Doug Freeman

Somewhere along the road in Europe, opening 3,000-4,000-person shows for fellow Texans Midland, Jonathan Terrell realized he didn’t have the right songs. Over the past decade, he had honed his sound behind highway ballads and a road-worn poetry bolstered by big guitar licks and an unbridled on-stage charisma, but the troubadour was now feeling the pull to expand his sound beyond just country and Americana.

Welcome back to the dustbowl! Weekend Two of ACL Fest kicked off with returning players King Princess, MJ Lenderman, and Dylan Gossett, and added new acts including locals Farmer’s Wife, precocious Americana outlier Sam Barber, and freshly reunited indie rockers Rilo Kiley.

ACL Fest 2025 wrapped with sounds far and wide, old and new – from local trio the Point’s genre-blending world music to Chihuahua band Midnight Generation’s throwback disco to Passion Pit’s 2010s-nostalgic synth-pop. Here’s what we caught before the sun set at Zilker Park. The Point Takes ACL All Over the Map The Point is […]

Thanks to new lineup additions and improved returning sets, the second Saturday at ACL 2025 felt like a distinct offering, not a rehashing of last weekend. Texan countrygaze trio Shallowater, Seattle shapeshifters Car Seat Headrest, and tenacious San Diego emos Pierce the Veil all voyaged to Zilker Park for the first time, while the Chronicle […]

If 2024 LP Rio Bravo breathed heavy with an almost existential wail, Scott Ballew’s fourth LP cracks with cathartic relief. Paradiso bakes in a late-night revel, soaking in the aura of its New Orleans recording as the songwriter stumbles through the streets – and possible loves. “Don’t close your eyes, you’ll hear what you might […]

With South by Southwest downsized to a week this year, it was unclear just what impact it might have on Luck Reunion.

When Chaparelle takes the stage at the Austin Blues Festival on Sunday, it will be their first show with fronting duo Jesse Woods and Zella Day performing as a married couple. Earlier this month the songwriters were wed in a Hill Country ceremony, with their producer and third pillar of the band, Beau Bedford, officiating. […]

In many ways, William Harries Graham's latest EP feels like a coda to his exceptional 2024 coming-of-age LP, Annie's House , but also a bridge that allows him to look forward.

A single neon-yellow Post-it, stuck to the bottom of the computer monitor in Ruthie Foster's home studio, gives the musician a daily affirmation.

“We have a hard curfew about 30 seconds from now,” Sturgill Simpson announced at the 3 hour and 14 minute mark of his epic Friday night set at the Moody Center.