Make It S-T-O-P
There’s been something truly hideous going on in Reliant Stadium, and we’re not talking about the Houston Texans’ offense. Owner Bob McNair had inflicted a new fight song on the paying customers. The team’s Web site said the song would “energize the fans and capture the spirit and tradition of…
Tuna with a Twist
Let’s face it. It’s kinda hard to make a tuna sandwich taste good, let alone great. But the Tuna Lemonaise manages to do just that at Café Compliqé (1525 Westheimer, 713-529-5449). They start with two six-inch lengths of warm, crispy baguette which they line with lettuce, tomatoes and onions. Then…
Cattle Call
They started coming on Sunday night, even though they weren’t supposed to start lining up until noon Monday, bringing with them tents, coolers, umbrellas, sleeping bags, air mattresses and dreams of being the next Kelly Clarkson or Ruben Studdard. They came from all over — from tiny towns in the…
Godspell
For the Reverend Dr. Dana Carson, the revelation unfolded in installments. In early 2002, Carson, pastor of Praise Tabernacle, a predominantly black church in East Austin, began to get a feeling in his prayers — an “internal voice” as he described it. It may have been in January; it may…
Raking In the Chips
The Riverboat Gamblers bring to life the old saw that boring towns inspire great rock and roll. Physically the Gamblers may exist in Denton, a small city 30 miles north of Dallas, but according to vocalist Mike Weibe, they really live “Someplace where punk rock, rock and roll and garage…
Joe Nixon’s Two Faces
At first glance, Houston State Representative Joe Michael Nixon and Spring’s Oak Ridge Baptist Church would seem to have a lot in common. In the past few years both have been forced to leave their homes because of health-threatening mold contamination. Both filed claims to cover the costs of remediating…
Ratt Steaks
Many of the best bands grow — at least spiritually so — out of a common love for a certain style of music. Such is the case with the Austin-based Meat Purveyors. While their band name might lead you to believe that they play chopped-beef punk or T-bone hard rock,…
Parks War: Turks Versus Christians
If the City of Houston had a bureaucratic version of anarchic, strife-torn Iraq, it would undoubtedly be headquartered at the South Wayside offices of the Parks and Recreation Department. Almost daily the e-mail equivalent of rocket-propelled grenades fly from one set of disaffected employees against another, with the sides seemingly…
Bluegrass Meltdown, Montrose-Style
Helios on a Monday night. The barmaid stands on top of a plastic garbage bin and chalks “Shiner Bock — $2” on the blackboard at the end of the bar. The Trade is playing moody free jazz from the stage, and the room is filled with the peach aroma of…
First and Foremost
With wrinkled fingers, Lillian Niederhofer diagrams the street, the history and the problem here. This semiretired real estate businesswoman with light gray hair and peach cheeks came to Conroe in 1949. “It was a very small lil’ town,” she explains in a soft Southern twang. “Old folks saying they didn’t…
Dwele
Either Detroit-based R&B performer Dwele likes to rely on old standbys — or he’s just one lazy bastard. Subject — his major-label “debut” album — is actually a revamped version of his original debut, the self-produced, self-distributed 1998 release, Rize. Just as Evil Dead 2 was really director Sam Raimi’s…
Revolution’s Face
If the racial revolution the Reverend Dana Carson is proposing has a face, then that face might be Rikki Howland’s. As the empty flatbed of an 18-wheeler rumbles by, Howland, a white 45-year-old, points to a stowaway compartment behind the door of the truck’s cab. Stashed behind the driver’s seat,…
Café Tacuba
With Revés/Yosoy (1999), Café Tacuba (by far the best Mexican rock group ever) got away with murder. The risky double album didn’t sell jack, but it deservedly won a Latin Grammy and was at the top of many critics’ year-end lists. Cuatro Caminos (Four Roads), their first true studio album…
Letters
Correctional Cuts Revolving doors: I am an inmate in the TDCJ system, in a state jail in Dallas for fraudulent use of ID or using a fake name at a traffic stop. I have done two years this October and I have seen the changes take place firsthand that were…
Drop Trio
There’s something eternally cool and otherworldly about the sound of a Hammond B-3 organ. Instantly identifiable and soaked with a distinct atmosphere, the whirling and fat sounds of the vintage keyboard jump out from any recording or performance. Lauren Hammond’s invention has imbued records from across the spectrum, from rockers…
Making Short Work
When a theater group doesn’t have its own performance space, a little improvisation is in order. The folks in Tonight’s the Night, a short play by Fernando Dovalina, are rehearsing the show right at the playwright’s house. “In some cases, directors don’t want writers around,” says Dovalina, “but Beverly Hutchison…
Rodney Crowell
Of all the Houston-bred musicians who left for greener pastures, none draw more inspiration from the Bayou City than Rodney Crowell. Talk about hometown love — Crowell has chosen to play a small club date here on the day his new record is released worldwide. But while his last effort,…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, August 21 Grand Master Flash is one of hip-hop’s founding fathers. During the mid-’70s, Flash was mixing rock, jazz and blues on his turntable — and most of the time, either confusing the hell out of people or getting ignored by them. “Before I was famous,” he told hip-hop.com,…
Dirty South Mix Tape Tour
If there is any truth in the belief that the South will rise again, it’ll probably be in the arena of rap. After all, there are all these deep-down-South MCs coming out of the woodshed these days faster than the Dukes of Hazzard used to carry moon-shine across state lines…
Comic Prophet
In the late ’70s, at Houston’s Stratford High School, a prophecy was set in motion. “We started a band called ‘Stress’ with Kiss s’s, recalls Kevin Booth. “My mom made the s’s out of tin foil.” Booth’s bandmate and best friend of 17 years, Bill Hicks, would eventually become the…
Dwight Yoakam
You get the sense Dwight Yoakam’s still “country” ’cause he needs the hat and looks good in leather pants that end in boot points; otherwise he might have switched genres long ago, having tapped this one bone-dry. Not that Population Me, his first since parting ways with longtime home Reprise,…
Rock ‘n’ Roll
Let’s say you’re out on the southwest side of town. You wanna find a place where you can hang out and sip martinis with friends, but you also have a hankering for a little raw fish. Two joints in the area cater to sushi-hungry night owls. Typhoon Japanese Restaurant &…
Luciano
Jamaican-born Jepther McClymond, better known as Luciano, has little in common with his Italian namesake Mr. Pavarotti, except that he was seemingly born to sing. Since first exploding onto the international reggae scene with the excellent Where There Is Life album in the mid-’90s, Luciano has been a prime factor…
Serious Cinema
Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai is arguably the best-known Israeli filmmaker, but his work isn’t what you’d call pure entertainment. Serious and political, Gitai’s films tackle the complex issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His latest, Kedma, tells the story of a group of Israeli Jews who try to make a home…
Shred-heads
Deck. Wheels. Attitude. This is the stuff of Grind, a comedy about skateboarding and its effects on the human psyche. Neither young dawgs nor old poops will be surprised that the movie is about friendship, competition, product-placement and, like, chasing one’s, like, dreams. Yet Grind craftily sidesteps the same-old; where…
Midnight Moving
SAT 8/23 At one time or another you’ve probably sneaked out on your bike for a late-night tryst. And you’ve probably been busted for it, too. Well, here’s a chance to go legit. At this year’s Montgomery County Food Bank Midnight Bike Ride, 500 cyclists will either zip or meander…
Too Cute Kate
Oh, Paris — City of Light, of Love, of Liver Damage and Lung Cancer. C’est formidable, non? Who in need of a posh vacation would turn down the opportunity to luxuriate in its finest hotels, to stuff oneself with sumptuous snails, and to work on a terribly flat romantic drama…
Up, Up and Away
Besides families, the Ballunar Liftoff Festival attracts hot-air ballooning and photography geeks — folks hooked on getting high without that trip to the toxin-removal store — from all over the country. Watching the balloons launch and float by is a soothing experience, especially early in the morning or right before…
Gay Frays
The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me has been described as everything from a “whirlwind tour of the gay American landscape” to “a travelogue though the many faces of the male homosexual community.” Mostly, though, Dan Butler (Frasier’s famously offensive Bulldog character) has penned a sort of primer…
Long Shot
FRI 8/22 Howard and David Bellamy raise quarter horses, so it’s natural that the duo responsible for the 1976 hit “Let Your Love Flow” would perform at the racetrack. At the concert, it’s a good bet you’ll hear that insidious song, plus the tongue-in-cheek “If I Said You Had a…
Lit Up
On Sunday, HBO will air the final episode of what has been the most consistently entertaining–and aggravating–show of the summer television season. Project Greenlight will fade to black, and the people who populated the series–the first-time screenwriter who’s had the optimism beaten out of her, the rookie directors who’ve had…
Barbecued Squid
The squid was just an afterthought. The bulgogi (marinated rib eye) and bulgalbi (marinated boneless short ribs) would probably have been plenty of food for the three of us, especially since you get lots of extra dishes at Korean barbecue joints like Korea Garden Restaurant on Long Point. But I…