Filling the Blue-Eyed-Soul Hole
Let’s go back to last August at the MTV Video Music Awards. Justin Timberlake emerges on stage in a big-ass boom box, ready to world-premiere the debut single, “Like I Love You,” from his debut album, Justified. Flanked by a stable of dancers and a couple of rappers on loan…
Dead End
The Reverend Alex Morrison preaches about rebuilding on God’s word, but the men in the northwest corner of the park have more on their minds. It’s a heated game of spades, with a man in a white skullcap talking enough trash to overflow a landfill. “I’m runnin’ this here!” he…
Banana Flambé
Tokyo’s Melt-Banana — two guys and two gals in their late twenties — defies traditional definitions of speedcore, avant-metal terror or even Japanoise. Naturally, that hasn’t stopped niche-makers from branding the band with all those labels over the course of its ten-year life. Though Melt-Banana has achieved much recognition for…
Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy
This month marks the one-year anniversary for Houston Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen, but a lot of folks at 801 Texas are not so much jumping for joy as they are jittery with nerves. There’s been a recent spate of departures announced: Managing editor Tommy Miller is leaving to teach in…
Super Mario Brother
For the Dragons’ Mario Escovedo, choosing a vocation as a musician is something akin to being a priest and having Jesus Christ and the 12 disciples as older brothers. A quick glance at his famed family tree reveals older siblings such as Alejandro (the Nuns, Rank & File, True Believers,…
Logos, Lies and Layoffs
During a recent budget workshop, Houston City Councilman Mark Goldberg questioned Parks and Recreation Director Roksan Okan-Vick about the costs of a new logo the bureaucrat had ordered for the cash-strapped department from a local design studio. The new design is a three-lobed leaf inside a square, the sort of…
Faux Strummer, Bogus Buzzcocks and Phony Ramones
It’s an incongruous sight — a jittery, clean-shaven twentysomething guy with a conservative haircut is on the Rudyard’s stage with a punk quartet called the Rashomon Effect. There are no tattoos in evidence on his body, no unusual piercings to be seen. He’s wearing a gaudy tie-dye T-shirt and a…
Bar Card
When he was in federal prison, Michael Easton studied the law and the Scriptures. Now Easton, who is also an ordained Baptist minister, counsels attorneys he is fighting in court on the Bible, sending them spiritual advice by fax and e-mail, or in letters emblazoned with the Texas state seal…
David Banner
Mississippi: The Album Street Records Corporation/Universal Wired for Sound Violent Turd Soft Spot spinART
Paying Their Way
The heads of Houston’s two main agencies for the homeless make a relatively good living while caring for the downtrodden. As president of the Star of Hope in 2001, Randy Tabor drew about $126,500 in salary and benefits, according to the agency’s IRS statements. Randy’s wife, director of development Kathy…
Soundmurderer
It’s alive! Since its birth in the early 1990s, drum ‘n’ bass, née jungle, has been pronounced dead more times than even a DJ accustomed to counting BPMs would bother to count. The style is once again making a comeback, with hyperkinetic productions marked by a jazzy sensibility emanating, most…
Stretched to the Limits
At the Star of Hope shelter on the northern edge of downtown, 450 men a night are vying for the facility’s 220 beds. Those who miss out on the beds sleep on chairs and floor mats spread out in the shelter’s dayroom. The overcrowding turns away many men, some of…
Clem Snide
On its fourth album, Clem Snide shows it has a Soft Spot for the other side of summer, the mellow melancholy that creeps up on you at the end of a lazy backyard barbecue or the ash-end of a beach bonfire. It’s a narrow window of time when you’re already…
Letters
Corralling Cats Help the feral: Thank you for telling this story [“Catfight,” by Wendy Grossman, June 19]. The Houston Chronicle would never print this kind of story, and I feel it is an important animal rights/people rights issue that is ignored. It seems government and corporate entities would rather see…
The Filthy Skanks
Dallas metal act the Filthy Skanks have something for everybody — something for everybody with an IQ under 65, that is. If you think Fastlane is a documentary and hated Married with Children because of its fancy-pants smarts, this is the band for you. If you pine for the glory…
Squeezin’ Out the Talent
Who woulda thunk it? Charlotte Jones has been writing plays for years, but Madame Knavery, a work about a fortune-telling gypsy’s encounter with a representative of the Better Business Bureau, has turned out to be her breakthrough effort. “I’ve submitted before,” she says, “but this is my first one to…
Phunk Junkeez, with Saint Dawg and Property 6
The Phunk Junkeez’ essence can be summed up with this line from early on in their newest album, Rock It Science: “Fight for the right / Free speech on the mike / Oh yeah motherfucker / That’s the shit I like.” Yes, this is dumb shit. It’s also fun shit,…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, June 26 It must be a bitch to work as a casting director. You sit on your ass all day while beautiful people parade before you, seeking your approval. The job does require a little skill, though, because there’s an art to picking out which beautiful person outshines –…
Black Eyed Peas
People are saying that the Black Eyed Peas’ Elephunk tour is a classic example of a band biting off more than it can chew. After all, they’re playing 50 dates in three months, and simultaneously touring as a club headliner and as the opening act for the Justin Timberlake/Christina Aguilera…
From the Crypt
A visit to www.cryptokeeper.com would probably raise the average surfer’s eyebrows. The Web site has sections about the existence of Bigfoot, the Himalayan Yeti and El Chupacabra. Freelance wildlife journalist Chester Moore, who runs the site, calls these creatures “hidden species.” But from the way Moore tells it, cryptozoology (the…
Fallen Angels
As the Columbia Pictures logo looms large in frame till its torch becomes the focal point, we find ourselves in what appears to be a tent full of sweaty medieval warriors forging axes, and have to wonder: Did they already make another Scorpion King movie and not tell us? No,…
To Beer or Not to Beer
Sporting the motto “Beer Before Breakfast…Death Before Dishonor,” the Montrose Beer and Gun Club boasts more than 400 members across the country, including Second Amendment supporter Charlton Heston and local celebrity Dr. Red Duke. Wait a second. Beer and guns? Together in a club? “To question the existence of the…
Dead to Rights
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and it’s all PETA’s fault. Oh, we humored those wacky vegan extremists when they threw paint at rich bitches in hideously overpriced fur coats. We laughed when they’d come on conservative talk radio shows every Thanksgiving to get mocked for…
Ripped!
SAT 6/28 “It’s the toughest sport there is,” says Larry Mitchell, regional chairman of the National Gym Association. Bodybuilders sculpt their physiques into massive yet refined proportions by lifting weights, burning fat and eating an enormous amount of…stuff. Then, they show off. Mitchell, a 35-year bodybuilding veteran, says “really talented…
Dumb and Dona
at Stargaze Theatre, 3722 Washington Avenue, 713-426-2626. $20-$26.
Creative Creepiness
FRI 6/27 With effects-laden movies and lifelike video games, kids today have their “horror” all laid out. Kim McGraw hopes to bring back the oral tradition of scaring the snot out of children with the storytelling event “Bonechillers.” Kids will freak out their friends using old-school methods, with stories about…
Thinking Inside the Box
Jeff Shore likes to control his space. In “Livefeed,” his fifth collaborative exhibition with composer and programmer Jon Fisher, Shore has covered all the gallery windows at Mixture Contemporary Art to block out the Houston summer, creating a cool, dark refuge in which to present what is accurately but awkwardly…
People-Watchin’
SAT 6/28 We named it the Best Festival in Houston in ’99 and Largest and Most Popular Street Festival in 2000. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Westheimer Street Festival was founded by a group of Montrose locals and business owners looking to promote neighborhood artists, restaurants and boutiques. By ’99,…
Forgiving Fertitta
The martini is icy, the club chair is plush, Frank Sinatra is crooning on the sound system, and on the flat-screen TV the Astros are slaughtering the Orioles. We’re munching on a huge order of crispy fried onions and homemade potato chips, an appetizer that sells for a mere $4.95…
Big Bang
“Please be aware: This show contains the use of a firearm. There will be a loud shot during the performance.” Placed at the entrance of the Ensemble Theatre, the warning primes crowds for the action in Sundown Names and Night-Gone Things, a play by Leslie Lee making its world premiere…
Savoring Summer
Summer eating can be defined by the cold summer rolls of Thai Spice (5117 Kelvin, 713-522-5100). Delicate and elegant, these loosely assembled rolls are magically light but complex. They are filling yet nutritious. Translucent rice paper swathes a scattering of warm peppery chicken, crunchy celery slivers, shaved cabbage, bright carrot…