Sound Check with Ligion
Ligion (center) was on stage last night with Saliva Hard rock band Ligion was in Corpus Christi last night; it was the first night of their 45-city tour supporting Saliva. During Saliva’s set Josey Scott (Saliva’s lead vocalist) went over to the wings and pulled Ligion (that’s the lead singer…
The Curious Incident of the Frog Head in the Diet Coke
We get all kinds of unsolicited story ideas. Heck, we’d run out of words if scandal-loving folks such as yourselves didn’t keep us supplied with a steady stream of tips. So when we got an email from one Mario Lopez, who claimed he’d found a frog head in a bottle…
On the Pot
Reactions to this week’s feature are probably going to run the gamut from “right on, bro” to “you should be beaten, hung, electrocuted and shot.” Somewhere in between will be the classic argument that marijuana isn’t so bad, but it’s a gateway drug, see, and it has to be kept…
He’s Perfect for the Job
Laura Bush recently announced the White House has a new pastry chef. His name is Bill Yosses, and his credentials are quite impressive: Paul Newman’s Dressing Room, Josephs Citarella, Bouley Restaurant and Bakery, Tavern on the Green, Montrachet — all fantastic restaurants, to be sure. But what Mrs. Bush failed…
He’s Perfect for the Job
Laura Bush recently announced the White House has a new pastry chef. His name is Bill Yosses, and his credentials are quite impressive: Paul Newman’s Dressing Room, Josephs Citarella, Bouley Restaurant and Bakery, Tavern on the Green, Montrachet — all fantastic restaurants, to be sure. But what Mrs. Bush failed…
Taco War on Caroline
All photos by Robb Walsh Taqueria Torres, 4400 Caroline Gooey cheese and lots of spicy pork made for an outstanding quesadilla al pastor at Taqueria Torres. It clearly outclassed the one we tried from Jesse’s Taqueria, right across the street. We weren’t nearly as impressed with the Torres hamburguesa estilo…
Taco War on Caroline
All photos by Robb Walsh Taqueria Torres, 4400 Caroline Gooey cheese and lots of spicy pork made for an outstanding quesadilla al pastor at Taqueria Torres. It clearly outclassed the one we tried from Jesse’s Taqueria, right across the street. We weren’t nearly as impressed with the Torres hamburguesa estilo…
Free Sample
For the first installment of our new column, Chef Special, Robb Walsh sent a list of burning questions to Randy Evans, executive chef of Brennan’s of Houston. Among other things, he found out what irks Randy: “My biggest pet peeve is people that are closed-minded about food. I wish people…
Free Sample
For the first installment of our new column, Chef Special, Robb Walsh sent a list of burning questions to Randy Evans, executive chef of Brennan’s of Houston. Among other things, he found out what irks Randy: “My biggest pet peeve is people that are closed-minded about food. I wish people…
Donnie Davies, R.I.P.
If you’ve been living in a cave for the last week — or, you know, just don’t happen to frequent gay chat rooms — the New York Blade has a decent roundup of all the chatter surrounding Donnie Davies — the man, the myth, the mustache. But all you really…
We Know This Great Power Line Where We Can Hang Out
We get all kinds of swag for upcoming events. Books. Salsa. Inflatable airplanes. Hell, one time we even got one of those large rectangular air filters — why exactly, we’ll never know. But we have to wonder, with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, if the folks at the Park…
Graffiti Artist Sues H.P.D.
The battle for Houston’s walls just hit the courts. Philip Perez, aka Article, has filed a lawsuit against the Houston Police Department for an incident that occurred at the Westheimer Block Party last November. HouStoned was at the event, but we showed up after Perez had already been taken away…
The Dog Days of Summer, Winter, Fall….
Evin Thayer All that’s missing is a slice of apple pie. My first reaction to hearing about a 2007 Pet Calendar with Houston Astros players Craig Biggio, Brad Lidge and Brad Ausmus on its cover — in and out of uniform — was an interested “all right.” Alas, it’s not…
The Dog Days of Summer, Winter, Fall….
Evin Thayer All that’s missing is a slice of apple pie. My first reaction to hearing about a 2007 Pet Calendar with Houston Astros players Craig Biggio, Brad Lidge and Brad Ausmus on its cover — in and out of uniform — was an interested “all right.” Alas, it’s not…
Gather Round
Courtesy of Doo Doo Butter Doo Doo Butter We called Ben Donehower, guitarist for local band Doo Doo Butter, to ask him, among other things, what’s with the name? The conversation didn’t last long enough for him to give us a reason — the high schooler had to hang up…
Momma Joke
Tonight at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, it’s former first lady Barbara Bush’s turn to pick her favorite flick for the Movies Houstonians Love series. Her choice: Life Is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni’s touching tale of a father’s efforts to shield his son from the grim horrors of the Holocaust…
Magic iPod
iPod, iPod, on the table, will next year’s Rockets be stable? We know, we know, you’re sick of reading trend pieces about iPods. We are too. But it remains true that the potential of these little gizmos remains largely untapped. For instance, we just thought of a new use for…
Live Shots: Lindsey Buckingham
Bob Israel Lindsey Buckingham Showcasing his new solo album Under the Skin, Lindsey Buckingham also gave an appreciative crowd its mandatory shot of mainline Fleetwood Mac hits at Verizon Wireless Theater last night. A consummate showman, brilliant singer-songwriter, and virtuoso guitarist and arranger, Buckingham opened with a numbing three song…
Donnie Davies Exposed!
It looks like the Donnie Davies debate has been resolved. Click here to read the latest theory. We’ll have more later in the day. — Keith Plocek…
BREAKING NEWS: We Quit
So the transit authority has a fancy new blog called Write on METRO. You might’ve heard about it. Or maybe you’re more familiar with Laurence Simon’s (much better looking) parody site. Anyway, we here at HouStoned are a nosy bunch, so we sent a message to METRO a couple of…
Great Scott!
Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson is having some alarming fun with math. Lt. Governor David Dewhurst says we need more prisons because of “population growth.” But from 1978 until 2004, the Texas prison population increased 573 percent (from 22,439 to 151,059), while the state’s total population increased just…
Gift Rap
Sweet! Those of you who think that the American Idol auditions are a little too mean, but still love to watch talent contests are in luck. Gifted begins tonight on TBN. From the show’s Web site: “16,000 contestants. 8 finalists. 3 judges. 1 winner. GIFTED. On January 26, 2007, on…
Shell Hell
What is it with pompous Irish rock stars and schlocky corporate fight songs? From the same blighted and nightmarish corner of hell that gave us Bank One’s fusion of U2’s “One” and corporate banking jargon comes this sulphuric desolation of foul abomination — “We Are The World” re-written with lyrics…
Shell Hell
What is it with pompous Irish rock stars and schlocky corporate fight songs? From the same blighted and nightmarish corner of hell that gave us Bank One’s fusion of U2’s “One” and corporate banking jargon comes this sulphuric desolation of foul abomination — “We Are The World” re-written with lyrics…
The New Deals
Hey, fielder, fielder. Hey, fielder, fielder… What should the Astros do when right fielder Jason Lane finishes the 2006 season with a measly batting average of .201? Recent logic of General Manager Tim Purpurpa says give em’ a raise. A large raise. Lane inked a new one-year contract today worth…
Idol Chatter
If there’s a sadder commentary on the state of celeb-obsessed, endlessly validated American youth than the deranged Sarah Goldberg, I have had the good fortune to avoid it thus far. You’ll remember her as the 20-year-old New York City auditioner in the pink cowboy hat who butchered the Selena song…
Last Call for Houston bands!
This is the last call for Houston bands – ding, ding! If you have a band that would like to play at Galveston’s Mardi Gras next month, e-mail your contact information (band name, contact person, website and phone number) to Olivia.Alvarez@HoustonPress.com. This could be your big break! So if you…
Playbill: The Von Ehrics
For all of its occasional Marlboro Man look-alike stodginess, the Texas music scene in Dallas has always made room for a few bands that go way beyond the limits of country (as long as they occasionally mumbled somethin’ about Merle and Wille, by god). The Von Ehrics are a hell-for-leather…
The J. Peterman Treatment
Our inbox gets flooded with new product announcements. Some informative, others obtuse, almost all boring. But every so often one inspires us, not necessarily to go out and buy the gadget — we already got enough stuff — but to give the product the J. Peterman treatment. She pulled off…
On His Feet
A lot of Astro fans howled in dismay when the Houston Astros fired radio guy Alan Ashby after the 2005 season. Ashby, who had the dubious honor of working with the Astros’ past-a-prime-that-was-never-too-prime-anyway Milo Hamilton, was canned in a shuffle triggered by Hamilton’s decision to no longer travel. Ashby was…..not…
Cookbooks: Getting Cheesy
Texas cheesemaker Paula Lambert, founder of the Mozzarella Company in Dallas, has got a new cookbook out called Cheese, Glorious Cheese! (Simon & Schuster, $26.95). A lot of the recipes are really easy, like the “Gouda Bread Pudding” I just made for breakfast. You chop up some bread and toss…
Texas Tenors Times Two
It took just one jazz-loving priest to launch the Trinity Jazz Festival in 2002. The Rev. William Miller was new to Houston’s Trinity Episcopal Church, a congregation that has a special interest in bringing the arts together with spirituality. Along with all the usual church services, religious education and outreach…
Capsule Reviews
“Brooke Stroud: New Drawings” and “Michael Petry: In the Garden of Eden” There are two new exhibitions at Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery — one is subtle, the other subtly subversive. Brooke Stroud’s colored pencil drawings on gray cardboard have an Agnes Martin vibe to them. The cardboard looks like…
Unknown Legend
Joe Ely was born along the Rock Island line in Amarillo, Texas, three blocks from Route 66. At age six, he witnessed Jerry Lee Lewis pounding a piano on the back of a flatbed truck; at 12, his family moved two hours south to Lubbock, the hometown of Buddy Holly…
Ask A Mexican! Contest!
Dear Mexican, This November, a trusted employee of mine came out about his status as an illegal immigrant. Our big-box retail conglomerate’s policy clearly spells out the termination of my employment should I fail to report such an offense, but I love the mojado to death. He’s loyal, punctual and…
Pink Pop
Music genres are getting ridiculous these days. Some names describe everyone, like “rock.” Quick, name three bands that don’t play rock music! See? “Rock” can mean almost everything. Some names describe almost no one, like “darkwave.” There are maybe five bands in the whole world that can accurately say the…
Dr. Feelgood
Publisher: Atlus
Platform: Wii
Price: $49.99
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Score: 8.5 (out of 10)
Cred Sheet
Bizarre Resurgence Ladies and gentlemen, America — yes, that America, “A Horse With No Name” America — now has a MySpace page. Something should be done about this, and it should probably be violent. This Song Will Change Your Life Matisyahu’s cover of “Message in a Bottle.” The Police are…
Classic Coke
Cocaine Cowboys (Magnolia) Slam! Bang! Pow! Snort! This tawdry and giddy documentary tells the story of Miami’s transformation from a place where old people go to die to a place with so much drug money that the Mercedes dealers were constantly out of stock, where the hit men would rather…
Singing with Giants
In the ’80s, Austin’s Hickoids were legendary. Like the Grateful Dead, they had so many stories about their zany exploits that unless you’d seen them play, you wouldn’t believe them. For a then-19-year-old from San Antonio such as lead singer Jeff Smith, who today runs the Saustex record label, it…
Ghostland Observatory
Austin-based Ghostland Observatory say they’re “not a band, but an agreement between two friends to create something that not only heals their beat-driven hearts, but pleases their rock and roll souls.” Whether or not they’re a band, the friends — singer Aaron Behrens and producer/drummer Thomas Turner — certainly do…
The Music Men
PARK CITY, Utah — On the first Saturday of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, I rolled out of bed and hustled up Main Street for the 8:30 screening of Tamara Jenkins’s The Savages, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as adult siblings caring for an irascible elderly parent. Only…
Lindsey Buckingham
A surefire future member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with ’80s hit machine Fleetwood Mac alone, Lindsey Buckingham has always been an artistic visionary and a musical perfectionist. He’s been creating the stuff of genius since he and former band mate Stevie Nicks were…
Sympathy for the Devil
PARK CITY, Utah — Ten days of terse texting among professional narcissists working on little or no sleep in one of the last cold spots left on Al Gore’s inconvenient Earth: Welcome to Sundance ’07, where wounding homefront melodrama Grace Is Gone sells and it hardly pays to be nice…
The Queers
Sad-puppy punk rock is more than an interest for a whole subsection of America’s young and young at heart, it’s a way of life. Which is why hilario-funtimes punk rock, like that of The Queers, is always a very welcome counterpoint response. Friends, booze, sex: The pleasures of the simple…
Goodbye Joe, Me Gotta Go
For a downright miserable cold and rainy Thursday night, there’s a decent crowd at the Continental Club. They are here to see the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a young Cajun band from Lafayette, Louisiana. LBR’s music is über-traditional. They sing almost exclusively in French, and their lineup is composed of acoustic…
The Jonx
Four years and four releases after their start, it’s still tough to pin down the sound of The Jonx. Maybe it’s the unique time signatures that rampantly chug through the rock trio’s recordings. Or maybe it’s the ever-alternating vocal duties, which flutter from spoken word to grating dissidence. Their latest…
Tex-Mex Makeover
When Sabor on Montrose opened six months ago, things were hot, hot, hot — and not because it was the middle of another steamy Houston summer. From the get-go, restaurant critics oohed about the ambitious, upscale Mexican menu, while society columnists aahed at the parade of local celebs and VIPs…
The Tommy Castro Band
Poor Tommy Castro was born 40 years too late. He really should’ve been going to elementary school with folks like John Lee Hooker and Wilson Picket. That way he would’ve been in on that golden era of blues, when monsters like BB King and Buddy Guy were seemingly in every…
Posh Pizza
Chef Marco Wiles of Da Marco is taking pizza to new heights at his Dolce Vita Pizzeria & Enoteca (500 Westheimer, 713-520-8222) with authentic ingredients and a no-compromise approach. His Taleggio pizza ($14) is “bianca” because it has no tomato sauce. The Taleggio cheese, from the Lombardy region in northern…
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Any remaining pony-tailed, old-school holdovers in the music industry must have been choking on their martini olives when the 2005 self-titled record by Brooklyn/Philly indie bomb Clap Your Hands Say Yeah weaseled its way onto the iPods and Best Of lists by way of a residency at a New York…
The Improv’s
I decide to catch Doug Stanhope live at The Improv (7620 Katy Fwy., 713-333-8800) after hearing several friends call him “the next Bill Hicks.” Unfortunately, the Houston Improv sits in the middle of the gigantic monstrosity known as The Marq*ee Center: the sort of place where teenagers go to make…
Old Man’s Still Got It
Maurice Russell, a septuagenarian actor facing the end of his career and life, gazes raptly at the present that fate has given him: the company of a sullen but strangely desirable teenage girl. At first, his appraising looks give her the creeps, but something about his courtliness piques her curiosity…
Nostalgia Trip
The Good German, directed by Steven Soderbergh from Joseph Kanon’s bestseller, is as much simulation as movie. Specifically, it’s the simulation of a 1940s private eye flick. It’s not just a period film, but one that feigns being shot as it would have been in that period. Filmed for maximum…
Whose Best Interests?
Wearing slippers, sweats and a satin nightcap on this December afternoon, 76-year-old Margie Hill dangles her legs off the side of her twin bed and mimics the other residents: She glazes her eyes, pokes out her tongue and lowers her face to her chest. “I hate this place,” Hill says…
Magic Moment
Dissolute, drunk and dying, Jim Tyrone (James Black) lies asleep with his head against the ample breasts of earthy Josie Hogan (Annalee Jefferies). She cradles the spent, passed-out man in her arms on the back steps of the hardscrabble Hogan farmhouse. Pinned in a shaft of moonlight, these troubled lovers…
What Can Brown Do for You?
If you’ve ever asked yourself, as you’ve watched the post-Katrina morass of incompetence and violence that has engulfed New Orleans, whether that city has suffered enough, you have your answer. And that answer is “no.” N’awlins, get ready for…the magical world of Lee P. Brown! Brown, who was Atlanta’s public-safety…
Capsule Reviews
Bell, Book and Candle Casting directors take note: There’s a new face in town (new to us, anyway), and it belongs to one of the most strikingly original actors we’ve seen in a long time — Morgan McCarthy, now setting the stage afire at Country Playhouse as the enchantingly sexy…
Bikini Brief
Best Western: I think you ran an excellent cover story on Mariyah Moten [“Bikini Revolution,” by Craig Malisow, January 11]. However, you depicted Pakistan as a hard-liner country. Though it is conservative, some places, like Karachi and Lahore, are quite liberal — as we say, more Westernized than the West…
Murder by Numbers
Not even in the movies do you have such perfect crimes and no suspects,” an activist sardonically remarks in Lourdes Portillo’s highly acclaimed 2001 documentary Seorita Extraviada. The film is part of the exhibition “Frontera 450+” at the Station Museum, named for the more than 450 women from ages 14…