Pop Jazz Masters
Before there was Najee’s Theme, there was the soul/groove jazz movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the light-contemporary jazz era of the 1970s and 1980s. Check out these albums by artists who influenced and in some cases defined smooth jazz. More jazz than smooth, these records are all notable…
Kamikaze Rap
Is “old school” an attitude or style? If it were a style, then the most commercially successful rapper today would fit the description. Puff Daddy does with retro hits what an old-school artist like Afrika Bambaataa used to do with, at the time, hits, but the only difference between the…
Son of Jack
If somewhere within you lies a certain kind of yearning (symptoms: a gnawing urge to walk off the job, blow up the TV and/or make the highway your home), you may well be one of “Jack”‘s many bastards. And if so, Guy Forsyth is your musical brother, whether you know…
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Like it or not, the ’70s — complete with polyester clothes, platform shoes and big wide pants — are back, and with them has come London performance artist and cabaret singer Jackie Clune. After a two-month stint on the British soap EastEnders, Clune has crossed the Atlantic to Theater LaB…
Youngshtuffs
Teen pop, meet your nemesis: The Donnas. A quartet of bad girls a year out of high school who take inspiration from Kiss and the Runaways, the Donnas are like a gang, adopting pseudonyms (Donna A., Donna F., Donna R. and Donna C.) and wearing matching tight T-shirts for unity…
Conspiracy Theory
Arlington Road. Directed by Mark Pellington. With Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack and Hope Davis. Rated R.
Rock Martyrs
Poor Thom Yorke. In his rumpled black sweater and baggy khakis, Radiohead lead singer/songwriter Yorke plows through interview after interview on this video with his head slumped in his right hand, constantly looking for a way out. With his duckling smirk and perpetual five o’clock shadow, Yorke visually deflates the…
Empty Innocence
British director Mike Figgis came to filmmaking from the worlds of music and experimental theater. His love of music, coupled with his conception of film as a quasi multimedia form, has led to some great soundtracks — Leaving Las Vegas and Stormy Monday, for example — on which he first…
Hillbilly Wheelies
An established presence on the Austin music scene, western swing band Asleep at the Wheel is the closest thing you’ll find to a post-hippie embodiment of the sound of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Amazingly, the Wheel has been rolling nonstop for 29 years now, somehow holding the road…
Bittersweet Fare
London-born novelist-screenwriter Hanif Kureishi doesn’t have Margaret Thatcher to kick around anymore, as he did so incisively and effectively in My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, but his concerns have not wandered too far afield. Rather, the hard edges merely have been softened. Universal issues still inspire…
Working the Rails, Part Two
The Hunt for the Railcar Killer (Ratings) goes on. But it’s getting desperate. You know things are bad when the local stations devote time to Representative Sheila Jackson Lee’s announcement that she wants an investigation into just how the INS let Rafael Resendez-Ramirez go after it had him in custody…
Hormonal Hilarity
American Pie. Directed by Paul Weitz. With Jason Biggs, Shannon Elizabeth, Chris Klein, Eugene Levy, Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Sean W. Scott, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Jennifer Coolidge. Rated R.
Trying Hard to Be Good
The Raven Grill1916 Bissonnet(713)521-2027.
Trouble in Mind
His face is pasty and pale, a sharp contrast to his greasy coal-black hair. His dark eyes are sunken under a low forehead and thick eyebrows; he frequently jabs, mashes and grinds his eyes with the balls of his thumbs. When he speaks, he rarely makes eye contact. Even while…
Strange Bedfellows
What looks just like an upscale New York steak house, but serves primarily seafood and is based on the West Coast? McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant, that’s what, set to open shortly in the spanking-new Uptown Park at Loop 610 and Post Oak Boulevard. That deftly age-darkened, clubby paneling, those…
Sexual Healing?
Like most of the clients who visited Shin Higashiura’s shiatsu therapy clinic, Stella (not her real name) is a middle-aged, upper-middle-class white woman. A vegetarian who favors holistic approaches to health, Stella sought out “Dr. Shin,” as many of his patients called the lab-coat-wearing practitioner, for help with a pain…
Dog Bites Train
Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack is crazy about dogs, especially Maltese. But he hates commuter rail, particularly Metro’s plan to build a 7.5-mile line down the Main Street corridor. Following his heart, the animal-loving commissioner tried to place a nonbinding proposal on the ballot last year to let voters sound…
News of the Weird
Lead Stories An evangelical Christian organization in Hereford, England, announced in May that it had established a 24-hour-a-day camera trained on Jerusalem’s eastern gate to capture Jesus’ millennial return (www.messiahcam.org). Also in May, the firm Triumph International Japan announced it would soon market the Armageddon Bra, with a sensor in…
Life and Death
8ThursdayIn the very late 1950s, young French filmmakers turned on their heritage of technically slick but emotionally distant films — “icy perfection,” Fran¸ois Truffaut called it. They opted instead to create films that seemed spontaneous, real and honest. Truffaut had been a film critic, and his debut film, The 400…
Seafood for Thought
Submissions for Night & Day and Calendar should be sent to Calendar Editor, Houston Press, 1621 Milam, Suite 100, Houston, TX 77002; fax: (713)280-2496. Sorry, no submissions will be taken by phone. Information must be received at least ten days prior to issue date. (For expanded Calendar listings, check the Houston Press Web page,…
The Packed Shack
Seafood Shack1521 Gessner(713)465-8045.
Local Music Lowdown
Puttin’ Down the Fitz Where’s that Hoffa guy when you need him? Though bad labor practices are not involved in this case (unless you count the ability this club has to produce some of the nastiest, self-loathing-therefore-I-loathe-all beer wenches around), Fitzgerald’s is the target of a, ahem, “boy”-cott. Members, associates…