Playbill
It’s hard to believe there was a time — a long time, in fact — when Tony Bennett was considered passé. Throughout most of the ’70s and ’80s he was thought of as a relic of a generation gone by, not the cultural icon who made records with Bill Evans…
Tooned In To Anime
Every year for the past 12 years, fans of anime — Japanese animation — have converged on Dallas in the summer heat for their own special convention, a crowded and somewhat disorganized affair called Project A-kon. Some come in elaborate homemade costumes, puzzling staff at hotels where the event takes…
Playbill
Wouldn’t it be cool to chill with hizzoner at the Mayor’s Jazz Brunch? It’s easy to imagine Lee Brown as a smooth jazz cat. Okay, so at $75, it is the most expensive event at the Houston International Jazz Festival. But this year’s Jazz Brunch is an opportunity to rub…
In Highest Praise
You wouldn’t know by looking at Bobby Beaver that he is an anime fan. He wears normal clothes for a 31-year-old man: polo shirts and jeans, with sneakers. He works as a salesman at Conn’s electronics store. He cracks jokes often, making the kind of self-deprecating comments that reveal he…
Aterciopelados
Aterciopelados means “the velvety ones,” and on Gozo Poderoso (“Powerful Pleasure”), vocalist Andrea Echeverri and bassist/ producer Hector Buitrago are exactly that. The Colombian duo’s latest CD is a collection of soft rock rhythms, enlightened lyrics and a heavy dose of montuños. With four previous CDs and two Grammy nominations…
Forever On His Toes
In his office, Ben Stevenson is surrounded by friends. The walls are covered with framed autographs and letters and photos of famous dancers and musical theater stars. Outside, his smiling secretary arranges his lunch plans and gets his coffee. Above him, in the airy rehearsal studios of the Houston Ballet…
Sad Like Crazy
The big concern going in: How does Love Songs stack up to SLC’s past studio stuff, not to mention its live performances? That worry dissipates, however, after the first five seconds of the raw, energetic “Kid in the Corner.” It’s a darn good opener to a completely endearing album. Sure,…
Battle Corps
They arrived as professionals, 30 or so men and women fashionably attired in finely tailored business clothes and exchanging cordial welcomes. Speaking in low, cultured tones, often in accented English, they entered the boardroom of the Greater Houston Partnership. As the February meeting was called to order, they listened attentively…
Minibill
Break out the chiffon skirts, lace shawls and unicorn-embroidered diaries. Rock’s white witch is back, bringing with her a sizable back catalog of Fleetwood Mac and solo hits as well as new material from her surprisingly strong Trouble in Shangri-La. While featuring guest appearances from a younger generation of femmes…
Rx for Failure?
For years, Harris County’s public mental health clinics have doled out medications to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disease and other serious psychiatric disorders at on-site pharmacies. The policy has obvious benefits: Patients don’t have to make a separate trip to fill their prescriptions, and county physicians are assured that patients receive…
Minibill
Out of the ashes of the Shimmy Shack (which itself arose out of the implosion of the Bon Ton Room) came Mary Jane’s in August 1994. Founded by ex-Rudyard’s employee Toby Blunt, the club has outlasted both of its Washington Avenue predecessors. Originally home to the owner’s Blunt Family house…
You’ve Got Killer Mail
It wasn’t that long ago that Angel Maturino Resendiz, the Railcar Killer, was being swamped with letters from journalists eager to interview him. Network news shows, national magazines, the bright lights of television were all his for the asking. Now he’s reduced to writing letters to Inside Houston magazine. In…
Minibill
All right, admit it. You watched VH1’s Bands on the Run. Who among us was not sucked in by the bisexual goth gals, the frenetic selling of “merch” and the twisted acts of debauchery night after beer-soaked night? True, most were Flickerstick fans at first. And why not? The DFW…
Money Men
There is only one reason Jon Favreau’s new film is called Made. Not too long ago, his old friend and co-star Vince Vaughn called him up and told him, in no uncertain terms, “You gotta write something that can get made.” It was less a demand than it was a…
Minibill
Allen Hope was a Roman Catholic teenager working in Kingston for the Jamaican phone company in the late ’60s when he discovered Rastafarianism and the writings of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver. A newly radicalized Hope adopted the Rastafarian religion (or nonreligion, as he would have it, for Rastas are…
Awards
On national, regional and state fronts, the Houston Press received good news in several recent contests. Nationally, Press writer Jesse Washington won first place in the National Association of Black Journalists contest in the category of sports stories for publications of under 150,000 circulation. His feature “A Dying Race” looked…
Tucker-ed Out
The most telling scene in Rush Hour 2 comes during the closing-credits montage of outtakes that have become the most enjoyable part of Jackie Chan’s Hollywood outings. Chris Tucker, the poor man’s Eddie Murphy, who now pockets more than the real thing per picture, and Chan have just pushed one…
Letters
Pull Back the Cover Old wounds: During the McVeigh incident when papers had not been turned over [“Files Not Found,” by Steve McVicker, July 19], I heard someone say a qualifying statement: I like to judge how free I am by how many people take cover when needed because they…
Anger Management
Times certainly have changed. Twenty years ago, a musical about an East German transsexual rock singer would have premiered in one of New York’s off-off-Broadway theaters or cabarets, run for a couple of weeks and remained a pleasant memory of a select few. But when John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and…
Retrodome
When you ask an architect why she went into the business, the answer you’ll often hear is “to create something that will be around long after I’m gone.” She might be thinking about the Mayan temples or the Roman Colosseum, but times have changed. The Astrodome was the Eighth Wonder…
Artificial Light
Houston can be a place of strange contrasts for us transplants. The odd urban-residential texture fostered by a lack of zoning; the mile upon mile of shopping centers, all looking the same despite their pathetic attempts to distinguish themselves from one another; the ribbons of highways that tie this sprawl…
Spellbound
Everywhere you look, you’re surrounded by a texture resembling the base of a cypress tree. Overhead, backlit, hardened streams of amber light your path. You’ve been transported to a jungle world, the land of the Ewoks, maybe. No, you’re inside the Lost River Cafe, the restaurant half of Spellbinders Variety…
Unholy Ghost
Since the invention of television and the VCR, we’ve all but lost the art of the well-told ghost story, the sort that keeps you up late at night searching the darkness for moving shadows. After all, who wants to compete with such contemporary myths as Jason hacking up campers in…
Pack Fair & Square
In Houston, home of the most significant African-American-owned recording empire of the 1950s, there remains today an ever-decreasing group of players who were actually there. In the Fifth Ward studios of Duke and Peacock Records, these people helped define modern blues and early R&B. Most worked behind stars such as…
A Matter of Fat
American steaks: First of a three-part series Our waiter is an older man in a white waiter’s jacket, a black tie and a long white apron. He recommends the USDA Prime New York strip, a specialty of Palm restaurant on Westheimer. We get one strip and one porterhouse, both medium…
Business Versus Pleasure
A couple of Sundays ago, Troy Birkett, better known to the ballers and ballettes as Lil’ Troy, had a little get-together over at Club Jamaica Jamaica. “Oh, man, we had a ball,” says the Lil’ One. “Everybody had fun. We had a caterer come in…We popped bottles of Moët. We…
No Cash Back
The story began as a sort of business-school fairy tale. A student in the University of Houston’s business incubator program, Rasheed K. Refaey, came up with a model business plan for a class. The plan was modified and refined; two other young men with an interest in the same line…
Great Scott
A year after the debut of her critically acclaimed first album, there are those who are still asking, “Who is Jill Scott?” You can hardly blame them, because there are multiple answers. Scott is R&B’s latest It Girl and the current poster child for the neo-soul movement (see: Lauryn Hill,…
Stirred and Shaken
In the days of old, the word “work” described something done in a real place, not in “regions” or “markets” or “new media.” One was a “welder” at the “shipyard” or a “steelworker” at the “mill.” There was something called the “night shift” or the “graveyard shift” at these places…
Racket
When the Houston Press last looked in at the embattled studios of KPFT, gadfly Edwin Johnston and station savior/ nemesis (depending on whom you believe) Garland Ganter’s war of words had finally escalated into actual violence. Johnston was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault, of which he was acquitted late…
Rib Ticklers
The in-laws may be fodder for jokes, but the barbecue is no laughing matter at Brother-in-Law’s (503 Freeport Street, 713-453-2676). This 25-year-old family operation in east Harris County rides herd on some of the best ‘cue in the state. Trust us, you haven’t really wrestled a rack of ribs until…