“Mexican Madonna” at South Beach Tonight
South-of-the-border superstar Gloria Trevi will appear at South Beach tonight as part of a promotional tour for her latest album Una Rosa Blu. Trevi, sometimes referred to as the “Mexican Madonna,” will perform four or five songs from the album and take part in a VIP meet & greet before…
Roger Clemens and Steroids: Hearings Scheduled for a Date to Be Named at a Later Date
Okay, okay, I know I vowed in my last post to not mention Roger Clemens again until the Congressional hearings. But the word has just come down that the hearings have been postponed until an unspecified date. This should give the Rocket plenty of time to offer up a few…
Drenched in Blog: The Band Formerly Known As…
By checking out the band’s MySpace profile, we can see that apparently the name-change thing is going to happen after all. The Dimes are now listed as “The Band Formerly Known as the Dimes” – when you change your profile name, you know it’s serious. My challenge to take a…
This Just In: Radioheaded This Way
If everyone who complains Dallas and Austin get all the good shows will kindly keep their mouths shut for the next few moments, Houstoned Rocks has a bit of happy news we’d like to report. Radiohead, those paradigm-busting, pitch-shifting Oxford rogues, released a list of cities for their upcoming 2008…
No Hall of Fame for Dale Murphy?
Jose de Jesus Ortiz finally got something right. He voted for Rich Gossage. And Rich Gossage got 86 percent of the vote from the baseball writers to gain admittance into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And to that I can only say: finally. Both to Ortiz for finally getting something…
Dr. Phil Is An Asshole
A few months back, I swore on this blog that I would never write about Britney Spears again. And I’m not going to. Because that situation has gotten so terribly screwed up and depressing, there isn’t anything funny to be said about it. However, I am going to write about…
Murder, MySpace, Babysitters, Betrayal: The Best National True Crime Stories of 2007
They are the modern versions of monster stories. True Crime writers seek out such tales every day, finding them in two sentence-long police blotter blurbs, law enforcement sources lamenting the one that got away, or victims looking for justice. They pile on hours of research and interviews, building a case…
Drenched in Blog: Oh, Incarcerated World
Usually when rock stars are arrested for domestic violence, they have bitchin’ neck tattoos and at least one or two sex tapes out on the market. And ironically, their name is always “Tommy Lee.” You don’t expect shy, introverted Zach Braff-approved indie rockers to haul off and hit their chicks…
Roger Clemens and Steroids: So Many Lies
Many will remember Anna Nicole Smith as the blonde Playboy playmate bimbo done in by drugs and sudden fame. I’ll remember her, instead, for telling Rusty Hardin to go screw himself. And before I go on with my take on the Clemens presser yesterday afternoon, I’ve got to say one…
Six Degrees of Charlie Wilson’s War
I’m sure that many of you are familiar the theory of Six Degrees of Separation – or at least the Hollywood version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. In short, the theory posits that everyone person in the world is no more than six steps from each person on the…
Clemens Press Conference Primer
Damn Rusty Hardin. I wrote this long, detailed post last night discussing the Rocket’s interview with Mike Wallace, going over various legal options, pointing out inconsistent statements, etc., and Hardin ruins everything by filing the defamation suit against Brian McNamee. So the whole thing is useless. The Rocket has a…
Giddyup!: Full RodeoHouston Lineup Announced
John Fogerty: Hannah who?!? After teasing the thousands of Houstonians left out in the cold by Hannah Montana and her mysterious alter ego Miley Cyrus’ November concert at the microscopic Toyota Center, RodeoHouston confirmed this morning that the duo, who for some reason have never been photographed in the same…
Chuck and Huck, Sittin’ in a Tree…
So Walker, Texas Ranger has a boyfriend, and his name is Mike Huckabee. Seriously folks, is anyone else out there slightly stunned and somewhat befuddled by the strange love affair taking place between the Republican candidate for Prez and the guy who made “Sidekicks”? I don’t suppose it should be…
Aeros Lifeless on Friday, but Finish Strong Sunday
Four games in five nights while staying in six different hotels in five different cities will wear on a person. And Friday night, it appeared to wear on 19 different people as the Iowa Stars defeated the Houston Aeros 3-1 before a crowd of 5,123 at Toyota Center. The Aeros…
$13 at Pollo Riko on Fondren
Where: Pollo Riko, 7229 Fondren, 713-271-4321 What $13 gets you: Enough food to feed a family, and then some. One visit to Pollo Riko and you’ll never buy another dried-out bird from the grocery. Here, the chicken skin is crisp and the meat is moist, if a little salty. By…
NFL Weekend Playoff Picks
Now it’s go time in the NFL. The playoffs. Eleven teams battling it out to lose to the Patriots. This is Wild Card weekend with four games. Two on Saturday. Two on Sunday. Let’s face it, I’ve sucked at picking games this season, but it’s an all new season, so…
Drenched in Blog: Mommie Dearest, 2008 Remix
Eight years ago, if I would have told you that one day Britney Spears would be pulled out of her own house strapped to a gurney like a common meth-head, you would have called me crazy. You probably also would have asked why I had a huge poster of her…
Pickin’ Aint Easy: Forecasting the NFL Playoffs
Whoever said “Pimpin’ aint easy” obviously never spent any time trying to predict the outcome of pro football games. Seriously, a week spent clockin’ hos and hatin’ snitches seems downright relaxing compared to the agony involved with my pigskin picks. There’s just no way to predict what’s going to happen…
Cougar on the Prowl for Michael Cera
As a proper lady (tee hee), Miss Pop Rocks isn’t one for admitting her age. Let’s just say that when the movie Flashdance came out, I thought I was the shit because I was the only girl at my grade school with a Flashdance sweatshirt. (It came pre-ripped!) So anyway,…
Aeros Update
When last we heard from the Houston Aeros, they had just defeated the San Antonio Rampage for their fourth win a row and were preparing to take one of those road trips only a politician could love: four games, five nights, six different hotels. First there was a quick trip…
$13 at Café Montrose on Westheimer
Where: Café Montrose, 1609 Westheimer, 713-523-1201 What $13 gets you: An array of fine-dining options in an upscale but unpretentious environment. The Belgian restaurant Café Montrose is best known for its moules frites – mussels and hand-cut French fries accompanied by homemade mayo for dipping. It has twice won in…
Get Lit: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Joel McIver
Well before he became a befuddled, cuddly, idiotic reality TV star and living cartoon, Ozzy Osbourne really was the Prince of Darkness. Fronting Black Sabbath, the heaviest of heavy bands with really no precedent in sound or style, he, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward created…
Fighting Tech with Tech, Redux
A few months ago, we advised Houston’s serial red-light runners to invest in new technology. Now we learn that the same Chicago-based company which introduced the first-ever wireless radar detector that uses GPS to track intersections with red-light cameras plans to showcase a sleeker, more portable version at this weekend’s…
Drenched in Blog: Radiohead Gets Nekkid!
Whatever happened to normal music videos? These days all we see are things going backwards, crazy-ass French animation, and people making asses of themselves on treadmills. What became of the clips featuring pseudo-religious iconography and she-males puking in toilets? Remember “Smack My Bitch Up”? That Prodigy video MTV only showed…
My Daddy Died…Now Give Me Hannah Montana Tickets, Damn It!
Okay, so now’s the time when someone explains to me two things: 1) Why the Hell is the tween set so captivated by the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus? and 2) What kind of a world do we live in when a mother helps her daughter fake an essay about…
20 Questions for Clemens
Well, in the all Rocket all the time media atmosphere generated by the release of the Mitchell Report, I feel compelled to remind all of you that the Rocket’s hard-hitting Sixty Minutes interview with Mike Wallace will air Sunday night – and any of you actually expecting this interview to…
“Open House” at Joan Wich Gallery
“Open House,” the latest group show at Joan Wich Gallery, offers works by some of the gallery’s most popular artists. Martha Thomas’s photographs are stark and unpopulated. Her Interior, a black-and-white image, shows an empty room, with a table and chairs sitting in the shadows, while Bel Air shows a…
“Second Annual Texas Teapot Tournament”
Short, stout, handle and spout will all be taken for an interesting spin today at the “Second Annual Texas Teapot Tournament.” The competition features plenty of interesting takes on the teakettle by potters from around the globe. The creations range from traditional pots to more abstract designs that — if…
Tumbleweed Tuesdays
We were both excited and a little skeptical when we heard about The Mink’s Tumbleweed Tuesdays, where fans of early country and folk can down whiskey specials or $10 bottles of wine while listening to Western tracks. Sounds good, even though similar events have proved to be little more than…
Craig Ferguson
Despite the writers’ strike, many late-night talk-show hosts will return to their desks in January. This means a lot of unscripted joking around, but The Late Late Show’s Craig Ferguson is used to it. Fans know the Scottish-comedian-turned-host ditched the script for his introductory monologues a few years back. Ferguson…
Gift of Murder
Theatre Suburbia is offering us all a little bit of mystery to chase away the winter doldrums: a production of George Batson’s comedic thriller Gift of Murder. Full of melodramatic divas, love and murder, the story takes place on a classic murder-mystery English estate. A famous actress and her niece…
“Jackie Gendel and Valerie Hegarty”
The current two-person show at CTRL Gallery, “Jackie Gendel and Valerie Hegarty,” features two painter’s painters whose work seems to comment on the art form itself. At the foreground of Houston-born, now New York-based artist Jackie Gendel’s work are simple faces or groups of stick figure-like people. The Stylist features…
Graham Weber
A resident of Austin by way of Los Angeles (a broken heart made him hit the road), Graham Weber admits he’s a singer/songwriter of the “Americana persuasion.” His second CD, 2006’s Beggar’s Blues, earned him opening slots for Eliza Gilkyson, Butch Hancock, Hayes Carll and Darden Smith. Catch a sneak…
“Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway”
A lot of Broadway fanatics were left out in the cold — literally — last month when New York’s stagehands went on strike. Add that to Times Square’s brutal crowds and the cost of an expensive plane ticket, and you might start thinking: Wouldn’t it just be easier if Broadway…
Cinco de Año
Apparently, the fifth of any month is now fair game for celebration. All you have to do is insert “Cinco de” in front of said month’s Spanish name and presto: party time. The folks at Fitzgerald’s are leading the trend in 2008 with Cinco de Año, (fifth of the year)…
Frozen at Theater LaB Houston
‘‘I tell friends what the play is about, and most of them say, ‘I’d love to come, but I have to rearrange my spice rack,’” actress Swoosie Kurtz said in an interview when she was starring in the Broadway production of Frozen. She went on: “But the play is not…
My Education
Austin instrumental outfit My Education have an interesting résumé. Not only have the ambient rockers released a few nationally acclaimed albums, they’ve also created their own score for F.W. Murnau’s 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and collaborated with abstract hip-hoppers Dalek. My Education recently released a…
The Red Balloon and White Mane
Before an angst-ridden teenager recorded a plastic bag “dancing” in front of a brick wall in American Beauty, a balloon followed a little boy around the streets of Paris. Albert Lamorisse’s sincere, playful short film The Red Balloon tells the tale of a young boy (played by Lamorisse’s son Pascal)…
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko, showing at the River Oaks Theatre today, may be the first cult film that was actually meant to be a cult film. It seems modeled after its predecessors in the pseudo-genre, which found diehard audiences only after sinking at the box office the first time around. Donnie Darko,…
Houston International Boat, Sport, and Travel Show
Now that Santa has fulfilled the wish lists for area kiddies, it’s time for their dads to salivate over even bigger toys at the Houston International Boat, Sport & Travel Show. More than 1,000 luxury yachts, sailboats, ski boats, powerboats and anything-that-floats will be for sale. Also on hand: vendors…
Fantasy Core
Since the mid-’90s, indie rockers have been fascinated with what is christened J-pop (Japanese rock and pop) because of the genre’s readiness to dive into sci-fi weirdness and the gawk-worthy sight of kids from places like Kyoto and Tokyo wearing the clothes, playing the chords and channeling the attitude of…
Veronica’s Room
Incest, murder, necrophilia — how’s that for a little winter pick-me-up? Leave it to Ira Levin, author of the sinister Rosemary’s Baby and the pins-and-needles–producing Deathtrap, to take the genre of psychological thriller to a whole new level. In Veronica’s Room, Susan is out on a date with a young…
Jake Allee
Ceramist Jake Allee describes his work in the kind of smarter-than-thou language many artists utilize. Take this bit from his self–written bio: “I employ the ideas of the Gestaltist to arrange and rearrange the vocabulary of formal elements I have developed over the years.” For those who haven’t read the…
23rd Biannual Bridal Extravaganza Show
They are often longtime campaigns that require detailed planning, incisive knowledge of both friends and enemies, and casualties by the roadside. We are speaking of course, of weddings. And if love is a battlefield, then central command headquarters is the 23rd Biannual Bridal Extravaganza Show. Organizers promise a showcase for…
The Best Country Singer in Houston Contest
Dust off your cowboy hat and warm up your singing voice — it’s time for the Best Country Singer in Houston 2008 contest at Sam Houston Race Park. Up for grabs is the chance to open for Johnny Lee in Playa del Carmen, a trip to the Country Music Awards,…
John Mulaney
Comic John Mulaney could be called a Law & Order groupie. “I talk about Law & Order a lot because I’m obsessed with it,” the comedian said in a bit he performed on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He wasn’t kidding, either. A YouTube search turns up a number of…
The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists
Admit it: Sometimes you’re sitting around listening to your old Sex Pistols records and thinking, “I wonder which punk-rock icon has the biggest schlong?” Or maybe you’re wondering, “What kind of pizza would that one Food Network dude say goes well with the New York Dolls?” The Official Punk Rock…
Trae
Trae tha Truth is an Asshole. Seriously. A founding member of Houston’s Assholes By Nature crew, Trae eschews the candy-painted landscape extolled by Mike Jones, et al. Instead, he exposes the sober, unforgiving realities of urban street life. Rising to fame on a wave of consistently solid albums and the…
Capsule Art Reviews: “Contemporary Conversations: Robert Ryman, 1976,” “Jerry Kearns: Between Heaven and Earth,” “Little Known Facts,” “Mary Heilmann: To Be Someone,” “Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection,”
“Contemporary Conversations: Robert Ryman, 1976” It’s difficult to look at a Robert Ryman painting without an initial feeling of being cheated. The artist has limited himself almost entirely to the color white as a way of boiling down the essence of painting to a reduced process, the very act of…
Local Motion
Sound Exchange 1846 Richmond, 713-666-5555 1. Vashti Bunyan, Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind (LP/CD) 2. Les Rallizes Denudes, Yodo Go-A- Go-Go (CD) 3. Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Quantum Fucking (CD) 4. Magik Markers, Boss (LP) 5. Carbonas, s/t (LP) 6. Octopus Project, Hello, Avalanche (LP/CD) 7. Impaled, Last Gasp…
Eastern Promises, American Pie: Beta House, The Kingdom, War
Eastern Promises (Universal) David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen are becoming a Bizarro World Hitchcock/Cary Grant combo, and the world is a better (and bloodier) place for it. Chucklehead critics too smitten by Cronenberg’s “messages” dismissed this film — a vicious and brilliant exploration of the Russian mob in London —…
Capsule Stage Reviews: Altar Boyz, A Fertle Holiday
Altar Boyz There’s no accounting for taste. No show makes that clearer than the award-winning, audience-pleasing sugar cube now causing cavities at Stages Repertory Theatre. Altar Boyz, the dithering musical about a Christian boy band by Kevin Del Aguila, Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker, is supposed to be parody,…
Starting Out in the Evening
In Starting Out in the Evening, a new film by Andrew Wagner, a pneumatic graduate student spreads honey over the face of the elderly New York novelist she’s trying to seduce. Later, the two will lie down on his bed with their hands by their sides, and later still, he…
NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams
The inevitable challenge faced by Wii developers is this: Can you create a game so spectacularly awesome as to prompt a gamer to even consider ejecting Super Mario Galaxy from his console? The gravy train is over; good luck looking consumers in the eye while offering them another lame collection…
Ask a Mexican
Dear Mexican, As everyone knows, dogs seem to reflect their master’s personalities. Likewise, the breeds invented by a nation say a lot about that nation. Germans bred the German shepherd and rottweilers: smart, loyal, faithful, yet a little cold, and not the kind of dogs you want to piss off…
Turquoise Grill Brick Oven Bistro
It was a Saturday morning just after eleven when we walked into the Turquoise Grill Brick Oven Bistro on Norfolk at Kirby. I glanced at the menu and asked for the deluxe Turkish breakfast with a sausage omelet. My friend Jay Francis, who doesn’t eat eggs, wanted some breakfast too,…
High School Photo Contest: Weather
The theme for November and December was weather, no matter whether it was nasty or fair, and we got plenty of climatic entries. You can see them all here, but now it’s time to announce the winners. Perennial placer Mariah McWhorter of Kingwood High School pulled off a first this…
Chuck Rosenthal: So Tough on Crime That a Suspect Goes Free
Like most teenagers, Felicia Ruiz was fired up about going to a Halloween party. It was late, about 11 o’clock on that Friday night by the time the 17-year-old finished her shift at KFC and walked through the front door of her parents’ house in north Houston. As she entered,…
Hank III
Hank Williams III’s Straight to Hell, released in early 2006, is a two-disc set jam-packed with honky-tonk romps and hellbilly screamers; it’s also the first major-label country record to hit shelves bearing a parental advisory label. For all intents and purposes, it’s a thorough representation of Hank III’s aesthetic: Like…
“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s”
In a 1966 photograph titled Failing to Levitate in the Studio, artist Bruce Nauman stretches between two folding chairs and falls on his ass. In a 1968 hour-long film titled Bouncing in the Corner, No. 1, the artist falls backwards into a corner and then bounces back — over and…
Sad Like Crazy
Every few years, Houston indie rock goes through a sort of renaissance, with new bands starting and new records popping up frantically, followed by a steep decline as labels crash and burn and band members move away, have kids or just give up. Sad Like Crazy belonged to a late-’90s wave centered in part around the now…
Flying Burrito Brothers: Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969
Although the Flying Burrito Brothers was a passing phase in Gram Parsons’s career between the Byrds and his solo material, the band nevertheless indicated that he’d become one of country-rock’s greatest treasures. Live at the Avalon Ballroom unearths two of the Burritos’ opening stints for the Grateful Dead from tapes…
Hootenanny
The Skyline Network’s Ryan Clark, former Hands Up Houston stalwart Anna Garza and Bright Man of Learning Ben Murphy want you to have a very happy New Year, so the trio has organized eight full hours (at least) of cover-band shenanigans featuring many of Houston’s best and brightest. This “Hootenanny”…
Texas Albums
Back in June, when my friends learned I was leaving the Austin Chronicle for the assistant music editor post at the Press, most of them reacted like I had just told them I was moving to Siberia. Let’s face it, as far as music scenes go, Houston will never be…
The Seximals: Small Songs
“And if I leave this town and move away, will it change the world at all?” muses the Seximals’ Anthony Barilla on Small Songs’ opening track, “Consciousness Explained.” Barilla might have more invested in those lyrics than most. He’s spent the better part of 2007 between Houston and Kosovo, where…
Bayousphere
Someone, somewhere, had the bright idea to put happy faces on the little pieces of foam used in pedicures. But whoever got the assignment to paint the things just couldn’t imagine a lifetime of happiness for someone living in toe jam, so therefore we have the world’s saddest-looking happy-face toe…
Zeppelin Video Lounge
Holy crap. A no-holds-barred dance battle has broken out between two guys on the small dance floor at Zeppelin Video Lounge (3101 San Jacinto). It may be the greatest/worst dance battle the world has ever seen. Afterward, the winner speaks. “That was the most intense thing I’ve ever done,” says Reed…
Loreta Kovacic
Booked at Carnegie Hall in June — that’s right, the Carnegie Hall — Croatian-born Houstonian Loreta Kovacic moves between the classical and pop milieus as fluidly as her fingers dance around the ivories. Leaving behind the recital-hall atmosphere of her first two CDs, Fugitive Visions and Piano Notturno (which was…
Mary J. Blige: Growing Pains
Mary J. Blige has built a career on channeling her inner demons to create some of contemporary soul’s finest music, while amassing a huge fan base that sound tracks their own lives to “Be Without You” and “No More Drama.” But, as she points out on “Hurt Again,” from her…
Kate Nash: Made of Bricks
Made of Bricks, Kate Nash’s debut LP, was released in the UK this summer and made the 20-year-old from suburban London an overnight sensation, with both the CD and single “Foundations” going to No. 1. Nash pals around with Lily Allen, to whom she’s frequently compared, yet unlike Allen’s Alright,…
Daft Punk: Alive 2007
Theoretically, a live album by Daft Punk shouldn’t work. After all, the French electronic duo’s live performances — which include a knockout light show, thousands of sweaty fans uniting in dance, and the star DJs dressed as über-funky robots — deliver a visual treat as tasty as the music. But…
Anthony Bourdain, Illegal Immigrants and Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen
Delicious Debate Beautiful: Thank you for such an amazing story on Hugo’s and the food industry [“Guess Who’s Making Your Dinner?” by Robb Walsh, December 20]. The intertwining of food, patriotism and social commentary was beautiful and poignant — especially if you’ve eaten at Hugo’s and have those special aromatic…