A Glimpse of Stocking
FRI 2/13 In 1925, when the great Noel Coward was just a young buck in his twenties, he was already producing some great work, including the unforgettable Hay Fever. But it was his less memorable Fallen Angels that ruffled everyone’s feathers that year. Bishops and old biddies alike were outraged…
The Hard Sell
It was only a few days ago that Shane Carruth, software engineer-turned-filmmaker, was ready to walk away from the money on the table and keep his movie–78 minutes’ worth of cheapo celluloid that had, in a Utah instant, become as valuable as strands of gold. He had stopped answering his…
The End Is Near
“Go tweak yourself to death you rich, big headed rock stars. You are nothing but image concerned asswipes. By signing to Epitaph you will just destroy your underground following, and the mainstream will not catch on so you’ll end up destroying your band. Not that I have a problem with…
Hanging the Lawn
I’m not really into lawns. So long as there’s more grass than bare dirt around my house, and it’s short enough to see a tricycle in it, I’m happy. There was a time in my life when I found myself at parties where much of the conversation was devoted to…
Cardiac Kids
Even for the hipper-than-hip Austin Chronicle “Dancing for Architecture” column, this February 9, 2001, journalistic snippet was particularly snide. “Bryan Bowden of the Young Heart Attack called to announce that Tony Scalzo is now ‘a full-time member’ of the band, joining the exclusive clique alongside ex-Barker Alice Spencer, Tune in…
Fresh Producers
Musical comedies were never that funny — that is, until Mel Brooks came along. The master of irreverent silliness changed the very texture of Broadway when, in 2001, he turned his 1968 film The Producers into a Tony Award-winning musical comedy hit. He wrote the script with help from Thomas…
Missouri Whirlwinds
Make no mistake about it: Stevie Newman, guitarist and singer for the Domino Kings, is as country as a stick. Now, we’re not talking about what they call country up in Nashville, those buffed, fashion-consulted, Pro Tooled and media-savvy “stars” whose “music” is probably making Johnny Cash spin in his…
Cupid Plays the Odds
The sunshine striking our window-side table on this brilliant winter afternoon makes the seafood in my soup sparkle and glow. Chunks of fresh fish, sweet scallops and jumbo shrimp served in a seafood stock tinted bright yellow by a generous dose of saffron are just what you’d expect in a…
Drat!
Houston commercial rock radio has always been a wasteland, a badlands of tired music and dead trends. And it seems that the people of Houston know it. The Buzz — our so-called alternative station (though it’s now as mainstream, and intelligent, as Jessica Simpson) is the highest-rated rock station in…
Bang This
There’s nothing quite like authentic pub grub. At The Red Lion Pub (2316 South Shepherd, 713-782-3030), you’ll find bangers and mash ($8), along with other British comfort food like Scotch eggs or roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. The bangers and mash instantly transported me back to my childhood in London…
Ship Wrecked
Off the coast of Galicia, a rocky province in northwest Spain, a storm was brewing. Captain Luis Dopico, aboard the tiny Carmen Belen, towed a line of 2,000 hooks through the ocean. He braced against the spray and hoisted up a cord writhing with sea snakes. Ocean life from the…
Billy Talent
Ben Kowalewicz is doing all he can to put the spunk back into punk. Although the lead singer of Canadian rockers Billy Talent is still in bed when reached on the phone at his Toronto home, he can summon up more moxie than most of the nouveau punksters could ever…
Talky? You Bet!
Best-selling author Brad Meltzer’s latest Washington thriller, The Zero Game, involves congressional staffers running betting pools on upcoming votes (naturally, things go awry, and the next vote is for…danger!). Since its publication, he’s heard from lots of Capitol Hill folks regaling him with descriptions of real betting games that go…
Hot Tuna
During the late 1960s, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady already had their time pretty much filled as founding members of pioneering (and popular) San Francisco psychedelic group the Jefferson Airplane. But while indulging in all forms of Owsley lab hallucinogens, the pair, who’d been friends since their teens,…
Firing Line
Shortly after Paul Donnelly took over as the director of the Harris County probation department, he assembled his 800 employees and delivered what he describes as the “hack it or pack it speech.” He encouraged the staff to view him as their dictator, and to fear him appropriately. “If I…
Cowboy Mouth
Having rocked Craig Kilborn’s Late Late Show last November and gotten a taste of national television exposure, it seems that Cowboy Mouth has gone junkie and started jonesing for another hit of that sweet, sweet promotional crack. Thus, the roots-influenced singing-drummer quartet (best known for “Jenny Says,” from its 1996…
Letters
Hometown Horrors Lousy welcome: I generally appreciate the “no holds barred” writing that I find in the Houston Press. This week I didn’t. The information presented in Richard Connelly’s article “Houston Uncovered” [January 29] is nothing new. In one form or another, we’ve been made aware of these unattractive aspects…
Kelis
Tasty’s cover — a close-up head shot of Kelis and her enticing, entrancing, lusciously come-hither stare — calls to mind two old-school R&B performers known for that exact same gaze: Donna Summer and Millie Jackson. The comparisons don’t stop with the cover art — and apparently, that’s the point. Kelis…
Chocolove
‘Twill make old women young and fresh / Create new motions of the flesh. / And cause them long for you know what, / If they but taste of chocolate. — James Wadworth If vanilla has come to stand for all that is plain, bland and unkinky, what can we…
Jet
Just over ten years ago, Rick Rubin hosted an actual funeral for the word def. And now it’s time to hold last rites for another word: retro-rocker. Even though the term long ago lost any true meaning, it’s been hung upon far too many a young band today whose sound…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, February 12 Get your baggy trousers out of storage or shimmy into that swirly skirt — today’s your weekly opportunity to trip the light fantastico at Salsa-thon Ladies Night. Free salsa lessons will be given from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., featuring two professional instructors who’ll have you rumba-ing…
Norah Jones
They’re all waiting for her — the soccer moms who find her soothing, the Pottery Barn bohos who think her appealing, the elitist jazzbos who wonder if she isn’t just Roberta Flack with a pedigree, and everyone else for whom Norah Jones proves it possible that talent can still trump…
Bons Temps, Island-Style
Remember when Uncle Lenny got drunk on New Year’s Eve and did that thing with the whipped cream? Imagine hundreds of Uncle Lennys tromping around Galveston, hurtling themselves skyward to catch colored beads and hoping crowd members will re-create Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl fashion statement. Imagine you’re at Mardi Gras…
Telefon Tel Aviv
With Map of What Is Effortless, Telefon Tel Aviv marks a radical departure from the opaque ambience of its 2001 debut, Fahrenheit Fair Enough, toward a rich brew of soul and IDM electronics. Much of it, in fact, features the Loyola University Chamber Orchestra, which lends the proceedings a regal,…
Drowning by Numbers
WED 2/18Suzanne O’Malley’s revelatory new book about Andrea Yates begins with a quote from the Greek tragedy Medea: “I see, the thing I do; it’s love not ignorance leads me astray. My help shall save you; only — saved — fulfill, fulfill your promise.” The quote is fitting. But what…
Stereolab
After nine studio albums, the Anglo-French unit Stereolab has become very comfortable in its sound, sinking into a beanbag chair of Laetitia Sadier’s “ba-da-ba’s,” Farfisa organ drones, wonderfully serpentine bass lines and krautrock/bossa nova/waltz rhythms. One would think that Margerine Eclipse, the first album released since singer-keyboardist Mary Hansen’s death…
Love of the Game
Texas is home to some of the most elite college baseball teams. In 2002, the Texas Longhorns took home the NCAA baseball national championship. In 2003, the Rice Owls took the title home. Now, the 2004 trek back to the College World Series begins. Early money says that Rice (preseason…
Great Heights
Some acts of courage command everyone’s respect: the firefighter’s return to a burning house to rescue a child, the infantryman’s sacrifice of self for a wounded comrade, the weary black woman’s refusal to yield her seat on a segregated bus. Sometimes, though, courage can feel clouded — especially when it’s…
Mardi Gras Lite
SUN 2/15 If you can’t make it to Galveston or New Orleans for Mardi Gras, or you don’t want your impressionable youngsters to see all that Girls Gone Wild behavior, a more sedate celebration of the holiday can be had at Bayou Bend Family Day’s “Mardi Gras in America.” The…
Adam ‘n’ Heave
With 50 First Dates, it seems as though Adam Sandler is trying to compile a greatest-hits film, cobbling together the stuff that worked in his previous films in the hopes that it’ll play even better all in one go. There’s the falsetto comedy song bit from every episode of Saturday…
Move Over, Meg and Jack
WED 2/18 Can a former pre-med student and an elementary school teacher find happiness together as a cutting-edge rock band? If you’re talking about Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner — the drums-keyboard duo known as Mates of State — the answer is damn straight. With the release of Team Boo,…
A Real Wreck
Highwaymen is much like its villain, a former automobile insurance man who cruises the nation’s freeways in search of young women to run down in order to create his own brand-new crash photos. Behind the wheel of his ’72 El Dorado, Fargo (Colm Feore) is an amalgam of the hinges…