The Low Budgets
Joe Strummer might roll over in his grave at the sacrilegious notion that a punk band would use a cheesy keyboard to carve out its signature sound. Then again, ol’ Joe might just pogo past the pearly gates when he hears the sloppy, helter-skelter melee that is Philly’s Low Budgets,…
Mucho Mayo
Of course you remember the Alamo, even if you haven’t bothered to see the latest flick about it. And you better remember about Cinco de Mayo, too. It deserves some serious run as a significant day in U.S./Mexican history. Had loyalist Mexican soldiers not fought off France’s armies on May…
Mycological Masterpiece
Mushroom lovers will revel in the mixed mushroom phyllo strudel ($8.75) at Shade (250 West 19th Street, 713-863-7500), the restaurant recently opened by Claire Smith, founder of Daily Review Cafe. Three different types of mushrooms — portobello, button and porcini — are stuffed into two triangular pockets of flaky pastry,…
Teen Spleen
One thing few may mention about Mean Girls is that it could have been unrelentingly terrible. It isn’t — it’s actually pretty fabulous on its own terms — but consider: a rush-job comedy (hastily lensed a few months ago), constructed around a high-concept title with built-in ka-ching and endless potential…
A Spirited Defense
SAT 5/1 Miscreants and deviants, beware. Dragon boat season is upon us, and if myth and legend ring true, these ancient boat races are sure to ward off evil spirits, prevent famine, avert disease, increase stamina and bring peaceful slumber. The whole story started back in BC China, where a…
How to Be Famous in Ten Easy Steps
The flashbulbs were exploding on Main Street. Trent Steele paid no mind to the blinding orbs of light. He was used to the attention — and he was wearing dark sunglasses. Surrounded by an entourage of personal assistants, bodyguards and hangers-on, this guy definitely didn’t look like he planned to…
After the Fall
Those seeking a spiritual counterpart to the yin of Lynne Ramsay’s masterfully moody Morvern Callar will find their yang in David Mackenzie’s exquisitely sorrowful Young Adam. Art-house aficionados may recall that in Ramsay’s recent film, a young male writer commits suicide, leaving his simple girlfriend to absorb his very being…
New Spin
FRI 4/30 “This is George’s phone,” said the man, who sounded a lot like Boy George. “Hello, can I please speak to George?” “He’s doing vocals right now. Can I take a message?” replied the man, still sounding like Boy George. How odd — according to his publicist, George had…
Missing Links
Your a couple of old-fashioneds into the average golf historian, and it won’t be long until he gets misty-eyed over Robert Tyre Jones Jr. Jones not only ruled golf in the 1920s, the fellow will tell you; he also epitomized the gentlemanly ideal of the old Scottish game, transplanted to…
So Many Faces
THU 4/29 Infernal Bridegroom Productions has always had a knack for taking your average ne’er-do-well and making her into a star. Featuring a cast of 76 players, The Hotel Play is guaranteed to be chock-full of new faces. Written by Wallace Shawn (the “inconceivable!” guy from The Princess Bride), this…
Rock of Ages
This may sound an eensy bit hyperbolic, but dig: Mayor of the Sunset Strip is the greatest rock and roll movie of all time. Of course, as with any advanced class, it’s good to bone up on the prerequisites. If you haven’t explored rock in film (and rockin’ film) from…
All for One
If someone were to ask you, “What are you doing tomorrow?” how cool would it be to answer, “Oh, not much. Just going to hang out with Miles Davis at his house in Malibu, jam and talk about art.” Pretty fucking cool indeed. And that’s exactly what John “JB” Bigham…
Camp Songs
When Robert Louis Stevenson published The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886, he probably never imagined the melodramatic spectacle that is Jekyll & Hyde, the musical. Filled with syrupy tunes that swell and crescendo in great wailing waves of emotion, Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s version…
Queer Eye for the Country Guy
A few years ago, many people were shocked when Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford came out of the closet. They shouldn’t have been — after all, Halford had long been roaring on stage on a motorcycle looking like the biker in the Village People, or one of the leather-clad…
Capsule Reviews
Eleemosynary Claude Debussy’s impressionistic music is just the right accompaniment to Eleemosynary, Lee Blessing’s dreamlike, amorphous three-character study on view at the Company OnStage. And so are the evocative swaths of blue and fuchsia that wash across the set’s netting-draped flats, designed by director John Wind. Also spot-on is Patricia…
The Dirty Thirty
Well, I’m sure some of you have seen Texas Monthly’s latest list of the 40 greatest songs from Texas, and others of you have perused Blender’s recent compilation of the 50 worst songs of all time. We Texans pat ourselves on the back enough, so I thought it was high…
Digital Manual
Artists Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom met when they were both teaching at Smith College. By 1973 they were living together, mostly in Bloom’s studio. They wondered if they could make art together, too. Both had worked with drawing and painting, but it was photography into which they wanted to…
Prince
Following Prince’s show-stealing performance at the Grammys, some who remembered his fabled past wondered whether he could heal the fractured music scene with another shower of Purple Rain. Despite the hopeful signs — from his return to a major label to the dial-flipping montage of old singles that closes the…
Capsule Reviews
“Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings” Born in Turkish Armenia in 1904, Vosdanik Adoian would grow up to be Arshile Gorky, one of America’s most important and influential artists, but he would never forget the land of his birth and the village of his difficult childhood. This intimate retrospective at…
Modest Mouse
“Float On,” the latest single by Modest Mouse, is so exciting that it could be the indie-rock answer to OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” Catchy, playful guitar lines lift cheery lyrics into this danceable contender for song of the year, complete with the happiest shout-along to ever grace a Modest Mouse song…
Perfect Fit
Metro has chosen Frank Wilson, former head of transit in New Jersey and San Francisco, to replace the retiring Shirley DeLibero and oversee the $7.5 billion expansion of the light rail and bus systems. Metro chair David Wolff echoes widespread praise when he calls Wilson a “visionary,” adding, “We are…
Les Savy Fav
Ever seen a fat, balding, bearded guy crowd-surfing on a queen-sized mattress? How about kissing random men full on the mouth while plastered in a sweaty polyester jogging suit? No? Then you’ve never seen Les Savy Fav. Over the past nine years, this Brooklyn quartet has hauled post-punk and art…
Collision Course
Late at night, off-duty sheriff’s deputy Zachary Long drove by a subdivision construction site in Humble and saw a man loading roof shingles into a van. When Long approached on foot, he said, the van lurched toward him. He drew his gun and fired. Seconds later, his leg was bleeding…
J. Paul Jr. and the Zydeco Nubreedz
At the recent Original Zydeco Jamm Festival at the Crosby Fairgrounds, Houston’s J. Paul Jr. proved he’s an amazing showman. Over the course of a one-hour set, he directed an entourage of 14 additional Nubreedz (including his supertight band plus two guest rappers and an energetic fly-girl dance team) in…
Secret Ways
Maria Narciso, assistant editor at the University of St. Thomas Cauldron newspaper, showed up for the April 15 Student Government Association meeting with her notepad and two other reporters. The lunchtime session had been called for a crucial matter, SGA’s review of budget proposals from student groups for the next…
Decahedron, with White Whale and the Kants
Just because the band happens to be named after a polyhedron with ten plane faces, critics have labeled Decahedron as math-rock. Enough with the hip but meaningless platitudes! All we’re gonna say here us that this Washington, D.C., group rocks — really fuckin’ hard. The nation’s capital has a long…
Letters
Life-Saving Sex Affairs are the answer: This story made me wonder. I wondered what society would be like if having an affair wasn’t taboo [“Lindsey’s Loss,” by Steven Long, April 8]. People have affairs all the time! In most cases, no one can remain faithful for an extended period of…
Taj Mahal & the Hula Blues, with Susan Tedeschi
Of all the 1960s folk bluesmen, perhaps none has been as freewheelin’ as 62-year-old Taj Mahal. Though rooted in the acoustic side, he’s embraced everything from gospel and zydeco to folk and African music, and his Neil Young-like genre-jumping has proved a source of both joy and frustration to fans…
//Radiotakeover Tour, with the Beautiful Mistake, Anatomy of a Ghost, Emery and the A.K.A.’s
It’s tempting to think that the //Radiotakeover Tour (subtitled “Dance or Die!”) might feature the hottest Gang of Four clones bringing the funk to the post-punk crunk. Yet Radiotakeover.com is one of the Internet’s leading resources for and champions of independent, uncensored new music — specifically of the punk, hardcore…
Big Words
Sometimes one Bruce just isn’t enough. “My name is Bruce, and I’m a big guy,” says comedian Bruce Bruce. “I don’t want to go by Big Bruce, Large Bruce or Fat Bruce.” So, naturally, he goes by Bruce Bruce. Bruce has made appearances in The Wash and the upcoming Beauty…
Polyphonic Spree, with David Bowie
This gleefully psychotic twentysomething ensemble of robe-clad weirdos includes a spastic choir, a full horn ensemble and a harpist who looks like a Dazed and Confused extra. The most appropriate three words to describe this: Jesus Christ Superstar, in which Jesus is not crucified, but rather pumped full of LSD…
Jägermeister Music Tour, featuring Death By Stereo, Slipknot and Fear Factory
For legions of angry young screamers, being fuckin’ pissed is what it’s all about. But what, pray tell, is everybody so pissed about? Did Max Factor discontinue their favorite eyeliner? Did their personal assistants wash their whites with their colors? Was last night’s episode of Judging Amy a rerun? Come…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, April 29 Unlike most pieces of dorm-room decoration, old-school posters never seem to go out of style. Even established yuppies dig those pseudo-French numbers with pale ladies riding bicycles or mustachioed men dining on the lawn. Grungier folks might prefer vintage prints of Elvis in his Sunday best or…
Glen Campbell
Though the city’s name is also the title one of his signature hits, Glen Campbell hasn’t played Galveston since he was a budding 16-year-old musician. Back then, he was run out of town by the law for being underage in a bar. This visit should offer him a much warmer…
The Fall, with Low Flying Owls
You could always dance to the Fall, always bang your head and shake your ass as one, always shout along to the choruses, some of which were as simply beautiful as a man and a woman screaming, “C-R-E-E-P” into the microphone over and over again as two or sometimes three…
Mex Messages
The show gets crazy at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 30 and May 1. MECA, 1900 Kane. For information, call 713-529-3299 or visit www.cra zymexicanshow.com. $10.
Blaze of Glory
The interior of Jarro Cafe on Gessner is pleasantly air- conditioned. But veteran ethnic-food explorer Jay Francis (see “Ethnic Explorer,” August 3, 2000) is mopping the sweat from his forehead. I warned him. The salsas at Jarro Cafe are set-your-face-on-fire picante. Houston hot sauce has been in a slump lately…