Singer and pianist Marcia Ball has consistently served up her infectious New Orleans/Gulf Coast/Texas brew over her near 40 years of playing music professionally. She has been an Austin and national favorite for decades, frequently earning Blues Music Awards and Grammy nominations for her albums. She has an in-store show scheduled at Waterloo Records (where she previously recorded a live album) on Wednesday the 30th. Listen to Marcia Ball in Studio 1a.

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These sugary delights from Ken’s Doughnuts are what keeps us going during the membership drive.

It’s an acknowledged sign in the halls of KUT that if someone has a doughnut in their hand they are expecting a rough day. While membership drives are rewarding and exciting, they can also be exhausting and stressful. On air hosts are speaking to listeners more often because they are on the air more frequently. People with duties behind the scenes frequently have additional tasks added to their plates during the drive.

Seizures of methamphetamine at the Laredo customs district — the nation’s largest inland port — are on pace this fiscal year to surpass last year’s total by about 60 percent, reaching an expected total of about 1,650 pounds.

The statistic supports the theory that Mexican cartels are increasingly supplying the heavily addictive narcotic in the U.S., replacing domestic meth labs that were prevalent in rural areas only a few years ago. And analysts say that the ease with which meth can be produced in Mexico could help spark major changes in the bloody turf war between drug cartels.

Austin Energy will get an audit over the next month to answer the Austin City Council’s question of whether the utility needs as much money as it claims. The revenue requirement is partly fueling the proposed electricity rate increase.

In a special meeting today focused on Austin Energy, the City Council voted to have City Auditor Ken Mory, review Austin Energy’s revenue requirement. The utility says it needs an additional $126 million a year to shore up its budget this fiscal year and maintain good bond ratings.

In what they’re calling the “most decisive issue” they’ve ever come across, the Lower Colorado River Authority approved a new water plan that will change how much water goes from the Highland Lakes to customers downstream. For StateImpact Texas, KUT’s Terrence Henry reports on the agency’s response to the continuing drought.

One of my fondest memories of The Boxing Lesson is when I met up with them at Music Lab a few years ago for an interview. If you’ve ever laughed so hard that you can’t breathe and tears are flowing out of your eyes, then you can imagine how this went.

I was just getting the ball rolling with a segment I used to produce, called Before the Break. If I recall correctly, I’d asked the band to sit for a quick chat about the album they were working on at the time, Wild Streaks and Windy Days.

These are the nicest people you could ever meet. Synth master Jaylinn Davidson, guitarist and vocalist Paul Waclawski, and then-drummer Jake Mitchell shared endless ideas, inspirations and a nonstop sense of humor that had me in hysterics. But the common thread throughout the conversation was clearly the passion they have for their music. They love what they do. They have a damn good time doing it.

Cut to 2012, and The Boxing Lesson’s adventure continues with their latest rock ‘n’ roll space cowboy mindblower, Health Is the New Drug, featuring Davidson, Waclawski, and drummer Matt Bongirno on a wicked psychedelic jaunt through prog land, but expanding it a little further. Recorded at The Bubble with producer Frenchie Smith, the album soars to colorful, trippy heights while pushing past prog and psych rock expectations. Welcome to the ultimate cosmic afterparty. This is your invitation.

Speaking of which, The Boxing Lesson is inviting you to their tour kick-off show tonight at Hotel Vegas, 1500 E. 6th St. The bill includes Follow That Bird, Geronimo Son, and the youngest rock band around, Residual Kid. Things get started at 9:30 p.m. Recommended.

The newsroom at KUT is a fast-paced, dynamic work space. Recently, though, we sent one of our reporters, Ben Philpott, away full-time so he could cover Rick Perry’s presidential run. We are proud to be the only individual station – in the history of public radio – to have committed full-time, nationwide reporting resources to a presidential race.

Above is a picture of Ben Philpott sitting in the Rick Perry press bus. He is working with two other reporters on a Tribcast. KUT has a political reporting partnership with The Texas Tribune. Every week, reporters at both the Tribute and KUT gather to talk about the political stories that are important in Central Texas. This partnership and the podcast are just two of the innovative ways that KUT brings you the news.

KUT’s new home is coming to life on the northeast corner of Guadalupe and Dean Keeton (26th street) as part of the UT College of Communication’s Belo Center for New Media. Everything is on schedule and coming together beautifully. The entire KUT staff will be packing up and moving across the street later this summer.
Ahead of the big move, we thought we’d give you the opportunity to see and get to know some of the people behind the voices you enjoy on KUT. Right now, you can meet Morning Edition Host Jennifer Stayton who has been the voice Central Texas wakes up to for the last 8 years on KUT.

AUSTIN, Texas — Feb. 22, 2012 — KUT 90.5 is bringing the best of the 2012 SXSW Music Festival to fans in Central Texas and beyond, including thoughtfully curated music showcases, spotlights on Austin musicians, a preview of must-see performances and some of the best new music discoveries from the festival.
KUT will produce four no-wristband-required music showcases at the Four Seasons Hotel Austin Wednesday, March 14, through Saturday, March 17. The event will feature 30-minute sets by some of SXSW’s most anticipated artists, including: M. Ward, Nada Surf, Justin Townes Earle, Nneka, Jimmy Cliff, Ruthie Foster, Punch Brothers, Motopony, Grace Woodruff, Ray Wylie Hubbard and more being confirmed (check KUT.org for updates). Each set also will be broadcast on KUT 90.5.
The event is open to the public on a first-come, first served basis. The $10 admission, which includes a breakfast taco and coffee, benefits the Shivers Cancer Center…

Anyone who calls in (to 512-471-6291) or pledges online during afternoon music with Host Jay Trachtenberg will be entered into a drawing to receive a pair of tickets to see legendary rock group Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers with special guest Regina Spektor – during their one stop in Texas – at the Frank Erwin Center Saturday, May 5!

If he really wants to run for another term as governor — as he told The Texas Tribune on Tuesday — Rick Perry has some work ahead of him. While 39 percent of Texas voters said they would be likely to support him in 2014, 51 percent said they wouldn’t, according to the new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.

On this edition of In Black America, producer/host John L. Hanson Jr. speaks with Cheryl White, the first African American female jockey; the Honorable Glenda A. Hatchett; John Wooten, Co-Founder and Chairman Fritz Pollard Alliance Foundation; and Robin Roberts, Co-host Good Morning America.

We owe the celebration of Black History Month, and more importantly, the study of black history, to Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Born to parents who were former slaves, he spent his childhood working in the Kentucky coal mines and enrolled in high school at age twenty. He graduated within two years and later went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. The scholar was disturbed to find in his studies that history books largely ignored the African American population-and when African Americans did figure into the picture, it was generally in ways that reflected the inferior social position they were assigned at the time.

Woodson, always one to act on his ambitions, decided to take on the challenge of writing African Americans into the nation’s history. He established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History) in 1915, and a year later founded the widely respected Journal of Negro History. In 1926, he launched Negro History Week as an initiative to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history.

In 1976, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Negro History Week and the bicentennial of the United States’ independence, Black History Week was expanded to Black History Month. Ever since then, Black History Month has been celebrated in February around the country.

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When you listen to KUT on a daily basis you hear international, national, state and local news. You also hear CDs hand-picked by music experts like Jeff McCord and John Aielli.

Beyond the day to date, we also try to let you be a part of the important music festivals happening in Austin. This year, we are proud that you will also be hearing more live music during South by Southwest. We have arranged with the Four Seasons to host shows each morning from March 14-17 in the ballroom of the hotel. Artists haven’t been finalized yet, but we expect it to be an excellent line-up.

Lawmakers ponied up a bit for public schools in the late 1990s; did they do it again in 2011? KUT’s Nathan Bernier spoke with Gardner Selby of the Austin American-Statesman PolitiFact Texas.

As far as they’ve gone, everything comes back to Lucero’s hometown of Memphis. The group started out as an alt-country act that blurred the lines between country, punk, and rock, earning them a diverse fan base and 200 shows a year all across the world.

But the tug of homesickness has crept into their sound in recent years. In 2009, the band put out their major-label debut, 1372 Overton Park–essentially the band’s love letter to Memphis. Referring to a former Elvis karate haunt that the band lived in for years, the record boasted a Memphis-style horn section and more soulful originals that tipped their hats to Stax.

On March 13, Lucero will release their eighth album, Women & Work. Like the River City, it’s a crossroads of genre and style, all pulled together by Lucero’s barroom swagger. “Sometimes” embodies this perfectly, riding a lazy beat and twanging pedal steel while those horns color in the background–around the American songbook and back again in under five minutes.

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