We've all seen it, people speeding
down Mopac or neighborhood streets
in Austin, and maybe you thought,
shouldn't they be getting a ticket?
Well, new data show Austin Police
may be handing out more of those.
And Austin's Live Music Fund is
about to give out another round of
grants after two years of
controversy and complaints over how
those funding decisions are made.
More about those stories coming up
on today's show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jennifer Staton.
And speaking of music, you can't
pin down the local band, the
Animeros, to just one genre.
They span beyond Bolero,
psychedelic, and cumbia, and their
music will definitely get you out on
the dance floor.
We'll talk with a couple of band
members from our sister station,
KUTX's Artist of
the Month.
That is up next on Austin Signal.
Stay with us.
Hello, this is Austin Signal
coming to you from KUT News.
I'm your host for today, Jennifer
Staton.
It's the 26th day of February.
Thank you for making us part of
your Thursday.
So tell me if you've ever seen this
happen. Maybe you're seeing it right
now if you're listening to us in
your car, you're driving down Mopac
or maybe on a street in your
neighborhood and somebody zooms by
in their car or truck going pretty
fast and you think That person
should be getting a speeding ticket.
Well, it seems the Austin Police
Department has bumped up
its traffic enforcement.
As KUT's Luz Moreno-Lazano
reports, new data show APD
has increased how much it
stops and tickets back.
Bad drivers.
When Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis
took on the role in 2024,
she promised changes.
Among her top priorities was making
streets safer for everyone.
For her, that meant getting more
police back on patrol and increasing
traffic enforcement.
Last summer, Davis announced a
reorganization of the department
that added dozens of officers back
to those patrol shifts.
I think having those people here
on patrol, the sector commanders are
again able to think
of uncommitted time where the
officers aren't responding to calls
for service, they're able to do this
proactive work which includes
traffic enforcement.
Traffic enforcement can mean
speeding, distracted driving,
running red lights, and driving
without car insurance.
Davis says the department can assign
officers to areas where crashes,
aggressive driving, or other traffic
concerns frequently happen like the
department did in 2024 along
Ranch Road 2222.
And she thinks the refocus on
traffic enforcement is working.
According to city data, speeding
tickets issued by APD have increased
nearly 200% from 2024
to 2025.
I think it's important for people to
understand that speeding kills
and, you know, when you're speeding
down these roads, you've got to take
into consideration the other people
on the roads and you are going to
see APD out on these roads.
APD has also issued more tickets
in 2025 than in 2024
for distracted driving,
expired registration, and driving
without car insurance.
But there is some concern that more
traffic patrols means less of
something else.
Rebecca Bernhardt is a longtime
member of the city's Public Safety
Commission.
If the police department has a
smaller number of officers than
they'd like to have.
And there was definitely some,
how do you say it?
Robbing Peter to pay Paul going
on in the sense that, you know,
investigative units, right?
Units that investigate family
violence and sexual
assault and violent crimes.
She says moving those people from
their specialty units to help with
patrol comes at a cost.
So yes, it makes a difference and it
can help.
There are a lot of other things that
can make a difference, and can help
Bernhardt would like to see the city
reignite its Vision Zero program
that was adopted in 2015.
The plan hopes to greatly reduce the
number of people injured or killed
in traffic crashes through tools
like safer street design.
Those are things like protected bike
lanes, upgraded pedestrian beacons
and crosswalks, and adding speed
bumps and roundabouts to city roads.
A recent city audit on speed
reduction efforts showed some
designs can work, but not on all
roads.
Sam Socklow is with the city
auditor's office.
Speed cushions are effective at
lowering speeds, but they're not
suitable for all road settings such
as those with higher traffic
volumes.
Enforcement is vital in these
settings, but it has remained
limited in Austin for the past
several years, as APD has had
limited traffic enforcement
capacity.
Chief Davis agrees that traffic
enforcement has lagged as the
department has struggled with
staffing.
But after some restructuring last
year and the ongoing recruitment
efforts, she says APD is in
a better position to tackle traffic
and other issues.
One of her goals is reinstating the
department's motorcycle unit.
Those officers help with traffic
enforcement and other traffic
control tasks like protests.
Think just having that unit in
existence, along with the
auxiliary group of officers
that are trained and have the
equipment in the sectors, we'll be
able to take a look at it from
not only the individual sectors
taking note of their
own problem areas,
but an overall city-wide view.
Davis says APD is taking traffic
enforcement very seriously, so she
says drivers should continue to
expect to see Austin police officers
out and ready to sight.
I'm Luz Moreno Lozano in Austin.
Live music is without a doubt
one of the things that keeps Austin
Austin but being a musician in this
city can be a struggle and there are
some efforts to help with their
work. The winners of seven
million dollars in grant funding
from the City of Austin's
live music fund will be announced
in March.
It'll be the first time money has
been doled out from the fund in two
years after an overhaul of
the way artists and venues are
graded for selection.
We're learning more about that
scoring process thanks to the latest
story from Andrea Ball.
She's the growth and development
reporter for the Austin Current,
KUT's collaborator on the Austin
Signal and a partner with KUT
newsroom in covering Austin.
Andrea, thanks for coming in
today.
Thank you.
So the city of Austin has long
funded grants for artists and
musicians.
The live music fund itself
has been around since 2019.
And remind us.
Where the money comes from for
the live music fund.
Yeah, well, it comes from the
hotel tax, a hotel occupancy
tax when somebody comes to visit,
your parents come over, whatever,
a portion of that tax comes
to the city, and they have
devoted a certain portion of it.
All right, so the live music fund
was approved in 2019,
but okay, think 2019, we all know
what happened just the next year.
How did the pandemic affect the
rollout of this live?
Music fund.
Yeah, I mean it just delayed
everything.
They were not able to
fund music in the traditional way
that they can now and so they were
using money to do
grants and emergency funding,
relief funding, all that stuff for
people who were, you know, trapped
in their houses and couldn't do
their jobs.
So we fast forward to 2023,
the pandemic's kind of winding down,
the funds revving back up,
but there were complaints about
the applications and the process
in 2023.
What were those complaints?
So the money has to go
to some kind of project
that really elevates tourism
in the community.
It's not solely based on that, but
that's what the money is, it's hotel
tax.
And so that first year,
the city was sort of thinking, okay,
like projects and events and things
that people would come to, kind
of. And individual artists
who were like, I wanna make art, I
don't wanna.
Have a big event or necessarily even
attend one as a showcased
artist or whatever.
And so they felt the application was
really not geared toward artists
making art.
So there's a little bit of attention
since the money was coming from
a tourism funded operation.
The city thought it should go to
tourism, but musicians thought it
should go creation of our
art.
Right, and it's a balance, you know,
and I think they've tried to, that
next year, they tried to open that
up some, but yeah, I mean,
you have to use the money in the
required way.
All right, so you mentioned the next
year. So the fund application
process changed then in
2024.
So tell us what was different about
that year from.
2023.
Oh my god, it was wildly different.
It was different in the way that
they did open it up more for
like, okay, you can record albums
and have studio time,
stuff like that. And you can use the
money for that and different types
of things that they had not really
emphasized before.
But at the time,
they were very focused on equity and
rooting out, you know,
historical, historic racism in the
system.
And so they wanted to
give opportunities to people who
were marginalized and not
really included in the conversation
as much.
So they knew
that DEI conversations at that
time were on fire.
They couldn't talk about race.
So they designed questions with
what they thought were related
issues such as
poverty.
Did you have a bank account?
Have you had a loan?
Do you have a non-English-Spanish
speaker or whatever in your home?
That kind of stuff. And so they did
that. They're trying to get at some
of the same issues without asking
those questions.
Questions directly.
A common thing.
So there were still, though,
complaints and problems with the
process in 2024.
What were the issues that came up
once those 2024 grants
were recorded.
Many.
First of all, some people
thought people of color
were like, you think people of color
don't have bank accounts?
Also, these census
tracts that you're using are
outdated. There's a lot of big
homes there now, that kind of thing,
because the census is always
behind.
People felt like
this was so much more
about their
individual wealth or not
individual wealth.
That's really what they were talking
about. They weren't like I don't
want this marginalized community.
They really were just like I'm sorry
I have health insurance.
Am I supposed to be punished for
that?
So Andrea, let's talk a little
bit about how these applications
were reviewed and scored.
Was there a panel?
Who was looking over the
applications and deciding who was
getting the money?
Yeah, Jennifer, this is so
interesting because the
arts community also gets hotel tax.
Like, so we're talking about like
dancers and filmmakers and stuff,
and they get hotel tax money.
But that traditionally is done
through applications, but panels,
human people like out there talking
about, do we wanna fund this
type of thing? What is our priority,
that sort of thing.
Because the live music fund
was really
getting moving after the
intensity of the pandemic.
They had been using, they, the city
had been using automation
to go through these relief funds and
make it fast, you know, faster
than just human reviews.
So when they started the
actual grant process in 2023,
they used automation.
And so this is the only
fund that does that in
that group.
So no humans reviewing the
applications. It was all automation.
What does that even mean?
So you fill out- Like scanning.
Yes, I mean, it's something called
Submittable.
Like it's an online thingy.
And so, but there is human
review and this is how that
works. So you put your application,
you hit your button and it goes to
Submittal.
Submittaable grades it based on
the way you answer the questions.
So if you answered a question
which would get you extra points
saying, I have
used ASL
interpreters at my
event, you'd get extra points for
that. But you have to give
documentation showing that happened,
which could be like a video,
you know, any kind of program, that
kind of thing.
And so the reviewers basically
had to go and look to see if
the evidence was there.
And a lot of people did
not necessarily keep
those records or attach
them or whatever.
So the humans have to go in
and subtract points that
Submittable already gave them.
So it's
really saying, okay, you said this,
did you show me this?
And then if there was a confusion
about it, they'd get a second person
in and try to
determine if that counted.
Andrea, the city is just about to
announce the next round of funding
winners. They're going to announce
it in March.
How was the grading process changed
for 2025 applications based
on everything that you've just been
describing for?
And now it's totally different.
They heard from people,
you know, they paused the grants in
2025 because
a new department was created
to have all the arts under them
instead of all these different departments.
And they took that year to
say, all right, we got a new
vision, the city manager
wants us to have a strategic view,
we're going to stop everything.
We're going have town halls and
we're gonna talk to people and all
that stuff. And they heard
what I was just telling you.
About feeling left out
and punished for not being more
economically disadvantaged.
So this year, they still have some
elements of,
do you have some accessibility
features in your work?
A lot of it, I think half of it is
based on career accomplishments.
There are still the same types of
things like, hey, what's your
tourism marketing thing look like,
whatever. But really it
and they have smaller grants
available to And I
believe they have a grant that,
or at least some consideration for
emerging artists.
So you're not like, oh, this person
is brand new compared to someone
who's been here 40 years.
Do I have to compare them?
And how do you do that?
We've been chatting with Andrea
Ball, she's the growth and
development reporter for the Austin
Current, KUT's collaborator
on the Austin Signal, and a partner
with KUT Newsroom and covering
Austin. Andrea, thank you so much
for coming in and talking about the
Live Music Fund.
Always a pleasure.
And coming up, some music that'll
get you moving.
We'll hear from KUTX's artist
of the month, the Animeros,
just ahead on Austin Signal.
Stay tuned.
This is the Austin Signal, welcome
back.
We've almost finished with the
second month of 2026, but we've
still got some time left to
highlight February's KUTX
Artist of the Month.
This month, our sister station,
KUTx, is highlighting the
Animeros, who are looking to
transition you from your nice comfy
seat onto the dance floor
with their mix of bolero, cumbia,
and salsa.
Joining us today are a couple of
members from the band percussionist
Nick Tazo and bassist Nicola
Sanchez.
Thanks for talking with us on Austin
Signal.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah.
Your band now is made up of some
members who are in other Austin
bands, so tell us about yourselves
and why did you wanna form this
new band?
Well, most of us have been
on the Latin music
scene and just the Austin music
scene in general for the last, you
know, 10, 15 years.
And a big part of what we wanted to
do with this band was just kind of
put together a smaller unit
that would be kind of
easier to get together.
Sometimes when you have a large
group, eight, nine, 10 guys, it can
be a little tricky to get the
ball rolling.
So the idea was let's get a little
smaller unit together in it.
Has kind of taken off
in ways we never expected.
So Austin has a
vibrant Latin music scene
that seems to foster a lot of fusion
with other genres and breed new
projects like the Anamero.
So I'm curious, what do you think
it is about Austin's music
scene that makes collaborations
like this possible?
Austin has, in my opinion,
the greatest original music
scene of any city.
Everybody is out there writing new
music, putting their stamp on
it, trying to do something new
and fresh, and in
the Latin genre specifically,
we have just such a wide
variety of different Latin
acts and everybody,
different influences, whether it's
like you know, Mexican music
or Colombian or Brazilian, there's
just so much. And then as the
group of musicians all commingle
and get together,
those new and interesting
sounds or similar influences start
to pop up and it's just, it's a
really, really fun place
to be.
All right, so I don't, we're all
sitting together in a room, don't
wanna make it awkward, but tell me,
what do you like most about working
with this specific group of
musicians in the animatos?
Personally, I just really love that
we can get things going very
quickly.
Um, last summer,
or actually the summer before last
20, uh, 24, we were in
the studio with, uh our,
uh good friend, Dan Auerbach of the
black keys and
we were in there and we
had maybe about seven or eight songs
prepared, but the
rest of them, we, we just kind of
wrote on the spot and kind of
Spitfire back and forth, so
we came out with 20 tunes from that
session.
So yeah, I think that's that
personally, that's probably my
favorite part is that we can just
get, get things going very quickly
and kind of bounce ideas off of each
other.
Yeah, the three of us that are the
core of the band, we speak the
same language and we all bring
really different kind of skillsets
to it.
And it's great because we do,
I think we've done a really great
job of one person bringing
something, bringing an idea or
a pattern or a groove, and then the
other two guys instantly know how to
apply their stamp
to it and it becomes something
very quickly.
So it's sounding like that when
you're studio together, it's
a pretty intense experience.
When you're practicing, you're
rehearsing, you're creating new
music, like all of this is going on
at the same time.
Kind of on a more personal level,
what have you learned about each
other, like when you were in that
setting?
Well, I've learned that I can trust
all these guys deeply,
you know, sometimes you
get into a studio scenario and it
takes a long time to get through it.
Maybe people get flustered or
whatever, but I know these
guys can keep their heads cool and
we can just plow through, even if
situations arise like, okay, maybe
that isn't how we envisioned
it. Let's, let's pivot and
just knowing that these guys
have my back and I've
got theirs is a real important
thing.
So the Animenos debut album is
set to be released later this year.
Tell us a little bit about it and
what we can expect to hear.
Well, as Niko mentioned earlier,
it's produced by Dan Auerbach
of The Black Keys on
his record label, E.T.I.
Sound.
Very, very lucky.
He heard us from a sidewalk.
We were playing a rooftop gig and he
heard us down on the sidewalk and...
So literally he was just walking by
and he heard you guys like from
above.
Yes.
And I joke frequently that it's very
good he couldn't see us, because
that might have
not inspired him to sign us.
However, we've put out
four singles from that
record so far, and with two more to
come, at least two more come, and
then it's gonna be a compilation of
the 10 or 11
or 12, maybe, best songs
from that session we did a
year and a half ago.
How do you pick the songs?
Like do you fall in love with all
the songs or do you sort of, can you
keep them at a distance and say,
yeah, that one's good.
No, maybe not that one.
How do do you, how do you?
I think they're all very
different in their own
ways, so we're happy
with any of them being included,
really. There's some obvious
standouts.
When we started the group, it was
very much instrumental, and
we've been trying to add more vocal
stuff to the mix, so I feel like
the vocal stuff is obviously
in the hat.
But the other ones, there's
one that I don't know if I
can even say the name of it yet, but
I hope it makes the record because
it's very cinematic and I feel like
we'll be getting calls from
Tarantino or whoever else to
score their films.
You heard it here first.
Film fame awaits.
So you guys are performing later on
in studio when a, and
you have a residency this month.
You've had one at Seaboy.
So can people still catch y'all
there? Is that still going on?
I know the month's almost over.
Absolutely.
This Thursday,
the 26th, is our final
residency evening at Sea Boys.
It's been a fantastic month at
personally my favorite club in town,
and every week has gotten just
bigger and better, and we have a lot
of special guests coming out on
Thursday, including my good
friend Otis Wilkins of
Otis the Destroyer and
the Otis-Wilkins Project, as well as
our friend Jaime Ospina of
Superfonicos.
And Wyatt Quarter of Big Wise Brass
Band. So lots of guests coming out
to hit the stage with us.
We're gonna play some surprising
covers people might not expect.
We're going to have a really fun
time with this last one.
Well, that sounds like an awesome
show. So beyond Thursday, tell us
about some other places where people
can catch y'all in the next few
weeks.
Uh, we're doing Antones on
March 7,
so that, that'll be, uh, the next
kind of big one before South
By, and then, you know, South By
will be playing all over town,
so.
Yeah, South By is going to be very
busy for us.
Lots of opportunities to see us.
And you'll be able to find all of
those at theanimettos.com.
Awesome Nick Tazo and
Nicola Sanchez of the Anumeros.
They are the KUTX artists of the
month for February.
Thank you both for coming in.
It's been great to talk with you.
Thank you! Yeah, thanks so much for
having us.
You can hear more from KUTX's
artist of the month, the animeros at
KUTx.org.
And that's it for today on Austin
Signal. We'll have more about the
stories and conversations we shared
with you today in the podcast,
Show Notes.
And you can find more from us
anytime.
Just go to KUT.org
slash signal.
Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director.
Jerry Quijano is producing
Austin Signal this week.
I'm your host Jennifer Staten,
looking forward to being back with
you again tomorrow.
Thanks for being with us today on
Austin Signal.