Pushmonkey
Austin’s Pushmonkey has been teetering on the verge of national success for a few years now. The band has toured with Ozzfest and opened for KISS. It has received a helping hand from the likes of legendary producer Clive Davis and ZZ Top manager Bill Ham. But it’s this record…
Cotton Money
“A dime of cotton money,” a Houston native told me the year I arrived in town from the enchanted island of Manhattan, “is worth a dollar of oil money.” Indeed, it was cotton and not oil that fueled the building of the Houston Ship Channel. At the turn of the…
The Eleven Dwarves
The lights go down, and the puzzlement begins. Ensemble cast of superstars? Check. Loose remake of amusing curiosity? Check. Built in, prefab sense of cool? Check. A little something for wistful fans of Dino and Sammy? Check. So…wait a minute. Is this The Cannonball Run Redux? With his ambitious but…
The Icemen Cometh
In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton led an expedition designed to reach the South Pole. But the winter was unprecedentedly harsh, and his ship, the Endurance, was trapped for eight months before being destroyed by the ice. The result was a two-year ordeal of almost unbelievably bad luck, offset only by…
Hunger Strike
“Mr. Human Rights,” they once called him, and though his was never the most famous name on the bill–that was Bono or Bruce Springsteen, Sting or Peter Gabriel–as the organizer of the Conspiracy of Hope concerts in 1986 and the Human Rights Now! world tour two years later, Jack Healey…
So Many Christmas Shows, So Little Time
Never share the stage with a child or an animal, or so the saying goes. This bit of theatrical wisdom is especially true if the kid is as full of freckle-faced charm as Alison Luff and the canine is as cute as Callie. Luff and the pup, who was adopted…
Gangstas in Paradise
I was eight years old when I first got directed into the Crips gang, the 29th Street Crips gang. First I started off running drugs for them ’cause at that time police didn’t really look at little kids in search of some. They would have us to run the dope…
Purging a Dirty Past
Texas and Houston certainly aren’t known for their clean environmental record, but now some environmentalists and legislators fear that state regulators are offering up just that — a clean slate — for polluters. And they don’t think it’s fair. Concerns center on recently proposed regulations by the state’s environmental agency,…
When Will They Learn?
The party really rocked at the chic Derek Hotel on the West Loop around nine Saturday night. The stage was awash with local Republicans, from those high-fiving GOP glimmer twins, county chair Gary Polland and protégé Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt to Jack Rains, the red-faced, blustery former sports authority chair…
We Take It Back
This just in from the Houston Chronicle: Jim “Mattress Mac” McIngvale’s galleryfurniture.com Bowl is a joke. Readers might be surprised to learn that fact, given how the Chron endlessly hyped the bowl’s inaugural game last year and later declared it a success. (Attendance would have reached 40,000, the paper reported,…
Holidays with Slump
For the youthful subset of Houston’s art community, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without an en-“gross”-ing evening with Slump. Cathy Power and Keith Reynolds, who make up the scatological, blasphemous, iconoclastic and downright nasty performance duo (see “Growing Up’s for Suckers,” by Lauren Kern, January 25), have been putting on…
Letters, December 6
Cover-ups Religious sexism: While part of me thinks I should mind my own business, I find I can’t be silent about “No Veiled Threats” [by Jennifer Mathieu, November 15]. Reading about Heidi, an American convert who chooses to veil, stirred such emotions in me. I was brought up in conservative…
Those Magnificent Men and Their Flyer Machines
Whenever a new club, rave or weekly event goes down in this city’s nightlife otherworld, its planners have to get the word out on a limited budget. The question is, how? There are the usual faves: word of mouth, print advertising and radio promotion. But most of the time, flyers…
Less Is More
Thirty-nine years ago someone came up with the idea to decorate one of the historic homes that had been transplanted to Sam Houston Park for preservation, and the Heritage Society’s annual Candlelight Tour was born. Since then, the event has grown to attract some 15,000 visitors a year, who come…
Dilated Peoples
If you dug the first record from L.A. underground trio Dilated Peoples, you’ll enjoy the latest, too. Like 1999’s The Platform, Expansion Team brims with MC Evidence and Akaa’s hard-hitting, stream-of-consciousness rhymes — never-ending strings of unorthodox metaphors and offbeat punch lines that are street-savvy without a lot of street…
Victorians’ Secret
With Christmastime comes many traditions — and not just Uncle Larry hitting the rum and eggnog. Exchanging gifts, sending cards, decorating a tree and singing carols may seem like ancient rites, but they’re not. “Much of our present-day Christmas customs were popularized or invented by the Victorians in England,” says…
Ralph Stanley
Sure, there have been unlikelier comebacks, but not many. Not since Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mississippi John Hurt were rediscovered in the 1960s has an artist’s ascent out of relative obscurity been more dramatic than Ralph Stanley’s rocket shot from bluegrass festival elder statesman to country music chart-topper. Over the course…
Go Dutch
At least once a year, I make a pilgrimage to Spring for licorice. Not the long, twisted, sweet ropes you might think of as licorice, but the real stuff: Dutch licorice. While most central European and Scandinavian countries have a licorice culture dating back to at least Greek and Roman…
Natalie Merchant
Though derided by some for the in-your-face political correctness of much of her music, Natalie Merchant’s boldness in saying exactly what’s on her mind is far preferable to today’s barely postpubescent whining waifs. It’s also garnered her a loyal fan base more earth-mama and literary in leanings than, say, that…
Message in a Hot Water Bottle
One of rock music’s enduring and endearing qualities is its ability to give voice to the voiceless. Sure, such a powerful implement can often be co-opted by The Man (see Aerosmith, Liz Phair, Hendrix) or just plain traded in for hefty servings of freely offered titties, drugs and beer (see…
The Convocation Of…
If you were hip to such solid powerhouses as Born Against, Moss Icon, the Great Unraveling and Universal Order of Armageddon, then you’d expect Tonie Joy, a former member of all of the above, to know a thing or three about (post-) hardcore. As guitarist-vocalist in The Convocation Of…, Joy…
Pasta Perfect
Fabio Molano is talking on the phone. It’s a pretty animated conversation, and he’s speaking Spanish. Paul Galvani and I are sitting at the little bar finishing our coffees. Paul shoots me a knowing glance: He had bet me that Fabio wasn’t Italian, and judging by the way he speaks…
Mary J. Blige / Macy Gray
The title of Mary J. Blige’s new CD is laughable. Even Blige knows that if she didn’t exude at least a smidgen of melodrama, people would think she’d had a lobotomy, or at least some really good meds. And if the title were true, the album wouldn’t include a bluesy…
What Recession?
The economy may be slowing, and light rail construction may be playing havoc with small businesses along its route, but new bars and restaurants are still opening up in downtown Houston. Just across the street from the recently shuttered Tasca Kitchen and Wine Bar (dark as of November 1), a…