Robert Earl Keen
More than any of his recent albums, Farm Fresh Onions represents the new Robert Earl Keen. The meticulously detailed Texana is gone and the vibrant character portraits once so easily recognizable and realistically drawn are less fleshed out and less vivid and lifelike. With only a few exceptions, the result…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, December 11 Ancient Greece was a haven for intellectuals, hedonists, warmongers and mystics. But perhaps your high school-era exposure to the Greeks’ literature and mythology made them seem remote, even boring. Rest assured, they were nothing of the sort. In his new book, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the…
The Dishes
Although they don’t appear to have any stories about drummers exploding on stage or snuffing it via any bizarre gardening accidents, the Dishes (the Chicago punks, not the late-’80s Houston party band) can still rank themselves with the likes of Spinal Tap in the category of rotating percussionists. In the…
Still Toxie After All These Years
Inspiration comes from unexpected sources. Lloyd Kaufman’s interest in film kicked in during his freshman year at Yale, thanks to a Jean-Luc Godard-obsessed roommate. But it wasn’t until after that year that his muse found him. Unlike fellow classmate and old friend Oliver Stone, who went off to Vietnam, Kaufman…
Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
What would happen if you found a bunch of slides from a 1977 McDonald’s corporate-marketing meeting and, in a flash of inspiration, turned them into a goofy song? What if you performed the song on a 1981 Casio keyboard, with your nine-year-old daughter on drums and your spouse showing the…
A Closed System
SAT 12/13 Most people have some kind of theory about the origin of life — and it can often be summed up on a bumper sticker. Some sport a tidy Christian fish; others, a Darwin fish with legs.But artist Matthew Ritchie’s interpretation of the evolution of the universe won’t fit…
Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis
Well-regarded Texans Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis have given themselves an early Christmas present: Happy Holidays, a seven-song EP of seasonal songs the singing-and-songwriting husband and wife recorded together and are selling at shows and through their respective Web sites. Since the Lifetime network keeps reminding me to be forgiving…
I Love My Calendar Girl
On Christmas morning, what would a guy rather find in his stocking: a) an apple, an orange, boxers and a razor; or b) a six-pack of Lone Star and a swimsuit calendar? If you said b), your choice might be clichéd, but it wouldn’t be inaccurate. After all, most guys…
Afro-punk: The Rock n Roll Nigger Experience
This long-time-in-the-making documentary finally sees the light of day in our city this week with two screenings arranged by KPFT’s Rad Richard. James Spooner’s 75-minute film details the lives of four young black Americans currently involved in and contributing to rock music. Spooner, 27, drove across the country with a…
Holiday Puree
It finally seems to be sinking in that not everybody celebrates Christmas. Hakeem Olajuwon has done a lot to raise folks’ consciousness about Ramadan, at least around here. And sometimes you can catch glimpses of Hanukkah and Kwanza lights among the gift-commercial quick-cuts. Now the Alley Theatre has pushed “puree”…
Acting Their Age
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Something’s Gotta Give is a film designed to appeal to older women, and it very likely will. Diane Keaton gives a good performance as a postmenopausal playwright who gets back in touch with her libido. The movie will probably make lots…
Uptight, Outta Sight
SAT 12/13 “It’s almost like The Matrix — it’s that popular!”This is how party enthusiast Martin Mkize sees “Jeans Out 003,” the annual concert and contest that’ll go down at Reception Hall this Saturday. And judging by the flyer — which features the kind of scantily clad ladies you regularly…
Farrelly Mediocre
Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly. With
Touched by an Angel
Shows that aren’t afraid to explore the sexy side of Christmas
Pointy Ears and Predictability
It’s no secret that the makers of musical comedy have absolutely no shame. They’ll go anywhere for inspiration, including animated films and pop culture. But who would’ve thought that the cover story of a supermarket tabloid would kindle a song-and-dance show? Deriders of musicals everywhere won’t be surprised to learn…
Come Back to Sorrento
Since Houston now has a Museum District and a Theater District, perhaps the stretch of lower Westheimer between Bagby and Shepherd, with its high concentration of good restaurants, should be called the Restaurant District. As the finishing touches are added to the soon-to-be-reopened La Strada, along comes Sorrento, the latest…
Supreme Show
Imagine Russia during the early years of the 20th century. In the dark, gilded interiors of its onion-domed Orthodox churches, the air is heavy with incense. Clusters of candles give off faint light as devout babushkas venerate golden icons, repetitively crossing themselves and bending to the ground in an ecstasy…
Italian Bubba
Damian Mandola looked fat and happy at the Texas Book Festival in Austin last month, where he was showing off his new book, Ciao Sicily. It’s the companion cookbook for the new season of the PBS Italian cooking series, Cucina Amore. Mandola and nephew Johnny Carrabba are hosting the show…
The Breakfast Club
A Lincoln Continental stops beside a live oak tree on Galveston’s 14th Street. A pimp stands by and then leans into the window, cuts a deal, and a redheaded prostitute gets in the car. “What are you doing pimping in front of my house?” shouts Bob, a 52-year-old sculptor, standing…
Kiss this
It looks like new restaurant Beso (2300 Westheimer, 713-523-2376) may be more permanent than a kiss in the dark. Chef Arturo Boada and staff have moved from the now-shuttered Solero’s to Bill Sadler’s latest creation, which is located where Two Chefs Bistro used to be. The fancy French food of…
Brother, Where Art Thou?
Warning: If a homeless man wandering around the artists’ Warehouse District of north downtown tries to sell you a 19th-century painting — specifically, a watercolor by Thomas Flintoff, an English romantic period artist — chances are it’s stolen. A thief made off with the historic painting, valued at $10,000, from…
Rocket Redux
These days it’s not uncommon for a musical artist’s career to last not much longer than it takes to nuke a burrito. In this climate of millisecond shelf lives, it’s hard to judge an artist’s impact. Disposable pop stars are manufactured, exploited and forgotten with such assembly-line efficiency that it…
Why Can’t They Be Friends?
Live, from Houston, it’s Saturday Election Night! In a suite in the upper reaches of the city-owned, almost unseemly opulent Hotel of the Americas, mayor-elect Bill White tinkered with his acceptance speech while kibitzing with son Stephen about the teen’s humorous introduction for Daddy, to be delivered a few hours…
Right Hear
There was a time, maybe 30 years ago, maybe longer, when a guy like Joe Pernice had a chance. He didn’t need a big label, didn’t need big money behind him. He didn’t need a sure-thing single that the boys in the promotion department could take to radio, didn’t need…
Gen-X Gospel
The crowd rolls in at around 5:30 p.m. on Sundays. The name on the red brick church in the Heights is West End Baptist, but the congregation goes by Ecclesia. The dress code, or lack of dress code, means that people feel cool enough to sport flip-flops, torn jeans and…
He’s Gone Country
If the Good Whoever didn’t intend Jason Allen to be a country music singer, then the master control for legacies, legends and the fickle finger of fate must be out of whack. The 27-year-old not only looks, sings and writes like a classic C&W artist, but comes fully equipped with…
Bile on the Isle
Passengers from a cruise ship had more than the usual sailing stories to share as they returned to the Galveston Waterfront Ventures parking lot near the Port of Galveston’s two cruise terminals. Lot employees Jocelyn Howell and Tiffany Robledo heard some of their customers tell that a soon-to-be-demolished grain elevator…
Rallying Round Al
When you think about musician-playwright Alejandro Escovedo, you start thinking about religious icons. It’s easy to imagine his image painted on tin and hung on the walls of a shrine — Santo Alejandro, the patron saint of Austin cool. When the San Antonio-born Escovedo arrived back in Texas in 1981,…
Letters
Holiday Leftovers No glee with Lee: Geez! I thought Robb Walsh’s feature was the first step of the Press’s 12-step program to journalistic greatness [“Shooting Bambi’s Mom,” November 6]. But, alas, no. If there is a real political turkey in town [“Turkeys of the Year,” by Richard Connelly, November 27],…
Bacharach Meets Isley
Two music legends come together to rearrange and rerecord the songs of one of the legends. It was nothing short of, well, legendary. If you don’t believe it you need look no further than the album’s liner notes. In them, we are told that when Burt Bacharach met Ronald Isley…
The Clash
Perestroika be damned — Russia is having one hell of a time coming to terms with the sweeping changes of recent years. Golden arches and white swooshes have kicked many traditional icons to the curb, a phenomenon that has not gone unnoticed by visual artist Oleg Yanushevsky. “Russia is open…