“Hair of the Dog” Rockers Nazareth Fight Back Against Retirement
Nazareth No Means of EscapeEagle Rock Entertainment, 173 mins., $19.98 Blu-Ray/$14.98 DVD When it was announced in 2013 that Nazareth singer Dan McCafferty was retiring from touring due to health problems that made it impossible for him to complete a show, many figured that would be the end for the venerable Scottish…
New Staple Singers Box Set Is Just Heavenly
In 1949, singer/guitarist Roebuck “Pops” Staples had had it with his band. Had it with their lack of commitment, spotty appearances at rehearsals, and lackadaisicalness. So the Chicagoan recruited his four children – Pervis, Cleotha, Yvonne, and Mavis – and taught them songs. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” being the…
McAllen Label Enlists Bands to Fight Police Brutality
This past weekend, a young label out of McAllen named Edgar’s Friends released a compilation tape, entitled No Ruido No Noise, to raise money for charities involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, including Hands Up United and Sandy Speaks, organizations founded after the deaths of Mike Brown and Sandra Bland…
Dish of the Week: Pumpkin Mousse
From classic comfort foods to regional standouts and desserts, we’ll be sharing a new recipe with you each week. Find other dishes of the week here. This week, we’re bringing you a new take on a classic Thanksgiving flavor with Pumpkin Mousse. The French word for “foam” “moss” or “froth”,…
More With Mydolls: “Being Yourself Is Always in Fashion”
Over the last decade, Mydolls have rejuvenated themselves by branching deep into local music again. In the fabled past, they haunted clubs like Caribana, the Island, Rudyards, and Numbers; in some cases, they have returned to those grounds but also lit up fires under new, wide-eyed audiences at Walters, Super…
Houston’s 5 Best Weekend Food Bets: A Tamalada & a Whiskey Brunch
Tamalada Brunch @ Arnaldo Richards’ Picos Saturday, noon to 2 p.m. 3601 Kirby In addition to the first-ever tamale-making demonstration from Executive Chef Arnaldo Richards, enjoy the restaurant’s 2nd Annual Tamalada Brunch. The $20 per person brunch event includes all of Picos’ authentic tamales, paired with salsas, traditional accompaniments and…
Upcoming Houston Food Events: Last Call for White Truffles
White truffle season may be coming to an end, but for at least the next couple of weeks, Kata Robata, 3600 Kirby, will still be serving the “diamonds of the kitchen.” Chef Manabu Horiuchi (better known and ‘Hori’) will have several specials using the bits of Italian gold, including seared…
Genesis Steakhouse: Compelling Fare That Just Happens to Be Kosher
In the middle of Genesis Steakhouse “grows” a tree, a fitting allusion to the “tree of life” and origin of creation outlined in the eponymous first book of the Bible. Its presence is soothing and presages the luxurious dining experience that awaits you when you take your seat at one…
Happily, Locals Muddy Belle Ain’t a “Hotline Bling” Kind of Band
Houston’s Muddy Belle could have gone minimalist and meme-able a la Drake’s “Hotline Bling” for its new video. The band might have considered a literal re-telling of “Won’t Be No More,” complete with the over-the-top dramatic acting of Adele’s “Hello.” Maybe it even considered a storyboard that drew out nothing…
“Contingent Beauty” Features Key Works by Major Latin American Artists
Marì Carmen Ramirez, curator of “Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America,” says that one work in the show neatly sums up the spirit of the exhibit, Miguel Ángel Rojas’s Broadway (seen above). The piece is an installation of coco leaves spread across a white wall. “That to me is…
100 Favorite Houston Dish 2015, No. 36: Bacon Mochi at Izakaya
Like Helen last week, Izakaya lands a “double win” with both a very good review and a dish that deserves a spot on the 100 Dishes list the same week. The dish is the Bacon Mochi: soft rice cakes wrapped with bacon. Once they’ve met their porky match, the cakes…
Magical Winter Lights Promises a Different Kind of Holiday Festival
The inaugural Magical Winter Lights lantern festival is huge. Like ginormous. There are more than 100 lantern sets (more on that in a minute), a full carnival, a large food court and a busy schedule of live performances. The lantern displays, each a replica of a famous landmark from around…
First Look at Les Ba’get Vietnamese Cafe in Montrose
Les Ba’get, the new brick and mortar by the owners of the now-retired Les Ba’get gourmet food truck, is the contemporary Vietnamese restaurant that Houston has been waiting for. At just 1,450 square feet, it’s small, but you know that saying about good things coming in small packages? It definitely…
New Houston Rap: Propain Channels ‘Rocky’ For ‘Against All Odds’
Propain likes to work within OutKast’s old release method. Release a project one year, tour off of it the next, and so on and so forth. Then again, that’s Chris Dudley’s nature for recording, period. He walks into a recording booth and tries to throw the weight of the world…
The 10 Raunchiest Songs in Country Music History
Country music has a reputation as a pretty strait-laced genre. You don’t get the reputation as the “God, guns, and beer” crowd without keeping it, for the most part, clean. Which means that country songwriters had to get creative, layering tracks with subtle (and not-so-subtle) sexual innuendo. To put it…
Houston Whatever Fest Local Spotlight: Catch Fever
Note: all this week, we will be highlighting Houston acts performing at this weekend’s Houston Whatever Fest. The reality of being in a full-time band quickly demystifies the post-practice daydreams of superstardom during those glorified garage days. The day-to-day grind is rarely chronicled: the exhaustive process of securing rehearsal time,…
Astros SS Carlos Correa Wins American League Rookie of the Year
For Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, the clock really began ticking on his tenure as architect for the next era of Astros baseball with the first pick in the 2012 entry draft. In a draft class headlined by pitcher Mark Appel (who would eventually go back to school for…
5 Thanksgiving Wines Under $20 or “You Opened the Merlot Without Me?”
Come November each year, nearly everyone in America (of a certain age) remembers the line from Barry Levinson’s 1990 classic film “Avalon”: “You cut the turkey without me? You might as well have stabbed me through the heart!” Gabriel Krichinsky’s hyperbolic lament has come to embody the family mishegas (that’s…
The 10 Most Prophetic Texans-Bengals Rapper Tweets
The Houston Texans’ 2015 season began with HBO’s Hard Knocks introducing the team to America at large. It took a month of filming and some fancy editing to present to the nation our sometimes thrilling and frequently frustrating NFL franchise, but Home Box Office could have saved all that time…
Parker Won’t Resurrect HERO Before Leaving Office
After a crushing defeat at the polls, supporters of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance wondered whether Mayor Annise Parker, who championed the sweeping non-discrimination law before City Council, would bring it back to council members in her final weeks as mayor. On Monday Parker took that option off the table,…
NFL Week 10: Texans 10, Bengals 6 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
If it were the first week in September, and you were drawing up the blueprint for how this 2015 version of the Houston Texans was going to win football games, that plan was on full display on Monday night in Cincinnati. The Texans won the turnover battle (2-0), the Texans…
Push Me Faster!
Los Trompos is one of those public art installations that can be heard before it’s seen, as on a pretty day the sounds of excited children yelling, “push me faster” and “me next” can be heard while walking up to downtown’s Discovery Green®. Developed by Mexican designers Héctor Esrawe and…
This Week in Houston Food Blogs: Pumpkin Pie for Breakfast
This week, we’re starting to think about some Thanksgiving ideas, plus reviews of restaurants new and old. Stay tuned to see what our Houston food bloggers are talking about! First up is a way to get your mornings off to a great start; Claire of The Petite Professional blog shared…
Stephen Lang’s Beyond Glory Is About Ideals, Not Politics
Stephen Lang’s acting career took a decisive turn in 2003 when he read Larry Smith’s Beyond Glory, a collection of oral histories by soldiers from WWII and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. “[It was] a time when I thought our nation was about as fractured as it had been in…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 37: Nasi Lemak at Banana Leaf
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
Cruz OK’s Syrian Refugees, But Only If They’re Christian
Are you a frightened refugee fleeing the violent mess in Syria? Are you also Christian? Good! Sen. Ted Cruz likes you. Welcome to America! Are you pretty much the exact same person, but not Christian? Well then, in Republican presidential candidate Cruz’ fantasy world, you can take a hike. And according…
Pub Plus: Choose Your Own Food and Drink Adventure at Izakaya
In Japan, an izakaya is like a pub, where the food is designed to complement the drinks. At the Houston restaurant simply called Izakaya, though, some of the dishes are so gorgeous that they can’t help but take center stage. Take, for example the bagna càuda with mentaiko dip. The…
After Losing an Election, Natalie Blasingame Still Fights to Get God Back in Schools
When Natalie Blasingame talks about “the enemy,” she’s not talking about her opponent in the last Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School Board election. She’s talking about “Satan, the Devil, the evil” that exists in this world creating discord and dividing people. That she chose to include that phrase in a flyer inviting…
The Altruists: Murder, Mistaken Identity and Misconstrued Relationships
The Rice Players, the oldest student-run theatre company in Houston, offers some memorable moments during their current run of Nicky Silver’s The Altruists. It’s a difficult but fast-paced production with many monologues – oftentimes delivered to the fourth wall – as three separate storylines weave together in a comedy with…
The Menil Has Put Together a Small but Fascinating Exhibit of Dali’s Work
At the risk of giving away an art reviewer trade secret, it’s all in the first line — or put another way, in the beginning. But coming up with a review’s first line that’s pithy, provocative, amusing and risqué enough to be worthy of Salvador Dalí’s Eggs on the Plate…
Plan B: Brennan Williams Hopes to Turn His NFL Disappointment Into a Wrestling Career
For Brennan Williams, the phone call came on a Monday night in late October, as he was watching that week’s episode of Monday Night RAW at his parents’ home in Easton, Massachusetts. On the other end of the line was the New England Patriots, offering him what he knew would…
Upcoming: 30footFALL, CHVRCHES, Deicide, Carrie Underwood, Jason Isbell, Kid Cudi, Megsgiving, Lamb of God, RL Grime, etc.
30footFALL: Fri., December 25, 8 p.m., TBA. Fitzgerald’s, 2706 White Oak, Houston, 713-862-3838. 4th Annual Doomsgiving: With Project Armageddon, Linus Pauling Quartet, The Dirty Seeds, Serpent Sun. Sat., December 5, 9 p.m., $8. Rudyard’s, 2010 Waugh, Houston, 713-521-0521. 8th Annual Saint Arnold Foamraiser: With Folk Family Revival., Sat., November 28,…
Despite Big Business Stigma, Iron Chef Competition Exemplifies Talent of Landry’s Chefs
Imagine that you’re working on a special project and have mere minutes left to finish. Your peers are watching you complete your last few tasks and two guys keep popping in and out of the room calling out how many minutes you have left. Running late isn’t an option. Once…
Billboards, Fast Food and Peter Case’s Much Different America
Peter Case is a mosaic of American underground music that has simmered for more than 40 years. As a late-1960s teen, he sought out bluesmen and gigged with anti-establishment schoolmates, like a soapbox hero behind jangly chords; in the 1970s, he joined the premier neo-punk unit the Nerves and disseminated…
Long May He Run: Coffee Table Book Fetes Neil Young on His 70th
Neil Young: Heart of GoldBy Harvey Kubernik Backbeat Books, 224 pp. $34.99 He’s just turned 70, but does rock and roll have any other artist that is still more continually evolving, both pleasing and provoking his audience, than Neil Young? Since 2012, he’s put out five studio albums ranging from a collection…
Two of Three Teen Jail Escapees Captured
Authorities have captured two of three 16 year olds who escaped from the Harris County Juvenile Probation Center just after midnight Sunday. According to Assistant District Attorney Martina Longoria, the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force captured two of the offenders—Alferis Coby and Deionthay Harper, charged with capital murder and…
Killer in 1991 Montrose Murder Granted Parole
Jon Buice, who, as a plea deal, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the murder of a gay man in 1991, has been granted parole and may be released by next October, the Houston Chronicle reports. In Montrose in 1991, Buice and nine other juveniles from The Woodlands—who…
Abbott (Of Course) Vows Not to Let Syrians Into Texas
Well, that didn’t take long. In the wake of the stunning terrorist attacks on Paris last Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott has already taken a firm position on the Syrian refugee crisis, writing to President Barack Obama that Texas isn’t going to let the doings of one extremist group color its…
Family Sues HISD, Bus Manufacturer Over Fatal School Bus Crash
The family of a 17-year old student killed in September’s fatal school bus crash filed a lawsuit today alleging negligence by Houston Independent School District and the manufacturer of the bus, International Truck and Engine Corporation. On the morning of September 15, a bus carrying four students bound for HISD’s…
Feds Will Cut St. Joseph’s Funding Over Shooting of Mentally Ill Patient
Federal health officials have announced they will take the rare step of cutting all Medicare and Medicaid funding to St. Joseph Medical Center on December 3, a potentially catastrophic blow to the downtown hospital. The announcement comes after a federal inquiry into the case of an off-duty Houston Police Department…
Juan Gabriel Celebrates His Mexico In Houston
Juan Gabriel Toyota Center November 15, 2015 When was the last time that you cried? About anything? About nothing? Maybe you saw one of those military homecoming videos on YouTube. Or dropped your taco. Or fell in love, but the other person didn’t feel the same way about you. Crying…
Ken Paxton: Mo’ Motions, Mo’ Prosecutor Smackdowns
Indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton’s arguments to dismiss securities fraud charges appear to becoming more desperate, if special prosecutors’ recent filings are any indication. In a series of elegantly acerbic responses, Brian Wice, Kent Schaefer, and Nicole LaBorde have painted Paxton as an Animal House-esque doofus and a student of…
Deafheaven Crushes, Then Commiserates with Warehouse Live Crowd
Deafheaven, Tribulation Warehouse Live November 13, 2015 Deafheaven is a band that catches you off guard the first time you hear them. The greater body of their music is chilling black metal performed with all the frosty, mechanized intensity that such an extreme style demands. But beating inside all that…
Dish of the Week: Avgolemono (Greek Lemon Soup)
From classic comfort foods to regional standouts and desserts, we’ll be sharing a new recipe with you each week. Find other dishes of the week here. With the colder weather creeping in, we’re sharing a recipe for the classic Greek soup, avgolemono. Avgolemono is a soup or sauce made of…
Doctor Who: “Sleep No More” Is Not That Terrible
I usually avoid social media on Saturdays because even though most Doctor Who fans over in Britain are very considerate about not spoiling the episode for the Americans who get it hours later. Still, I kept seeing the same message all over Facebook and Twitter from across the pond: “Sleep…
Ian Abramson Brings His Absurdest Comedy to Whatever Fest
Comedian Ian Abramson has a slightly odd – okay, maybe very odd – approach to his stand up. “Other people do ‘this is who I am and this how I grew up.’ I do the opposite of that. Absolutely none of [my comedy]is about my real life or who I…
College Football, Week 11 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
The college football world has a funny way of pre-determining which of the 15 or so Saturdays in the fall are the ones where (using my urgent Joe Tessitore voice) “legends are made and legacies are shattered in an instant.” The proverbial “Shakedown Saturday,” if you will. It was supposed…
This Week in Houston Food Events: Wine All You Want
Monday, November 16 Considering Cabernet Bear Dalton of Spec’s is hosting another wine class at l’Alliance Française at 7 p.m., and this one focuses on cabernet sauvignon and other cabernet-based blends from California, especially the Napa Valley. The class will touch on the history of cabernet, how it’s blended, how…
First Look at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse Downtown
It’s been named one of the Top Five Steakhouses in America by the Food Network; one of the Top 10 Best Fine Dining Restaurants in the United States; and has won several Best Of titles from the Houston Press, including this year’s award for Best Service. Of the 50 or…
NASA Has A New Spacesuit for the Big Mars Trip
Unless you’ve been living off the grid, you probably know that NASA is supposed to have humans land on Mars by the 2030s. That may seem like a long way off, but NASA is actually about to start recruiting astronauts for the Mars mission and scientific-types have been working on the…
Tasty Tacos + Beautiful Weather = A Fun First Tacolandia in Houston
The weather for the inaugural Houston Press Tacolandia event just couldn’t have been better. Clear skies and temperatures in the 60s and a beautiful view of the downtown skyline made The Water Works park on Buffalo Bayou a perfect setting. This wasn’t the first Tacolandia ever held. The event has…
It’s Difficult to Like Charlotte in Everything Will Be Different, But Actress Clarity Welch Delivers a Tour-de-force Performance
Fifteen-year-old Charlotte (a wildly unfiltered Clarity Welch) is a mess. The poster child of teen angst, this high-schooler is devastated by the death of her beloved beautiful mother. She’s adrift, unmoored, and riddled with enough untethered teen spirit to propel an entire series of made-for-TV, after-school specials. Which is just…
24 Hours In Galveston: Gaido’s, BLVD Seafood, Ocean Grille & Hey Mikey’s Ice Cream
As I drove over the long causeway that connects Galveston to the Texas mainland, I thought, “I don’t come here often enough.” It’s 84 miles from my house in far northwest Houston, so it’s not exactly a short trip. On the other hand, I don’t think twice about getting on…
The Postma(n) Delivers UH A Miracle Win
Perhaps it was playing before a record crowd crammed inside of TDECU Stadium. Maybe it was playing a 8-1 Memphis football team that was the best opponent the University of Houston had faced the entire season. It could be as simple as sideline guests JJ Watt and DeAndre Hopkins contaminating…
7 Things People Do to Their Cars That Make Them Look and Sound Like Crap
You know the feeling. You’re driving along passing by the more or less generic looking cars on the highway, when you spot one that stands out from the crowd. In some cases, it’s a vintage car that’s been lovingly preserved or restored, creating an instant flashback to a long gone…
Leon Bridges’s Old Soul Woos and Wows House of Blues
Leon Bridges, Dovetail House of Blues November 13, 2015 When you first lay eyes on Leon Bridges, he’s a throwback: bowler shoes, cropped haircut, suit and tie. In his off days he can be found in Dallas, thrift-shopping to find retro threads that match his demeanor. I played “River,” the…
Houston Whatever Fest Local Spotlight: Gio Chamba
Note: all this week, we will be highlighting Houston acts performing at this weekend’s Houston Whatever Fest. The scene: a miserably humid August evening at the Nightingale Room downtown. After experiencing floods of Biblical proportions, as Noah and his big boat of VIPs passed the rest of us by, a…
Drug Test Proves High School Girl Wasn’t High, School Suspends Her Anyway
For one sophomore at Klein Collins High School, showing up a little late to school one Friday spiraled into a 30-day suspension after school officials accused her of being high—based on nothing more than a school nurse’s opinion. On October 23, school administrators called Hailey Gibbons’s mother, Jennifer Saxton, saying they…
Supreme Court to Hear Texas Abortion Case
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced it will hear a challenge to Texas’s omnibus abortion law, a case that has the potential to redefine what restrictions states can legally place on abortion providers. The law, House Bill 2, has been a point of contention ever since it hit the…
Hotze and Woodfill Get Their Hate on in the Chron
Steve Hotze’s and Jared Woodfill’s opinion piece in Friday’s Houston Chronicle is an important contribution to history. It preserves in amber (OK, ink or pixels) the hate, bigotry, and fear-mongering that killed a bill that would have extended protection from discriminatory practices in the country’s fourth-largest city, circa 2015. One…
Chance the Rapper Brings Some Family Matters to Houston
Family Matters Tour feat. Chance the Rapper, D.R.A.M & The Social Experiment Revention Music Center November 12, 2015 Every time you see Chance the Rapper, the skinny twentysomething Chicagoan with a creative spirit as big as a football stadium, you find something new to love about him. Before his last…
Cruz and Trump are Neck in Neck in a Texas Poll
Well, this is an interesting development. Somehow GOP presidential contenders Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz are currently tied with Texas voters, according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll issued this week. We’re not kidding. Four months away from the Texas Republican primary both Cruz and Trump have managed…
Darkside Metal Madness Ensures No Cancer Patient Stands Alone
October’s pink has now shaded into more traditional fall colors, but that doesn’t mean the scourge of cancer has fallen away like so many brown leaves from a tree. Any of us who have seen it ravage a loved one — which is practically all of us — know cancer…
Mastema Sets Out to Make a (New) Name for Themselves with EP Release
For an up-and-coming metal band, standing out from the shaggy, head-banging pack is top priority. Local thrashers Legion rose to the top of the city’s lively speed-metal scene over the past four years by whipping up gnarly pits with their nuclear, throwback metalli-riffs, but no matter how fast and hard…
‘Janis: Little Girl Blue’ Offers Revealing Portrait of Texas’ Rock Icon
What would it take to raise a real sense of sorrow over the loss of someone who died nearly a half-century ago, even someone as iconic as Janis Joplin? Time heals all wounds, the wisdom goes, but there’s a fresh melancholy that comes from watching Janis: Little Girl Blue. The…
College and NFL Football: This Weekend’s Best Bets
Finally, last week I was able to end my recent slide, pop a 4-2 record, and get us back above .500 on the season. It’s nothing to be proud of, but dammit, it’s progress! And we will take progress! Now, we head into nut cutting time in college and the…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes, No. 38: Make Your Own Gyro at Helen Greek Food & Wine
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
The Grooviest Texas Music Film You’ll See All Year
Doug Sahm was one of the best evangelists for Texas music this state has ever known, but his mythical powers always seemed to dissolve at the state line. Certainly he was idolized and admired by many of his fellow musicians, had his fair share of champions within the music business,…
Some Metro Riders Still Wait For Concerns To Be Heard
For Jose Avila, more transfers on Metro’s new bus network has meant one thing: crossing more streets. Avila has not been to The Lighthouse of Houston, a community center for blind people like him, since Metro implemented the most drastic public transportation redesign since the 1970s this past August. The…
Houston’s 5 Best Weekend Food Bets: Unlimited Tacos Are Coming
Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market @ NRG Center Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday – Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 1 NRG Park Get your holiday shopping done early (and get a taste of some of the best treats around) at this festive holiday market. The NRG Center will…
EaDo Celebrates a Full Year of Wonky Power on Saturday
The tiny record label with the strangest name in town turns a year old this weekend. Fittingly enough, Wonky Power Records — the Eastside recording studio/rehearsal space/party palace that’s home to local acts including Bang Bangz, Tax the Wolf, GIO Chamba, FLCON FCKER and more — will celebrate the completion…
There’s A New Attitude With Rice Basketball
Rice basketball fans have heard it all before. That this season is going to be different. That this is the year the Owls get it together. That there’s a reason to be excited because the Owls are going to rise to the challenge. It’s all been said before, many times,…
Attorney-Client Phone Calls Part of Massive Prison Phone System Hack
At least 14,000 recordings of attorney-client phone calls from jails and prisons across the country were leaked from a Dallas-based phone service provider, a year after a group of Austin lawyers sued the company for illegally recording privileged conversations. The Intercept’s November 11 report on the massive data breach is…
Pictureplane’s Travis Egedy: Confessions of a Technomancer
DIY musician, producer, artist, and fashion designer, Pictureplane’s Travis Egedy keeps ahead of the dust clouds. I’m for anyone who can get stupid with the science fiction. Pictureplane’s music reeks of MDMA, euro-techno vibes, and house music, with a lot of information packed within — knowledge of bad behavior and…
Upcoming Houston Food Events: A Burger of the Month & Tamale Brunch
Don’t miss any of the latest monthly creations from Bernie’s Burger Bus, 5407 Bellaire. Cheekily named the Field Trip, each month features special limited-time burger, fries and milkshake, with this November’s specials offering a “field trip” to Koreatown. The Field Trip Burger features a cheddar cheeseburger topped with crispy braised pork…
Texans-Bengals — Four Things To Watch For
As the Texans went to the bye week last week, they were tied with the Colts at 3-5, tied for first place in the AFC South, although admittedly it felt sort of dirty to even call the Texans a first place team. So conventional wisdom thought the Texans would come…
Openings and Closings in Houston: Burgers and Steaks Abound
This week, The Burger Joint opened at 2703 Montrose, and the fast-casual eatery is already making a splash. The brick-and-mortar version of the popular food truck is a joint project between Shawn Bermudez of Royal Oak and Matthew Pak of this food truck and several others, including Coreano’s and Golden…
The 5 Best Things to Do in Houston This Weekend: Tacolandia & More
There are lots of choices for entertainment this weekend. With the expected mild weather, we’ve got a couple of outside events among our top picks. And with the holidays quickly approaching, we’ve got an early Christmas show for you. Oh, and a Barbarian Invasion. Our choice for Friday is “European Train…
Sad Siren Morgan Wilson’s ‘Love Stuck’ Hits Home
I’m always a big fan of the albums I get sent from the Red Tree Music Group. They specialize in EPs from sad sirens and I am all about EPs from sad sirens, most recently Morgan Wilson’s Love Stuck. It’s actually quite a departure stylistically for Red Tree, who is best…
Houston’s 10 Best Bars For Friday the 13th
When we think of Friday the 13th, we not only think of the superstitious fears associated with the date but also the popular slasher movie series featuring the character of Jason Voorhees as the hockey mask-wearing killer of camp counselors; taking over from his mother after the first film, of…
Mariachi El Bronx’s Joby F. Ford May Be “The Whitest Guy In the World”…or Not
Joby F. Ford, multi-instrumentalist musical visionary behind several bands including The Bronx, Mariachi El Bronx, Pounded By the Surf and the Drips, describes himself as “the whitest guy in the world.” “I’m really just this nerdy Colorado guy with flaming red hair and a beard,” Ford jests from his home…
Deafheaven, the Most Confounding Metal Band Out There
Font choice goes a long way in the world of metal. The industry standard typeface is as ornate as it is brutal — part gothic calligraphy, part blood-dripping misanthropy. But on the soft pink hues of their 2013 breakout effort, Sunbather, black-metal quintet Deafheaven went a different route. This font is…
The Houston Bullet Train Station Might be in “Downtown”
Well, we finally know where Texas Central Partners might build Houston’s bullet train station. A 54-page report quietly issued last week by the Federal Railroad Administration goes over a whole bunch of route possibilities for the proposed Houston-to-Dallas high-speed rail line as part of the required environmental impact study that…
Waller County Files To Dismiss Sandra Bland’s Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Attorneys representing Waller County in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Sandra Bland’s mother entered a motion for summary judgment Wednesday, claiming the actions of the Waller County jailers were “objectively reasonable,” and that Bland’s rights were not violated at the jail. Bland was arrested for a traffic stop in…
Single Song Set: Matt Harlan’s “Old Allen Road”
It seems like songwriting should be an entirely auditory process, doesn’t it? A songwriter might hear a sentence or phrase in passing, something so good it breaks through the white noise to become a lyric. Maybe he or she hears a succession of sounds that create a tune. But, sometimes…
College Football Playoff Rankings: Is The Big XII Nervous Yet?
So far, so good on the presentation of the build up to the second year of the College Football Playoff. Maybe it’s because my school (go Irish) is prominently featured, right smack dab in the mix for one of the coveted four spots, but when the rankings are announced at…
The Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market Preview Party Was a Wild Foretaste of This Weekend’s Main Event
More than 4,000 people waited in long traffic lines last night to make their way into NRG Center for the Wells Fargo Preview Party of of Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market — an explosion of color and consumerism and 300 vendors all united in the belief that the perfect Christmas is…
Prosecutors Compare AG Ken Paxton to Don Draper (And Not in a Good Way)
In yet another acerbic court filing, this week attorneys appointed to prosecute Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton vehemently defended themselves against allegations of misconduct and once again slammed Paxton’s efforts to have the three felony indictments against him thrown out of court. Mad Men Speaking to Paxton’s defense strategy of…
Calling for 2016 MasterMind Award Nominations
It’s that time again. Time for readers of the Houston Press to help us find the most deserving creative people in the Houston area who are doing much to advance the arts in whatever form. And then in January we’ll hand out the 8th annual MasterMind Awards. This is not…
5 Fictional Texans I’d Rather Have for President Than Ted Cruz
I was watching The Rachel Maddow Show the other day (and with that I have hopefully banished most of the meatheads to the comment section so they can wail about my bias) when I heard a sentence that cannot possible have ever been uttered by human lips before in history:…
5 Places to Get Holiday Tamales in Houston Just in Time for Thanksgiving
The holiday season is upon us. And you know what that means? TAMALES! With Thanksgiving right around the corner, check out these 5 Houston spots offering special holiday tamales by the dozen: Molina’s Cantina, 4720 Washington, 713-862-0013; 7901 Westheimer, 713-782-0861; 3801 Bellaire, 713-432-1626 Made completely from scratch, these traditional 100 percent pork butt…
The Keystone Rejection Isn’t Exactly An Environmental Win
The Keystone XL Pipeline is officially dead. Last week, President Barack Obama rejected the proposed pipeline, wrapping things up after years of staying firmly undecided on the issue. “The State Department has decided that the Keystone XL pipeline would not serve the national interest of the United States,” Obama said…
Explaining Grownup Music to Kids: Post-WWII Jazz & Blues
Adam P. Newton recently became a father for the first time, so he has decided to explain the entirety of post-WWII Western pop music to his new daughter, “Fig”…one genre at a time. Hello again, Fig! Before we launch into the music of the ‘70s, I wanted to discuss the…
10 Historic Houston Concerts We Wanted to See
THE BEATLES Sam Houston Colisum, August 19, 1965 Given the sheer hysteria that followed them wherever they went, the Beatles could only stand to tour the U.S. a couple of times, and they only ever made it to Houston once. Their lone performances here, though — two shows in one…
Mydolls Will Never Go Out of Style
First festering in the musical mélange of 1978, when the death of disco was imminent and the blank generation sought a second life, Mydolls became the South’s ambassadors of artful, anarchic, antsy, and angular sonic territory. Borrowing tendencies from No Wave, darkwave, and year zero punk while forging their own…
What’s a Good Job For a Pothead? Help!
WHAT’S A GOOD JOB FOR A POTHEAD? Dear Willie D: I’m starting college next fall. I need to know what a good job is for a cool-ass white boy who blows weed every day. Pothead: Basing your career choice on whether or not you can smoke weed don’t sound like…
Foreign Companies Still Want to Bring High-Speed Rail to Texas
If you don’t like the idea — for whatever reason — of a Japanese high-speed rail line in Texas, how would you feel about a French or Chinese one? Today the Texas Tribune is rather breathlessly reporting that (gasp) there are other foreign companies interested in bringing high-speed rail lines…
Long-Awaited Pimp C Album ‘Long Live the Pimp’ Comes to Light
To be honest, a terrible tag is associated with the word “posthumous.” It refers to any life after death situation, the release of works or acts after one has gone. It also means the possibility of said work being unspectacular or failing to live up to its creator’s legacy. Posthumous…
SeaWorld Shutters Killer Whale Shows in San Diego, But Not Texas or Florida (Two States That Love Killin’)
Good news for fans of animal exploitation in Texas: while SeaWorld just announced it is ending its killer whale performances in San Diego, its San Antonio and Orlando parks will continue with Shamu-riffic shows. SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby told investors Monday that the decision to nix the San Diego show…
Anti-HERO Campaign Gears Up to Fight Transgender Rights in Dallas
Following Houston voters’ resounding defeat of an non-discrimination ordinance last week, Dallas did what any good rival city would: it tried to rub it in Houston’s face. On Tuesday, as our sister paper the Dallas Observer reports, Dallas City Council unanimously approved a slight tweak to the city’s already existing…
Should The Simpsons Have Been Killed? Meet the Experts of the ‘Worst Episode Ever’ Podcast
Here’s a sentence you didn’t expect to read today: There’s a recent Simpsons that’s entirely worth your time. Seriously. “Halloween of Horror,” the fourth episode of the series’ 27th season, is a rarity: a late-era Simpsons rich with feeling, sharp jokes and the sense that this family and their story…
The Alabama-Coushatta Casino is About to Re-open
After more than 13 years, the feds say the Alabama-Coushatta’s casino in Livingston can finally reopen. And here’s the kicker: according to the federal government’s reasoning, the tribe’s casino should never have been forced to close in the first place. Back in 2001, the Alabama-Coushatta opened their casino on the…
Tom Petty’s Heroin Use Just a Tease For Great New Bio
Petty: The Biography By Warren Zanes Henry Holt, 336 pp., $30 You would think that Tom Petty had it all in the mid to late ‘90s. On the backside of his forties, he had already enjoyed massive success for nearly two decades with a slew of hits — both with his longtime…
The 33‘s True Story Works Best When It’s Underground
How do you dramatize the unthinkable? On August 5, 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped when the 100-year-old gold and copper mine in which they were working collapsed around them. For weeks, no one knew if they were alive or dead. But 69 days later, after a team of international…
All Angelina Jolie Pitt’s By the Sea Offers is Location
It’s clear why Angelina Jolie Pitt became a star. She was a sexpot with talent, and, just as crucially, her feline beauty was a sexpot breed we’d never seen. Past glamazons like Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, and Jayne Mansfield trailed a whiff of insecurity. We could sense that they were…
