Live music review: Big Bill Ball 8 at Radio East offered accurate snapshot of Austin music scene
The eighth annual Big Bill Ball at Radio East in the Southeast part of town, marked another celebration of the Austin scene, offering a snapshot of local music in 2025 with a six-band bill featuring some of the best active acts in the Austindie sphere. For this year’s installment, the philosophical art punk mainstays celebrated the release of their new studio LP, Sick Myth. Continuing the Big Bill way of inclusive activism through comedic lyrical punchlines and a variety of punk rock angles, the one-day event gave attendees one of the most coveted evenings of live music in 2025 during Saturday night’s (November 22) gig at the southeast Austin backyard venue. The mini-fest was co-sponsored by famed photographer and show promoter, Pooneh Ghana for the annual showcase.
Rising punks CorMae kicked things off for the Bill Ball, bringing an outfit that is a supergroup of sorts, with member overlap from well-known scene figureheads like TC Jester, Exotic Fruitica, and Bee Blackwell. With a sound that dabbles in noise rock, classic punk, riot grrrl, and garage rock, the unbridled 30-something angst of the CorMae company delivered an evening kickoff that sculpted the mood for a night of loud guitars and enthusiastic fan participation.
Singer Ambi Mi helms CorMae, along with Exotic Fruitica drummer Aaron Gilligan, whose percussive ability brings a level of energy that’s impossible not to want to mosh to and engage in the onstage feel-good vibes.
Newer on-the-scene, Froggy Style showed that Austin music is still weird, manifesting as pond-themed stage decor and a dancing figure in a frogsuit, with sticky dance beats scoring the let-loose stage show. And aliens, go figure.
Hardcore experimental rap duo Haha Laughing took over next, consisting of beatmaker, vocalist, and drummer Jay Dilick and co-vocalist and saxophonist Aby Oviedo. With songs like “Barfing in the Sink,” “Pulled Apart By Horses,” and “Peter Parker Ass,” what could go wrong? The bludgeoning electronics and stage mannerisms including a slug mask during the “Sometimes I Wish I Were A Slug” offering, pack a menacingly playful punch, with Oviedo and Dilick projecting confrontationally shouted vocals over electronics a la Death Grips. Theirs and JPEGmafia fans would gracefully blow their eardrums out to HaHa Laughing.
The long-running guitarists Sarah Ronan and Matt Galceran-led Queen Serene quartet brings a lucious, but raging wall of sound that combines shoegaze and neo-psychedelia, filled with reverberated effects that suck you right into their dreamscape. After a prolific year and the recent release of studio LP 2, the Serene players delivered a set of bangers and slow-burns alike. Galceran and Ronan’s vocal harmonizing, were backed by a rhythm section that settled them into an impeccable groove.
Post-Hardcore and noise rock road warriors Porcelain took the semi-headlining reins, an Austin band that has been making a deafening ray of noise on the touring circuit with a resume that includes sharing stages with Pelican, Agriculture, Chat Pile, and more. With a dynamic range that sees songs that play on dissonant power chords, translating into softer, hypnotic structures, reaching feedback-laden peaks, the tension and release of the Porcelain sonic blueprint is as challenging as it is rewarding.
Co-vocalists and guitarists Steve Pike and Ryan Fitzgibbon complement one another with abrasive precision and raw aggression, aiming to feel every barrage of noise at one’s core. The loudest set of the evening elicited thunderous crowd reaction, circle pits, and all.
Big Bill took the last hurrah for the eclectic bill, one that came without original bassist Alan Lauer due to a motorcycle accident earlier in the week. We’re wishing him a speedy recovery. Frontman Eric Braden has become a fixture in Austin music, maintaining a consistent streak of touring and keeping the new tunes coming, adhering to an “Album per year” ethic in the present day.
While long-time Bill fans wrap their fandom around tunes like “What Do You Want On Your Salad” and “Two Weeks,” Saturday felt like a positive change of course for the band, allowing them to play newer tunes alongside a Daniel Johnston cover, “My Life Is Starting Over.” As Bill does, they emulate all things tastefully, and the homage-charged selection felt like a must from an Austin music staple covering another Austin music staple. Spoon, White Denim, A Giant Dog, and The Black Angels all hail from the live music capital – to put Big Bill on top of those heavy-hitters makes for a laundry list of records every weirdo music fan could want.
“Two Weeks” served as a finale of ultimate catharsis, a working-class anthem of all proportions that affirms that Big Bill is for the people. With their brand of activism highlighting world injustices and political unrest, they’re right here with us.
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All photos by Troy Gonzales
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