ACL Fest Preview: Levon Helm Band and Arctic Monkeys
Levon Helm Band: Levon Helm, former drummer for the Band, probably has more musical knowledge in one of his drumsticks than most musicians do in their entire bodies (and bodies of work). Helm, who survived a bout with throat cancer a while back, is back on top of the Americana…
Mary Poppins’s Bert: Talk About a Show Stopper
Photo by Joan MarcusAnyone who’s seen the classic Mary Poppins movie with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, knows it for its catchy songs, the flying nanny that is Mary Poppins, and some exuberant dancing. In the stage version of the musical of the same name, now on its way…
Last Call For Art: Lawndale’s 30th Anniversary Show Ends
It’s a trio of art shows that should catch your attention this weekend. Lawndale Art Center closes its “30th Anniversary Show” this Saturday. Houston Press art writer Kelly Klaasmeyer reviewed this show; one artist especially caught her attention: Seth Alverson.Klaasmeyer said of his paintings, “‘One depicts the bent-over butt of…
Aftermath: Butthole Surfers Shake Off the Dust (Devil) at House of Blues
Shortly after Aftermath stumbled across and copied down the Butthole Surfers’ set list at House of Blues Thursday night (always check the soundboard), we hit upon what we thought was the brilliant idea of assigning each song a letter grade of sorts based on the following four-point coding system: “M”…
A Chat With The Husband Of The Recently Deceased Manson Girl
Ex-Manson Family follower and stone-cold psychopathic demoness Susan Atkins died in a California prison hospital today, forty years after she helped kill actress Sharon Tate (eight months pregnant at the time) and seven other people in the notorious “Helter Skelter” murders. She had been battling brain cancer. Prison officials said her second husband was at…
Best Of Houston Winners: The Photos
Be sure to check around the site as the day and the weekend goes on: We’ll be highlighting our Best of Houston winners with slideshows.And, of course, be sure to check out the winners online and in print…
This Week In Deliciousness
Welcome back to the weekly roundup here at Eating Our Words, where the words are still sweetened with pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup because we deal in tastiness, NOT LIES. We started our week off with E. Ting’s M. Peccable chat with Beaver’s chef Jonathan Jones,…
The Dynamo Start To Ramp Up For The Playoffs
The Houston Dynamo have six games remaining in their schedule before the MLS Playoffs begin. Wednesday night’s clash at Robertson Stadium is arguably the team’s biggest game, and it comes against Pachuca, the team’s biggest international rival.Dynamo defender Eddie Robinson returned from offseason knee surgery last Tuesday night against Arabe…
Five Musicians Who Have Done More Drugs Than Happy Mondays and Survived
Aside from a brief flirt with mainstream popularity in the late ’80s/early ’90s, the Happy Mondays never made much of a splash on this side of “the Pond,” as they say. The band, like most coming out of the Manchester scene, garnered more notoriety for their use of pharmaceuticals than…
Harris County Sheriff’s Office Says It’s Making Progress On Handling The Mentally Ill
Earlier this week, Hair Balls wrote about an Al-Jazeera video about mentally ill people in jails, featuring the Harris County Jail and briefly profiling the police department’s Crisis Intervention Response Team, which the Houston Press has written about before. That Harris County Sheriff’s Office was criticized in our post, prompting…
Upcoming Events: Fall Festival Edition
Fall has officially arrived — both on the calendar and in the air. With the first “cold” snap of the year, Houston residents are cautiously creeping out from their air-conditioned confines and reacquainting themselves with the outdoors. Along with the beautiful weather each year comes a bevy of food festivals, starting with…
Is Creed One Of The Most Influential Bands Of The Past Twenty Years?
In late 1997, a song called “My Own Prison” started burning up modern rock airwaves. The band, Creed, was an earnest sounding rock band with a vocalist who sounded like an overly-polished Eddie Vedder and the music had a steady beat that wasn’t that far removed from the grunge that…
Houston’s Randy Quaid Enters Celebrity Mugshot Hall Of Fame
Houston’s Randy Quaid, the pride of Bellaire High and UH, was recently arrested, along with his wife, in Marfa for allegedly walking out on a $10,000 hotel bill.It was one more example of some odd behavior by the couple — talk of their actions during the recent Broadway bomb Lone…
Health Department Roundup: Galleria Edition
The Galleria’s abundant blank-slate retail space needs little rehab and continues to retain and attract better-than-average restaurants that consistently score low on the health code violation hit parade. But there were a few offenders in September. Forthwith, some of the restaurants under the chrome arches that were cited by the…
Remembering Ike Through Drama And Comedy
Fernando Dovalina, who along with Island ETC artistic director Kim Mytelka organized this Saturday’s Eyes on the Tempest – The Ike Plays, has often hosted readings of new plays in his home. Most of those readings were themed, with all the participating playwrights agreeing to write on one topic. The…
Aftermath: Lighten Up, It’s Just Blink-182 at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
The thing that Aftermath always dug about Blink-182 when everyone else was slagging them for being a corporate pop-punk band was that they inherently didn’t give a good flying diamond-encrusted shit about the cred sweepstakes. This parlor game that self-appointed punk magistrates play has never sat well with us. No…
Friday Night Lights, Houston Style (And Thursday Night Style): Lamar Vs. Chavez
Hair Balls once saw Lamar Redskins gear for sale at a pharmacy in River Oaks, and since then we’ve been itching to experience what had to be the school’s devoted following of fans. So we traveled to HISD’s Barnett Stadium last night to watch Lamar take on the Chavez High…
Lonesome Onry and Mean: Townes Van Zandt Sparks Memories of Stax Records and Jack White
Lonesome Onry and Mean received the following from California record producer/Boronda Records president Charlie McGovern after emailing him John Nova Lomax’s blog on Townes van Zandt’s old Houston haunts. “This is a picture of the original Stax site,” McGovern says. “That’s my buddy Omar in the picture. I was helping…
Walk Like An Egyptian Zombie, Or Even An American One
We’ve just gotten a new load of passes to the preview screening of Zombieland, a movie about, we guess, a strange land full of zombies. E-mail hairballscontest@houstonpress.com to claim one.And when you come October 1, come heavy, as they say in the Sopranos. Except in this case it means come…
Galveston Bay Oyster Report
Lance Robinson, head of Coastal Fisheries at Texas Parks and Wildlife, reports that last week, $700,000 in funds received after hurricane Rita were used to pay for nine barges full of 18,000 tons of river rock, restoring a 20-acre public oyster reef area in East Galveston Bay. In late August,…
Five Spot: In Which We Recant A Few of the Japes We’ve Enjoyed at Paul Wall’s Expense
Welcome back to Five Spot. Every Friday, we’ll examine a recent bit of music news and, sometimes awkwardly, tie it to a bit of Houston rap. It’s five videos and occasional cussing. Send tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. “I Need Mo,” feat. Kobe and Travis Barker: A day or two ago, the…
The Sad Truth About The New Astros Manager, Whoever It Is
If you’re like me, you’re just dreading this Astros off-season because you know, just like I know, that Drayton McLane is going to make nothing but bad decisions. The worst decision to be made will probably involve the manager position where the favorites for the job appear to be Jim…
Five Creed Videos Creed Really Wishes You Wouldn’t Watch
This evening, Rocks Off embarks on a solo assignment that many of our friends and family have begged and pleaded with us not to undertake. “Don’t go! What if you get hurt? What if you end up liking it? Why don’t you love us?” There have been tears, screaming arguments,…
Planning to Blow Up Dallas? Don’t Chat About It Online
Although Houston rules and Dallas drools when it comes to the Battle for the Greatest Texas City, Like, Ever, even a red-blooded Houstonian would never wish an ill fate on that forgettable city to the north of us in a million years. Well, not anything anyone else would see as harm,…
Hubcap Grill Opens New Location
Hubcap Grill has garnered both critical acclaim and a dedicated following of downtown office workers/burger fanatics. But the tiny space on Prairie Street has a few quirks — the “dining room” has only a few tables, and the adjacent patio is uninhabitable during summer months. Additionally, closing time is at…
Vampire Diaries: Stefan Writes In His Diary!
When the hell did vampires learn how to walk around during the day? Is this a thing now? I know they’ve been given sparkly chests and androgynous builds, but come on, the creature of the night angle is like their entire thing. That’s what makes them vampires. Without that, a…
The Office: The Meeting
There was a period a couple seasons ago when The Office felt like it was running out of steam, but its current sixth season is as strong as ever. Last night’s “The Meeting” hit all the standard marks for an episode — Michael does something wacky, then something cruel, then…
The Kid Care Vs. Dolcefino Saga Gets Examined
Throughout the years we’ve written a bunch of stories and items on Kid Care, the feed-the-poor group begun by Carol Porter that went on to great fame before KTRK’s Wayne Dolcefino did a massive series of reports on loose spending at the charity.For every item, we’ve probably had 10 conversations…
Pie in the Sky’s Bourbon Sweet Potato Pecan Pie Recipe
This pie was a Grand Champion Winner at the 2001 Montgomery County Fair, entered by Morgan Cartwright — niece of Pie in the Sky owner Marlene Mathis Stubler. Although the original Pie in the Sky is located in Conroe, the diner is expected to open a second location in the…
Lone Star Scorecard: Homesick Texas Songs
Admit it, you miss Texas. Lubbock may not have a lot of – okay, any – scenery, Dallas may take a little too much pride in the fact that they shot a TV show there, and Houston might not have the best climate/air quality/traffic, but it’s home, dammit. Spend much time…
Finally, A Second Mayoral Candidate Has A TV Ad To Review
It’s taken awhile, but we finally able to continue our series of reviews of the first TV ads by Houston’s mayoral candidates. Peter Brown came out with one a month ago (not that you see it all that much), and now Annise Parker is on the air.Here are the five…
