Little Joe: Cautious Optimism
Just got an email from Reg Burns, Little Joe’s off-and-on manager, which I will excerpt here: “Just got back from Ben Taub ICU… The nurse finally came and told us it was OK to see him. I told her he was a famous musician and she said that he has…
Slideshow: Mudbugs in the Bayou City
We ate a lot of boiled crawfish while reviewing Swampy’s Cajun Shack in this week’s Cafe section. And just for fun we also stopped by some other favorite mudbug venues to check on this year’s prices. Here are a few snapshots. — Robb Walsh…
Toxic Town: Contamination in Somerville Schools
Last Monday, I trekked back up to Somerville, Texas, set just past Brenham along US Highway 290 some 90 miles northwest of Houston. My editor sent me to do some reporting for this week’s news story on recent environmental testing in the schools. I wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms…
Good News: Dale Petroskey Is Out of the Baseball Hall of Fame
“So you thinking of going with the slider or the treason?” I’m sure you’re asking: Who’s Dale Petroskey? Petroskey was a former Reagan functionary who became president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame nine years ago. And he’s out because, like most Republicans, he’s got a problem with exercising…
Last Night: Dengue Fever at the Orange Show
“We were in Austin last night and folks over there warned us that Houston is not a music town.” Bearded Dengue Fever guitarist Zac Holtman brought the house down with what proved to be the only irony of the evening as a sold-out, crammed-to-the-rafters crowd took advantage of some great…
Little Joe Washington Gravely Ill
Roger Wood passed along some terrible news this morning – Little Joe Washington is in intensive care at Ben Taub. Although the pint-sized blues guitar genius has cheated death on damn near a daily basis for the past decade, and climbed out of what seemed to have been his death-bed…
MP3: Black Math Experiment’s “Wicked Game”
David Arquette’s H-Town BFFs Black Math Experiment are the first to get with the program here at new and improved Houstoned Rocks. They sent along of Chris Isaak’s haunting 1990 top ten hit “Wicked Game”: Few can sing match Isaak’s soaring Orbisonian tenor, so Black Math’s singer Jef With One…
Reverberations: Garage Rock Downloads on MySpace
For whatever reason, I seemed to forget that MySpace offers the opportunity for actual downloads, in addition to streaming music. This revelation was thrilling, despite its embarrassing belatedness, and I’ve decided to make the MySpace Mixtape a regular practice on Reverberations. The rules are simple: Selections must be downloadable, posted…
Maxim Magazine Readers: The Uncoolest Boys Around
So…it’s come to my attention that Maxim decided to come up with a list of the unsexiest women alive, and this list included Sarah Jessica Parker and Amy Winehouse and Sandra Oh (because of her supposedly “boyish” figure…yeah, that’s right). This list came out five months ago, so it’s probably…
Astros-Padres: Michael Bourn Is Looking Good. Everyone Else, Not So Much.
I know that two games does not a season make, but damn, I think I’m ready to declare Michael Bourn the real thing. Consider that he managed to get on base twice last night. That he managed to steal his third base of the season last night – the Astros…
Reverberations: Born Liars, Ugly Beats and Fleshtones at Rudyard’s
The Fleshtones I’ve decided that Born Liars are one of those local bands that will probably be a good time regardless of the bill I find them on. And, if they seem to be lagging, I’ll drink more and rediscover the original draw. Look: Born Liars may not become the…
A New and Improved Houstoned Rocks
We’re changing the way we do things around here. For one thing, I will be posting at least once a day, maybe more. I will also strive to make this as local as possible. To do so, I would greatly appreciate your help. As always, we welcome your mp3s. Please…
MP3: Jackie Wilson and Laverne Baker, Like You’ve Never Heard Them Before
The official version of “Think Twice” barely dented the pop charts in 1966, though it was something more of an R&B hit. This NSFW version, recorded just for fun at the end of a recording session, was never even released. And given that the two of them sing about cocaine,…
Q&A with Daryl Morey: Down the Stretch They Come…
The Rockets 22-game winning streak is ancient history. With little more than two weeks left in the regular season, the club’s sole focus is now on playoff positioning in an attempt to finally put an end to a decade of postseason futility. So it seemed like the perfect time to…
Bombay Brasserie Opens New Location on West Loop
Almost ten years after it opened in 1997, the original Bombay Brasserie at Richmond and Sage burned down — and for a short while, so did the dreams of owner Narin Seghal. This was his first restaurant, but lucky for Houston, it wasn’t his last. Soon after the fire, Seghal…
Astros-Padres: It’s Going to Be a Long Season
Wow. Can you believe it’s time for another baseball season? I’m pumped. I love baseball. Even bad baseball – which is a good thing because the Astros are going to suck this year. I’m going to try something a little different for tonight’s game. You’re going to read my thoughts,…
Houston Aeros Best Chicago Wolves But Fall to Peoria Rivermen and Milwaukee Admirals
At the 1:30 mark of the first period Friday night, Colton Gillies stepped out onto the Toyota Center ice for his very first action in a professional game. Playing at the left wing position on a line with center Marco Rosa and right wing Ross Carlson, Gillies provided a much…
Dear Spencer Pratt, Why Are You An Asshole?
So resident dickwad of “The Hills” – Spencer Pratt, natch – is busy dispensing advice for Radar magazine. The trouble is, I’m not sure what he is capable of advising people on. Dear Spencer, how do I stretch out my 15 minutes into 30 or at least 25? Dear Spencer,…
Over the Weekend: Boozing, Bret Michaels and Baseball
It was a tiring weekend. We helped a buddy move who’s quite the record collector. Let’s just say we think mp3s are really, really awesome. 12:44 a.m. at 13 Celsius and 1:18 a.m. at Pandora Lounge Photog Bill Olive got the goods once again, this time finding love (and egregious…
Play Ball: John Royal’s MLB Predictions
Today is Opening Day for baseball season. Forget President’s Day. And Flag Day. And Labor Day. If there’s any day that needs to be a national holiday, it’s today. (Oh, just forget that the regular season for the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s actually started in Japan last…
Saturday Night: Bret Michaels’ Rock of Love Tour at the Meridian
On Saturday night, overcome by sheer boredom and a gnawing morbid curiosity, we slinked into the Bret Michaels set at the Meridian. This concert was part of a tour to promote the sometime Poison frontman’s ongoing televised quest for romance, the VH1 masterpiece Rock Of Love. Predictably the audience was…
Get Lit: Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon, by May Pang
In Beatles lore, a woman named May Pang is forever linked to the phrase “Lost Weekend.” That 1973 “weekend,” which lasted 18 months, is when John Lennon left Yoko Ono and, according to legend, wandered drunkenly in a haze until she took him back. (He was thrown out of LA’s…
Steroids and Roger Clemens, or Why Jose Canseco Is Kind of Like a Republican
Famed literary genius Jose Canseco has a new book coming out next week. I’m still awaiting my review copy, so I can’t say much about the book. But I can comment on some of the things Mr. Canseco writes. Those who have seen copies of the book state that Canseco…
Drenched in Blog: Emo Kids Getting Attacked in Mexico
I can’t enough of watching this random Mexican Nu Metal Dude lose his shit over emo kids. I hear they are beating the white jeans off these kids south of the border. Anyway, this guy gets so worked up he slips into English to say “fucking bullshit” for added emphasis…
Play Ball: John Royal’s Predictions for the Houston Astros
It’s that time of year again. It’s baseball season. And come Monday, the Astros will be starting up for real. Steve Campbell and Richard Justice of the Chron tell me I should be optimistic. And that I should look on the bright side because there are plenty of positives. Well,…
Slideshow: Baseball Parks Across America
I love baseball, and I love to travel and watch baseball. I’ve been to two-thirds of the 30 major league ballparks — and I’ve also been to four ballparks which are no longer used for baseball (Astrodome, Arlington Statium, Candlestick Park and Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). You’re going to see photos…
What I’m Thinking About When I Think About Films From the 1980s
Please keep in mind that Miss Pop Rocks was a preteen sensation back in the 80s, so if you’re looking for thoughts on “Sophie’s Choice” and “Gandhi” you’ve come to the wrong blog. “Sixteen Candles”: As a preteen girl, this movie provided me with multiple fantasies of what life with…
Radio Houstoned: Kristine Mills at Wade Wilson Art’s Second Anniversary Party
Houston vocalist Kristine Mills was at a cocktail party when she bumped into artist/curator Wade Wilson. In between chitchat and mixed drinks, the two came up with Wade Wilson Art’s Second Anniversary Party, a combo art exhibit/jazz concert benefiting Texas Children’s Hospital and Houston Center for Photography. Joining Mills will…
Drenched in Blog: Dr. Pepper, Axl Rose and Chinese Democracy
Dr. Pepper, that little old soda company from Waco, has jumped onboard the Chinese Democracy Hating Train that began sometime at the end of Bill Clinton’s second term in office. Everyone knows that Guns N’ Roses frontman Howard Hughes (I mean Axl Rose) has been working on this Spruce Goose…
High Price of Crawfish
A half bucket of crawfish — around two dozen mudbugs with corn and potatoes — is selling for $11.95 at Ragin Cajun on Richmond. Crawfish prices are hitting new records this year with some restaurants charging as much as $5.50 a pound for boiled crawfish. Two pounds for $10, once…
Washington Nationals Get a New Stadium That Could Be as Bad as Minute Maid Park. Maybe.
The Washington Nationals are moving into a brand new D.C. pleasure palace – one the people of D.C. were blackmailed into paying for and building. But for once, I’m not going off on that. I’ve got another problem. The Baltimore Sun architecture critic writes glowing things about the new place,…
John Royal’s NCAA Basketball Picks, Take Two
Okay, so my NCAA basketball tournament picks weren’t the best in the world. But you should know better than to expect me to be perfect with these things. I will note, however, that all of my Final Four picks are still standing. Since I started with picks last week, I…
Slideshow: “What We Think Now,” by Jonathan Hollingsworth
Click here for a slideshow. Photographer Jonathan Hollingsworth traveled from San Francisco to Orange County, in California, with a stack of poster-board in hand. Along the way he stopped and asked people to write their opinions on the current war in Iraq. Then he took photos of the people holding…
Wade Wilson Art’s Second Anniversary Party
Houston vocalist Kristine Mills was at a cocktail party when she bumped into artist/curator Wade Wilson. In between chitchat and mixed drinks, the two came up with Wade Wilson Art’s Second Anniversary Party, a combo art exhibit/jazz concert benefiting Texas Children’s Hospital and Houston Center for Photography. Joining Mills will…
Samurai!!! Japanese Film Festival
Plenty of modern Hollywood bigshots, from Quentin Tarantino to Tom Cruise, have been seduced by the Japanese legend of the samurai, but it’s still rare to find a good example of the genre on the big screen. Samurai!!! Japanese Film Festival, to be held at the University of St. Thomas,…
Robert Redford introduces Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars
It always helps to get a pretty face behind an ugly issue. The documentary Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars is narrated by the still-hunky-after-all-these-years actor/activist Robert Redford. The film explores how a group of strangers — politicians, business leaders and regular Joes — joined forces to stop the building of…
Lucky Stiff
A dead uncle, six million bucks, a girl who loves dogs and a trip to Monte Carlo come together in Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s frantic musical farce Lucky Stiff. At the center of all this madness is mild-mannered shoe salesman Harry Witherspoon, who’s thrown into a world of diamond…
Walking with Dinosaurs
There are a lot of things we could say about Walking with Dinosaurs — The Live Experience, but three simple words should sum it up nicely: Huge. Freakin’. Dinosaurs. The show was inspired by the BBC/Discovery Channel series of the same name and features life-size, realistic dinos. Sure, we could…
Neil Hamburger
Comedian Neil Hamburger has an unexpected attitude towards comedy clubs: “I don’t like them, and they don’t like me,” he says. America’s Funnyman (he gave himself the title) says he prefers to take his offbeat sense of humor to rock clubs or other venues. Hamburger’s humor isn’t what you’d expect…
Chapel/Chapter
In the mood for a warm-fuzzy, feel-good kind of night? Skip the Chapel/Chapter dance performance. But if you want a provocative, engrossing experience that questions humanity and spills over with talent, Chapel/Chapter is just the thing. The performance by the New York-based Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company explores the…
Si Se Puede
Civil rights and farming aren’t things you’d usually group together, but both were at the heart of the work of César Chávez, the Mexican-American leader who founded the United Farm Workers union. To celebrate Chavez’s life and work, The Sandra Organ Dance Company is mounting a production Si Se Puede…
Bernice Rose
The Menil Collection will offer a double debut today — of both its new chief curator and the museum’s latest gallery addition — when Bernice Rose gives a tour of the institution she’s heading up, “Drawings and The Menil Collection’s New Drawing Institute and Study Center.” Rose comes to Houston…
W;t
Margaret Edson’s 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning W;T (also known as Wit) is a luminous play. When it’s done right, the stunning story has the power to change lives. On the surface it doesn’t sound appealing, but the tale about a prickly middle-aged English professor who becomes very ill with ovarian cancer…
“Anywhere But Here”
“Anywhere But Here” isn’t just the title of the new exhibition at ArtStorm — it also describes where the artists are from. Curators and ArtStorm board members Megan Whitenton and Alicia Seale say the show gives local underground artists a chance to see what their out-of-town counterparts are up to…
Houston Press Menu of Menus Extravaganza
Get ready to dine with the dinos at the Houston Press Menu of Menus Extravaganza, benefiting the Child Advocates Inc., at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. As you gawk at the T-Rex’s carnivorous canines, you can chomp down on sample bites from more than 40 local restaurants including benjy’s,…
Tosca
It’s the strangest career change ever. Ta’u Pupu’a, a native of the South Pacific, went from pro football player to opera singer, playing for the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens before an injury led him to his first love — opera. He’s among a cast of up-and-coming artists in the…
Chris Rock
If you’re interested in seeing Chris Rock today, stop reading and go buy your tickets. The comedian has already sold out one of his double-billed performances, and last we checked, the second one was following suit. Rock is easily this generation’s Bill Hicks, both in style and popularity. His biting…
Brett Mouton
There’s no doubt local singer/songwriter Brett Mouton has a Texas twang. His voice is earnest and his songs filled to overflowing with lines like “Today’s guilts quickly become tomorrow’s doubts / they roll over me like a wave on the sea” or “Our dreams are too big to let them…
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation
With this summer’s Indiana Jones and the Arthritic Knee (we think that’s the title) looking to be a franchise-stretching, mid-life crisis-inspired, cash-grabbing dud of Terminator 3-like proportions, we suggest you check out the work of someone who was earnestly and admirably inspired to create by the Indiana Jones saga: 12-year-old…
Shell Houston Open
Guys who excel at putting around will take part in the Shell Houston Open, the city’s PGA-affiliated golf tournament. Once again, this year, the Open will serve as the lead-in tournament for the Masters, and Aussie Adam Scott will defend his title against competition including Stuart Appleby, KJ Choi, Padraig…
Alice McDermott and Laura Restrepo
Two of writing’s brightest stars align today at Inprint’s Margarett Root Brown Reading Series, as Laura Restrepo and Alice McDermott take the stage. Restrepo, from Colombia, wrote the award-winning books Leopard in the Sun, The Angel of Galilea and, most recently, Delirium, her political yet passionate novel about the machismo…
“Harvest in Solstice”
The natural theme of “Harvest in Solstice” is the result of Give Up Guy’s recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. “I think it was just being up there, being in the woods and just listening to a bunch of metal,” says the wheat-paste poster artist whose work can be seen…
“Apertura Colombia”
The graphic images in the 14-artist show “Apertura Colombia” aren’t always easy to look at. Jesús Abad Colorado’s black-and-white photography of life in the war-torn country includes images of a funeral parade. Hundreds of mourners fill a narrow street, and several of the men carry more than a dozen coffins…
Flamenco Andaluz
Onstage, Flamenco Andaluz founder Bianca Antonia is equal parts seductress and technician. Flipping her ruffled skirt, she circles her partner, swinging her hips in time to the music. She clicks her castanets, then reaches down to pull up the hem of her skirt, showing a bit of ankle as she…
Andrea White
Seems Andrea White, wife of Mayor Bill White, is a busy bee. Besides being Houston’s first lady, a wife and mom, and a community activist, Mrs. Mayor is an award-winning children’s author. You can catch her reading from her latest book, Window Boy, today at Brazos Bookstore. The story of…
A Little Day Music
Start your weekend early at A Little Day Music with the H.S.P.V.A. Big Band (that’s the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, for all of you who have been living under rocks the last 20 years). Under the direction of Warren Sneed, the band will present a little…
Bayou City Art Festival
Forget stuffy museums and galleries this week — get your art out in the fresh air at the annual Bayou City Art Festival Memorial Park. Festivalgoers can admire juried works from 300 visual artists in several different mediums, including painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and jewelry. This year’s featured artist…
Apolitical Theater in Stop-Loss
Considering that the war in Iraq has proven to be Washington’s shot-by-shot remake of Vietnam, it’s only natural that Hollywood has followed suit, giving us a series of Iraq-themed films that can be set neatly alongside their Vietnam-era counterparts. Just as the initial wave of angry anti-Vietnam documentaries (In the…
763 MP3s and Nothing On
It’s probably safe to say that nobody’s SXSW experience this year was as comprehensive as that of Paul Ford, an editor at Harper’s and blogger for www.themorningnews.org. And here’s the thing — Ford never left New York City. Instead, he downloaded the SXSW 2008 Torrent File, which included single MP3s…
Skinny Is the New Fat in Run Fat Boy Run
As John Simon once said of Jeanne Moreau — cast in a virginal role — making Simon Pegg a fat guy is like casting Lassie as a vegetarian. Take Chris Elliott, subtract Don Knotts: the remainder is Pegg, the British actor-screenwriter who barely registered as an appetizer for Shaun of…
ASK A MEXICAN
Dear Mexican, I’m a gay man in his mid-30s who has always loved Mexican men, and this question is not only from my experience, but also that of friends: Why is it that Mexican men are so flaky? They seem the top offending ethnicity in this. And by flaky, I…
Houston Press vs. Memorial Hermann Hospital System; Red Bull vs. Roaring Lion
We live to serve here at the Houston Press. But that philosophy can occasionally lead us down some very twisty trails. A reader had a seemingly simple request: He wanted to know who was on the board of directors for the Memorial Hermann Hospital System, one of Houston’s most well-known…
Seco’s Latin Cuisine
Seco Moran, owner of and chef of Seco’s Latin Cuisine (2546 Nottingham, 713-942-0001), has definitely worked his way up in the business. After moving to Houston from El Salvador in 1980, he worked as a busboy, waiter, line cook, chef and, finally, head chef at Jalapeños. When Jalapeños closed in…
L.A.’s Dengue Fever Unites Cambodian Pop and American Rock
On the surface, L.A.’s Dengue Fever, the brainchild of rocking brothers Ethan and Zac Holtzman, seems like a recipe for disaster, a fast track to the cutout bin. According to drummer/producer Paul Smith, serendipity was much more important than thoughtful planning and calculated scheming in the band becoming a surprise…
Rhapsody at Bohemeo’s on Telephone Road
God really loves Manuel Gutierrez. Or so he claims. The 49-year-old Detroit native has been hit by a car, stabbed twice during a street fight, fallen off the back of a motorcycle, spent the better part of five years in jail and readily admits he likes to drink. (Wouldn’t you?)…
McCoy Tyner Trio
Rock and country acts may think they’ve got career longevity when their catalogue hits a dozen albums, but that’s nothing compared to some jazzbos. Pianist McCoy Tyner, now 69 years old, has close to 80 discs released under his name in a career that stretches back to the tail end…
Local Motion at Sound Exchange
Sound Exchange 1846 Richmond, 713-666-5555 1. Dirtbombs, We Have You Surrounded (LP/CD) 2. The Judy’s, Washarama (CD) 3. Hearts of Animals, Hearts of Animals (7″) 4. Hellhammer, Demon Entrails (LP/CD) 5. Black Mountain, In the Future (LP/CD) 6. Eric Copeland, Hermaphrodite (LP) 7. Monkeywrench, Gabriel’s Horn (CD) 8. Impaled Nazarene,…
Capsule Stage Reviews: Gutenberg! The Musical!, Othello, Pack of Lies, Young and Fertle,
Gutenberg! The Musical! Pirate Queen, Dance of the Vampires and Kelly – these were rank bombs all, made legendary by their horridness. Billed as serious Broadway contenders, they should have been spoofs. Gutenberg! The Musical!, on the other hand, wants to be bad – and succeeds wildly. The little comic…
La Nouvelle Recession Cuisine at Au Petit Paris
“Queue de Boeuf Braisé avec Champignons Sauvages, Oignions Grelots Caramelisés, Lardons, Mousseline de Pomme de Terre et Pousse D’Epinard” means “expensive soul food” in French. Okay, the actual translation on the menu at Au Petit Paris, a new French restaurant in a refurbished bungalow on Colquitt, is “slowly braised beef…
Counting Sheep with 21
Ben Mezrich’s 2002 best-seller Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas For Millions was a smart narrative about…well, you did see the subtitle, right? Mezrich more or less recounted a fantastic tale spun by an old acquaintance from Boston, an M.I.T. grad named…
Roky Erickson and the Explosives: Halloween: Live 1979-1981
Roky Erickson’s recent rising to the occasion of Austin City Limits — first festival, then TV show — and this month’s Austin Music Awards isn’t the Texas psych icon’s first comeback. His initial encounter with cross-generational influence, and the impossible pressure that accompanies being routinely labeled “seminal,” came nearly 30…
Bayousphere: Rough Riders at the Houston Rodeo
Leon Coffee has been a rodeo clown for 39 years. Texas Monthly calls him perhaps the most revered and beloved clown in the history of American rodeo. A U.S. Army veteran and “man in the can,” the bullfighter is a lifetime member of the United States Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. In…
Capsule Art Reviews: “AES+F,” “Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space,” “Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006,” “Foto Fest2008: Current Perspectives, 1998–2008 CHINA,” “Tony Berlant,” “Vivid Vernacular”
“Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space” This show at the Blaffery Gallery will quietly blow away just about any video installation you have ever seen. Chantal Akerman is a filmmaker who creates video installations filled with cinematic power. She has been called “the most important European director of her…
Dirtbombs, Kelley Stoltz
Formed and fronted by Motor City music-scene veteran Mick Collins (Blacktop, the Gories), Detroit’s Dirtbombs first detonated in the mid-’90s. Now supporting recent LP We Have You Surrounded (In the Red), the five-piece continues to blend ’60s garage, punk and Motown soul to excellent effect, creating their own signature brand…
Lame Scenes and Upscale Lounges
Online readers comment on Racket, “What’s the Problem, Houston?” by John Nova Lomax, March 13 Ah, 2008: As long as I can remember, folks have been fantasizing about some notion of a mythical, utopian past of the music scene. Trust me, one day people will reminisce on the glory of…
Southern Culture on the Skids
Trash culture in all its myriad low-rent varieties has seldom had a better musical friend than North Carolina’s Southern Culture on the Skids. Since forming in the basketball-obsessed burg of Chapel Hill in 1985 — that’s right, 23 whole years ago, though the current roster of guitarist/vocalist Rick Miller, bassist/vocalist…
Bret Michaels
Bret Michaels is a horny beast. Throughout his time as the lead singer and frontman of classic hair-metal band Poison, this was a well-documented fact. He initially wooed women with a hyperactive stage personality — music videos showed him makin’ eyes and advances on wickedly dressed über-babes — but then…
Saul Williams
A few months after the November digital release of Saul Williams’s latest album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, producer Trent Reznor was disheartened. Reznor had masterminded the Radiohead-esque plan of letting listeners choose between obtaining the work for free or contributing $5 for a higher-quality download. The overwhelming…
Past Lives IN “Ethnography, Photojournalism and Propaganda: 1934-1975”
China is the theme for FotoFest 2008 — The Twelfth International Biennial of Photography and Photo-Related Work. This year, there are 135 participating exhibitions and truckloads of contemporary photography from China on view. But the historical underpinnings of contemporary Chinese photography can be seen in the official FotoFest section “Ethnography,…
The Black Crowes: Warpaint
On their first studio release since re-forming in 2005, the Black Crowes show how a little time off from each other can work wonders. Warpaint continues to improve their winning brand of Southern-fried power blues-rock, as opener “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution” and “Movin’ on Down the Line” gallop from…
Janet Jackson: Discipline
Fifteen years ago, Janet Jackson revealed her sensual side on the groundbreaking janet., and critics and fans alike were enticed by the pop star’s seductive coos and come-ons. However, judging by her last two albums, Damita Jo and 20 Y.O., years of confiding fantasy after fantasy have led her listeners…
Destroyer: Trouble in Dreams
Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar decided the lineup that recorded 2006 album Destroyer’s Rubies should remain intact indefinitely, so follow-up Trouble in Dreams finds the Vancouver indie-pop band testing its own limits. “Blue Flower/Blue Flame” trumps Ladybug Transistor at their own game, while “Dark Leaves Form a Thread” turns the frantic…
See Sty of the Blind Pig
In her south-side Chicago apartment, matriarch Weedy Warren (Deborah Oliver Artis) waits for her spinster daughter Alberta (Cheray Dawn Josiah) to get home from work. She rocks fitfully in her chair by the open window, clutching a Bible to her bosom as if drawing its strength straight into her. Weedy…
Online Turnoff with Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Developers seem to believe that their first-person games are required to include online modes. Blame it on the few narrow-minded gamers (and critics) who constantly hammer away with that boneheaded message. At best, it’s a strange logic of inheritance: Since the earliest first-person shooters were playable online, every first-person game…
Stuffed Dates at Be-Wiched
Be my date: The stuffed dates ($6) at Be-Wiched (1844 Westheimer, 713-520-5300) are covered in a slice of prosciutto before they’re pan-fried to a crispness. But it’s what’s inside these little wonders that will set your taste buds a-poppin’ — roasted jalapeño and Gorgonzola (how do they get it all in…
Former Death-Row Inmate Sent Back to Prison
Joy Weathers watched from her front porch as the car rolled to a stop. Martin Draughon stepped out of the back, and Weathers rushed to meet him. It was the first moment of Draughon’s parole. For almost 20 years, Draughon had been locked up on death row in the maximum-security-level…
Houston’s Matt Clark Strums for New Orleans’ Glen David Andrews
Right after Houston Katrina evacuees the New Birth Brass Band moved back to New Orleans, they returned to Houston to play a benefit at Marilyn Oshman’s River Oaks mansion. The band had a new member since I had last seen them — a twentysomething white kid who was marching around…
THE HIDEOUT’S BLOODY MARIA
Where else but the rodeo can you find deep-fried Oreos, gals in cut-offs and boots, pig races, a fire-eating dwarf, cowboys in tight jeans, $10 hot dogs, cotton candy in seven different colors and a bar set up in our beloved Astrodome? I had to traverse four steep ramps and…