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The state health agency in Texas has proposed new rules for hemp products. Those rules could mean higher fees for businesses, more testing for products, and could effectively outlaw access to hemp flower. We’ll look at what’s being proposed and how Texas business owners are feeling about it.
Plus, after oak wilt claimed a tree in his yard, local artist Steve Parker turned its wood into a sonic experience. His solo exhibit at Ivester Contemporary features wooden records and wind instruments. We’ll experience some of those sounds for ourselves.
What do you get when you mix Austin’s best music station with an Austin music venue and stage that’s famous the world over? We’ve got the “Hole Story” right here on Austin Signal. And who is Lavada Durst to Austin’s music History? We’ve got the answer.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:10] The state health agency in Texas has proposed new rules for hemp products. Those rules could mean higher fees for businesses, more testing for products, and it could effectively outlaw access to hemp flower. What’s being proposed and how Texas business owners are feeling about it. Plus, after Oak Wilt claimed a tree in his yard, a local artist turned its wood into a sonic experience. His solo exhibit features wooden records and wind instruments. We’re gonna experience some of those sounds for ourselves. That’s coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:41] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:46] And what do you get when you mix Austin’s Best Music Station with one of the world’s most famous stages? We’ve got the whole story for ya. That is coming up next. It’s right here on Austin Signal. Howdy, and thank you for tuning in. This is Austin Signal. It’s Thursday, the eighth day of January. Thank you for including us in your day. I’m your host, Jerry Keconnell. Let’s get into today’s show. The Texas Department of State Health Services is proposing new rules on hemp products. The rules include more testing and formal recall procedures, as well as increasing fees on businesses. A public hearing on the proposals is set for tomorrow morning at nine. Heather Fazio is director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center. She’s joining us now to talk more about the hearing. Howdy, Heather.
Heather Fazio [00:01:42] Hi there, thanks for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:01:43] We’re glad to have you here. So cannabis and hemp were big topics in Texas all of 2025, it felt like. So why are state regulators meeting this early in the new year to discuss these new proposed rules?
Heather Fazio [00:01:56] Well, last year certainly was a rollercoaster for those advocating for cannabis policy, whether it’s medical cannabis through the Compassionate Use Program or Hemp Policy, which is hemp products increasingly popular among Texans. And last year there was an effort to prohibit hemp products that included THC. Thankfully, that legislation was vetoed by Governor Abbott and subsequently he issued an executive order. Calling for regulatory agencies to beef up regulations and enforcement. These are the rules that we see being developed now with the hearing happening tomorrow for public input from stakeholders.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:35] So can you tell us what exactly is DSHS proposing with these rules?
Heather Fazio [00:02:40] Since 2019, DSHS has been responsible for regulating consumable hemp products, that’s manufacturing and retail sales. We now see increased regulations coming on board, which is a good thing. We’ve been missing things like age restrictions, recall protocols, and tracking adverse effects. The regulations that have been put forward do just that in addition to some changes that may have some negative effects on the industry.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:08] Can you speak more on those negative effects?
Heather Fazio [00:03:11] Well, the biggest, most glaring issue that we see are the outrageous fees that have been proposed. We, of course, support fees to cover the cost of regulation, but $20,000 for a retailer per location per year is going to price out the vast majority of entrepreneurs who are operating legitimately and with integrity. This goes far beyond the cost of regulation and seems to be punitive in nature. This is something that we hope the department will reconsider.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:42] You said that was a $20,000 fee for just for operating the business?
Heather Fazio [00:03:47] That’s correct, that is the registration fee for simply having a location that sells consumable hemp products. And I’ll add that it’s $25,000 per year for manufacturers. These fees are gonna make it cost prohibitive for many Texans to participate in the hemp market. Currently it’s 250 dollars to become licensed as a manufacturer and 150 dollars to be licensed as a retailer. Now we understand that those prices could come up to help cover the cost of increased enforcement of regulations. We support that, but the costs that they proposed here are just too far.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:25] What would you say to opponents, to people who are trying to limit this exposure, what would you to people that argue these numbers aren’t arbitrary and that there’s a reason for them?
Heather Fazio [00:04:36] In early 2025, I did an open records request for DSHS budget when it comes to the enforcement of regulations for consumable hemp products. What I found is the department is spending only about a third of what they bring in with 70% of revenue going right into the general fund rather than being used explicitly for enforcing regulations with hemp products I’m concerned that these new numbers are punitive in nature, trying to deliberately shut down the industry rather than simply covering the cost of regulation.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:10] Okay, now I wanted to ask specifically about hemp flour. Austinites and Texans have access to many more gummies and drinks in the hemp market these days. How would flour be affected by these proposed rules?
Heather Fazio [00:05:22] I’m so glad that you brought this up. This is the second biggest issue for us. Hemp flour is the most natural form of this product that people can use, straight from the ground, unprocessed, and we know that this encompasses 50% of the marketplace. Texans enjoy these flour products, and this is the bud from the flour that most people use for smoking, or they’ll use it for cooking and infusing some baked goods at home, maybe. This again is something that is widely enjoyed and consumed by Texans legally right now in the state. And while the rules that are put forward don’t explicitly ban flour, they effectively ban this product because what it does is calls for a total THC testing limit, meaning that all of the THC molecules would be regulated and restricted in the way that Delta-9 THC has been restricted since 2019. It gets complicated, but the bottom line is that there’s not going to be a market demand for hemp flour with such low levels of THC. It means that consumers are gonna be turning to the illicit market to find products that they enjoy. And of course, we know there are no age restrictions there, no product safety standards, and certainly no consumer protections in place.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:36] Well last question for you, what are you hearing from people in the industry here in Texas about how the up and down nature of hemp’s future has been affecting them?
Heather Fazio [00:06:45] It’s been so difficult to watch business owners operating with integrity and legitimately in an illegal industry going this up and down yo-yo of emotions all year last year and here we are again where they’re facing the fact that they may have to shut their doors. They may have close their businesses and find a new livelihood simply because of arbitrary policy changes that are happening. Texas entrepreneurs deserve better. We’re proud to be a pro-business state and we should be taking those principles into the room here when we’re talking about hemp to ensure public health and safety, of course, but also allowing the free market to work.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:26] All right, once again, a public hearing on the proposals is set for tomorrow morning at nine. We’re going to have more for you following that hearing right here on Austin Signal. We have been speaking with Heather Fazio, Director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center. Heather, thank you for your time today.
Heather Fazio [00:07:40] Thank you.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:46] And thank you out there for tuning in. This is Austin Signal. A live oak in Steve Parker’s yard died last year from oak wilt. The tree had been with his family for years and Parker was surprised by how saddened he was when it came down. And he was also confronted with a question a lot of Austinites have faced. What to do with all the wood? An artist and musician, he arrived at a unique answer. As KUT’s Mose Bouchel reports, that answer can be heard and seen in his solo exhibit, Funeral for a Tree.
Mose Buchele [00:08:22] Walk into the show, and one of the first things you might hear is this scratchy, woody sound. It sounds kind of like a branch spookily grinding against the side of an old farmhouse.
Steve Parker [00:08:33] It’s something else. There are slices of live oak that are now functioning both kind of like conceptual and literal records.
Mose Buchele [00:08:43] This is Steve Parker, the artist behind Funeral for a Tree, and when he says records, he means it. Parker has taken cross-sections of his old tree, sometimes called wood cookies, and found ways to play them, like vinyl albums. Here by the entrance, smaller sliced tree branches, 45s if you will, spin on the wall. The sounds you hear are twigs and metal stylus needles making contact.
Steve Parker [00:09:10] And that’s getting sent to an amplifier and then resonates through a trumpet bell that’s kind of poking out of the wall. What does this make you think about? The passage of time, I think. Like when we look at a tree and want to look at its life, we look the stump because it’s like this visual record.
Mose Buchele [00:09:31] Now turned to an actual record playing its own. All right, what do we have next? Well, maybe I should show you this one. He takes me to another piece, an altar of live oak, made of branches and an oak desk that support the pipes of a shung. It’s a Chinese wind instrument, historically made of bamboo, that Parker learned about on a recent trip to Taiwan. And here it’s gonna start playing right now, actually. He plugs it in, and tubes bring breath to the instruments and fill the space with sound. For Parker, it brings to mind the shutting down at the end of life.
Steve Parker [00:10:13] And also the lungs of the human body.
Mose Buchele [00:10:20] The Schung and the Live Oak records come together in another piece in the exhibit, where thick wooden disks hang above a wooden turntable. These albums are far more polished and refined than the wood cookies near the entrance They’re made from bigger sections of the dead live oak.
Steve Parker [00:10:38] They’re encoded just like a vinyl record with a bird song of different bird species that are roosted in the tree’s branches over its lifetime. And those have been interpreted by my friend Ji Bo-Yong, a shung player from Taiwan.
Mose Buchele [00:10:55] There’s the Eastern Wood Pee-wee.
Steve Parker [00:11:03] The Purple Martin? Again interpreted by Gippo.
Mose Buchele [00:11:11] Swainson’s Thrush. The wood thrush. And the yellow-billed cuckoo. Now I should say, what you’re hearing now are not the wooden records on the wall, but the original recordings of Jibo Young. The wooden versions are far scratchier.
Steve Parker [00:11:35] But I also have another wooden record here that’s made on, that’s played on this wooden record player. It functions like a old Victrola. So it even has like a wooden needle for a stylus. It’s a toothpick. And this wooden records plays a melody that sort of captures in my mind, the essence of the exhibition.
Mose Buchele [00:11:56] He plays an old folk ballad.
Steve Parker [00:11:58] From the 1920s.
Mose Buchele [00:12:05] It’s called Bury Me Beneath the Willow, performed by Ernest Thompson.
Steve Parker [00:12:10] They sound fuzzy because they are capturing both the imperfections, so to speak, of the wood and the different fissures and lesions that the wood has experienced as it died. And the life of the wood is captured. And over time it will actually fade a little bit more, just like a memory. Here’s the original vinyl version. As our tree got sick, one thing that was noticeable for me and a parent was the way that emotionally I was tied to the tree and how it echoed a lot of what I experienced six years ago when my dad was really sick with cancer. And I often think about my dad when I’m working in the studio, I listen to music that he would have listened to, and this is just something for me to kind of maintain a connection with him.
Mose Buchele [00:13:20] Funeral for a Tree runs through this Saturday at the iVestor Contemporary Gallery in East Austin. In Austin, I’m Mose Bouchelle.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:33] You can head on over to kut.org to take a look at some of these records. We’ll have a link in our show notes and you can find more at kut dot org slash signal and you could find more arts coverage, including a list of weekend recommendations at k ut dot org slash art beats. This is Austin signal. We’ll be back in just a moment. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. Let’s take a look back at an Austin legend that you might not have heard of, LaVeta Durst, once known as Dr. Hep Cat, who in 1948 became one of the first black DJs in Texas. That was just one of many hats he wore in the Austin community. Here’s Jason Mellard from the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University.
Jason Mellard [00:14:35] This week in Texas Music History we meet a hip Austin DJ whose career spans baseball, barrel house, and gospel. On January 9th, 1913, radio personality and musician LaVeta Durst, also known as Dr. Hepcat, was born in Austin. Durst played many roles in the community over the years, but it was gospel piano that he settled into first. By the 1930s he’d mastered the secular style of barrel house piano, too, and would long be associated with local artists of the genre like Robert Shaw and the it goes. In the 1940s, he became the announcer for Austin’s black baseball team, the Senators, calling games with a distinctive hip banter. Future Governor John Connolly, then an up-and-comer in LBJ’s circles, attended one of those games and told his friend and co-owner of KVET Radio, J.J. Pickle, about the talented announcer. They gave him an on-air job in 1948, one of the very first black DJs in Texas. A KVet program director also owned the record label Uptown, and Durst recorded his singles Hattie Green and Hep Cat’s Boogie in 1949. Talented at cross-promotion, Durst published a vocabulary of his hip, on-air lingo, the jives of Dr. Hepcat, to sell to his fans. In the 1950s, Durrst also turned his attention to gospel songwriting and management, mentoring the group The Chariots, and writing the influential song, Let’s Talk About Jesus, for the Austin Singers at Bells of Joy. So Levada Durst was a baseball announcer, radio DJ, recording artist, songwriter, and gospel manager, but that’s not all. At the same time, he worked at the City of Austin as program director for the Doris Miller Auditorium. Putting on concerts by Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sam Cooke. By the late 60s and into the 70s though, Durst turned his attention increasingly to the Baptist Church, giving gospel center stage, while occasionally coming out of Barrow House retirement to perform with the Texas Music Museum in Austin, where his piano and book of jives reside today. And you can hear music from the Lone Star State 24-7 on the Texas music experience at TMX.fm.
Jason Mellard [00:16:33] Support for This Week in Texas Music History comes from Brain Audio, maker of a compact portable speaker, featuring an internal subwoofer that produces deep bass sound. Engineered in the live music capital of the world. More at BraneAudio.com. That’s B-R-A-N-E audio dot com.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:58] When the topic of iconic Austin music venues comes up in conversation, there are a handful of names that make the list where you can still hear live music this very day. One of those was established in 1974 as a reputation of being on the bucket list for musicians from all over the world, and it happens to be right across the street from us here at KUTNKUTX. We’re talking about hole in the wall. And some news here on Austin Signal. KUTX has partnered up with Hole to bring you a new series that merges the energies of two Austin music institutions. And for more about that, we are talking with Deidre Gott, assistant program director and live music booker for KUTx. Deidra, thanks for joining the show.
Deidre Gott [00:17:37] Hey, thanks for having me!
Jerry Quijano [00:17:39] Well, we’re really excited to hear about this new series. Tell us a little bit about it. Does it have a name?
Deidre Gott [00:17:44] It is the whole story.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:46] Mmm, nice, I love it.
Deidre Gott [00:17:47] And the idea is behind like kind of think like VH1 Storytellers meets MTV Unplugged.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:54] Oh wow, like VH1 behind the music, that kind of thing?
Deidre Gott [00:17:56] Yeah. Well, so I mean, like it’s, it’s more of a storyteller series, you know, like they’ll play, they play four songs and then they also talk either about like what influenced them or, you know. Shiny Ribs did a whole like, here’s my, here is my life story. Just off, off the cuff. He’s amazing. So there’s a lot of great stories, a lot insight to songwriting and and songs that you’ve heard a lot on KUTX. We get to hear like what they’re about. And yeah, I think it’s gonna be cool, I hope.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:29] It seems like a natural synergy between the two. I mean, they are literally there. They are feet from us here at the hole in the wall. What brought this partnership about?
Deidre Gott [00:18:39] Um, well, you know, you sit in the, uh, studio, the control room and right across the street, we get to see Hole in the Wall every single day, right? Um, and you know we just wanted to partner with them because that front stage is iconic, you, know, over 50 years. I mean, there’s so many amazing stories from the Hole in the Wall back in the crazy days. Um, you now, Lucinda Williams has played there or, or was told she can’t play there because they already had a woman, that’s a good story. Um, you know, Blaze fully played there a lot. Spoon, uh, when they were going to UT, that was the, the place that they played the most, getting all their practice and show time in. Uh, Fastball, Gary Clark Jr. Shiny Ribs, um, or the Gord’s, uh. Uh, a bit about Shakey Graves. I mean, just the list goes on. Yeah, the real murderers row, yeah. Yeah. It’s an awesome stage. So we wanted to do something and kind of like honor that front stage, which has not been changed since it was built. Uh, the owners, there’s been several owners of Hole in the Wall, but they always say they are not allowed to change that front room or people would get mad. It will be cursed. It has to stay exactly the same, including the bathrooms.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:49] So it has to stay. It’s like that for a reason. One of the reasons why I mentioned the Hole in the Wall stage being on the bucket list for many musicians, local and international, is because at one of the tapings an artist, Jade Bird, she’s from the UK, they said just that. I gotta guess that wasn’t the first time that you heard that from one of the artists performing on stage, right? Like I’ve been dying to get up here.
Deidre Gott [00:20:10] I mean, most of the people that we invited this time have played before, but Jade Bird Haddon, Grace Sorensen, who’s an R&B singer, she had never played there and she was honored to be there. So yeah, I mean it is a pretty iconic special stage with all of these like amazing artists that have stood on that stage and played.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:32] Yeah, you mentioned Shiny Ribs, that Shiny Rib’s episode is coming out shortly. We want to play a snippet of a voice memo that he sent you that kind of lets listeners know just what they’re in for with this series.
Shiny Ribs’ Kevin Russell [00:20:46] Okay, we are thinking back on memories from the Hole in the Wall. As best as I can remember after discussing this with my old bandmates from the Picket Line Coyotes, we first played Hole in The Wall, I think it was South by Southwest, 1990. I love the energy
Jerry Quijano [00:21:15] That crack of the can, you know, nothing beats that. Oh, nothing beats that.
Deidre Gott [00:21:18] Kevin Russell is awesome. But I have to say, late breaking news, after he sent that memory, he was like, the first time was 1988 at South By. So I had to correct that. He made sure I got that text message. Yeah, it was an awesome story that he sent me a rambling on voicemail. So I’m gonna include that in the broadcast version. And then when he was in a hole in the wall taping back in May. Uh, just took us on an incredible journey of storytelling.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:49] Yeah, okay, so we mentioned Shiny Ribs, Grace Sorensen, who else is going to be featured in this first season?
Deidre Gott [00:21:54] Yeah, we’ve got Alex Maas from the Black Angels, Hayes Carl, Cary Fessel who is in Bruce and Kaliope musicals, and Paige Renee Berry of Half Dream, oh and Jonathan Terrell as well. Nice.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:06] Nice nice. Well, I think the whole series I’m sorry The whole story has achieved something that’s something we struggle to do in journalism Which is actually putting something out once it’s actually finished You’ve done a bunch of these already and you’re ahead of the game. So now that you’ve completed this first run of shows What do you what do you think about them? Do you feel like you kind of achieved the the what Kevin Russell was talking about the crack of the can going back to the days of 1988
Deidre Gott [00:22:32] Yeah, I think it was such a cool taping to do and people we had like a really small audience of concert club members was only like 50 people when we taped each of these and I mean, they keep asking me when I’m going to do more taping. It takes a lot the back end takes a lot. The taping is real fun and it takes a lot of work, but hopefully we’ll do another season, but it kicks off January 16, we’ll put them up. We put an episode up on YouTube every Friday and starting the 20th, it will air every Tuesday at 10 PM on KUTX.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:08] Excellent. We are definitely looking forward to it. You mentioned being across from the hole in the wall We get to see lots of people going into shows late at night But it was always cool when these productions were going on it’d be like two or three in the afternoon Tons of people packing into the hole on the wall. So we’re really excited to check out the entire series again It’s gonna be over at kutx.org. We’ve been speaking with Deidre Gott from kut x We’ll have a link to the series in the show notes and over at KUT.org slash signal Deidra Thanks for talking with us
Deidre Gott [00:23:36] Aw, thanks for having me, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:38] And thank you out there for tuning in. That is it for today’s show. You can find more from us at kut.org slash signal. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer and Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. We will talk to you manana.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
