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Featured News Taping Announcement

New taping: Nine Inch Nails

Austin City Limits is pleased to announce a new taping on November 4 with Nine Inch Nails.

Nine Inch Nails deliver one of the best live shows on the planet, are considered a pioneer in the industrial music movement and have been highly influential in the evolution of electronic music.  The band just released their first album in five years, the critically-acclaimed Hesitation Marks, which Spin called “the most important artistic statement from Reznor since the late 90s” and Rolling Stone hailed “one of his best” in a four-star lead review. We’re thrilled to welcome Nine Inch Nails to the ACL stage.

The band debuted in 1989 with its first single “Down In It,” racking up an impressive series of hits over the course of 20 years, from “Head Like a Hole,” “Closer” and “Hurt” (later recorded to much acclaim by Johnny Cash) to “The Hand That Feeds,” “Only,” and “Survivalism.” Along the way the band were awarded Grammys for “Wish” and “Happiness in Slavery” and sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Building on their long history of soundtrack work, Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor, with partner Atticus Ross, became an Oscar-winning composer, with credits including The Social Network and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Want to be part of the audience for this taping? You can enter here for a chance to win a pair of passes to attend the show. (UPDATE: giveaway is now over) On 11/1 we will conduct a random drawing to determine the winners. You will be notified via email if you have won tickets; the email will contain further instructions. Each winner receives two passes per person. No need to enter multiple times – you may only win once. Tickets are non-transferable – meaning you cannot sell them or give them to a friend. For more information on attending tapings of Austin City Limits, click here.

And remember we only honor tickets that we distribute. If you purchase tickets on eBay, Craiglist etc. that claim to be for this or any other ACL taping they are counterfeit and will NOT be honored.

 

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News

Sarah Jarosz and The Milk Carton Kids 11/10

Austin City Limits is proud to announce a new taping on November 10, featuring singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz and folk duo The Milk Carton Kids. Read more

Categories
Featured News Taping Announcement

New taping: Sarah Jarosz and The Milk Carton Kids

Austin City Limits is proud to announce a new taping on November 10, featuring singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz and folk duo The Milk Carton Kids.

Sarah Jarosz first appeared on ACL in 2010, supporting her debut album Song Up in Her Head. Though only 18 at the time, the Wimberly resident already had nearly a decade of performing experience under her belt, starting as a bluegrass prodigy but quickly expanding her horizons to include folk, jazz and pop. “I never became a bluegrass snob,” she told Texas Music. “ I was always open to everything.” Following her rising star turn on ACL, she left Austin to attend the New England Conservatory, releasing her second LP Follow Me Down along the way. Now graduated with honors from the Conservatory, Jarosz moved to New York City and dedicated herself to pushing the limits of her art, as her new record Build Me Up From Bones asserts. “Jarosz makes music that’s all over the spectrum,” noted PopMatters, “but puts her own imprint on it through her distinctive style.” All Music Guide declares that the album “reflects not only her growth as a songwriter but her willingness to push the boundaries of country, folk, and Americana to discover connections not necessarily considered before.” Join us to witness this exciting young artist’s evolution.

photo by Andrew Paynter

Flat-picking harmony duo The Milk Carton Kids have emerged in the last three years as a powerful voice defining the continuing folk tradition. A refreshing alternative to the foot-stomping grandeur of the so-called “folk revival,” an understated virtuosity defines The Milk Carton Kids to the delight of traditionalists and newcomers to the folk movement alike. Indeed, Garrison Keillor has called them “absolute geniuses in close-harmony,” while cultural purveyors like T Bone Burnett and Billy Bragg continue to refer the importance of The Milk Carton Kids among a group of new folk bands expanding and contradicting the rich tradition that comes before them. The Los Angeles Times lauds their latest Anti- Records release The Ash & Clay as displaying “absolute mastery of their craft” while Paste emphasizes the “intellectual sophistication of their songs, making The Milk Carton Kids an option for purists unsatisfied with some of the pop tendencies seeping in to the genre.” This young new duo caught ACL’s eye performing as nominee for Emerging Artist of the Year at the 2013 Americana Music Awards. We hope you join us to see why The Milk Carton Kids are getting our attention, too.

Information on passes to this show will appear here. We hope to see you there!

 

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Featured News Taping Announcement

New taping: Portugal. The Man

ACL is happy to announce a new taping on October 30 with indie rock act Portugal. The Man. The ultra-melodic quartet formed in Alaska, moving to the more rock-friendly environs of Portland and releasing its debut LP Waiter: “You Vultures!” in 2006. The prolific group proceeded to release five more records on various indie labels, including 2009’s companion albums The Satanic Satanist and The Majestic Majesty, before signing to Atlantic for 2011’s In the Mountain in the Cloud. Tours and performances at Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza led up to the band’s latest record Evil Friends, produced by Danger Mouse (Norah Jones, the Black Keys, Gnarls Barkley). The album has been called “ the most quintessentially Portugal. The Man album the band has released” by Paste and “proof that some bands get big by being good, nothing else” by the Austin Chronicle.

We’re thrilled to welcome Portugal. The Man to its debut ACL taping. Keep an eye on our taping page, Facebook and Twitter for notification as to when passes will be available.

 

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News Taping Recap

Local Natives make magic

There’s nothing quite like catching an artist on the rise. Local Natives attracted immediate acclaim with its first LP Gorilla Manor a couple years ago and has been steadily building a loyal, passionate audience since. We were fortunate to put that audience into a room with the L.A. quintet for its debut ACL taping, and the result was magic.

The atmospheric synth intro of “Breakers” signaled the beginning of a journey through the group’s harmony-rich vision of Afropop-kissed indie rock. Busy percussion and polyrhythmic grooves buoyed soaring melodies in “Ceilings,” “Colombia” and “You & I” to unique effect. “Airplanes,” “Black Balloons” and the crowd favorite “Wide Eyes” tightened the rhythms and emphasized catchy, jangly guitar hooks as much as airy vocals. “Shape Shifter,” “Bowery” and the encore-closing “Sun Hands” stretched the band out dynamically showcasing songs that started gently and ended with vibrant excitement. The band paid tribute to an oft-cited influence with a rattling cover of Talking Heads’ “Warning Sign.”

The most moving moment came during the final song of the main set, when the Natives performed a special acoustic arrangement of “Who Knows Who Cares” worked up for this performance that really exploited the band’s folk underpinnings and choir-like vocal harmonies. We’re always flattered when an artist treats a taping as a special occasion (made doubly so when the band asked their touring bass player to join them permanently), and we can’t wait for this spring to show you why this performance counts as one. Stay tuned.

 

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Featured News

New taping: Kacey Musgraves and Dale Watson

Austin City Limits is getting back to the country on November 25 with a double-header featuring fast-rising newcomer Kacey Musgraves and Austin honky-tonker Dale Watson.

Hailing from Golden, Texas, Kacey Musgraves began performing at fairs while still in single digits. She has been writing songs since the age 9 and eventually moved to Nashville like her friend Miranda Lambert. Both competed on the singing competition program Nashville Star in 2007. She only came in seventh, but the visit was enough for her to plant her flag on Music Row, scoring a songwriting and production deal with tunesmith-to-the-stars Luke Laird and co-writing Lambert’s smash “Mama’s Broken Heart.” But Musgraves, who cites John Prine and Ray Wylie Hubbard as songwriting inspirations, truly made her mark with her major label debut Same Trailer Different Park. Called “one of the most fully-formed, arresting debuts Nashville’s seen in years” by American Songwriter, Same Trailer spawned the hit singles “Blowin’ Smoke” and “Merry Go ‘Round”  and garnered praise from Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times. Come see why Musgraves has earned the accolades.

photo by Jim Chapin

Performing the same night is Austin’s king of country music: Dale Watson. Though born in Birmingham, Alabama, Watson was raised in Pasadena, Texas, spending time in Houston, Los Angeles and Nashville before landing in Austin in the early 90s, which has been his home since. Possessed of a quintessential country baritone, Watson has flown the flag for classic honky-tonk for over two decades and 20 albums, starting with his classic 1995 debut Cheatin’ Heart Attack and moving through landmarks Blessed or Damned, The Truckin’ Sessions and Every Song I Write is For You. He’s performed on Late Night With David Letterman and first appeared on ACL in 1997 as part of an Austin Country Showcase. El Rancho Azul, his latest LP, continues his work as one of the world’s finest C&W singers and songwriters, and we’re thrilled to present Austin’s favorite son once again.

Information on passes to these great shows will appear here a week before each taping. We hope to see you there!