Defending The Buzz: Does 94.5 FM Really Suck That Bad?
What with Creed reuniting, BuzzFest coming up in a couple of weeks and, hell, maybe even the swine-flu scare – As in: What’s worse than coming down with swine flu? A Houston radio that only tunes in 94.5 FM – Rocks Off sure has been thinking a lot about The…
La Comida Mas Fina Para Cinco De Mayo
Even if you’re a bit rusty on your high school Spanish, at least one thing should be gleaned from that headline: Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner! Despite the fact that the holiday is largely unobserved in Mexico and does not — as is commonly and erroneously assumed…
Doctor Wants To Defuse The Texas Time Bomb Of Kidney Disease
People usually don’t realize they have kidney disease until it’s too late. High blood pressure or diabetes may go untreated for years, and by the time symptoms like nausea and fatigue show up — and these are often misconstrued as the flu — both kidneys are already damaged beyond repair. Dr…
$7 at Bell Street Cafe
Where: Bell Street Cafe, 800 Bell Street (under the Exxon Building) What $7 gets you: Surprisingly fresh and cheap food. Dining under the Exxon building, right next to the Houston Press building, means that you will be eating with a million suits who do business just a few floors up…
“The Sports Animal” Does Some Shedding
Is one of the myriad sports-talk radio stations in town beginning to blink in their eyeball-to-eyeball-to-eyeball-to-eyeball battle?Clear Channel, the communications giant, swung the layoff ax across the country today, and it hit notably in Houston.The biggest names: Brad Davies and Craig Roberts of the 790 KBME morning show. (On the…
Doesn’t It Make You Feel Better: Songs About Swine
[Update: Now with the Loco Gringos’ “Nurture My Pig” and Houston’s own Flying Fish Sailors’ “Flu Pandemic.”] April is almost over and we’re coming into Sweeps Week, when commercial sponsors look at TV ratings to decide where they’re going to advertise, and you know what that means: time for another…
We’re Suing Over This “Sanctuary City” Crap!! Umm, Maybe Not Right Now
The stage at the Houston Police Officers’ Union was literally set for a big announcement today. Microphones had been hooked up, chairs for the media had been arranged in rows and press releases had been e-mailed all across town. Everyone was eager to hear all about a lawsuit that a…
Steve Earle to Play Conroe’s Crighton Theater, Cactus Music for Townes
Steve Earle will play the Crighton Theater Thursday, June 18, as a last-minute addition to the Montgomery County seat’s annual Sound of Texas Music Series. The show, says Conroe City Councilman Jay Ross Martin, is a “bonus that we got the chance to add.” Earle’s tribute disc to mentor Townes…
Local 7-Inch of the Week: NO TALK’s “Confusion”
Beau Beasley’s Homopolice project is pure deviant slithery noise id, that part of Freud’s psychic apparatus that deals in instant gratification, in this case leathersexual. NO TALK, Beasley’s more direct punk-rock band, trafficks in ego, human cataclysm and the sort of nihilism that is distinctly male, while still understanding the…
Texas Delays A Whole Bunch Of High-School Games & Tournaments Because Of Swine Flu
This is a pretty big deal — all high-school sporting events, and other UIL competitions, are suspended until at least May 11 because of swine-flu scares.”The health and safety of our student activity participants is of the utmost importance,” UIL Executive Director Dr. Charles Breithaupt said in a press release…
Artist of the Week: Cindy Pruitt
In our week-by-week attempt to highlight every single non-crappy musician in Houston, we’ve come across all manner of acts freaks, geeks, sexpots, whatever. You name it, we’ve featured them. We’re proud to say that, with guitarist/glittery pop songstress Cindy Pruitt, our list now includes the alt-lifestyle sect – and it…
That Roberts Elementary Teacher Is Cleared, No Matter What HISD’s Drug-Sniffing Dog Says
The District Attorney’s office has announced they’re formally dropping the charges against Mindy Herrick, the art teacher whose arrest after a drug-sniffing-dog search sparked protests.The dog found a Xanax in her car; the pill wasn’t hers. HISD reinstated her almost two months ago, so the question is What the hell…
Tonight: Nameless Sound Presents Peter Brotzmann, Nasheed Waits and Eric Revis
German saxophonist and clarinetist Peter Brotzmann, who has been active for more than four decades, is among the most important and revered figures in the history of European free jazz. He toured Texas last year in intense duo performances with Han Bennink, a Dutch contemporary whose drumming virtually defines the…
Swine To Watch Out For: Five Bad Movie Pigs
News about the potential swine flu outbreak has veered from grim to cautiously optimistic and back again over the last few days, with much emphasis given to the pigs themselves. Should massive reprisals against our bacon-generating friends be necessary, here’s some movie material to get you in the mood.5. Porky…
Who’s Running The Astros These Days Anyway?
The Houston Astros put closer Jose Valverde on the disabled list yesterday. And that’s not too shocking seeing as how Valverde had a ball drummed off his leg last week and has been hobbling and blowing saves on just one leg.What’s surprising to me is what Jesus Ortiz at the…
Idol Beat: The Top Five
That Jamie Foxx, right? A Rennaisance man if there ever was one: the guy’s a comedic genius (see In Living Color; tons of flicks), a big-screen leading man, credible action star, R&B champion – plus, as it turns out, he’s a natural at mentoring American Idol hopefuls. I wouldn’t have…
Swine Flu Death In Mystery Hospital
The first case of a death from swine flu has been reported — and it’s here in Houston.Of course, it’s not exactly a Houstonian who, say, was attending an elementary school in HISD. It was an infant, born in Mexico, who got sick in Brownsville and was transported to Houston…
Galveston’s Skate Park Gets A New Name, For A Great Kid
Galveston had a ceremony recently naming their skatepark after Johnny Romano, a 10-year-old skater who died last year after fighting leukemia.”He would be embarrassed we were making such a fuss over him,” Rhonda Gregg, a family friend who spearheaded construction of the skate park, told the Galveston County Daily News…
National Racquetball Tournament Hits Houston For Final Time
It’s Sunday afternoon, and Marcelo Laprea is screaming inside a glass box. He just lost a point. Laprea is fending off rival Patric Mascorro in the rubber match of a USA Racquetball regional championship at the downtown YMCA. About 50 people watch from the faded bleachers behind the court, and some…
Missed Your Free Ice Cream Cone Last Week?
Don’t despair: Baskin-Robbins has your back. Today only, the ice cream chain is holding its annual 31 Cent Scoop Night to benefit the National Volunteer Firefighters Council and firefighters across the United States. A small scoop of one of the 31 ice cream flavors is a mere 31 cents at participating locations. …
Pico Iyer: Travel, The Dalai Lama, Houston & That Jerk V.S. Naipaul
Few people live up to the (somewhat shopworn) descriptor “citizen of the world” more than Pico Iyer, who today divides his time between Southern California and rural Japan. Born in England to scholarly Indian parents, raised in California, and partially educated in England (at Eton and Oxford), Iyer shuttled back…
Cornbreadd Weighs In On 50 Cent/Rick Ross Feud
How bad off is hip-hop right now? Sales are still in the toilet – only one rap record, Jadakiss’ The Last Kiss, is in the current Billboard Top 20 – and even Kanye West shooting his mouth off isn’t that interesting anymore. About the only thing with legs these days…
Dining Out For Life
On Thursday, April 30th, restaurants in over 50 cities across the nation are inviting patrons to dine out for life. The event was created in 1991 to support AIDS research in Philadelphia and has since spread to the rest of the United States. Last year saw more than 3,500 restaurants…
Eyeballin’: Vanilla Fudge, Live: When Two Worlds Collide
Vanilla Fudge Live: When Two Worlds Collide (ABC Records) Vanilla Fudge is best known for 1967’s heavy, slow and psychedelic version of the Supremes’ Motown classic “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” and even diehard classic-rock fans might be skeptical about this recent concert which features only half of the Long…
Wet & Wild In Houston Town — The Slideshow
That walkway down by the Wortham Theater doesn’t look so romantic and enticing now, does it?Unless you love murky brown water.A big ol’ storm rumbled through our area overnight and through the morning, dumping near a foot of rain in some places. Check out our slideshow of the soggy aftermath…
Some Stumbles In Fort Bend ISD’s Notification System
How did some Fort Bend ISD students learn this morning that school had been canceled?Some guy drove up to their bus stop and told them. They trudged home from there.These days, you’d think any school district too big for the old phone-tree would have a computer system that would make…
Slideshow: Really Bad Buzz-Rock Album Covers
We’re so stoked about Creed reuniting and coming to Houston in September we can hardly contain ourselves. The more we gazed longingly at the cover of Human Clay, the more it inspired us to put together a slideshow of other buzz-killing graphics from heavily tattooed bands who, not so long…
Metro Expects To Provide Full Service For The Evening Rush Hour
Metro has announced that the evening rush hour should see full service on all its routes and HOV lanes, with the possible exception of the I-45 HOV lane which is still kinda flooded near downtown.There’s a big caveat attached — if another big storm hits, then changes might have to…
So Whatcha Want: Austin City Limits Festival Lineup Announced
C3 Entertainment announced the lineup for the 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival Tuesday morning, and as Rocks Off expected, they might as well start calling the thing Lollapalooza South. Lolla headliners the Beastie Boys and Kings of Leon are both headed to the freshly irrigated Zilker Park October 2-4,…
So T. Boone Pickens’ Crusade Is A PR Campaign After All
For all you T. Boone Pickens haters out there who have wondered whether the oilman turned Neo-Greenie is really trying to save the country from foreign oil or is simply running a huge media campaign to serve his financial interests, there is this: the creative minds behind the Pickens Plan…
Baby Ducks And Wabbits In Flood Danger, Houston SPCA Says
They’re tugging on the heartstrings at the Houston SPCA. Here’s a release on how today’s flooding is affecting some wild animals: Baby cottontail rabbits can be seen floating down flooded roadways and bayous clinging to pieces of debris. Nests have fallen from trees due to the wind and rain putting…
Don’t Hate: Creed Is Back and Headed to Town
You know you know the words… When I heard about a Creed reunion in the offing – set to hit Houston September 25 – I didn’t cringe angrily or go into music-snob convulsions, clicking through my iTunes looking for the new Bon Iver EP or feverishly dialing up the new…
HISD Cancels All Athletic Events And Field Trips Today
The Houston school district is doing a good job of constantly updating its weather-related info page here.The latest news: All games and field trips are canceled today.We’re still waiting to hear from the district as to what today’s TAKS cancellation means — whether they will still follow the normal schedule…
Cutout Bin: Ricky Skaggs’ Don’t Cheat In Our Hometown
Ricky Scaggs Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown (Epic, 1983) Aw, yeah. Here I am. Ricky Skaggs. Just hangin’ out on a bridge in Nashville. People are slowing down. Honking. Waving. Why? You know why. The Hair. This isn’t just any old mullet. This is the best damn hair they’ve ever…
Some Flood Photos — Send Us Yours!
There seems to be a lull in the storm right now, although everyone’s getting nervous about a repeat.Getting flooded out will do that to you.The Houston Press Flickr group is looking for your photographic experience of the storm.Here’s the bayou near 290 and Antoine:…
Aeros Advance Even With The Refs Disallowing Goals, The Bastards
Photo by John RoyalIt’s been a rollercoaster season for the Houston Aeros. They’ve been hot. They’ve been cold. They’ve lost players to injuries and call-ups to the NHL. They’ve been an offensive machine, then they’ve been a team relying on defensive perfection because the team can’t buy a goal. “I…
Yappy Hour at Beaver’s Put Down
No Dogs Allowed. So said the city health department last week when pets and their owners were turned away from a planned “Yappy Hour” at Beaver’s on Decatur. The bar and restaurant had done a considerable amount of promoting for the new event, even sending out packets of dog biscuits to the…
Enough With The Rain Already (Updated 11 am)
Messy, messy morning, as you probably have realized.The west side of town got pummeled with up to a foot of rain; some homes have flooded.Commuting is a nightmare: Frontage roads are flooded, people are going the wrong way down streets to escape. We hear that getting in from Fort Bend…
The Strand’s Historic Buildings Get A Boost
The Strand, downtown Galveston’s most historic district, is getting a little help today in its efforts to preserve itself.The National Trust for Historic Preservation has named “The Cast-Iron Architecture of Galveston” as one of its 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.Even before Ike there were worries about the buildings which had…
So Long, Bea Arthur
When I was a young teenager, I used to watch The Golden Girls sort of obsessively. (So I didn’t get out much. And?) At the age of 14, I was gawky, tall, and had already cultivated a dark sense of humor that involved writing snappy comebacks to deliver to the…
Revenge Of The Swine (And The Obsessive Hand-Washers)
A swine flu pandemic isn’t a “foregone conclusion,” according to the new alert level issued yesterday by the World Health Organization. But things are starting to get a little scary. Cue the travel warnings. The United States said not to head south of the border. The European Union said stay away…
“Yappy Hour” Taken By Dad To Go Live On Farm Somewhere; City Promises We Can Visit When We’re Older
No Dogs Allowed. So said the city health department last week when pets and their owners were turned away from a planned “Yappy Hour” at Beaver’s on Decatur. The bar and restaurant had done a considerable amount of promoting for the new event, even sending out packets of dog biscuits to the…
Game 3: Rockets’ Battier Fills All the Gaps
This performance wasn’t sexy. There wasn’t even a defining moment. The Rockets’ two biggest stars, Yao Ming and Ron Artest, were each held to single digits in points in the same game for the first time all year. Despite that, Friday night’s effort was effective enough to grab an 86-83…
The Last Roundup: What Other Houston Music Blogs Are Talking About
Let’s face it, by this point on Friday Rocks Off – and a lot of others, he’d wager – is pretty much brain-dead, and has been watching 30 Rock on Hulu for the last hour. But before we sign off for the weekend, here’s some stuff we picked up from…
Prius Owners React To Our Story, And Some Aren’t Happy
Hair Balls received its first it-happened-to-me-too story in reference to this week’s cover story, “Wild Rides.” “I’m an engineer and pay a lot more attention to the mechanics of things than most people do. So I figured I’m just being overly sensitive,” says Hilary Daniel. “Then my husband said, ‘You…
The Continuing Follies of AutoTune
For the past six months, the music business has been aghast and/or enthralled with the AutoTune craze. There seems to be no stopping the phenomenon, which is now crawling into the public’s brain at an alarming rate. No one seems to be immune to the ‘Tune, with rappers Lil’ Wayne…
This Week In Deliciousness
We had a lot of help from our diligent scouts this week, sending in reports from all over Houston. Monday morning started off with a brief item alerting us to the bitchin’ Cioppino at Farrago, then segued into $7 at the impressively popular Laredo Taqueria, courtesy of Brittanie Shey. Be…
Last Chance For Art: Shows Closing This Weekend
The Houston Palestine Film Festival finishes it’s run this weekend and there are still plenty of great films left to see. Today’s schedule includes People Not Places, a new music video by Invincible for which she’ll be in attendance. There’s also Memory of the Cactus, a documentary about the 1967…
The Top Ten From The Houston Press Flickr Group
It’s the second week of our ongoing slideshow of the best shots taken for the Houston Press Flickr group. Here’s The Woodlands Waterway at night. You too can have your work displayed for all the world to see by submitting your pics. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself…
UH Students Ponder The Killer In Their Midst
The University of Houston student charged with murder in the February 7 death of a homeless man, who was sleeping at a bus stop on the UH campus, lives in the Cougar Place residential complex, and students said they regularly saw him on campus. Jeremy Lee Pierce, 32, was arrested…
The Washington Post Meets The Aggies
John Kelly is a Metro columnist for the Washington Post, which from the sounds of it is probably one of those “inside the Beltway” papers that don’t know nothing about the real America.Kelly just finished up a week serving as a “journalist in residence” at Texas A&M, and it sounds…
Salty Celebration: This Sunday is National Pretzel Day
Oh Dear Lord. April 26 is this Sunday, and we haven’t even rented our tuxedo yet. In case you’ve been living under a rock on the moon with both fingers in your ears going “LALALALALALA,” April 26 is National Pretzel Day, a day when we all put aside our differences…
Some Tips For You Twentysomething DIY Doctors
Last week we reported some ways uninsured twentysomethings have found to combat the high cost of living without health insurance.A long-uninsured reader we will call Steve (on his request) has another tip: visit clinics that cater to Houston’s Hispanic population. An Anglo who lives in a Hispanic neighborhood, he reports…
Five Spot: Big Brother Cory Mo
Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we’ll examine a recent bit of music news and list five reasons why it’s either brilliant or dumb-assed. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Swear to God, this is exactly how this week’s Five Spot came to fruition: We were reading on some Web site…
Houstonian Comes Home For A Beach Volleyball Tournament
For the first time, Houston will be a stop on the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, which means that Alicia Polzin can finally play in her hometown.The 6’3″ Polzin has been with the organization since 2002, but before this year’s tournament at Westside Tennis & Fitness (May 15-17) the only…
Here’s What Happens To The Dome When There’s No Commissioner’s Court To Dither On About It
We’ve raved before about the book World Without Us by Alan Weisman, which looks at what would happen if — for some reason — man simply disappeared from earth one day.Within days, subways in New York City would flood, for instance; after about 75 years the major bridges in the…
$7 at Chaat House
Where: Chaat House, 16338 Kensington Drive, Sugar Land, 281-565-0555 What $7 gets you: Puffed rice that would make Snap, Crackle and Pop weep and a fruity, sweet treat. As Paul Galvani said previously, “chaat” is a Hindi word meaning “lick” or “taste”. At Chaat House in Sugar Land, you get…
Attorney General Greg Abbott, Killing Dreams (Of Idiots) Once Again
Oh, attorney general Greg Abbott. Yesterday you told us water couldn’t be turned into gas. Today you say that people actually can’t make six-figure incomes doing searches on the web.Is there any dream of the gullible that you won’t let stand?Abbott’s office announced this morning that they’ve charged the people…
Digitalia: Meet The Vinyl Villain
Some bloggers ignore the criticism leveled against them that they’re the major culprit in the music industry’s decline. Others bark back ferociously. JC over at The Vinyl Villain opts for the latter approach. In a recent post, he wrote: “Any of those dmca bastards that say bloggers are killing the…
Shell, Environmental Groups Reach Settlement Over Deer Park Pollution
The Sierra Club and Environment Texas have announced that the suit they filed in January 2008, against Shell Oil Company and two of its affiliates, is on its way to settlement. If judges approve the settlement, Shell Oil Company will owe $5.8 million for past violations, establishing a record as…
Today: The Boxmasters on KPFT’s Sugar Hill Sessions
Rocks Off has a feeling Billy Bob Thornton will be slightly more coherent than above (“shit is all jacked up”) when his roots-rock band the Boxmasters is the featured artist on this month’s edition of KPFT’s Sugar Hill Sessions. But you never know. Listen today at 2 p.m. at 90.1…
The Fascist/Socialist Conspiracy Squelches One Dedicated Beaumont Cop, Website Says
Courtesy of the The Examiner, “the independent voice of southeast Texas” — in other words, we’ve never heard of it either — comes the tale of one rogue Beaumont cop who refused to follow the so-called “rulebook” when it came to tracking down a dangerous threat to society. In this case,…
Hide Your Home Videos
Your most embarrassing home videos are probably long forgotten, and buried in a basement closet somewhere. Make sure they stay that way. Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett are coming to town, and they want to show them to people you’ve never met. Whether you like it or not. Prueher and…
NBA Playoffs Game 3 Preview: Yao At Center Of Rockets’ Adjustments
Two years ago, Tracy McGrady made headlines by telling the world the Rockets’ playoff success or failure was all on him.Flash forward to today, and it’s all on Yao Ming, and the world knows it. So do the Blazers.After losing Game 2 in Portland, the Rockets have quite a few…
14th Annual 20th Century Modern Market
Shop at the only Texas show of its kind at the 14th Annual 20th Century Modern Market. Up for grabs is art, of course, along with vintage clothing and furniture from the last century. Even if you don’t plan on buying, stroll the aisles — it’s as much of a…
Zomberina! The Movie
Zombie ballerinas — what the hell else do you need to know? Zomberina! The Movie sees usually graceful ballerinas turn into always clunky zombies at a dance competition. After some bloodletting, they proceed to jeté and crash all over the place. Friday’s screening is part of Frenetic Theater’s Grand Opening…
Shakespeare on the Green
See As You Like It Macbeth at…wait, we forgot an “and” in there somewhere…it’s As You Like It and Macbeth, there we go. Ahem, one more time: See As You Like It and Macbeth at Shakespeare at the Green. UH School of Theatre and Dance presents both plays this weekend…
Megan Frazier Salch
Megan Frazier Salch is introducing her guidebook 100+ Activities for Houston Kids, 2009 edition at today’s signing. Organized by months, 100+ is comprehensive, detailing Houston-specific activities for parents and kids under 10. 2 to 5 p.m. Barnes & Noble, 12850 Memorial Drive. For more information, call 713-465-5616 or visit kidsactivityqueen.blogspot.com…
Impulse!
Dance can easily be weighed down by its past, but youth, novelty and spontaneity are front and center at “Impulse!” the annual faculty concert of the University of Houston School of Theatre and Dance. The student dancers of the UH Ensemble will perform a number of new works, including a…
The Timekeepers
Thrown together by circumstance, Benjamin, a Jewish watchmaker, and Hans, a larger-than-life homosexual, share quarters in a Nazi concentration camp. Both are considered “enemies of the state.” Dan Clancy’s play The Timekeepers explores their ability to avoid becoming each other’s enemy as well. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. most Saturdays…
The San Jacinto Day Festival
It took just 18 minutes for General Sam Houston to lead his Texian soldiers to victory over the Mexican army during the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto. The win secured the state’s independence — and got a few licks in for those who had fallen at the Alamo just a…
Houston Palestinian Film Festival
For all the coverage Palestine gets in the media, it’s remarkably difficult to get a true sense of what its culture and people are really like. To fight what they call “reductively politicized depictions,” the folks over at the Houston Palestinian Film Festival have organized a series of flicks centered…
David Ray Vance and Anna Journey
Poet David Ray Vance is a fan of Gray’s Anatomy. (We’re talking Henry Gray.) In his poems, such as “Further Notes on Legerdemain,” Vance plays with optometry and wordsmith-ery in clever and insightful ways. “The pupil as muscle must be exercised,” he writes. And: “As I write, floaters swim in…
Catastrophic Theatre’s Clown Town.
Have an itch to put on a big red rubber nose? Floppy feet? Or maybe you have an unquenchable desire to cram yourself, along with a score of strangers, into a Yugo? Burst out of the closet and express your inner clown at the ultimate block party, Catastrophic Theatre’s Clown…
Orphans
North Philly is home to brothers Treat and Phillip in the play Orphans, a black comedy. Treat rolls drunks for money, but one drunk, Harold, is a little more than the brothers expected. Originally a mark for Treat, Harold is really rich and really in trouble. Some bad guys are…
The Golden Dragon Acrobats
The Golden Dragon Acrobats return to the Miller Outdoor Theatre today to assume the pretzel positions for which they’re famous. The group has traveled around the world performing umbrella juggling, the tower of chairs, human pyramids and all that mind-boggling body bending. Miller Managing Director Cissy Segall Davis calls the…
Two Tons Of Steel
Uncle Tupelo made explicit how the roots of punk and hard-core honky-tonk intermingled: the rejection (often drunken) of instrumental competence, the politics of desire and its immediate and sometimes disastrous effects. Whether it has been cowpunk in the ’80s or alt-country the following decade, these two seemingly disparate genres have…
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
The gridiron is a social microcosm in Kevin Rafferty’s (The Atomic Cafe) ultimate sports documentary, Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, which features a cast of characters who, unexpectedly, would later become household names. As the film opens, it’s November 23, 1968, and the undefeated Bulldogs of Yale and the undefeated Crimson…
The Third Side Launch Party
It’s anniversary time! One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin shifted the cosmic order with his book On the Origin of the Species. Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company is marking that gigantic scientific leap of the imagination with the upcoming production of The Third Side, a new play about a…
Graciela Limón: The River Flows North
In her new novel The River Flows North, author Graciela Limón tells a story common to most immigrants crossing the dangerous Sonora desert into the U.S. While fiction, River examines the very real situations the immigrants face, both at home and in the United States. They are often leaving behind…
Rent
Poor Anthony. Poor Adam. Poor Gwen. The trio is still hungry and still can’t pay the Rent. You got it — the Tony award-winning musical about young starving artists in New York City’s East Village, Rent, is in town, and it features original Broadway cast members Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal…
This American Life – LIVE!
Longtime listeners become first-time viewers at the screening of This American Life – LIVE! The rare theatrical experience allows fans of the popular National Public Radio program to see in real time the inner workings of host Ira Glass and company’s show. Every week, This American Life presents stories, documentaries…
Asia Society: Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer has an enviable job: Magazines like The New Yorker, National Geographic and Time pay him to travel the world and write about distant places and fascinating people. As if that weren’t enough, it turns out that the British-born Iyer has had a close, decades-long relationship with none other…
The Breakfast Club
Remember that teen angst you thought you’d outgrown? It’s back with a vengeance at today’s midnight screening of The Breakfast Club. The 1985 John Hughes classic, starring an ensemble that includes Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson and Emilio Estevez, uses the backdrop of a simple high school detention session to deliver…
Movies Houstonians Love: — For Whom the Bell Tolls
“Let’s see — should I blow up a bridge or kiss you?” We’re sure Hemingway said it better, but that neatly sums up the dilemma Gary Cooper’s character has in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Set during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, it’s about an American (Gary Cooper)…
Seal
British-born singer-songwriter Seal is currently touring behind sixth studio LP Soul, featuring covers of timeless classics like Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” James Brown’s “It’s A Man’s World” and Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” Seal has tackled music by other composers before — he has remade Nat…
SouthSide H-town Eye-opener Tour
Madeleine Crozat-Williams’s casa es su casa — if you’re traveling on the Orange Show’s SouthSide H-town Tour, one of the center’s quirky Eyeopener tours. For the first time ever, the art expert and shop owner will open the doors to her home to paying visitors. Her personal holdings are considered…
Voodoo Healing
Stan Ridgway had the good fortune to arrive on the music scene in 1982, just as MTV blew up. As front man for Wall of Voodoo, Ridgway’s “Mexican Radio” became one of the channel’s early heavy-rotation staples, and he’s been associated with the song ever since. Chatter: You will forever…
“Who are the Homeless? – Photographs by Bob Levy”
Look into the eyes of Houston’s most in need at “Who are the Homeless? — Photographs by Bob Levy” and you’ll see strength, determination, sass, fear and even happiness. Levy photographed clients of The Beacon, a downtown homeless center, and, far from the usual image of the aggressive panhandler, we…
16th Annual Japan Festival
The gong karaoke contest at the 16th Annual Japan Festival is expected to be fierce this weekend. At stake — bragging rights until next year. The festival transforms Hermann Park into a sprawling culture zone with a program that also includes martial arts exhibitions, musical performances and classic Japanese dance…
Sputnik Declassified
If you think politics are interesting nowadays, imagine what it was like when the prize was the moon. Sputnik Declassified details the 1950s race for space between America and Russia. When the USSR got the first satellite up, the U.S. was shocked. How could this happen? After much finger-pointing, the…
Capsule Stage Reviews: The Seven Year Itch, “The Share of the Future”, Rigoletto, Working
The Seven Year Itch Hurry to Theatre Southwest if you want to see a star being born. Come to think of it, there may be more than one. None are novices, to be sure, but they radiate like supernovas in George Axelrod’s adroit, adult, laugh-out-loud comedy of manners. If you’ve…
Roast Beef and Fried Rice
“Nobody in Houston knows how to make a roast beef poor boy,” displaced Crescent City native Tim Turner said to me the other day. Turner’s eyes lit up when I told him about the “roast beef with gravy” poor boy I had just eaten at Calliope’s Po-Boy on Jefferson. The…
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz!
When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ first two singles (“Zero,” “Heads Will Roll”) from It’s Blitz! dropped in February, critical eyebrows rose dubiously at the possible electronica-fication of a band whose garage-rocker identity has solidly defined two albums and two EPs. Although the YYYs have never matched the scorching intensity of…
A New Falafel Frontier at Falafel Frenzy
Famous falafel: Ayman Jarah, the owner of Falafel Frenzy (914 Prairie, 713-237-8987), decided he wanted to get in the kitchen and invent something. We are forever grateful that he did, because his tinkering led to a new kind of falafel. Oh sure, it’s still made with the same basic ingredients…
Seth Walker: Leap of Faith
Taj Mahal called Seth Walker a “little white Ray Charles.” And according to a prominently placed quote in the press kit for the Austin musician’s new Leap of Faith, no less a musical road dog than Delbert McClinton says he “was impressed like I hadn’t been impressed in 30 years”…
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit
Jason Isbell just turned 30 this past February, so calling him an old soul might be soft-pedaling things a bit. You just can’t be callow and pen a line like “She left me alone with these pills and the last of my youth.” There’s also “No Choice in the Matter,”…
Leela James: Let’s Do It Again
To understand what an arresting, puzzling record Leela James’s Let’s Do It Again really is, look no further than the L.A. native and adopted Houstonian’s cover of Foreigner’s mid-’80s soft-rock/gospel-lite sing-along “I Want to Know What Love Is.” James takes it about as far over the top as a church-raised…
A Disciplined Duet
The Soloist opens with newspapers thudding onto lawns, a quaint sight that makes the movie practically a period piece, even though the events that inspired it took place within the last four years. An old-fashioned tale for a newfangled world, the movie turns on a series of columns begun in…
Sugar Sidesteps Sports-Movie Clichés
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have transformed some of the saggiest, most clichéd genres with smarts, nonscreechy politics, superb acting and visual beauty. Though, on paper, its premise could have easily elicited groans, Half Nelson—their 2006 feature debut (that Fleck directed and the two co-wrote) about a white middle-class Brooklyn…
Dito Montiel’s Fighting Lacks Punch
Writing about A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, the 2006 debut film by director Dito Montiel, I likened it to the sort of crude but fascinating object one might find in an exhibition of naif art. Adapted by Montiel — a former hardcore punk musician — from his autobiographical novel…
Mexican Moors?
Dear Mexican, First of all, please don’t think that I’m a self-loathing Mexican; I was born in the U.S. to northern Mexican parents. As far as I know, my ancestry is just Indian, Spanish and a little French. For some strange reason, I have developed an intense fascination and, you…
Hill Country Hoodoo
In the mythology of both the Delta blues and Western religion, “Idle hands are the devil’s tools.” If that’s the case, then Luther Dickinson must really want to stay away from Satan. First, the Mississippi-based singer/songwriter/guitarist fronts blues/jam band The North Mississippi Allstars. Then he was named permanent new lead…
Racism Goes Unchecked at Regent University, Meanwhile the Melanin-Challenged Turn Out to Protest… Something.
Courts, Edumacation Pat Robertson’s Racism Make fun of blacks, not Pat New evidence may help a Spring man prove the freedom of expression case he’s filed in federal court claiming that Regent University, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson in Virginia, unconstitutionally kicked him out of school for posting a picture…
Más y Más
Forgive Los Lobos guitarist, drummer and principal lyricist Louie Perez for not being all that excited about his band’s upcoming album. It’s a collection of classics from the Disney songbook, made at a time when Los Lobos had a rosier relationship with the Mouse and His Minions. Now that the…
Hello, Houston!
“I remember you so clearly, the first one through the door…I return to find you drifting, too far from the shore” — Tom Petty, “Don’t Fade on Me” (Wildflowers, 1994) This is the second weekend of both iFest and the Crawfish Festival up in Spring, so it’s probably the two-…
Mauritius at the Alley
It’s been quite a while since a play has actually silenced the audience, leaving it clutching its candy wrappers instead of unwrapping them. Many scenes in Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius rivet our attention with a satisfying, edgy, quiet-before-the-storm feeling. The audience collectively inhales, waiting for what happens next. Rebeck knows what…
Loggia Brings Uptown to Sugar Land with an Ultramodern Sports Bar
Tim Proto, the co-owner of the new Loggia (2248 Texas Dr., Sugar Land, 281-903 7324), may be a newcomer to the restaurant business, but his partner, Alfred Bonilla, more than makes up for his lack of experience — he’s the owner of Deco Lounge in Midtown. “We saw a unique opportunity…
Capsule Art Reviews: “Face Off: A Selection of Old Masters and Others from The Menil Collection,” “Henrique Oliveira: Tapumes,” “Perspectives 165: Contents Under Pressure,” “Helen Lessick: Other Arrangements”
“Face Off: A Selection of Old Masters and Others from The Menil Collection” This is a relatively small exhibition at The Menil Collection which, according to museum materials, “examines one of the most primary elements of human interaction: to look upon the face of another.” The work, in both selection…
Rupa & the April Fishes
Despite the fact that leader Rupa Marya is of Indian descent, the April Fishes sound like a gypsy band lost somewhere on the wild borders between East and West. A San Francisco MD in her nonmusical life, Marya sings in multiple languages as she and her cohorts freely mix styles ranging…
Roy Rogers & the Delta Rhythm Kings
It seems like a long time since Delta blues guitar-master Roy Rogers has graced a Houston stage. Rogers is such a monster slide guitar player, he’s usually mentioned with the likes of Sonny Landreth or legends like Robert Johnson. A longtime sideman and producer for John Lee Hooker, Rogers has…
Wild Rides
Bobette Riner publishes an electricity index used to promote renewable energy, and she bought a brand-new Prius last year to shoot the bird at the oil companies. “I felt so smug for a while,” she says. “Especially being in Houston.” She was lucky to score the car from a dealership…
Linus Pauling Quartet, Hearts of Animals
There’s no denying the fact that polarity, whether in relationships or musical performances, generally makes things more interesting. If you let things get too out of sync, you just wind up with a messy divorce, scarred children and a terrible concert, but Boondocks gets it right by double-billing local sludgesters…
Tea Parties and Tex-Mex:
On the Offensive Online readers respond to “Mexico Protests Tex-Mex Commercial,” by Robb Walsh, Eating…Our Words blog, April 14: How rude: I am offended that the commercial hawks that old stereotype that all Texans keep their horses in the living room. Mine is always in the field. What next? An…
