Money and Masa
Though he’s only 18 years old, he says he’s been in the rap game for 25 years. They say he bought out Taco Cabana and will soon be renaming it Chingo Cabana. He’s the number one free-stylero from Valle Hermoso, North Tamaulipas. He’s been known to diss Donald Trump, Lyor…
Chop Talk
Last winter, bulldozers chopped down 41 trees at Memorial Park. Most people didn’t have any idea why. City councilmembers didn’t recall approving a plan to kill trees. Turns out, ten years ago, the city applied for federal funding to build a commuter bike trail. But as these things often go,…
Sky Pilots
I feel like someone is stepping on my neck, and it’s time to let off,” says Nick Midulla, the guitarist/songwriter/leader for Houston’s modern rock band Superna. The injury is allegorical, but you can’t blame the guy for feeling a bit stifled. In its short history, Superna has had two lengthy…
Hell on Earth
For the love of Christ, does Houston really need to jump on the religious-courthouses bandwagon? Few things in life are more tedious than cable-network shoutfests over such things as displaying the Ten Commandments in a public building. The smug self-righteousness on both sides — coupled with the take-no-prisoners ferocity over…
Coming Through in the Clutch
Rock bands are used to dealing with the unexpected. Missed sound checks, flat tires, broken strings, nonexistent hotel reservations and stolen amps are all part of the routine for the privileged few who get to make music for a living. Just watch out for the cock punch. Thus Neil Fallon,…
All in the NAACP Family
Like most officials of nonprofit groups, the executive committee members of the Houston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People don’t like surprises. Thanks to chapter president Luckett Johnson and his wife, TSU professor Marcia, that seems to be all they’ve been getting lately. The executive…
A Trip to Bountiful
As Billy Joe Shaver played his 1940s-style “The Good Ol’ USA,” only the eightysomething guy in the old Stetson and the UT golf shirt knew the moves. Dancing with a pretty blond some 50 years his junior, the natty old fellow was truly cutting a rug, as they used to…
Speak No Evil
Unlike a lot of media, the Houston Press was never an enthusiastic cheerleader for the so-called Houston Miracle, the unending public relations barrage that landed former HISD superintendent Rod Paige his job as U.S. secretary of education. And with the return of PR whiz Terry Abbott, the man behind the…
Brown Whörnet, with Oh, Beast! and Three Fantastic
Explaining Brown Whörnet’s music is no picnic. Critics have tripped all over themselves trying to describe the Austin collective’s sound, one of which takes the cake: “Yes on a boombox whose batteries are dying.” But when a band effortlessly flips from a parody of cheesy hair metal to a Barry…
Ol Ol Ol Ol
Despite being cash-strapped and prone to cutbacks these days, the Houston Independent School District dug into its piggy banks and came up with half a million dollars to renovate the playground area at the T.H. Rogers K-8 school. The $500,000 comes from the proceeds of the 1998 school construction bond…
Broadcast
Haha Sound (Warp)
Sidebar
Hidden Treasures of the Park Memorial Park is almost twice the size of Central Park. But it feels smaller because two-thirds of the park is covered in dense woods. And most of the trails aren’t marked or mapped. Houstonians use the park much like they do the city. Just as…
Toni Sicola
In the Sun White Cat Productions
Letters
ROCK or Crock? Dynamic arrival: Thanks for doing the feature on my pastor, Dr. Carson, and the ministry of the ROCK [“Godspell,” by Michael Serazio, August 21]. It will be a blessing to the Houston area once the word is out that there is a dynamic ministry in town, one…
Edwyn Collins
The Billboard history books are awash with one-hit wonders. And yet Gary Numan, Soft Cell and even the Knack still maintain enough devoted fans to justify stateside catalog reissues and reunion tours. While Edwyn Collins’s day in the sun might not hold the immediate resonance of “Cars,” “Tainted Love” or…
Adaptation
Before the curtains part on Things Being at the Worst, the audience sits in the dark, listening to the sounds of the disastrous opening night of a play-within-a-play called The Wedding Planner. Its audience riots after being subjected to a violent, bloody “comedy” in which children are slaughtered while opera…
Whirlwind Heat, with the Kills and the Singles
Whirlwind Heat appears Wednesday, September 10, at Fat Cat’s, 4216 Washington Avenue. The Kills and the Singles are also on the bill. For more information, call 713-869-5263.
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, September 4 “You’re suspended!” isn’t a phrase that members of CoRE Suspension would find too punishing. They like being suspended, hanging in the air by pieces of metal inserted into their skin. If you’re squeamish, we’d suggest skipping CoRE’s show today at Numbers. The group will be performing what…
NTX & The Electric Sexxx
If you get out the sandpaper and start working away at the Electric Sexxx’s sound, if you rub away some of the distortion from the vocals, a little of the fuzz from the guitars, if you get the random dogs to bark in tune, if you ice some of the…
Deep South
Almost a decade ago, April Reynolds, the author of Knee-Deep in Wonder, went to the hospital with her family to say good-bye to her father, who was expected to die. But he didn’t, surprising doctors by waking up from his coma with a grin on his face. After his brush…
Gritty Girls
Most will deny it, but inside every grown man lurks a hypersensitive adolescent girl. Allow me to tell you all about mine and to share some of my poetry… Whoa! Relax. Put away that gun. Just seeking to emphasize that in the case of director Catherine Hardwicke’s debut feature, thirteen,…
Torn Identity
Are you a name-brand shopper? If so, then “5×7/Houston” probably isn’t for you. Billed as an “exhibition and art spree,” it’s an annual fund-raiser for the Austin-based organization Arthouse. The event presents hundreds of small works (they’re all five by seven inches), displayed anonymously, by both established and emerging artists…
Fog
Album of the year. There. It has been written. Too much hype? Most certainly. But screw it, this record is amazing, a triumph, a sublime schizophrenic sound-self-portrait that tickles and hurts and burns and soothes, all at the same time. If you haven’t already, meet Minneapolis resident Andrew Broder, a.k.a…
Fight Night
SAT 9/6 Fight Night Blood. Mayhem. Flying teeth. No, it isn’t hockey (even if it does pull in the same big-spending, action-hungry, beer-fed fans). It’s extreme fighting. Now in its tenth year, the sport is a far cry from its predecessor, the so-called Tough Guy tournaments featuring tipsy, out-of-shape dudes…
Divine Decadence
Many observant Jews in Israel and America are outraged by writer-director Eitan Gorlin’s brash first feature, The Holy Land, and it’s easy to see why. It’s not every day you encounter a film about an uncertain rabbinical student who falls in love with a Russian prostitute, in the holy city…
Snapping Away
SUN 9/7 Students at Yates Magnet School in the Third Ward used to complain that the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston was a boring place to visit. Then they started to see their own photographs on the gallery walls, and the MFAH became a standard of excellence for young artists…
A Worlds View
The first thing you should know about Russell Crotty is that he lives in California, in the hills above Malibu. The second thing you should know is that he has his own small observatory in those hills, housing a ten-inch, f/8 Newtonian reflector telescope (I have no idea what that…
Multimedia Marathon
Phony aesthetes might want to take a pass on the Downtown Stomp Around. Featuring eight gallery openings at five stops, this mother of all openings will belie any poseur’s pretense of artistic expertise. After all, how many times can someone stroke his goatee and mutter the same polysyllabic comments before…
Mexico City Tex-Mex
Tlacoyos turn out to be fried pielike ovals of masa dough filled with beans and then baked. There are three of them on the plate, covered with salsa verde, sour cream, chopped lettuce and sliced radishes, with a sprinkling of Mexican cheese on top. They’re so good, my dining companion…
Go Weston
SAT 9/6 Jazz pianist and composer Randy Weston is a living legend. The self-proclaimed musical anthropologist, who’s been playing for four decades, is still kicking it, touring and recording with the Randy Weston African Rhythms Trio. Percussionist Neil Clarke and bassist Alex Blake will join him at Miller Outdoor Theatre…
Deconstructing Joe
Before you get heated up over which is better, New York thin-crust or Chicago thick-crust pizza, Star Pizza (2111 Norfolk, 713-523-0800, and 77 Harvard, 713-869-1241) has solved the problem by making both. To complicate matters, however, there is also the decision of whether you prefer a white or whole wheat…