End of Silence

Burnt Orange Report points out that today is your last chance to get registered for the November elections in Travis County. The applications have to be postmarked by today.

We’re electing a governor and state reps this time around among other things. I missed the gubernatorial debate on Friday, but it sounds like Chris Bell did a good job. You can decide for yourself by watching the debate online.

I checked out Mastodon last night at Emo’s. I arrived around 10:30 and caught a couple of songs by LA band, The Bronx. If you can’t say something nice…let’s move on. It was completely packed and pretty damn hot for an October evening. I was dripping with sweat by the second or third song into Mastodon’s set. I’m not sure when Brann started playing that ridiculously awesome Randy Rhodes tribute drum kit, but I was suitably impressed. Way to show your 80s metal devotion.

They played most of the tracks from Blood Mountain (including the crazy instrumental, “Bladecatcher”) and several from Leviathan. I’d never seen the band before and started listening to them earlier this year on the strength of reviews of Leviathan. When I saw they were coming to a relatively small venue, I decided I had to check it out. They were tight and the music is amazing. They unfortunately subscribe to the cookie monster vocal style favored by a lot of metal bands today. I’m not a big fan of that type of singing, but I’m willing to overlook it if the music is interesting enough. I took most of the pictures during the encore (“Hearts Alive”).

I spent some time before and after the show at Casino El Camino (big surprise). My operatives tell me that Alice In Chains was in there after their show at Stubb’s on Tuesday night. The boys from Seattle were apparently well-mannered and behaved themselves.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued a ruling today on the city’s one year old smoking ban. He clarified what steps a bar owner must take to be in compliance with the ordinance.

A bar owner must post “no smoking” signs and remove ashtrays and other smoking accouterments, Sparks ruled. If a patron continues to smoke, the owner can no longer be held liable for not taking additional steps.

Makes sense. Chip recently went into a bar where the establishment clearly wasn’t doing what was required by the law. He filed a complaint and got quite a few nasty comments on his post about it. It’s clearly still a contentious issue even after a year. Most, both smoker and non-smoker, seem to have moved on.