been! Though it boggles the mind that we haven’t outgrown this bullshit, I’d like to think Misprint has been there through it all to capture a tumultuous period of Austin history. We documented that time a girl passed out on the ground at Emo's. We witnessed the closing and dismantling of Beerland. We covered the tragic death of Bevo xiii and the shocking rise to power of Bevo xiv (we never saw that one coming). We’ve learned that while things change, not much really happens. This is mainly because it's too damn hot to do anything. Five years ago, or twenty years ago, or fifty years from now, it's still hungover beardos eating breakfast tacos, drinking beer in the morning and arguing about whether to float the Guadalupe or the Comal. That’s the beautiful sorrow of Austin, Texas. And guess what? We’ve changed even less. The only truly significant difference in Misprint in the last five years is that we added Pantone Warm Red ink. Enjoy that shit. So congratulations to us. Five fucking years! Set us up a round of Jooseldorfs at the Brixton, on your tab, please. And fuck all y’all... Fondly,
Misprint Guide to Toobin' Summer in Austin isn’t easy; week after week of margarita-fueled days spent by the pool and hash-fueled nights spent watching Krull on VHS. With this kind of stress, it’s only natural to want to set aside some time for serious introspection, preferably toobin’ through the bucolic splendor of San Marcos surrounded by dozens of half-naked dudes and hundreds of Bud Light Limes. But floating the river is more than just acute alcohol poisoning, clinical sunburn and desperate attempts to keep your cigarettes dry. It’s also a metaphorical and spiritual journey into the heart of Americana and depths of the soul, only with toobs. The Entered Apprentice
Why does a man toob? Is it an attempt to face the darkness that lies within us all? Is it the cruel juxtaposition of the luxury of civilization with our basest animal instinct? Is it to drink 50 Nattys and pee on yourself to emerge on the other side a changed man? It is perhaps all of these things, and more. As such, it’s not a journey for the uninitiated. I recommend taking a cooler of beer and a roll of quarters to the Union Underground and training on Namco’s classic toobin’ simulator, Toobin’. Once you can get to the level where you throw beer cans at the alligator on one quarter, you know you are ready. The False Paradise
You will encounter others on this spiritual journey. Before long you will hear the alluring siren call of Jimmy Buffett or Sublime emanating from a jambox bungee-corded to a toob. This means you are nearing Party Rock, home of the Cedar Choppers. They will be easily identifiable by their wraparound shades, Winstons and Aquasox and will unsubtly cajole any females in the party to expose their breasts and/or genitals. Linger not in the land of the Cedar Choppers, for though it seems a paradise of dull-eyed college students, in reality it is an empty place of broken bikers in extra-short jorts with exposed elephant ears, faded panther tattoos and existential despair. Dangers
Not unlike Homer’s Odyssey, Apocalypse Now or the (frankly superior) Ice Cube documentary Anaconda, plying the river is not without its perils. Poisonous snakes, freshwater octopi, Jumpentyne Solutions Corporate retreats and rogue Natapaults
are always a danger. Also beware the harpies, who are usually disguised as redneck high schoolers who lurk by the waterfall with blowguns waiting to poach your beers when the cooler inevitably tips over. You can’t really fault them since they’re underage. The Part Where You Actually do Something
This is the part where you actually don’t do anything, other than sit in a toob. The river does everything. Just fucking sit there and continually crush the shortcans until you realize you’ve found what you were seeking: profound, damaging, soulerasing intoxication. The True Paradise
When the journey ends, you will be like a child again. You will need to relearn to walk and speak, largely because you’ve consumed enough beer to tranquilize a water buffalo. The bus trip back to civilization is the ultimate redemption, celebrate by drunkenly singing AC/DC songs. Try not to throw up. And if your voyage ends in a Whataburger or a barbeque joint instead of, say, a knifefight to the death with Marlon Brando in a grove surrounded by severed heads, something has gone tragically wrong. Pack up the cooler and start again, try not to fuck it up this time. h
How to Write a Fucking Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: You all suck balls. Loathe as I am to reveal Misprint trade secrets, but our inbox is overflowing with so many press releases I’m inclined to believe we’re actually the press. I haven’t exactly been paying attention, but when did every single person in Austin become an “event promoter” or a "public relations company"? To be fair, I have absolutely no problem with your vampire country band or frogurt stand promoting dumb shit. But when my stoned, second-string barista emails me three nonsensical press releases a week about his benefit concert to save Angolan pygmy giraffes, it gets a little tired. Like graphic designers, food trailer operators and vasectomists, the never-glorious field of self-promotions seems stocked to the brim with rank amateurs. Fortunately, your polymathic pals at Misprint are here to help with a crash course in effective self-promotion. Basics
Quality vs. Quantity Revisited
Let’s start with the fundamentals: PR is not about getting the public to like your shit. It isn’t even about getting Katie Couric to like your shit. It's about hounding Katie Couric’s publicist until she agrees to like your shit just to make you leave her alone. Long gone are the days of pounding the pavement: xeroxing flyers, screenprinting posters, wheatpasting, pushing handbills, sidewalk chalk and skywriting. All that stuff takes effort. Now, for every “friend” in the media you spam, that’s one more day to spend at the Springs. For future reference Misprint directors are easily bribed with huge bottles of Pimm's.
Since public relations is basically advertising without the creativity, you need to make up for your fundamental lack of ideas with sheer volume. Don’t overthink it. Just remember, like Dr. Strangelove always said, nothing succeeds like excess. So if you need to trick people into spending $7 on a lowconcept turd like an Andy Warhol birthday theme party, one flimsy press release isn’t going to do it. Try sending two–that'll really help.
Quality vs. Quantity
Unless it's Gay-os in Tejas at Red7 or the Kite Festival at Zilker, your event/show/party is going to completely suck. No exceptions! How the fuck can anyone really think a Vampire Weekend listening party is a good idea? Since everything totally sucks, your promotional strategy is really the only way left to get the attention of high-profile tastemakers, namely beardos and bored models. No one cool uses Facebook or Twitter (except for Rem Koolhaas, who I'm pretty damn sure will not go to your dumb party at the Beauty Bar.) Since we've established that you don't want to do any actual work, there's always the old standby of branded urinal cakes. People always have positive associations with things they pee on.
Attention to Detail
One of my least favorite things about publishing Misprint (and I have many) is running spellcheck right before publication. Since half our words are either made-up or expletives, it takes about six hours to manually ignore flagged words like douchebaggotry, cockdrip, jort-fouling, fucktank, dudebros or Schwarzenegger. Despite the fact Misprint is written for a 4th grade reading level, we still take the time to make this shit have proper spelling and grammar. We may insult our readers' taste, but it's never occurred to us to insult their intelligence too*. So if you’ve got 300 words to convince me that it's worth checking out your band/ movie/art show/genetic aberration/novelty penis/ killer beard/purebred goat, please take the 10 seconds to run a spellcheck so we won’t completely dismiss you out of hand. It would be pretty damn hypocritical of me to suggest giving a shit, but the bar is set so low you'd need a metal detector to find it. h
* Just kidding. You're all idiots.
The Misprint Bar After a pair of scathing eastside bar exposés (Bar Ownership for Fun & Profit, vol. 5, no. 1, How to Salvage your Sinking Bar, vol. 5, no. 3) changed bar culture forever, we received a flurry of angry emails from prominent barkeeps and the rest of the East 6th godfathers. They argued that Misprint knows nothing about running a bar. I took offense to this because Misprint knows a lot about doing as little shit as possible, being belligerently drunk and executing even the simplest tasks terribly. Which just happens to be what bar owners know how to do too. But to silence the naysayers, we've decided to put our money where our brown ink is and open up the Misprint Bar. While we break ground in Houston, to cement our status as Austin's most eastside bar forever, here are a few key highlights of your new favourite bar.
Architectural Features
Dress Code
Reading Material
No women's bathroom because no women will hang out at this bar Trough with dividers and built-in ice machines for comfort and privacy No annoying windows to let you track the time of day Trapdoor to squid tank
Mandatory coat check No flip-flops (shoes: they fucking work) A 3-piece suit; your grandpa would be horrified at your Friday night attire Obviously, beards
The Epic of Gilgamesh Austin Stories Study Breaks The wide Misprints
The Jukebox Décor
The Bar Staff
70-year-old career bartender we poached from the Driskill Dudes with huge thumbs in case paying with copper dust comes back in style Barback roombas A woman with potato-slicing high heels Centaur bouncers with mohawks
Mechanical narwhal No cacti or stupid ferns No bar stools (we sit down working on Misprint all day, every day) This makes my testicles ascend, but I wish we came up with that shark tank dance floor idea
Blood Sports
Blood wrestling Blood badminton Blood pool
The complete archives of the Dudley & Bob Show Just kidding – the jukebox will only have Black Sabbath
Clientele
People who drink lots of expensive alcohol Off-duty cops Louis Black & Chewbacca The Ascended Apprentice
The Annotated Jorts
Things I've Learned From Misprint Five years of Misprint Magazine is a long time. I'm not just waxing nostalgic, either. Five years is a long time for our readers to put up with this much pointless, recycled bullshit. Let me be perfectly clear: Misprint is a pretty half-assed excuse for a magazine and its continued publication is nothing short of a medical miracle. Granted, we look like Harper's Bazaar compared to most local glossies, but I still can't imagine any other city giving us this much leeway. This has led to a few key insights about what Austin truly is about, especially when trying to get by as a local media empire. Don't Give a Shit
If there’s one thing to take away from our “successful” “journalism” “career”, it's to stop caring. In fact, never even start caring. I'm embarrassed to look back at the heady Misprint days of yore, when we agonized over every gruesome detail of each new issue and meticulously planned release parties at the Flamingo Cantina. Yeah, everyone’s allowed to be young and stupid. Now we know our readers are all functionally illiterate and just look at the pictures. We also know that the Flamingo isn't even a real place. It's just a fucking alley with a tarp thrown over it and a bar full of crap stolen from a Caribbean TGIFridays. Free Kegs Trump Content, Every Time
I’ll be the first to admit that some of our ideas are a bit conceptually thin. Jortacular? Cocktoberfest? The Redbull Remote Squid Crane Battle? All pretty weak if you ask me. The real work is figuring out how to fill a beard contest or Cocktoberfest with more dudes. The solution isn't to write better articles, it's just to get more kegs of beer and give them away for free. No amount of hilarious, annotated content can replace the magic of freelyawarded intoxication. Journalists Really are Starving Out There
Surely no sensible cub reporter fresh off their journalism degree and ready to change the world could pick up a copy of Misprint and mistake it for a real magazine. “Oh look, there’s a handdrawn penis with “Wilco” written on it, this is my fast track to Rolling Stone. Maybe if I pitch a long-format about vomiting on all the cacti in Pflugerville, I’ll get noticed by the Economist.”
It's really cute when trilingual PhDs drop off resumés at the Side Bar. But, just like last year, the entire payroll was blown on irresponsibly reckless crane rentals. Instead, we learned two very critical words: nubile interns. No, Really. Don’t Give a Shit.
All two of our longtime readers know to keep up with our grueling publishing schedule we just revisit the same content over and over again: beards, jorts, squids, cocks, centaurs, cranes, dumb bands, drugs, drinking and drinking while having a beard. It's not Algebra II. But fortunately, all that stuff is awesome and the typical degenerate Misprint reader doesn’t need a 15,000 word treatise on the medieval guild system. They just need enough jokes to validate their empty alcoholic existence while their buddy goes for the next pitcher. So as long as you all keep giving us a pass and keep crushing the beers, we'll keep pushing out the same hott content for the foreseeable future. Until we quit. h
Unpaid Internship As hip as: Your ostentatious handling of the company credit card at Office Max. Comments: I'm calling bullshit on this whole rite of passage when it comes to working for free in the creative industry. There's no way that working in a "fun, fast paced environment" and "occasional breakfast tacos" justifies your days spent digitizing mimeographs and buying Alka Seltzer tablets for your boss. Instead, you suffer from the delusion that your Sisyphean existence will put you on the fast track to a lucrative career and that your "mentor" won't forget your name the second you walk out the door.
Backpacking through Europe As hip as: Schwarzenegger's auto-biographical Duck Tour of Austria. Comments: Put aside any notions of olde country vistas, attending sex parties with nubile foreigners in hostels or pounding tallcans of absinthe with the Green Færie. Your summer abroad will be more like the documentary An American Werewolf in London, but instead of getting mauled by a nocturnal beast you'll have your non-chip-enabled bank card pick-pocketed by a band of Cockney sewer orphans. Rating:
Rating:
Writing this Issue of Misprint As hip as: Not writing this issue of Misprint. Comments: All I wanted to do this summer was play Frisbee golf and drink Joose on my porch. Instead, I'm slaving over this issue of Misprint in the sweltering humidity of our off-site lake house while watching dude-filled boats whir past on their way to Hula-Hut. All of the beer-stocked refrigerators in the world couldn't make me want to concentrate for this long again. Rating:
Summer School As hip as: Realizing Keith Moon never went to college. Comments: Even though summer is college coed Natapault lake party time, I’m just a working stiff trying to get this RTF degree before my kid turns 10. Even so, I can't get past the congenital shame of being in summer school. Maybe it’s because being in class with actual athletes is even worse than playing men's squash for my mandatory gym credit. Also, it kind of ruins the ivory tower in a creepy way when your professor is younger than you, smokes more than you and knows all the bartenders at the Crown & Anchor. Rating:
ain't no cure for the summertime blues
LAME <-----------------------------------------------------------------------------> AWESOME
Brian Wilson
Don Johnson
Annette Funicello
Tattoo
Bernie Lomax
how i spent my summer vacation
On Drugs, Like, the Whole Time As hip as: Owning All of Walt Simonson’s Thor Graphic Novels. Comments: Once in every man’s life there comes a time to make a commitment. For me, it was to start every day of the summer with a bowl of Cookie Crisps, unholy pulls from the volcano bong and a daily viewing of Frazetta’s animated masterpiece Fire and Ice. Watching Larn and Darkwolf kill the shit out of the Ice Queen every single day kind of sets your mind in the right place for the night shift working security at Computer Science Corporation. Rating:
Farming on a Stupid Organic Farm As hip as: Taking the ATV out to pick a potato. Comments: Have you ever bought a socialist newsletter? Have you ever used a weird crystal instead of deodorant? Have you ever wanted to be paid in eggs? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you might consider spending your summer toiling in indentured servitude to some hippy couple wearing hemp Crocs. While you bask in the smug satisfaction of bettering the earth, your armpits bleed nonstop and your body goes into toxic shock because it turns out the only thing keeping you alive were all those preservatives and fortified, synthetic food. Rating:
Grandma’s House As hip as: Fishing the paper cups out of a bag of mint milanos. Comments: Even if you've grown to love the smell of stale Winstons and Icy-hot and you don't mind getting yelled at when "your shoelace is open" or when you're running around with a stick, you're still sleeping in the same bed your mom did as a teenager. Thankfully, in the end, nothing can replace the lavish pampering of Grandma making you a toasted cheese sandwich while you raid the liquor cabinet for Schnapps and cocktail nuts.
Cross Country Road Trip As hip as: Naming On the Road and The Road as your favourite novels. Comments: There's nothing more American (i.e. cliché) than a sexand-beef jerky-fueled road trip across the heart of this great nation. Well, not to be a downer but you had better enjoy it while you can. Because before long shooting people with shotguns will be the only way to get gasoline. Worse, the highways will be full of dudes in thongs and hockey masks staging chainsaw fights at the Flying J and wanting nothing more than to flay you and hang your corpse from their truck.
Rating:
Rating: Space Camp As hip as: Smoking cigarettes behind Mission Control with the Mars Rover. Comments: What could capture the imagination of a 10-year-old better than a scenic trip to Houston to eat astronaut ice cream, drink gallons Tang and poop into a vacuum? I'll tell you what: nothing. Look forward to playing 3-level chess with hyperintelligent space chimps, ironing your orange jumpsuit and scrubbing space fungus off the Mir station with a toothbrush. And if you're really lucky, you might get to share a Capri Sun bag full of bourbon with a septuagenarian Clint Eastwood…in space. Rating:
Our hot content.
hollaback@misprintmagazine.com
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Featured: Giant squid vs. giant crane ; End Live Music ; Flaming jorts ; Condo dweller ; Stupid fern ; Elysium ghost ; Jan Tschichold hates center justification Tom Waits ; Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to eat a breakfast taco with his ridiculously small arms; Shite ; Dutch ; Goat with jorts on his horns ; Narwhal pile-up Wireless censor node spearing a martini olive ; Snake Plissken on a surfboard ; Dada beardo ; Gay sailor tanktop ; Rollie Fingers
Now that I’m 30, I think it’s time for me to get some really dumb tattoos. It’s kind of like getting some really dumb tattoos when you’re 18, except now with the added maturity to pick really, really dumb tattoos. Also: anyone who gets one of these will be hooked up with some rad, free, koozie-shaped Misprint prizes.
Misprint Tattoo Flash
ADVERTISE!
3 BILLION GRACKLES. 7 GRILLION BLANKETS. THE GUIDE TO THE
2010 AUSTIN SHITTY LIMITS FESTIVAL Things ACL should have spent money on, other than booking The Eagles Running water
$100 rebate for every ticket
Just Don Henley
Astroturf
Paving over Zilker Park
Misprint VIP passes
A functioning cell tower
Norah Jones-branded vuvuzelas
Snow machines
Weather controlling nanobots in the clouds
A live, trained pet bald eagle for every attendee
5,000 oxen for Sword fans
Jackson Browne + Kansas
John Aielli naked yoga sessions
Eagles cover band
Free commemorative grackle tattoos
Hauling a ferry across the park to the springs, Fitzcarraldo-style.
Complimentary sandal check at the gate
Second Spoon set Commissioned Matthew Barney sculpture of Stevie Ray Vaughan made out of petroleum jelly Radiohead
The Handy ACL Band Rating Spread. This Shit Writes Itself.*
MISPRINT PICK
DERIVATIVE POP
COLLEGE
NAPTIME
DRUGS
GAY SAILOR TANK TOP
JOCK
IMPERIALISTIC BONGOS
SHITE
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Vampire Weekend
Edward, you need to watch your back. Devendra’s in town and he knows you’ve ripped off his California sex cult messiah beard shit. I know he looks like a mellow pacifist but, when it all goes down, it’s going to be like West Side Story, only with necklaces and sandalwood instead of leather and zipguns. My money’s on Banhart because he's rubbed more mescaline on his genitals than an armadillo fucking a cactus.
Remember the Arctic Monkeys? Peter, Bjorn and John? Voxtrot? Me neither. Well, in about a month they'll probably be waiting tables at the same restaurant. At least they can fall back on those expensive college degrees while pawning their boat shoes on eBay.
Matt and Kim Now that I’m old and bitter, there’s nothing I hate more than young, goodlooking people dancing and having fun. So I’m probably not the fairest judge of music like Matt and Kim. These two have the combined musical talent of a pair of paper towel rolls. Seriously, they make LCD Soundsystem sound like Black Fucking Sabbath. I’d rather watch them run around New York City in their American Apparel briefs than listen to this shit, and I don’t want to do that at all.
TV Torso If you start with SOUND Team and take away all the things that got them signed to Capitol Records, you get TV Torso.
MUSE There used to be a saying: “If it will play in Peoria, Illinois it will play anywhere.” Well, Muse is the Peoria of bands. Or the Honda Accord of rock. Or the khakis of live music. They aimed for the middle and just nailed it. We’ve said before in these pages that Muse has perfectly dialed in the world’s most mediocre rock sound. So expect another incredibly average set that captures the boring suburban malaise that comes with your 2.2 children, median income and golden retriever.
The Sword
Girls
The Sword’s next record is going to be a Queensryche-style concept album called Warp Riders. The story follows Ereth as he discovers a mysterious orb and meets the Chronomancer, a being beyond time and space who enlists him in a quest to restore the planet’s balance. Along the way he encounters strange warriors, ancient androids and a crew of space pirates. Basically, if you don’t like the Sword, you are not my friend and I hate you.
I’m tired of ecstasy dance punk. I'll back these guys, because they know that kids need to stop taking the fun drugs and start taking more heroin so they write good music.
The National This band is sort of like a gourmet microwave lunch. You can usually count on them not to be terrible, but it's not something you're really excited about unless you're starving to death or happen to be a 20-year-old KVRX DJ. Congratulations on being sort of okay.
Gogol Bordello Gogol Bordello is doing a pretty shitty job of dispelling gypsy stereotypes. Fortune telling, beaded necklaces, bad teeth, stealing babies, hoop earrings, concertinas, horse whispering, living in conestoga wagons and robbing people doesn't help. But if that scenester art school dropout is a gypsy, then I'm fucking Yul Brynner.
The XX After watching these totally boring goth C-grade Limey primary school Foot Locker employees mope through their show late last year, I can't help but think that I would have been more entertained watching them cobble together their set list whilst eating beans-on-toast rather than seeing them actually perform.
LCD Soundsystem
THE EAGLES
In my lengthy career as a fake music journalist, there isn’t much that makes me hulk out in rage like the continued success of this “band.” In the time it takes you to read this, I could shit out five cowbell-shaped hit LCD Soundsystem tracks. James Murphy is sitting on his big pile of cocaine-flavoured money laughing at every single one of you for buying his records. Smarten up kids, you’re embarrassing yourselves. The emperor has never been this naked.
ACL really decided to "Take it Easy" this year by not booking even a halfway decent lineup and instead shooting most of their load on The Eagles. Good thing all of the grandmoms who are super stoked about this band are also buying up those thousand dollar VIP packages, including free Tequila Sunrises and Life in the Fast Lane golf carts.
* Some of these band write-ups are straight copy/pasted from previous issues. If ACL isn't going to put any effort into their dumb festival, why should we?
Phish
THE STROKES
I like taking drugs in a big field and eating Ben and Jerry’s as much as the next guy, but I don’t think Austin has the attention span for Phish. I can’t get through five minutes at Emo's without running for the courtyard. So when you consider their 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. timeslot and the fact that Phish has the most annoying fans in the world, it’s going to be like sitting through 12 hours of music theory next to some smelly dude wearing mandals.
I'd like to think The Strokes were the nail in the coffin of 90's-era Matchbox 20 college rock. So I'll buy them a beer for that (then ask them to pay for it because they’re rich bitches). But like the ancient Typhon and Echidna who spawned every classic monster of Greek myth, the Strokes are progenitors of thousands of mop-headed pretty boy lo-fi bands who still plague the earth to this day.
monsters of folk
M.I.A.
Hey Yim Yames! It’s time to put down that bong, buddy. I know you’re a sweet bro, but shit has been pretty weak lately. Monsters of Folk is about as rad as Damn Yankees, and Evil Urges was a fart mansion. While you’re at it, you might want to stop hanging around Conor Oberst, because I’m pretty sure that fun burglar is dragging you down. Let’s quit fucking around here and start cutting some killer My Morning Jacket shit again. Hit me up if you need to work some stuff out.
I used to throw M.I.A. in with Karen O and Lady Gaga as another idol for this generation of annoying, utterly boring 20-year-old girls. But her "Hey, What if We Round Up and Kill Gingers?" music video really opened my eyes. Mainly to how stupid that video was and that I'm about as political as a breakfast taco.
THE SOFT PACK There have been many studies done about how package design can get someone to choose one brand of frozen peas over another. They're basically both the same bland crap, but one of them just feels vaguely like it's a little better. The same logic can be applied to The Soft Pack. They had the same group of songs when they were called The Muslims, they're still terrible, but at least when they were called The Muslims they sounded marginally better.
SPOON Who the fuck is Spoon? What a dumb name for a band.
Hockey
THE Verve Pipe
Providing the soundtrack to every tween's backto-school shopping spree at J.C. Penney, Hockey sounds like a super shitty Walkmen record played at 78 rpm. They really make me long for a reverse Logan's Run and also might edge out Spoon for the worst band name ever.
I accidentally saw these guys in 1997 on a bill with Days of the New, Everclear, Save Ferris, Sugar Ray and The Cure. They were by far the worst of those bands and I spent their entire brutal set huffing the fog machine and wishing I had a hot dog. I also hold them personally responsible for the downfall of The Verve, purely by name association. If you really want to see these assholes sing that song about freshmen, skip the fest and just watch them at the Saxon Pub
The Kicks
Foals
shearwater
Foals sound like a laptop band that got all their shit stolen from their van and were too poor to replace it and simply went back to playing real instruments. This is not a bad thing.
Shearwater gets the megatiny font this year? Looks like Jonathan Meiburg has been too busy cataloguing bird eggs and trying to dress up freetail bats as common grackles to push his latest LP. He's not worried though. A short, early show means plenty of time to get a good viewing spot for The Eagles and ask girls to show their titmice.
In another testament to how little money ACL had after booking the Eagles, The Kicks' fall tour basically reads like this: House party. House party. House party. Austin City Limits. If I was at a house show back in Cornhole, Nebraska, I'd be stoked to see this band, but are these dudes ready to play for Lance and McConaughey? Probably not.
DEVENDRA BANHART
Vonnegutt Naming your band after one of the 20 century's most acclaimed writers is a slippery slope, mainly because you can't avoid comparisons. Sure enough, listening to 30 seconds of one of their songs made me want to be repeatedly abducted by fourthdimensional aliens from Slaughterhouse-5 for all eternity rather than finish listening to it. If you're in college and think the Gorillaz are too-high concept you'd probably like this. th
I have a feeling Zilker Park is going to be an idyllic paradise for Devendra Obi Banhart while he's stoned to the bejesus licking desert toads and snorting powdered goat horns. There's no chance he's wearing a shirt the entire time he's here, and I'm willing to bet he won't wear pants, either. While that pale, wiry fucker lounges around with his dick hanging out at the Springs he'll probably be mistaken for a piece of hairy driftwood.
Less Words, More Pictures
Car vs. Train vs. Mechagodzilla Whether you’ve noticed or not, Austin is in the midst of a transportation revolution. As Austin slowly becomes Houston, Lee Leffingwell and his buddies at City Hall are doing their best to deliver a true 21st century transportation infrastructure. But since jetpack testing isn’t going that well, we have to settle for Car2go and the Metrorail. Car2go is designed to provide short-term vehicle rentals to absolutely any asshole with a driver's license. The Metrorail is the perfect solution for your commute from the Hot Topic at the Highland Mall to your mistress’ place in Leander. Car2gos are just like regular cars, except they’re less fun to drive and dumber looking. And the train is like a car, except you don’t need to drive it and it doesn’t go where you want it to. So which post-urbanist transportation solution is right for you?
Car2go
Metrorail
Winner
There are handguns in Mexico bigger than a Car2go.
There are handguns in Mexico bigger than a Metrorail car.
Tie
Showing up in a Car2go is like skinny dipping in an ice cold pool.
Habitual train use lets you learn people’s habits and promotes stalking.
Metrorail
Seventy-five tallcans, the Highland Mall parking lot and a half-dozen Car2gos that are fully covered for damage and do not belong to you. You do the math.
Too expensive to recreate the trainwreck from The Fugitive.
Car2go
How steampunk are they?
Car2gos run on clean, reliable, steampunk coal.
Since you’ve never used the train, believe it when I tell you the inside of that shit is brass, gears and oiled teak.
Metrorail
How good are they in the apocalypse?
If you’re starving, you might be able to eat a Car2go.
A gang of creepy mutant clairvoyant children could theoretically hang out here, Beyond Thunderdome-style.
Car2go
The Part Where you Actually Do Something
You have to drive the car.
You don’t have to do anything.
Metrorail
Which is better for looking at pornography?
Analog porn or iPhone.
Free wifi = flash videos!
Metrorail
Winner
Mechagodzilla
Which one is easier to trade for drugs in Mexico? How easy is it to pick up members of the opposite sex? How fun are they to wreck?
Get to Know a Misprint Reader This issue's installment of Get to Know a Misprint Reader proves yet again that Misprint readers really are total degenerates. Meet Lonny, who is banned for life from the Mohawk for being a sweet dude.
Dear Misprint, I thought I’d share a story of ridiculous debauchery you might enjoy. It started one night drinking 32 oz. High Life at this killer Naam show at the Mohawk. I noticed all the framed beard-mustache natives and decided I just had to have one. I targeted a low-hanging Gandalf and started up the surveillance. After a few too many really conspicuous visits to the nasty toilet hole, my buddy advised that we lay low and wait for the right time to make a move. In the cheer of the festivities, we just continued to destroy our livers and minds. Naam is rad and I was content to just chill and enjoy the show, but my friend kept saying it was the perfect time to STEAL! It's packed so it takes like 5 minutes just to get inside and there is a black metal band killing it with smoke machines and shit choking the crowds. Seriously, the place was smoked out and a perfect cover for our little hijinks. We position ourselves in front of the wizard portrait and just take it off the wall and put it on the floor. FUCK! We didn't know what to do after that ‘cause we are retarded. At this point, the plan should have been abandoned, but we were already in too deep. So my friend starts shoving this frame up my too-tight army jacket. I start getting anxious and just take off running. I dash out the door by the sound guy screaming “FUUUCKKK ITTTT!!!!” Of course, everyone can see me bolting out onto the street with a framed portrait on my back. I rip it out of my jacket and just bolt for it, bouncers in tow. Of course, I smoke ‘em all! I'm up the 11th Street hill in no time, cut through the Teacher's Lot and see a very determined bouncer screaming, "Just give it back. Please?" At this point, I'm tired and just stop to face this guy. We stare at each other for a second and he looks pretty serious. I know the gig is up. I hand it to him and he just walks off. It was a pretty stupid scene. I just sit on a wall to catch my breath just laughing about everything that just happened. All of a sudden in my peripheral vision I see two dudes running toward me. I turn my head and just get punched right in the hard part of the forehead...like on the top of my head. I fall backwards off the wall and on my back. I totally deserved the clock to the head but for real, I just had to tell these bouncers that I was sorry. I apologize and they ask my name. I tell them and they said I am forever banned from the Mohawk. I haven't been to the Mohawk since then. I seriously doubt they would remember me. Anyway, I’ll definitely be present for the next Misprint event. If you see me getting beat up again, stop it and buy me some Bulleit Bourbon. Love, Lonny Burgos
The 100% True History of Vampires There’s no denying it: vampires are fucking hot right now. Once reserved for the Comicon set or Tim Burton proto-goths, the vampire’s stranglehold on pop culture has brought vampire fucking right into the mainstream. From Twilight mascara bros to Moms swilling cheap red at True Blood parties, these days it’s only natural to want to crawl under a rock or into Elysium for a violent and depraved erotic encounter with a creature of the night. To help navigate the new landscape of the pop culture’s sexiest undead, Misprint’s crack team of sociologists break down the 100% true history of vampire lore. Dracula Dracula is pretty much the Michael Jordan of vampires. To call him a trendsetter is like calling Twilight “sort of lame”. The dude defined the cape, the high collar, the necklace, the coffin and pretty much every aspect of vampire style for two centuries until Robert Rodriguez fucked everything up with the Mexican biker aesthetic of From Dusk ‘Til Dawn. Still, this old boy bears it with grace, lurking around Hollywood waiting for low-wage roles. He’s still pretty pissed about his depiction in Monster Squad. Romans invent the garlic press.
AWESOME
Fernand Petiot invents the Bloody Mary in Paris.
Willie Nelson is born.
LAME First use of leeches to treat hangovers.
Lilitu First recorded in the bestselling monomyth The Epic of Gilgamesh, Lilitu was a blood drinking asexual demon with scorpions in place of her genitals. She was a mainstay of early niche pornography mosaics and was almost definitely not a vampire.
Countess Elizabeth Báthory Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian countess who really loved drinking kombucha out of coconuts and hanging out in crappy sheds. She also bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth so she wouldn’t feel creepy hanging out at Cheer Up Chubies. Since she died ugly and old when the villagers stormed her condo and walled her up with the Amontillado, she was probably not a vampire.
Vampire Squid The Vampire Squid, aside from being jet propelled and having a giant squid cock, is an extreme deep sea cephalopod capable of slobbering out a sticky cloud of bioluminescent mucus containing innumerable orbs of blue light. It’s also notable as the only cephalopod I have tattooed on my neck.
Neil Young records Vampire Blues.
Blade Nintendo Power publishes its best cover ever featuring Castlevania II's Simon Belmont holding Dracula's severed head. Parents complained. Children were stoked.
Blade fucking LOVES his Oakley shades. When he’s not busy busting up vampire disco ecstasy blood sprinkler parties, the Daywalker is a fucking beast on the beach volleyball court. Also, homeboy’s barber isn’t afraid to take chances.
The Count counts Pi to the 300th decimal place.
Buffy and Spike have sex while the house falls down.
Bunnicula turns vegetables into an army of vampire slaves in Celery Stalks at Midnight
First time a vampire shills for a confectionery company with that stupid Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercial.
Anne Rice
Vampire Weekend
Lapsed Catholic Anne Rice, along with Nine Inch Nails, Edward Scissorhands and Lunchables, is responsible for creating the suburban goth generation. Lestat and his buddies are credited with more leash and collar sales than the Westminster Dog Show. But the one thing worse than dudes in eyeshadow is the literally millions of pages of gross Anne Rice-inspired erotic fanfiction that eventually became the True Blood books.
Real vampires (and even real fake vampires) wouldn’t be caught undead hanging out on boats with these perpetual virgins. Dudes are about as rock and roll as the Dewey Decimal System, about as vampiric as the cast of Baywatch and about as sexually threatening as an adorable baby bunny.
Twilight
Free Shit We Got
A thinly veiled attempt, disguised as journalism, to score more free promotional hogwash.
Yens She Sir
When She Sir's last EP dropped some years ago to no small amount of Misprint acclaim, I wrote in vol. 2 no. 5 that "if only these dudes had beards, they'd be huge." Well, they took my advice and grew beards. In what will go down as yet another terrible piece of Misprint advice (like opening Creekside Live or hiring that face painter for your AA New Year's Eve party) it turns out they're not even remotely huge. Sorry bros. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Misprint, it's doing nothing and growing huge beards is pretty much the fast track to the autogyro valets and narwhal rodeos that are the perks of a Misprint director position. There’s no reason to believe that it wouldn’t work for bands. But hairy and unloved, She Sir are looking to turn their luck around with their latest, Yens (or if you're texting from your tiny mobile phone, simply ¥s). Unfortunately they've added some girl harmonies and that's even more of a losing proposition than adding beards, which, the more I think about it, really should have worked. The shoegaze is still turned down to minus 10 and while I can't really tell what the lyrics are about, I just stroke my beard and imagine they're singing Japanese-inspired lyrics about tentacle porn, threesleeved shirts, anime girls with ginormous breasts and Gamera smashing the shit out of Osaka. You know, if they did just that they might be huge. Send us your free shit! Misprint Magazine c/o the Side Bar
For reals. Drop that shit off at the Side Bar.
Wave High 12” Broke Beads
Most bands in Austin know that Misprint writers haven’t really followed local music since 1992. We achieved blissful indifference when the whole New Sincerity thing ran out of steam, which was about when we started outsourcing Misprint development to imperial monkey butlers in Malaysia. So no one could be more surprised than me when the Misprint postmasters over at the Side Bar handed me an honest-to-god record along with my gin and tonic. The real shock came when I threw that bad boy on the Technics and actually heard good music. Broke Beads are a band I can identify with. First of all, these dudes came right out and told us in their one sheet that they’re aging skate bros whose knees are shit from too many gnarly acid drops and have given up skateboarding to focus on their line of artisan vegan bean dip. More importantly, the band (comprised of members of local loudsters Damage Pants, IKillCars and some nola natives) all wear long sleeves to cover up their Black Flag tattoos and have given up on signing to Fat Wreck. Instead, they’re playing psychedelic instrumental rock like dudes who know how to do drugs without getting annoying and can make a fucking ruthless white bean and chive spread that will knock the socks off your aunt at her next garden party. Anyway, when translucent green records show up at the bar, it's reason enough not to outsource the grueling work of fake music journalism. And even though record labels fall somewhere between the triceratops and independent ‘zines in the grand scheme of cultural relevance, cheers to local imprint Bombay Cove for doing shit right by putting cool records out on heavy vinyl and giving them to us for free.
Gossip! Gossip! Gossip! Local psyche heroes/reliable valium substitutes The Black Angels recently took a break from majorly bumming out crowds to cut a new jam for the latest installment of the Twilight franchise. Turns out that the angsty teenage vampire set, Twimoms and jortwearing werewolves all share the morose blandness and confused sexual anxiety needed to be the next generation of Black Angels fans. Best of all, the soundtrack cut is a team-up with irrelevant limey trip hop progenitors Unkle, who were delighted to help the Angels hone in their boringness for the perfect Muse-like sound. Expect to hear more Black Angels in a forthcoming straight-to-cable sequel to The Craft. ------------------------------------------------------------In other tween nightlife news, Beiber superfan hotspot Creekside Lounge is joining unfondly remembered Austin non-institutions Voxtrot and Spiro’s at the great happy hour in the sky. Once home to Austin’s most Wii-tastic Wii night and the Creekside Combo, unfortunately, much like Napoleon's ill-fated conquest of Russia, it fell victim to a strategic overextension of their crappy bar empire. Also at fault was constant Brazilian-by-wayof-San-Marcos house DJs at and their eagerness to sell fruity cocktails to nine-year-old girls. Taking over the location on 7th street will be Austin’s hippest Bait and Tackle/Toob Rental shop. ------------------------------------------------------------Also on the chopping block is the ill-conceived Iron Gate which, despite raising the prices and changing the jukebox, has not been able to recreate the crackling energy of the beloved original Iron Gate. The new Iron Gate, which will also be named the Iron Gate, is going to be a painstaking reproduction of the original “classic” Iron Gate. ------------------------------------------------------------In another blow to Austin’s queer nightlife scene, longtime hotspot Rainbow Cattle Company is now the Rebel’s Honky Tonk, who are making it quite clear that they aren't gay. Still, it's too easy to dwell on all the obvious jokes about the repressed homosexuality inherent to “bull riding contests”, UFC night and constant asides about how hot the blonde bartendresses are.
What happens when you mix a penchant for public self-abuse with a perfect misunderstanding of Austin trends? The world’s first vanity hot sauce trailer, obviously, which recently opened up on West 6th. A principle from beleaguered marketing mainstay GSD&M, tired of zany novelty conference rooms and generally despondent that his life is nothing like Don Draper’s, took to selling his own brand of extreme hot sauce from an airstream in the agency’s parking lot. Sure, a white dude in a “creative” goatee and linen blazer doesn’t exactly scream hot sauce authenticity, but when he got the Matthew McConaughey vanity bongo rock project to play the opening party, credibility was cemented. --------------------------------------------------------Floating under the radar was this year’s Aquapalooza, a classic nautical brodown proving Austin has enough alcoholics that 40,000 recent Longhorn alums can foul the lake playing bumper boats and shotgunning Natty shortcans without making a dent in the 6th Street bar crowds. The event is essentially a convention of degenerate Waterworld cosplayers set to the soothing Walmart-Americana of Brad Paisley. Shocking no one, reports from the event said apd Smokers were out in force on their jet skis looking for dudes peeing into potted lime trees or siphoning other peoples gas and throwing them into the brig of Art Acevedo’s personal 60-foot floating drunk tank. --------------------------------------------------------And on the subject of vomiting Natty Light into bodies of stagnant water, pseudo-local ecstasy revivalists/disco lazer Pink Floyd tribute band Ghostland Observatory played their annual two-night stand to the grizzly river rats in New Braunfels. Misprint insiders, fucked up on drive-thru margaritas and an eyedropper of pure lsd, reported that seeing that band from a toob surrounded by unkillable cyborg mosquitoes and college bros in Aquasox and swimmies is even worse than seeing them at Stubb's. h