Lollapalooza, Year Four: The bloom is back
It’s been good fun tracking Lollapalooza over these last four years, if only to see the slow but sure emergence of a concept-concert legend. Year One, Lollapalooza was Perry Farrell’s private baby, and Farrell was still identified largely with his frontman role in Jane’s Addiction, which headlined the inaugural tour…
Rotation
Miss Molly In the Garden FM Disc Miss Molly Elswick — isn’t that Mrs. Molly now? — has been fine-tuning her image as a Gulf Coast blues queen for more than a decade, and there’s no point in begrudging her the luxury of style-searching, since her voice has always carried…
Failed Quest
An outdoor amphitheater in a deserted part of a beach community, caressed by lapping breezes from the Gulf of Mexico on a warm summer night with nary a cloud in the sky: what better setting for Man of La Mancha, right? “Facts are the enemy of truth,” cries knight-errant Don…
Cosmic Trash
Jesus H. Christ! In Sincerity Forever, Mac Wellman’s strenuous 1990 one-act satire about extremist thinking, the Son of God, toting staff and suitcase, arrives onstage and swears up a storm. As a testifying black woman, no less. This mightily upsets the young Southern crackerheads and peckerwoods of trashy Hillsbottom, U.S…
Big Show, Small Vision
Don’t go to Lawndale’s “Big Show” expecting the alarmingly raw and rigorously heterogeneous works that often characterize juried exhibitions. My first impression of the show — hung salon-style with one wall composed mostly of colorful figurative work, the other of monochromatic abstractions — is that it looks good, perhaps too…
Denial of the Will
Ironic juxtaposition is often the order of the day in the movie-watching business. When we critics see movies in advance, and not on their release dates, some imp of the cinema must plan the double features. I just saw Quiz Show, the Robert Redford-directed film (which will open in mid-September)…
Rotten Rascals
Who among us cannot warble their happy theme tune? The Little Rascals, originally Our Gang, was introduced in the 1930s, was tweaked to fit into the ’40s, and continues to live on through the magic of reruns. Viewers watch the ragtag bunch with nostalgia, longing for a simpler, happier time…
Sam Nuchia in Black and White
The scene inside the radio studio overlooking Greenway Plaza has all the makings of a High Noon showdown. Behind the microphone sits Jew Don Boney, the rail-thin and laser-intense black activist who’s been a thorn in the institutional side of the Houston Police Department for almost two decades. Enter Police…
Romancing the Stones
Houston Lighting & Power’s parent company, Houston Industries, is currently renovating the downtown office tower at 1100 Milam as its new headquarters. And they’re certainly sparing no expense, judging by a recent field trip by an HL&P executive, representatives of the general contractor and architects on the project, who toured…
Letters
What a Coincidence! An article in your July 21 edition characterized the Galleria shopping center as a place where bicycles are not welcome [News, “Roads to Nowhere,” by Steve McVicker]. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to correct that misconception. Bicyclists are always welcome at the Galleria. In anticipation…
Press Picks
thursday august 18 Dixie City Jam Edgar Allen Poe Award winner James Lee Burke will be signing his latest, Dixie City Jam. This is another in the distinguished line of mysteries featuring Dave Robicheaux of New Iberia, Louisiana. The Cajun police lieutenant has been the star of The Neon Rain,…
Hot Plate
Southern Comfort There are times when life seems like one vast and inescapable Joel’s Deli. At such moments, Doctor Cook prescribes a dose of El Nedo, a comfortingly frumpy Third Ward soul-food spot that’s very much its own idiosyncratic self. The food here is nothing earthshaking, but the plate lunches…
Beating the Buffet Blues
In summertime, a Houstonian’s fancy does not turn comfortably to thoughts of a Sunday brunch buffet. That ritual American excuse for shameless self-indulgence is suited to brisker weather — unless you happen to be talking about the buffet at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where the cold seafood table constitutes a balm,…
Teresa’s In-Crowd
When dozens of high-profile Houstonians who claim they’re owed money from enterprises run by Teresa Rodriguez gather at the Harris County Jury Assembly Room at month’s end for a creditors’ soiree, they’ll have the opportunity to trade burn stories and ponder the question: how did so many (at least outwardly)…
Fairness Doctrine
“I’m trying,” says singer-songwriter David Rodriguez over a breakfast of strong coffee and sweet corn muffins at a friend’s West University Place home, “to lessen the lag time between the time that I write a song and the time it’s released.” Like his scattered discography, Rodriguez is tough to keep…
Surface matter
Whit Stillman’s debut film, Metropolitan, made many a top-10 list in 1990. With its nuanced, self-aware and hyper-verbal characters, it displayed an it’s-so-old-that-it’s-new charm. For sheer degree of difficulty, Metropolitan may have posed the most daunting filmmaking challenge of the year: how to make us care about preppies (or HUBs,…
Requiem
David Catney, jazz pianist and cornerstone of the Houston jazz community, died at the age of 33, of an AIDS-related illness, at 7 a.m. last Thursday, August 11, at Twelve Oaks Hospital in Houston. Catney was a tireless performer and organizer, performing solo and with his trio, as well as…
Mouthpiece on the Move
The recent announcement that Houston Police Department communications chief Rick Hartley will be resigning to become executive director of the HPD support group, the 100 Club, set off a flurry of speculation in media circles. Hartley has prospered under the tenure of Police Chief Sam Nuchia, but his job reviews…