Bill Hicks

MountainFilm in Telluride on Tour

Enjoy Your Lunar New Year With Some Of Music's Greatest Butts

According to Chinese reckoning, today marks the lunar new year. It's the Year of the Dragon. Specifically, the Year of the Water Dragon, which I'm told will bestow a peaceful energy on the coming year, favoring the ideals of negotiation and forward thinking. I know, right? BOOORING. We Americans kn ... More >>

Clouds Are Ghosts: Harbinger Heralds Brilliance

We got into the Clouds are Ghosts while deconstructing their band name. It was clear when we heard their work that the band was good, we compared them to Legendary Pink Dots and the Irrespressibles and that is some of our highest praise. The only problem we ever had with their output was that the wh ... More >>

Comedy Open Mike Monday at Sherlock's

​The bathroom attendant at Sherlock's singing along to this song on the radio while I used the urinal was one of the more intimate non-sexual moments of my year so far. Here I was trying to piss, and there he was, earnestly expressing himself by the sink and waiting to hand me a paper towel. A ... More >>

Montrose Classic: Monday Night at Cecil's

It was a Monday night, and I was on the patio of Cecil's with a couple of friends. I looked toward the open part of the porch and saw two young men embrace. At first I thought the white guy with the shaved head was trying to express his affection for his skinny black friend by lifting him off the gr ... More >>

Your 2011 Fall/Winter Movie Preview - Part 2

​You know the drill: the fall movie season starts today, my pretties (my review of Contagion will be up soon...there's a reason it didn't make the preview). Yesterday we covered the first half of 2011's most anticipated upcoming releases, determined through a rigorous scientific analysis consi ... More >>

Who Is The Best Comedian Out Right Now?

Some rappers happen to be thoughtful, intelligent people. Every Monday that isn't a national holiday (or thereabouts), Rocks Off will have some of them here discussing issues relevant to their culture. Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray​This Week's Panel: Bun B, Renzo, Kyle Hubbard, Mr ... More >>

Pop Rocks: The Time Has Come, The Walrus Said, To Feed Hugh Hefner To Sharks

Hef's gonna need a bigger boat.​As you may have heard, Shark Week kicks off Sunday on the Discovery Channel. The seven days of (decreasingly) informative marine documentaries and (increasingly) lurid reenactments of REAL LIFE ATTACKS and exposing DEADLY WATERS and what not provide a welcome br ... More >>

American: The Bill Hicks Story

Todd Snider

We Get The Celebrity Offspring We Deserve

​You always want to be careful when writing about children. Not only because they're the future, as Whitney Houston and Bill Hicks once told us, but because it isn't exactly sporting to use your big person vocabulary and rhetorical arsenal to tee off on someone who hasn't yet been beaten into ... More >>

Idol Beat: Goodbye, You Lizard Scum

​I know the episodes of American Idol I'm watching were filmed months ago, and that what I'm seeing is not taking place in simulcast with this week's...Snowphoon (seriously, do you know how hard it is to come up with a quasi-humorous pun for blizzard anymore?). Even so, it's hard not to recall ... More >>

Vanilla Ice And 11 Other Artists Dallas Can Keep

​Tomorrow night at 2016 Mainstage, Houston gets to relive its (our?) dark white-rap past when Dallas native Vanilla Ice hits the stage at the venue formerly known Sammy's On Main. Yes, that Vanilla Ice, from our haughty neighbors to the north who can do no wrong in the eyes of Texas Monthly. ... More >>

A Preview Of The 2010 WorldFest, And A Chance To Win Big And See Stuff For Free

The 43rd annual WorldFest kicks off this Friday. The "fiercely independent" film festival is one of the oldest international fests in the country, and the oldest independent festival in the world. Many directors you may have heard of received their first awards here, including Steven Spielberg, Joh ... More >>

Ghosts of Washington Avenue

Noise goes whistling through the scenester artery's music venue graveyard.

Houston 101: Where Comedy Greats Got Their Start

​In the late 1970s, the explosion of stand-up comedy that eventually led to every half0sized burg having a strip-mall Laff Pit or Jokey McGags, complete with a bare-brick background, had yet to happen.Stand-up clubs outside of LA and New York were few and far between. That started to change in 197 ... More >>

Bill Hicks, Still Dead 15 Years Later

Wholly influential and ridiculously honest stand-up comic Bill Hicks died fifteen years ago today, succumbing to lung cancer. Ironically he had always opined that that was how he would meet his end. Smoking seemed to be his obsession and he was rarely seen onstage not puffing away. The comedian move ... More >>

Katt Williams

This pint-sized comedian continues his crude crusade with It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’ Tour

God, Texas and Tom Waits

Tom Waits may not come from around here, but a good chunk of his favorite music does

Lelia Rodgers's Matagorda Island Discs

Chris Rock

The comedy giant rolls through Houston

Joe Rogan

The host of Fear Factor and Man Show won’t let stealing slide

Henry Rollins

Former Black Flag frontman keeps the mike, loses the band

Stand-Up for Peace

Local comedians offer comic relief to those still frustrated with the war in Iraq

Chris Porter

This Last Comic Standing star recalls the late, great Bill Hicks

NOTSUOH'S

TEXAS PRAIRIE FIRE

Funny Business

Once upon a time Houston was a hot spot for comedy clubs. Now it's anybody's guess on who'll turn out on any given night

The Improv's

Cape Cod

Bellini Martini

River Oaks Lounge

RIP, Syd. And RIP, 'Cid.

A psychedelic pioneer and the drug that helped do him in are both sorely missed

Fruits and Hicks

Fashion Junkies

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Screen Playing

Hollywood mixes and mingles at the Austin Film Festival

Hey, Paula

Comedienne Poundstone doesn't hide from her past

Rat Pack Redux

The Whiskey Brothers ring the old-school bell

Comic Prophet

A televised tribute to a Houston comedy legend

Comic Confidence

Michael Colyar will make you laugh

Greg Wood

Ash Wednesday (Stag)

Racket

Houston's Toe Jam watches quietly as its 15 minutes tick by

Call of the Wild

Joe Rogan's stand-up is outspoken, vulgar, vile, cynical -- and maybe even funny

Best Comedy Club

Laff Stop

James Pineapple Esq. Is Dead!

But his creator, comic James Ladmirault, lives on

Local Rotation

I-45 Lost Between the Lines

Amplified

Local Music News

Houston, Humor Hotbed

Houston Comedy Festival

Live Shots

The Laugh Goodbye

Finally, Houston pays homage to its comic boy genius

Letters

Death of a Comic

Bill Hicks wasn't Houston's most famous funnyman, just the most important