Foxy Hen House
Our friend, gifted photographer Lynn Langmead, was kind enough to share her pics she snapped at Blur, Houston’s newest lesbian bar. If a picture speaks 1,000 words, I suspect the first few words here are “Oh sweet Jesus in heaven.” And if that lame photo of the dudes raising the…
But Could God Pitch a Slider So Wicked That God Couldn’t Hit It?
So, as advised by Jason, I was listening to Brad Lidge on The Jim Rome Show. First, people always refer to Lidge as a stand-up guy. When did he start performing at the Laff Stop? Does that mean that since Lidge is now on the DL that I can see…
We’d Been Looking for an Excuse to Quote Wesley Snipes…
“Good question. I have no idea why they ran this photo either. So would you like some more peanuts?” The world would be a much more peaceful place if, instead of killing our enemies, we simply tapped them on the shoulder and said, “King me, beyatch!” Anyone interested in observing…
B.B. King, circa 1970-something
I remember seeing B.B. King a few months after the Hofheinz Pavillion opened on the UH campus (1970?). It was King’s birthday. Blues phenom Johnny Winter opened the show and then King and his band, which included half a dozen Houstonians, roared through a huge set that culminated in his…
Too Bad There Isn’t a Female Tennis Player Named Chris Lidge
We’ve just received word from regular HouStoned contributor (and lover of all things Hasselhoff) Jason Friedman that Brad Lidge is slated for The Jim Rome Show today at 1 p.m. You can listen live here. Or, you know, you can just turn on your radio…
Calling All Critics. Calling All Critics.
Hey you, the one with all the opinions! Yeah, you. HouStoned Rocks wants you to contribute. Drop us a line and introduce yourself. – Keith Plocek…
All Wet
The Houston Press is still accepting submissions from local high school students for our yearlong photo contest. The theme for June is water. Fresh water, salt water, bath water, fish water – anything that’s wet, really. Send all entries to studentphotos@houstonpress.com. Click here and here for more information. – Keith…
Re: Hunt and Gather
We rode our bike by the Tony’s tile this morning (oops, is that a clue?) and it’s still there, waiting to be found. Here’s your second (or third?) clue:…
Well, Shoot, There Goes That Plan
Well, Jason, I think you can forget about using Brad Lidge as a means of restocking the farm system. Not with Lidge now going on the 15-day DL with a strained left oblique muscle. And Richard Justice is reporting that this injury could keep Lidge out for two months –…
Holy Rollers
Apparently, Jesus is a back-seat driver. CNN.com reported yesterday that the Vatican issued a list of Ten Commandments for drivers in a document titled “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road.” 1. You shall not kill. 2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people…
Taylor Made?
Like a severed foot or an excruciatingly painful torture-killing ordered by Charles Taylor, a diamond is forever. And when someone says “diamond,” the first thing that comes to mind (other than maybe “heroin-addled, AK-47-wielding child soldiers”) is “De Beers.” And as the Houston Business Journal reports, De Beers is “set…
This Just In: Astros’ GM Still Searching for Balls
We bet he’s a big Kenny Rogers fan. For those of you holding out hope that Astros’ GM Tim Purpura can actually be counted on to reverse his club’s fortunes, I come bearing very bad news indeed. From ESPN.com’s Buster Olney: Other general managers enjoy chatting with Houston’s Tim Purpura,…
All in All It’s Just Another Brick
This just in: South Texas officials are calling for a wall to be built around Washington, D.C. After being told by federal officials that a fence along the border with Mexico is just what the area needs to protect itself against terrorists, drug smuggling and illegal immigration, they are urging…
Robb’s Review: On the Menu
Where does Tony Vallone go for hamburgers? Find out in this week’s Café…
Robb’s Review: On the Menu
Where does Tony Vallone go for hamburgers? Find out in this week’s Café…
Five for Fighting (Not)
Nick Vlcek He looks like such a sweet young man. As we’ve noted before, Houston Aero fans still remember fondly the days of Derek Boogaard, the gangly, soft-spoken defenseman who – whenever he hit the ice – became a brawling goon. Boogaard graduated this year to the Aeros’ parent team,…
Hunt and Gather
HouStoned is pleased to announce our first scavenger hunt. We’re a simple folk, so we’ve limited the hunt to one item: a tile from Tony’s. We’ll let Robb Walsh explain: One day I looked in my mailbox and found a padded brown-paper envelope with a press release and a black…
Back In The USSR
Pavel Dubrov is a disgraced literature teacher in Stalinist Russia; his current job is working in the infamous Lubyanka prison, cataloguing literature that is doomed to be incinerated for being insufficiently pro-Soviet. His wife has been killed in a train wreck, although he’s still waiting for authorities to find the…
Up in Smoke
Towering at six stories, the Binz Building was Houston’s first skyscaper. Today the Binz Building caught on fire. But don’t worry: This was a different Binz Building. The other one is long gone, if that’s any consolation. For more details on the difference, check out this posting on the Houston…
Shooting Star
Local string quartet Two Star Symphony has a new look for summer. “We just got a new set of matching instruments,” says violinist Debra Brown. “So we’re quite in debt.” Brown says it was worth it because each was handmade by a Russian instrument maker who designed the pieces after…
You Close Your Eyes for a Minute, and They Give Up Six Runs
When I went to bed last night, it was the middle of the 7th inning, and the Astros were up 9-4 and seemingly on cruise control. I figured it would be an easy post to write this morning. I’d mention how Chris Sampson didn’t have his best stuff, but that…
Another Dispatch from the Streets of Houston
We just received another missive from Satch, our man on the streets. You can read his words below. — Keith Plocek The homeless are getting restless! In fact they are REVOLTING (man, ain’t that the truth!) and something needs to be done. There are no quick or easy solutions. Houston’s…
Re: Le Rock et le Roll
Gail Reaben Last month we told you about Bellaire filmmaker Gail Reaben, whose documentary Be Bop Babies had been selected for the Cannes Film Festival. She shares part of her travel diary below. — Keith Plocek It was Day Seven of the Cannes Film Festival and I was starting to…
Strip Steak
Sure, food is great, but sex is what really gets our readers’ attention. Or at least that’s what the two comments on Robb Walsh’s latest review would lead us to believe:…
Strip Steak
Sure, food is great, but sex is what really gets our readers’ attention. Or at least that’s what the two comments on Robb Walsh’s latest review would lead us to believe:…
Sweat Science
Houston is Number 12 on the Old Spice list of the nation’s sweatiest cities. Phoenix took top honors, followed by Las Vegas, Dallas, Tucson, San Antonio, Waco, Shreveport, Austin, Oklahoma City and Corpus Christi. (Yep, that’s a lot of Texas sweat.) Three years ago Houston was Number Six on the…
That’s a Lot of Levi’s
Courtesy of Guitar Center About three weeks ago, we clued you in as to the whereabouts of Aaron Loesch. The former Jug O’Lightnin’ bandleader had entered the Guitar Center King of the Blues competition, and had made it through store, city, state and regional rounds all the way to the…
Oh. My. Dog.
The Chron is reporting that many local school districts aren’t taking enough steps to identify dyslexia. Twenty-two years ago, Texas passed legislation requiring districts to identify and tutor students with dyslexia, a learning disability that affects 5 percent to 20 percent of all children. Today, however, schools still are failing…
Sinking the Mariners
Always ready to take one for the team… Wow, so the Astros swept the Seattle Mariners this weekend. I’ll admit, I sure didn’t see that coming. But, now the Astros head back out on the road, a place where the team hasn’t been that good this season. You know what?…
Playbill: Candlebox
Blues rockers Candlebox is playing tonight at the Scout Bar, 18307 Egret Bay Blvd., 281-335-0002. They’ll be playing lots of songs off their newest CD Lucy. Click the “LISTEN” button to hear a sample of their work…
Southern Migration
Darin Back Dino Jr stalked the earth again recently in Minneapolis. Our spies were there, and turned in this review the better to whet your appetite for this Sunday’s feast at Warehouse Live…
Sir Lancelot Waves Goodbye, and His Private Parts
If you’re a Monty Python fan, or enjoy farting in peoples’ general direction, you’re no doubt aware that Spamalot is closing its run in Houston this week. We thought it would be cool to catch up with Patrick Heusinger, who plays the enviable roles of Sir Lancelot, Tim the Enchanter,…
Re: Explain Your Most Played
Earlier today John Nova Lomax posted Craig Malisow’s Most Played songs on iTunes, including jams by Chicago, Eddie Money and Billy Joel. Here’s Malisow’s response: One of these days in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future, when irony is dead, and the sheep at Pitchfork have been rounded up and deported to…
Who Knew Houston Was Such a Union Town?
Keith Plocek for HouStoned Images Ltd., Ulmtd. There’s currently a giant rat outside the Wedge International Tower. The rat’s keepers: Justice for Janitors. The beef: The Wedge Group uses a company (unimaginatively) called Professional Janitor Service…
Explain Your Most Played
Normally we’d try to write a funny caption here, but this cover pretty much speaks for itself. This week’s Explain Your Most Played, in which we examine the top ten songs of a Press staffer, is particularly cruel. Since Craig Malisow and I share the same iTunes network, I can…
Will Houston Get on the Bandwagon Already?
“Free T-shirts? Point that slingshot over here!” The San Antonio Spurs are a Texas team, four-time champs and the best freaking team in the league this year. They also happen to be stand-up guys and great role models, not just compared with other sports stars, but compared with anyone you…
It’s Not Like It’s Rocket Science
Dude! Don’t you know anything about computers? You should never set up a solar array unless you want electromagnetic interference. What’s next? You gonna tell me your “cup holder” is broken? – Keith Plocek…
Mixed Media
That’s right. Trever Miller. I think that it’s useful for Astros fans to get info from sources other than the Chron or the team’s announcers. For instance, I have a subscription to MLB Game Day Audio, so I can often listen to the visiting team’s radio broadcast. Which I did…
Dying Words
Owen Egerton has written an interesting book of stories, How Best to Avoid Dying. Egerton is one of three Austin funnies who told jokes during movies as the now-defunct Sinus Show. I used to go see them when I lived in Austin, but I have to admit, that was because…
Kelly Bails!
Kelly Clarkson has canceled her Houston show, oh no! We just got this note from her PR people: “It is mind blowing when you stop to think about what Kelly Clarkson has achieved during her young career,” said Michael Rapino, CEO of LiveNation. “But ticket sales have not been what…
Sex Offenders on MySpace? No Way!
Seven Texas sex offenders have been popped for using MySpace, according to Reuters: The seven, whose profiles on MySpace had already been removed under an internal program to weed out sex offenders prowling the News Corp.-owned site, were arrested for breaking parole or probation rules. The arrests, which occurred over…
Tunnel Mole on the Have Nots
The tunnel will fix you up, brotha. Do you right! It’s got infinite ways to get annoying chores done, except it’s devoid of the most annoying ones that you want to do while you’re on the clock, like upgrading your cell phone. And here’s what else you don’t have in…
Raise Your Hand
Wild man Ron Paul was on The Colbert Report last night. Here’s the YouTube. Be sure to watch it quick, before Viacom brings out the lawyers. — Keith Plocek…
Tunnel Vision
Mariah McWhorter The winners have been announced for the May installment of our yearlong photo contest for high school students. Congrats to Mariah McWhorter, Whitney Pavlas, Catarina Williams and Cynthia Maldonado. Click here for words and there for pictures. – Keith Plocek…
They Must’ve Been Awash in Nostalgia
According to the July issue of Harper’s, there was a 153 percent increase in Louisiana and Mississippi newborns named Katrina in the year after the hurricane. Maybe Barbara Bush was right after all… — Keith Plocek…
He’s Back
I’m Mike James, bitch! Sometimes, the path to a championship is paved with subtle moves as opposed to blockbuster deals. Take the San Antonio Spurs for example. We all know the genius behind selecting Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili late in the draft, but how about the Spurs signing heretofore…
Lomax on Lomax
“Wasn’t your grandfather the guy who discovered Leadbelly?” Having the same name and being in the same trade as John and Alan Lomax, I get questions like that a lot. And yes, I am related to both of them, but neither was my grandfather. John Avery Lomax was my great-grandfather,…
Standing on the Lidge
So, have I told you guys lately how big a fan of Brad Lidge I am? Well, I think he’s the greatest pitcher in the world. There’s no way that he would’ve blown that game against the A’s last night. I can’t believe that Phil Garner went with Dan Wheeler,…
Fix the NBA Finals (Just Don’t Forget the Super Bowl!)
Quite possibly the most exciting moment of Game 3 Sorry, folks. I know this is a local Web site and that most of you come here to read about what’s going on in the H-Town scene. But, truth be told, the Astros bore me right now and even the spirited…
Southern G.R.A.B.
G.R.A.B. Bar (809 Pierce, 713-655-0707) seems to suffer from multiple personality disorder. It’s usually a sports bar, but it also schedules an impressive array of hip-hop and DJ events throughout the month. (Even the name is a bit off-kilter — G.R.A.B. stands for Game Room and Bar, which makes the…
Beat the Crowd
Glastonbury (THINKFilm) Only a Julien Temple concert doc would get the R rating — for nudity (male, mostly, and not terribly flattering at that), drug use (weed, mostly — yawn), language, and sexual content. Also dig the overwrought BBC narration, in which Glastonbury is described as a former refuge for…
Assembly of Dust
With the term “jam band” incorporating everything from blues to bluegrass these days, it’s an overused handle that barely describes all the disparate bands lumped within its parameters. Still, Assembly of Dust has found its fit there, mostly due to its freewheeling dexterity, a sense of retro revival and a…
Our top DVD picks for the week of June 14
Blood & Chocolate (Sony) Breach (Universal) The Cecil B. DeMille Classics Collection (Passport) Deadwood: The Complete Third Season (HBO) 52 Pick-Up (MGM) Ghost Rider (Sony) The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries: Season Two (Universal) Hellboy: Blood & Iron (Anchor Bay) James Stewart: Screen Legend Collection (Universal) Jesse Stone: Night Passage…
Townes Van Zandt
Though he released 15 albums, commercial success eluded Townes Van Zandt for much of his life. But since his death in 1997, the Texan has garnered considerable interest: 2006 saw the DVD release of the documentary Be Here to Love Me, while this year Da Capo Press issued the first…
The Ladybug Transistor
In April, Brooklyn indie-rock outfit The Ladybug Transistor lost their drummer, San Fadyl, when he suffered asthma-related complications at his home in Zurich, Switzerland. Though the band’s sixth album, Can’t Wait Another Day, had been conceived before Fadyl’s passing, it’s easy to interpret this powerfully unsentimental work as a eulogy…
Get Inside. It’s Summertime!
Summer movie season has arrived. There are an insane number of films on the following list, and plenty of room for optimism. To that end, we’ve tried to cut back on the snarky comments about pointless sequels and loathsome actors — although it’s nearly impossible to let those infernal pirates…
Dinosaur Jr.
Forget the Foo Fighters. The true champ when it comes to blending melody and mayhem is a tumultuous trio known as Dinosaur Jr. The prototypical hard-core heroes were making heads bop and torsos flail back when Dave Grohl was still taking his cues from Kurt Cobain. The group’s bassist Lou…
Mustangs & Madras
Mustangs and Madras continues to play a passionate brand of emo that’s woefully (and refreshingly) out of step with the times. From first listen, the act’s latest release recalls a bygone era when scenester kids took style cues from the geek chic of Rivers Cuomo rather than the guy-liner of…
The Nightwatchman
The Nightwatchman is Tom Morello. Yes, that Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, as well as cofounder of Axis of Justice, a social-activism organization. But this time around, it’s just Morello, his acoustic guitar and his deep, growling voice, belting out folk tunes from his debut,…
Mexican-American Culture
Dear Mexican, So often when we see Mexican bands perform in the U.S. and Mexico, the crowd at some point starts chanting “Cu-le-ro (Ass-hole)!” Why does the crowd yell “Cu-le-ro” at a band that they seemingly adore and paid a lot of money to see perform? Even fellow Latinos are…
Black Box Office
It’s Sunday matinee time in Downtown’s Theater District, and the largest crowd of theatergoers isn’t lining up at the Alley, the Hobby Center or the Wortham. Instead, a throng is packing the Verizon Wireless Theater to see a show written by a local playwright who is virtually unknown to the…
Dave Mason
He’s fond of saying, “Rock and roll is not an age…it’s an attitude.” And that’s certainly the creed by which this 61-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer lives. But Dave Mason is something of a hidden man of classic rock who’s never gotten the credit his music — especially…
“Julie Green: The Last Supper”
We’re No. 1! That Texas leads the country in executions — 394 since 1976 — probably isn’t news to most of you, but it makes Julie Green’s installation “The Last Supper” at DiverseWorks especially relevant. Green makes art about the last meals of death row inmates; it’s a pretty provocative…
Black Box Office: Polarizing Perry
Playwright and filmmaker Tyler Perry is wildly successful. His “Madea” plays have been turned into mega-successful movies — Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea’s Family Reunion took in more than $110 million at the box office. Perry is also the most polarizing figure in the urban theater world,…
Patty Larkin
Patty Larkin is usually tagged a folkie, but she is much more. A fine guitarist, stellar singer and bold lyricist, Larkin takes her music all over the genre map. On her most recent solo release Red = Luck, which reached No. 38 on Billboard’s top independent releases chart, she covers…
NOTSUOH’S
Between hundreds of drinks, thousands of drunk texts and too many dates with a hot brunette to count, I’ve learned a couple things doing this column. One, I’m an obnoxious drunk. And two, Houston is anything but a dull town. If you can get bored in a city of two…
Not Just for Text Messages
The theme for May’s photo contest for high school students was camera-phones. We didn’t care where the kids pointed and clicked, so long as their cameras could also function as gossip hubs. You can view the complete results online at houstonpress.com, but now it’s time to announce the winners, who…
Unsane
Spawned from the same late-’80s New York City East Village scene that produced acts like Helmet and Cop Shoot Cop, Unsane’s “noise-meets-hardcore” music always aimed for a heavy and aggressive, but arty, sound, the sound track to urban decay. Unsane did gain some more mainstream notoriety for the MTV-rotated video…
Bamboo House
Small strips of nori (seaweed) encircle each of the four crispy salmon rolls ($6.50) at Bamboo House (540 Waugh, 713-522-3442), holding them together and making them look like little bow ties. The rolls are filled with a delicious blend of fresh salmon and baby spinach and accompanied by a hot…
Economic Development, the Houston Chronicle, Frivolous Lawsuits and Bad Travel Agents
The Greater Houston Partnership, our area’s version of the Chamber of Commerce, commissioned yet another study about how this area should encourage growth. Cities like Atlanta and Charlotte have done the same thing, and come out with plans to attract young brainy types by hyping just how hip their cities…
Nancy Drew
So lame it’s…cool? Nancy Drew, writer-director Andrew Fleming’s attempt to jump-start a new Warner Bros. franchise, is a movie flaunting a most obvious demographic strategy — a teen flick with a sensibility, or at least sense of humor, that’s most definitely parental. Invented in 1930 by the same Stratemeyer syndicate…
Massive Improv
Massive Improv has moved from the now-defunct Helios to the Mink, and its current weekly showcase features a broad assortment of offshoots and related groups, including the theme and structure-oriented Scatter!, the all-female Soviet Bunnies and the “black humor” duo Deep Fried. Massive’s Julia Morales started Deep Fried with childhood…
Mail Call
Defend our borders: Fences work, and they work rather well [“Killing Fences,” by Margaret Downing, May 31]. Israel has drastically reduced terrorism by building a fence along its border with the Palestinian Territories. Apparently, not one single terrorist has been able to penetrate the Israeli security fence. Given that suicide…
Crazy Love
A true-crime yarn told largely by the criminal, with supporting testimony from his curiously forgiving victim, Crazy Love comes billed as a documentary. But it can’t really be considered journalism — unless you count as journalism the sort of lurid tabloid exposé whose 100-point headline blurts, “ACID-ATTACKER MARRIES HIS VICTIM!”…
“Old Is New”
Three artists have mined the past to create something distinctly modern for space125gallery’s “Old Is New.” Anthony Thompson Shumate’s Shell Final uses the age-old art of stained glass to show a Shell Oil sign towering over trees. Catherine Colangelo’s paintings mimic the look of illustrations on medieval manuscripts; in one…
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
It was like, ‘aw, what are we gonna do?'” says Black Rebel Motorcycle Club front man Peter Hayes, referring to the 2005 exit of drummer Nick Jago. What Hayes and BRMC bassist and cofounder Robert Levon Been did was to carry on as a duo and put out the acoustic,…
Day Watch
Night Watch, you may recall, told of an ancient feud waged between the forces of Light and Dark. In the interest of maintaining a fragile détente, they organized themselves, as Russian super-combatants are wont to do, into complex bureaucracies, with the Night Watch heroes monitoring the vampiric shenanigans of the…
“Three One-Man Exhibits”
The Station Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Three One-Man Exhibits” features artists on the rise. Congolese-born sculptor Aime Mpane creates human figures out of matchsticks. A Bomb with a Time-Delay shows a man in shorts lying on his back with his arms behind his head. Mpane is the most notable of…
The Soul Rebels Brass Band Find a Houston Home
The sun sets, and finally the sizzling sidewalks and streets start to cool after another hot and humid Monday in the port city. The shadows fade to black under the massive old live oaks that shelter 70-year-old two-story houses. On the nearby main road, a commercial strip is hopping. Under…
Big Range Dance Festival
Featuring dancers and choreographers from as far away as Mexico City, Big Range Dance Festival has the goal of bringing brand-new creative work to Houston. And Program B (June 7-9) revealed just how terrific the folks at the Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex and The Center for Choreography at the University of…
Bob’s Steak & Chop House
There are two things I loved about the humongous porterhouse steak I ate on my first visit to Bob’s Steak & Chop House. Number one, the 28-ounce wet-aged USDA prime porterhouse is one of the thickest steaks in town. The reason that a thick bone-in steak tastes so good is…
Rihanna
Tere’s something I can’t quite figure out: Why does Rihanna get to be a pop star? And I’m not asking that to demean Rihanna, not necessarily. I just reviewed her new album, Good Girl Gone Bad, and I was surprised at how much I liked it. In the past, the…
Stage Capsule Reviews
Coppélia Houston Ballet’s current run of the beloved classic Copplia will delight fans of big-spectacle, happy story-ballets. This 1870 three-act tells the story of a boy and girl in a small town (in this version, Desmond Heeley’s sets and costumes invoke early Bavaria) who are betrothed. But problems start when…
Odd Couples
Okay, MuzikMafia’s Big & Rich (John Rich and Big Kenny) did duets (tri-ets?) with both Wyclef and John Legend on their latest CD, Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace. Big & Rich and Wyclef doing a reggae-country tune — talk about a train wreck. It got us to thinking, though…
Art Capsule Reviews
“Dick Wray” This amiable artist has been exhibiting his dense paintings for 50 years, ever since he graduated from the University of Houston back in 1958. In vibrant abstract work, he drops hints of figures but obscures them with emotional brush strokes and scratched lines. Channeling an urgency, Wray’s work…
Lost Albums
For every watershed album that helps plow a whole new field of boundless musical crops, there’s one that has been aborted by corporate wrangling or artistic misstep. These albums go down in nerd history as monuments to the stupidity of label management. The Beach Boys’ Smile — This was supposed…
Car Lust
Publisher: Microsoft
Platform: Xbox 360
Price: $59.99
ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)
Score: 9 (out of 10)