Photography: A Giant Dog | Pleasure Venom | Dregs @ Hotel Vegas
A Giant Dog | Pleasure Venom | Dregs @ Hotel Vegas Photographer Levy Castleberry After a year and a half of silence, Hotel Vegas brought live shows back in the dramatic wild fashion we have come to expect from them. Playing to a sold-out crowd, A Giant Dog, Pleasure Venom, and Dregs gave Austin the kick in the chest it needed. Here at Anon, we have been a fan of the photography of Levy Castleberry for quite some time. We are excited to have our inaugural feature of his work being with this show; it all the more helps hit home the feeling that we as a community are getting…
Artist Spotlight: Sean Sczepanik
Fun horror inspired by rock n roll; kindred art of the purest form; sums up all of what strikes us as notably memorable about the work of Sean Sczepanik. We love it.
New Video: The Bright Light Social Hour – “Guillotine Billionaires/Responsibility”
In internet time, having come out two weeks ago, the latest Bright Light Social Hour video is old news. Sue us for finally pulling it up this weekend. While we are intrigued by going longwinded on the band created short film for “Guillotine Billionaires and Responsibility” we respect you as freethinking individuals who can come to your own sense of understanding in a much shorter period than it would take to read our skewed attempts at rationalization. The horse masks represent god while the horses themselves represent unrequited love….right? While the short film is a tongue-in-cheek political representation of or current social climate, the songs themselves and how they reflect…
New Video: Baxu – “X-Rated”
You can feel cultivated inspiration seeping out the first moment you hear Baxu. A confident intelligence tows their line. They are bigger than what they offer—and what they offer is pretty damn fine. Michael Regino and Mike Garrido create music vibing with the feeling of carrying a guitar case through the front door of a sold-out show you are headlining. It comes on as you settle into the corner booth with some black and leather babes sitting on both your sides. Cool, cool, cool.
Video Premier: The Stacks – “Chicon”
"Chicon" from The Stacks is a beautiful eloquent reflection of this malaise. Did they have to go and break our hearts so sweetly with this video though? It is almost too much. Beautifully shot and edited, we get a heaping dose of nostalgic letting go soundtracked in perfection.
Skate or Dye: Local Crew Warmly Supports Community With Latest Project
Skate gang looks to support their community through inspired hand made tie-dyed shirts
Premier: Sweetfeed – “Highway of Hearts”
"Highway of Hearts" continues the can't-get-the-volume-high-enough excitement. These songs hype themselves. There is a rhythmically layered catchiness as each line dances on its own as though an entire chorus plays out with every five words that pass.
NEW MUSIC PREMIERE: Christine Renner – “Drown”
Christine Renner's bold in broken places sentimental pop warmly spins the experience in the omnipresent naivety of youth while maintaining integrity worthy of introspective appreciation. Renner is an idealist shaping inflected lyrics into rich ambiguous lingering dream monuments to greater truths and devastating defeats, no truer is this statement than with her new single "Drown."
Mixtape Monday – “Aunt Mable’s Mixtape” by Nicholas Fong
My Aunt Mable died when I was still pretty young, but her personality was big enough to leave an impact that will last a lifetime. She was a short, white haired, Cajun woman with alot of spunk. Most children in the family learned to curse from her, resulting in a mouth full of soap. Often the adults would make us step outside the room, so she could tell dirty jokes. My parents told me, when they lived in L.A., Aunt Mable would mail them copies of her radio mixtapes-- I imagine to remind them of where they came from.
NEW MUSIC PREMIERE: The Dead Coats – “Forsake My Name”
Big things are on the way for The Dead Coats. This album will be as valid to where they are headed as all the wild shows and two great releases which came before it. No more and no less. After three years of digging this band, we are excited to bring you the first track from Big Wish
New Video: Casey Seymour – “Installations”
No one should be surprised by the well-deserved hype going Casey Seymour's way as the tickled ear smile crosses those first listening through his Hidden Hills EP. All that nice-guys-finish-last propaganda is simply not true; good people surface slowly with namasteic wholesome warmth so as to be less dramatic in how they get there is all. Listening to the album feels as though it has always existed, as if Seymour had been singing these songs with his presence for years. If anything is surprising in the slightest it is not having thought he had the ambition to create something on his own in the first place.
New Video: Attic Ted – “I Need A Holiday 2020”
Most years it is a fifty/fifty split between storm clouds and optimistic light breaking around the edges; there is time to laugh; we can band together to keep each other sane and lifted. This year has made jaded cynics of us all. Turns out when you have enough free time on your hands to watch the world function, it is a complete shit show. Spend eight months seeped in it and—well—here we are...
New Music – Blue Jean Queen Explodes Our Hearts With “Wild Wild Woman”
Between Stevie Nicks on "Edge of Seventeen" and Deana Carter with "Strawberry Wine," now there is an equal which somehow manages to draw comparisons to both at the same time. "Wild Wild Woman" is powerful, perfect, and rises into the realm of greatness by transcending forever beyond the person who created it to represent a moment forever speaking to whoever hears it as one of the great beacons of the realized rare potential music has the heights of reaching.
Album Review – Half Dream – Monsters of Needing
Monsters of Needing comes in voicing an introspective grasping of one's own anchored soul by the weighted center of life whose ever-presence has always been known but never embraced and, at best, vaguely named.
New Video(s): Lord Friday the 13th – “Bigots Beware”
Marking the first single from their Irrational Anthem EP, Lord Friday the 13th are celebrating with the release of THREE(!) videos for "Bigots Beware." Hey, with this extra time on our collective hands, at least they are putting it to good use. All we have been doing is refusing to put on pants while watching the Phantasm series with the sound off and Negativeland records blasting over it. Way to make us all feel ineffectually worthless. Geez.
New Video: Loteria – “Rhythm Revue”
For those who might be unfamiliar; when someone says "Austin music," either with acute awareness or down on the collective subconscious level, they are talking about Loteria.
New Video: Dena Hope – “Stay”
Mentally synth. Viscerally glam. Dena Hope's video for "Stay" is one hundred percent pop in as comfortable and relaxed sense possible. It is all looks and lighting on this Samara Simpson directed experience.
New Video: Calliope Musicals – “Color/Sweat”
As with the 2019 album in which this is the title track from, we witness here yet another moment where Calliope Musicals prove to us they have an acute grasp on their collective output; stunning us by their growth and intriguing us along with their familiarity. Truly the band, their music, and this Jerry Sparkman directed video are impressively memorable.
Happy Birthday Seth Gibbs: A Tribute Album
If what we create in life were to be more than a whispered glimpse of our true selves, we would rejoice in contentment looking back at our lives having done even a third of what Seth Gibbs did. Boldly broken with the absolute honesty of one working through the darkness in search of their better self with just the right amount of off-the-cuff cynism to laugh first and laugh last while facing life's heavier blows with a fighters jaw; is this who Seth was? That is the impression we get listening over the music he left behind. It may never come close to speaking for Seth as a whole yet…
Exploration, Optimism & Fashion: An Interview With Jackson Montgomery Schwartz
....to exist creatively in a way which inspires those around him to aim not high with their ambitions but instead to look within themselves to embrace the joy which comes through finding an artistic vessel worth pouring oneself into again and again on the path of self-exploration forevermore is as beautiful as the work Schwartz crafts. Be it musicians, writers, models, whatever the walk of artists currently calling Austin home, all seem to see his creative presence as a mirror before which they may see their better selves reflected.
Mixtape Monday: Holy Sex by JXNART
In anticipation of our featured interview with Jackson Montgomery (JXNART) coming out tomorrow, we asked if he would be up to put together a playlist for us this week as well. With usual optimistic energy Jackson said yes. We love it! Hopefully, you do as well!
New Music: Blue Jean Queen
Is anyone else over completely the perpetual reminders that Rockyanne Bullwinkle is perfect?
Artist Spotlight: Virginia (Vajaja) Meza
Meza's paintings are centered on familiarity while bathing the viewer in invoked emotion. One piece can be heavy, another whimsically optimistic; all are alive and memorable in a naturalistic expression of the best kind.
Album Review: Sailor Poon – Sailor Poon’s First Album
Immediate, upfront, hitting perfectly the notes of reminder the band everyone fell in love still retains the perfect balance from when their gang first took over these streets; facetious cynicism crafted with acute skill.
New Music: Kay Odyssey – “No Birds Sing”
So maybe you were thinking this mood to put on some Mazzy Star in your search for self-motivation while floating across the sea of emotional confusion called for something more of the moment; escapist memories made attached to something of your own. Kay Odyssey cries out from the wilderness for you to do just that—near verbatim. Anyone else missing the days when Kay Odyssey seemed to be playing like a million shows and you couldn't wait to make it out to them all? We gotta shine on a little longer little diamonds. In the meantime, grab up a notebook, set "New Birds Sing" on repeat, and fill those pages with…
New Music Video: The Sour Notes – “Peak”
The Sour Notes continue earning believers with their heads down and hearts full. Their latest single"Peak" has a warmly fitting video directed by everyone's favorite familiar face Matzoh Ball to go with it, sending home completely the Slanted and Enchanted post-Go-Betweens aesthetic they have embodied since moment one. For all those thirsty for the beautifully broken early-nineties; drink up.
Album Review: Andrew Cashen – Guava Jazz
This album is about as jazzy as Morrisey's personality is tolerable but on the scale of listenable it leans decidedly more towards "highly" than it does "Jethro Tull." We recommend putting it on repeat while going toes up in some sunshine for a few hours, it was meant for being stuck at home looking for help tapping into the optimistic side of life.
New Video: Louisianna Purchase – “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
Fresh, inventive, inspiring; no one has hit the fashion world with the passionate, affecting, force of Jackson Montgomery (JXNART) in as long as our eyes have been looking to its lighthouse to keep us from crashing onto the tired shores of ανιαρός.
New Video: Dry Guy – “Something To Do”
Disaffected. Restless. Malcontent. If the collective unconscious had a talent beyond stoking the coals beneath our neurosis and honing in on the malaise of our be-here-now reality—learning bass perhaps, possibly figuring out how to structure a few minutes of noise—then no doubt in this foul-year-of-our-lord-Lemmy, "Something To Do," the quarantine inspired video from Dry Guy, is what it would come up with.
New Music: Billy King and the Bad Bad Bad – “Tiger’s Den”
Billy King and the Bad Bad Bad are not a band solely hyping us on where they are, nor is it the unexpected notable progress we feel from them at every show played, it is where they are going getting us excited to be in proximity of what they are doing.
Artist Spotlight: “Bloom” by Brat Baby Beauty
I began this project wanting to show off the incredibly creative people whose work I love. To come up with a comfortable place where we could be vulnerable together, a place where we could speak openly about our dreams and excitement for the future. Hopefully, there, in that place, we would create something truthful, reflecting our trust in each other, a moment made beautiful collectively.
New Music: Country Legend Roky Moon – “Choo Choo”
It seemed impossible to love Roky Moon any more than we already did. We were wrong.
New Music Video: Holy Wave – “I’m Not Living in the Past Anymore”
...nails their simplistic aesthetic in craft while still feeling orgiastic in creativity. Basically, business as usual for this band who have been around just long enough to start being grandfathered in as the torchbearers of the Austin ideology.
New Single: Half Dream – “Strange Lover”
As if experiencing intimacy were not already a heavy confusing mess of emotions, "Strange Lover"—the new single from Half Dream—is a humble crying out to the wilderness of introspection. Where sadness and nostalgia is often reserved solely for the looking back while optimism and positivity come in looking forward, there is that moment which lies at the very center of it all, time suspended in bated silence, all spinning madly around us; at that moment we taste Plato's agalma being pushed against by our own sense of individuality speaking in contrast of our experience as we try to understand the why; this is the place in which "Strange Lover" exists.
Artist Spotlight: Alex Paradox
Setting out to capture with nostalgic appreciation the staying gold glory days of Roberta Bayley and David Godlis when they first lit the eyeballs of the world on fire via those inky pages of Punk Magazine, the new series from Austin's Alex Paradox, Punks, is a true to form reminder of how late seventies New York is the holiest of holy for still relevant inspiration and why transposing the ideology to our place now through noble appreciation under a skillfully directed lens becomes once more a transcendent snapshot of the everlasting beauty in greasy rebellion lifted by the optimistic wings of youthful conviction.
New Music Video: Lo Country – “Black Cloud”
Lo Country have been keeping their heads down for far too long, this first bite out of their upcoming full-length definitely has us interested. Then again, anyone who has spent ten minutes around Lo Country in the flesh already knows they are about the nicest buncha dropouts you could kick dirt with which should already have pretty much every unpretentious decent comrade in Austin's ears perked regardless.
Album Review: Attic Ted – “Kafka Dreaming”
Kafka Dreaming is a love letter to the possibilities of defining one's own boundaries over succumbing to expectations; even if those expectations are self-imposed. This album is a testament of the distance covered and growth felt on their journey.
New Music Video: The Sun Machine – “Drugs”
"Drugs" from their upcoming Schizo Pop, is resigned in all the good ways. A vibe over dance massaging of the same nerves as "Higher" from The Memories. This fitting lighthearted video was directed by Chandler Jowell.
Mixtape Monday: Bearclaw’s Stash by Alex Barclay
This week we asked Alex Barclay of Texas Psychedelia to put together the mixtape. Those of you unfamiliar; Texas Psychedelia began as a communal space online for those in this corner of the world to dig the shared taste in music and culture of a certain vibe. It has quickly grown beyond that becoming a pivotal tool for touring bands to line up places to play and crash for the night while at the same time allowing us a way to keep up on shows happening we would otherwise likely be unaware of. Ultimately it has become a way to cultivate new friendships beyond the ten square miles each of…
Album Review: Schwein – Easy Does It
....a John Cale broken boldness sort of journey from open to close all swept over with a thousand hushed mystic ohms weaving the ride along. To break down the album track by track would be an injustice to its cohesive nature. Each song shakes hands with the next, peaks and valleys reflecting the same orgiastic light, the only disappointing moment coming as the album closes feeling full yet wanting more.
Video Premiere: Crocodile Tears – “Tuned Out”
Crocodile Tears make date music for the blank generation, cruising music for the down and outs, and are about as safe as good rock n roll can get. If this were 1980 they would rule the world.
High Fashion Halloween: DIY Fashion Show | Drag | Dance Party!!!!!!
If Jackson Montgomery Schwartz does not top your list of favorite fashion artists then obviously you have yet to see any of his work. Everyone else feels pale and tired after looking through one of his photo shoots. Jackson is one of the rare ones to understand fashion can be cool, it can feel alive, that there is a hell of a lot more which goes into selling ones passion than sniffing your upper lip and championing pretension.
New Music Video: The Sun Machine – “Cumbia de Lagrimas”
Austin's teen sensation hearthrobs The Sun Machine are out to prove there is more to junior high than homework and sleepovers. They do a damn fine job at doing just that on their latest grindcore/dreampop hit "Cumbia la Lagrimas."
Halloween Visuals Mixtape 2019
Anon Magazine 2019 Halloween Visuals Mixtape Looking for something to throw up on a screen while kicking it with friends while tossing candy to snot nose punks? Anon has got you covered. “Life has been frustratingly short on available time to do much in the way of creative outputs as of late so for the first time in as many years as I can remember I wasn’t able to commit myself towards doing visuals to go behind bands around town this October. The probably five hundred hours that goes into dubbing VHS tapes and editing them is one of my favorite things. Any excuse to seek out the weirdest horror…
Five Poems: Christopher Savage
One of the more exciting parts of putting together each print edition is getting to sort through the submissions in awe of the creatives we share our small section of the universe with. One of the more disappointing parts is having to narrow down those submissions to fit within the space limitations of a tangible medium. We could only choose one poem from Christopher Savage to feature in Junkie Business. Here is a chance to get all the more familiar with his work.
Nick Allison and the Players Lounge – Album Release | Tour Dates
There was a time when this band would have been solid simply by making noise here beside us as a word of mouth, "have you heard them yet," experience. Their hushed confidence was born for it yet now they stand as one of the last buoys of hope, a reminder of what this town is supposed to be about, of what this town should still be defined by, rock n roll so damn good, unique, upstanding we almost forget they rub shoulders in the same spaces as familiar faces on the regular. The glory days ain't gone.
Oddball Vintage Photo Set: Youth, Tenderness, and Skipping Class in the 90’s
Oddball Vintage began with the intention of showing what skipping class in the 90's might have looked like in a way which would encompass youth and tenderness in the process, how perfect these turned out could not have been anticipated.
Print PREORDERS OPEN | NEW MERCH | AUGUST 28th Release SHOW
Preorders are now open for the Junkie Business print along with new shirts put together by FSG Prints and buttons. As well we are so super super super excited to announce the release show party will be at Hotel Vegas on Wednesday August 28th and (heart swoons) will have Haze County | Loteria | The Bad Lovers | andTeenage Cavegirl helping us celebrate.
Annabelle Chairlegs: New Video | Tour Dates
With the announcement of Annabelle Chairlegs heading out on tour with Black Joe Lewis comes the Vanessa Pla directed video for “Candle Apple Red." This band has been creeping in on world domination for like six years now continually leaving us with the same question as always; where the hell is the new album?!?!? If you are reading this and live under a rock, smoke one with a purpose, find three other losers and go check them out live for the first time–unlike your favorite Thai spot, these guys deliver. On a side note; the flyer created by Ben Tipton (via Burger City) is dope as ALWAYS!
Artist Spotlight: Derek Vaughan Nunez Strahan
"I have no idea what the hell I am doing. I’m just trying to document the things happening around me. I think life is wild and beautiful and super chaotic. I want to capture all of that somehow. I love life and I think that’s what I want my photos to say about me, that I am living and enjoying it. No matter how frightening or fun it all may be, I am grateful to be alive and to see." - Derek Vaugh Nunez Strahan
