The Sun King
By now, the old DJ cliché is so shopworn that it probably belongs in a museum. It’s the one where the music writer asks the DJ to describe his or her style, and the DJ trots out the familiar but unhelpful line about how it’s “hard to pin it down…
Too Much Information
Is it possible to execute the perfect murder? In Frederick Knott’s classic Dial M for Murder, the posh, smart characters sit around a well-appointed London living room discussing just that. Not that anyone’s serious about the matter. It’s just one of those hypothetical problems one might banter about over evening…
Back in the Saddle
In 1988, Toronto’s Cowboy Junkies briefly collided with the big time when their sloe-eyed reimagining of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” became a huge MTV hit, propelling The Trinity Session up the charts. A couple of years after that, Oliver Stone used the same track to memorable effect in his…
Capsule Reviews
All Female Cast Western Musical First, the good news: Slump’s All Female Cast Western Musical lasts one hour. Then, the bad news: It lasts one hour. In the guise of free-for-all theater of the absurd, this amateur hour created by Keith Reynolds is perhaps the ultimate theater reality show. In…
The Real Deal
Authenticity. Certain musicians have it and others don’t, and for others it just doesn’t matter. It’s imperative that rap, country and blues musicians be seen as “real.” To be seen as such, rap guys have to have dodged daily drive-bys on the way to holding up the liquor store to…
In the Male
Chloe Piene filmed a little boy in his underwear. The stripling stomped around in a pair of tightie-whities while Piene recorded his puerile actions with a digital camera. She is also pen pals with a convict serving time for a double murder. It’s a hobby. Oh, and she draws pictures…
Various Artists
Bandleader Lawrence Welk, who hosted an eponymous show on television for 27 years, probably wouldn’t have cared for this DJ remix tribute to his music, which adds contemporary beats to the easy-listening and jazz standards with which his band thrilled generations of seniors. After all, Welk was a pretty conservative…
¡Viva H-town!
In the annals of Houston Press Music Awards, 2004 will go down as the year of the Latino. First off, there were a half-dozen or so new categories for Latin music, all of which were, of course, won by Latinos. Also, this year’s big overall winner was Chingo Bling. The…
Omar
“Mod” is the word that immediately pops in my head whenever I hear Brit vocalist Omar perform, especially on this four-year-old import. It has such a swinging, Piccadilly Circus-circa-1964 snazziness to it, I keep wondering when Petula Clark is gonna show up to do a duet. Instead of Clark, we…
Case Closed
The verdict was a stunner: A jury awarded the Aguilera clan $13 million, plus $7 million in interest. The family was jubilant. Wal-Mart’s lawyer, Jaime Drabek, was flabbergasted. Seven years before that 2001 verdict, a Wal-Mart security guard had identified 31-year-old Irene Aguilera as part of a major shoplifting ring…
Angie Stone
Angie Stone has always been adept at making quiet, third-date soul that knows just the line to feed you to get the candles burning low and your ankles over your head. Stone Love takes Stone’s revamped old-school formula for good lovin’ and transplants it to a block party imbued with…
Pot Shots
The banging on the door was violent, coming around 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 27. It startled Blair Davis, the landscape contractor who lives in the little house near Highway 6 in west Houston with his two “eco-lawn mower” Barbado sheep, Bonnie and Boo. Davis was on the phone trying to…
Old 97’s
Leaving us jonesing since 2001’s pop-perfect Satellite Rides, Dallas’s Old 97’s finally give us a Drag, shaking up the jukebox with a more spontaneous sound this go-around — melding spicy zydeco, plaintive ballads and power rock, plus the ‘tude and the twang that made them the kings of the alt-country…
Letters
Road Warriors Look beyond Houston: Your story was fantastic, though utterly disturbing and depressing [“The Mixmaster,” by Josh Harkinson, July 22]. I’ve often told my friends that we should use dictatorial extremes and destroy all the roads to bring them back to 1970 levels. Then people would have no choice…
Playbill
Prince “Clap your hands, all you sexy people!” Prince told the audience. And people, we were not sexy. We were geeks through and through, slapping high fives and dancing with the finesse of tipsy five-year-olds, whooping with every familiar riff. And yet, the beautiful thing about Prince was that it…
Boob Tube
Whether you own a collection, or your exposure to the Girls Gone Wild video series is limited to late-night commercials, there’s no denying the phenomenon is a pop-cultural juggernaut. GGW creator Joe Francis has reached mythic-hero status by flooding the mainstream audience with an endless supply of drunken debauchery that…
Collateral Damaged
Sheathed in a custom-tailored gray suit and sporting expensively barbered silver hair, Tom Cruise looks like an older, harder version of the self-absorbed L.A. sharpie he played 16 years ago in Rain Man. But in Collateral, a frenetic Michael Mann thriller that runs up a Baghdad-level body count, Cruise’s character…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, August 5 When she was with the Groobees, Susan Gibson penned “Wide Open Spaces,” which the Dixie Chicks recorded and rode to stardom. Now Gibson is in town promoting her solo debut, Chin Up, a collection of songs that manage to be heartfelt without straying too far into sentimentality…
Banzai Beat
Say hello to a pop-cinema masterpiece. This new Japanese import opens with a massive thud not unlike Godzilla’s footfall, and its cinematic legacy stretches back almost as far. It’s got crafty samurai action, hilarious bits of business, insightful observations into the human condition and geysers of kitschy computer-generated blood. Oh,…
Shoot ‘Er Up
Take a nice long look at the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, any Miss Texas contestant or the Texas Bikini Team. It’s pretty obvious: Men really dig women in Western gear. The fringe vest exposing a smooth midriff, the bolo over the bikini — it’s enough to steam any guy’s Stetson. Problem…
Wet Kisses
There is nothing mysterious or subdued about Stacy Peralta’s enthusiasms. A product of Southern California’s vivid beach scene, he’s been a surfer since boyhood and was a professional skateboarder in the ’70s before he started making documentaries about the defining moments of those sports. The phenomenally successful Dogtown and Z-Boys…
Get Envolved
SAT 8/7 Produced by an impromptu group of Muslim artists and activists, last year’s Expressions of Faith festival was a definite success. Comedian Mo Amer took over emceeing duties just minutes before the festival kicked off, stepping up to keep the crowd chuckling between the acts. Traditional songs of praise…
Shark Bait
As a reviewer, it can be tempting to want in on the ground floor of a phenomenon, to say you were there first when some low-budget feature with a nifty premise made its festival debut, only to be picked up by a big studio and become a national sensation. Whether…
Taking It to the Streets
SAT 8/7 The phrase “urban adventure race” might conjure the image of a drunken frat boy dropped in the Bronx and told to walk south to the tip of Manhattan. But that’s more like an episode of Survivor. Urban adventure racing — the real sport — involves teams of honed…
Nasty Girl
Little Black Book, with its Carly Simon soundtrack all but daring you to tune it out before it begins, is being marketed as a daffy romantic comedy in which a woman plows through her boyfriend’s Palm to uncover his past relationships. In truth, the movie is anything but light and…
Hey, L.A.D.I.E.S.
SUN 8/8 Male rocker, female rocker. Who the hell cares anymore? Most of us just want to hear good music, no matter what’s between the legs of its creators. But there are still some people out there who don’t think ladies can rock. They especially should come out for this…
Capsule Reviews
“Diane Arbus: Revelations” Diane Arbus photographed midgets, giants, transvestites and circus freaks. She also photographed suburban families in their backyards. In her photographs, strangeness is the great equalizer, and she exposes it in seemingly “normal” subjects. “Diane Arbus: Revelations” is a retrospective of her work, with photographs from the 1940s…
Heapin’ Helpin’ of Homicide
You’ve watched enough TV detectives to know there isn’t much to this crime-solving stuff, right? Smoke a pipe, stroke your chin, ask some questions, scribble some notes and jam them into your trench coat. Bingo — you’re a supersleuth. Follow your lead to the Mystery Cafe, where you can unleash…
Pimp My Ride
Miguel Guzman, a 22-year-old Alvin resident, had recently been discharged from an army reserve unit in Pasadena. With time on his hands and the breeze in his face, he heard the siren call of the Gulf and headed to the beach. He took a Hummer. Not just any Hummer, but…
Mama Mia
The fragrances of old Italy waft through La Mora Cucina Toscana (912 Lovett Boulevard, 713-522-7412), a restored home in the Montrose. The smell of herbs grown in the garden behind the restaurant mingle with the scent rising off plates piled high with fresh pasta. And garlic is everywhere — in…
Southern-Fried Asian to Go
J&J Seafood Market