Drywall
Looks like former Wall of Voodoo leader Stan Ridgway (remember “Mexican Radio”?) has re-emerged from LA noir-rock obscurity just in time to lob a sarcastic musical hand grenade into a homeland secured by the smug likes of Tom Ridge and his little color codes. Worth the price for the song…
Grind It Out with Pam
Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson: Uncensored! (Paramount) This sucker’s vulgar — duh — but not shocking in the least bit; Sarah Silverman swears, and Courtney Love drinks and smokes…who knew? That said, this roast ranks among the meanest ever televised; why Bea Arthur shows up every year to have…
Tag, He’s It
A few years ago, pretty much every club you’d hit was full of dudes rocking an urban uniform of Timberlands and anything by *ecko unltd. The brand of sports and hipsterwear — marked by the rhinoceros in the rifle scope — was created by designer-urban dweller Marc Ecko, who set…
Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, the Elected
This pair of Rilo Kiley side projects seem to constitute a last small-label hurrah from each of the co-leaders of that band before allowing the WB-hemoth to market them from here to Timbuktu sometime later this year. Lyricist, chanteuse, former child star (Troop Beverly Hills, anyone?) and Rolling Stone-proclaimed “hottie”…
Our top DVD picks for the week of February 14
Disney Princess Sing Along Songs, Vol. Three: Perfectly Princess (Buena Vista) Emmanuel’s Gift (First Look) The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: The Complete First Three Seasons (Warner Bros.) The Frisco Kid (Warner Bros.) Gimme a Break!: Season One (MCA) Grey’s Anatomy: Season One (Buena Vista) He-Man and the Masters of the…
Party in the AM
When DJ AM, a.k.a. Adam Goldstein, left his hometown of Philadelphia for L.A. at age 15, he just wanted to spin records for a living. Now 32, AM is the go-to waxman for celebs: He’s spun at parties for the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Lo and Brad Pitt. He’ll…
Max Stalling
If the world is looking for another Don Williams, Max Stalling pretty much fits the bill. Stalling has stockpiled a clutch of songs that recall the Gentle Giant while cultivating an easygoing, good-ol’-boy-with-a-brain style that hones in on that Western-ish sweet spot between country and folk. In short, Stalling has…
All-Star Jam
By the time the actual NBA All-Star game happens today, we can imagine a lot of people will be seriously broke, or pooped, or both. But no matter — the hottest names in Houston rap are capping off the night on opposite ends of downtown. So we’re pretty sure Houston…
Robert Pollard
The question burning holes in the kangaroo pockets of hoodies across the indie-rock nation this winter is: Why should we give two shits about a new Robert Pollard CD? After 700 billion releases [figure approximate] under the Guided By Voices moniker alone since 1994’s Bee Thousand breakthrough, it’s hard to…
Band Suicide
For most who heard it, Michael Haaga’s solo debut, The Plus and Minus Show, was the kind of magical record you fall in love with on first listen. What’s more, you stayed in love with it for a long time. That it had strong melodies and pop hooks was immediately…
Mixtape Masters
Most folks think their own mix tapes are the bomb. But few have ever gotten as much acclaim as Brooklyn-based The Illegible DJ Caps and Pandemonium Jones, whose limited, self-released Moving in Stereo mix tape caught the ears of the scribes at Spin magazine, who hailed it as one of…
Brennen Leigh
The new Devil’s on My Trail CD by Brennen Leigh is so country it hurts. And I mean that in the best possible way. There’s no bullshit here, just heartbreak, violence and Gawd-fear, the sound of tortured twang giving way to sassy swang and going back ’round the horn for…
Fish a la Plancha
John Stage, the founder of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a famous barbecue joint in upstate New York, was here in Houston for a barbecue convention a couple of years ago. He and his posse asked me to recommend a restaurant. They had already eaten a lot of Houston barbecue and wanted some…
Bon Appétit!
Of all the ´80s MTV metal bands (Poison, anyone? Skid Row? Hello?), perhaps none have survived and evolved — or at least laid off the hair spray — better than Bon Jovi. These Joisey boys were always a bit more rock than cock, despite their namesake’s pinup perfection. Currently, Jon…
Nashville Pussy
With their 1998 debut, the boys and girls of Nashville Pussy declared Let Them Eat Pussy. Seven years later, they’re still all about the muff. Their latest album, Get Some!, opens with the holler, “Well, all right, who wants some pussy?” The quartet’s two superhot, supercrass female members, guitarist Ruyter…
Knockout Gnocchi
The homemade potato gnocchi alla gorgonzola ($11) at Perbacco (700 Milam, 713-224-2422) will have you sopping up the creamy gorgonzola sauce with whatever you can find on the table — fork, spoon, bread. It’s one of the all-time tastiest pasta sauces, with just the right tang to it, and you…
Baller’s Ball
It’s All-Star Weekend, and since your courtside tickets probably got lost in the mail (ours did), you’re no doubt looking for a way to be part of the action. And as any true balla knows, hoops are only part of the All-Star Weekend. There’s plenty of partying, celebrity stalking, and…
The Academy Is…, with Panic! At the Disco, Acceptance, Hellogoodbye
Calling The Academy Is…’s brand of indie pop-punk infectious is much too tame: To do so would give the Ebola virus a bad name. When I first picked up their debut album on a whim last summer, I was 6,000 miles deep in a cross-country road trip somewhere out in…
Arturo’s Uptown Italiano
Looking like I just woke up, I roll into Arturo’s Uptown Italiano (1180 Uptown Park Boulevard, 713-621-1180) for a fancy drink and a bite to eat with a couple of friends. When we walk in, one of the hostesses stops me and asks me to tuck in my shirt –…
Swell Guy
A long time ago, British guitarist Allan Holdsworth started using a volume pedal to “swell” chords into a long reverb effect, creating the impression of an orchestral string section with his ax. Now, like, everybody does it. Yep, there’s hardly a professional guitarist around who doesn’t acknowledge the British musician…
Kickball
These Olympia, Washington, kids achieve serious cuddliness where most of their regional, post-Beat Happening peers barely make it past cutesy. High-pitched lonely-boy vocals, jangle-ass guitars, stuttering bass parts, sugar-shock harmonies, hyperactive-but-not-show-offy percussion (by a pigtailed young woman whose nom-de-rock is listed as simply “Drumz”), rise ‘n’ fall dynamics and nonchalantly…
Alcohol-lelujah!
If you can’t beat your habit, justify it. Today’s Drinky Drink is a collection of short films chronicling humanity’s long and tumultuous love affair with fine fermented beverages. 1970’s A Case for Beer reminds convenience store owners that carding prevents profit loss, while Curious Habits of Man makes the relatively…
The Price Is Wrong
Freedomland manages a seemingly impossible feat: It’s both turgid and overwrought, eliciting the shriek that fades into a yawn without anyone ever noticing. It’s a wholly dreary piece of work, yet another dismal entry on the résumé of director Joe Roth, an only-in-Hollywood hack who’s allowed to make movies –…
Gentlemen to the End
Though Journey’s End is set in the British trenches of World War I, the play is more about preserving humanity than destroying it. Opening today at the Alley Theatre, Journey’s End tells of five officers’ enduring civility in the midst of overwhelming barbarism in the spring of 1918, before the…
You Can Quote Me
If you’re an avid consumer of Enron-trial coverage, you know the name Charles Prestwood. The 67-year-old Conroe resident has become the official go-to guy for reporters seeking outraged quotes from former minions of Ken Lay. We never knew quite how busy he was until we read a story on the…
Blood Business
In his 1961 farewell address, President Eisenhower warned Americans that an insidious new force was taking hold in the country. He called it the “military-industrial complex.” Born of necessity during the Second World War, this once-valuable conjunction of the military, the federal government, and the armaments industry was suddenly taking…
Talking ‘Bout Her Generation
Pre-packaged identities are only a gift card away for the times when soul-searching cuts too deeply into sitting around time. But there are other, less corporate ways of pondering selfhood, too. In her memoir A Strong West Wind, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gail Caldwell sheds some light on that question for…
Crossing Lines
Donte Smith was in a lot of trouble. He had just been arrested. His hands were wrapped together in plastic riot gear behind his back. Carried onto a bus with about 30 other prisoners — strangers — he was waiting for transfer to a nearby federal facility in Georgia. The…
Take This Woman
It happens so often these days. A comedy opens with clever jokes, endearing characters and an enjoyably brisk pace, all of which put you at ease. This’ll be fun, you think, settling into your chair. Someone trustworthy is driving, so let’s enjoy the ride. And then, just when you thought…
Picasso? Try Pachyderm
The next time you find yourself in the midst of a serious art discussion critiquing brush strokes, composition and color choice, chime in with this: “That reminds me of the pachyderm piece I own.” When you’re met with quizzical glances, add, “What, you don’t own a Jojo or a Luuk-Kwang?”…
Letters to the Editor
Trader’s Village Suspicious minds: Great article [“Wize Guys,” by Craig Malisow, February 2]. I use the Wizetrade infomercial in a class I teach as an example of an investment trap. Thanks for confirming my suspicions and providing details. Dale Rude, associate professor University of Houston Easy, indeed: I read your…
Dragon On
If you missed out on the recent Chinese New Year parties around town, you’re in luck. Today brings a Chinese New Year celebration dubbed “Myths and Legends.” The event promises some dazzling dance and musical performances, starting with a soaring dragon in the opening scene. Dance and music will intertwine…
Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy
More than a decade has gone by since I first saw Meat Beat Manifesto in a charmingly gritty warehouse in Deep Ellum in Dallas, but the early Meat Beat tracks still sound as fresh, funky and energizing as ever. Some of the band’s fans also behave better than they used…
Capsule Reviews
Cavalia Even if your equine appreciation ossified with Mr. Ed reruns when you were a kid, this artsy-fartsy horse show will astonish you in ways you’d never expect. Conceived by artistic director Normand Latourelle, a founder of the ubiquitous Canadian New Age circus Cirque du Soleil, Cavalia is the hippodrome…
Shining Star
Back when she was the, er, butt of late-night comedians’ jokes, Star Jones Reynolds was so obese that she couldn’t cross her legs, fasten her own necklace or walk 20 paces without getting winded. Though she was wealthy and famous, Reynolds — a co-host on Barbara Walters’s ABC gabfest The…
Told You So
As longtime readers will know by now, we don’t like to gloat in this column. Frankly, it’s beneath us — it’s unseemly, rude, uncouth, ill-mannered and downright tacky. But hell, so was JT LeRoy, whose ridiculous fiction-posing-as-memoir we trashed in this space back in August of last year, at the…
Go Ahead, Ask Him
The Houston art scene has been in the midst of some ’80s nostalgia, with three recent exhibitions of work by artists who came to prominence in that decade — Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel and, now, Houston native Mel Chin. Though Chin never played the part of “art star,” his exhibition,…
Sunday Coffee
Growing up in the small Louisiana town of Lake Charles, African-American author Pamela Davis-Noland knew quite well that not all racism is black and white — it can be black and black. She takes on the subject in her novel Coffee-Colored Dreams, a critic’s darling of a tome that has…
Into the Frey
James Frey lied. We know that now. He’s admitted as much. Frey took it on the teeth in front of millions a few weeks back on Oprah, the titular host of which he’d duped, along with other readers, into believing really earth-shattering shit about his ability to have a root…
Capsule Reviews
“The Birth of a Nation — Yo! Bum Rush the Show” Dawolu Jabari Anderson’s new works at the Art League Houston use D.W. Griffith’s infamously racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation as a source of inspiration. Anderson creates large paintings on paper that are reminiscent of vintage comic…
And Now, Some Hoops
Recently, our man Yao Ming narrowly beat out Kobe Bryant for the title of most votes for the 55th annual NBA All-Star Game, proving that team players always win over ball hogs. You can see Yao and his teammate Tracy McGrady welcome a slew of the best at today’s All-Star…
Don’t Mess with Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh has it good. It’s got a small-town feel combined with the best parts of city life: old man pubs alongside trendy bars, neighborhood grocery stores beside organic shops, and gossipy old women shoulder-to-shoulder with homeless people. Best of all, the rivers haven’t even caught fire in at least 30…
Torino It Off
Ah, the Winter Olympics. The nip of drama in the Alpine air. The purity of amateur competition. Swedish women in full-body spandex. These are all things we enjoy about the winter games. Now for some things we don’t: losing to Canada in hockey, male figure skaters in blouses, and of…
Free Movement
Fusing jazz with jetés and funk with fouettes, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater combines musical, religious, historical and theatrical elements of African-American culture into a dynamic visual explosion. This week’s production includes several new pieces inspired by Ailey, as well as the late choreographer’s own timeless, soulful, elegant dances. In…