Juvenile
In the past, New Orleans’s Terius Gray, who’s over 30 but still Juvenile, has cared more about coochie than about current events; “Back That Azz Up” doesn’t exactly qualify as a political statement. It’s little wonder, then, that “Get Ya Hustle On,” a Reality Check track about the Katrina debacle,…
Our top DVD picks for the week of March 28
The Andy Milonakis Show: The Complete First Season (MTV) Another Public Enemy (Tartan) A Boy Named Charlie Brown (Paramount) Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King (Sony) Doctor Who: The Beginning Collection (BBC Warner) Don’t Deliver Us From Evil (Mondo Macabre) Godzilla: The Series (Sony) Hot Wheels (Warner Bros.) I Love Your…
Nice Junk, Pal
All these plastic spoons, take-out boxes and general crap that make up our disposable, consumerist lifestyle are enough to give an environmentalist the hives. So what’s the answer? Expensive recycling? Landfills? Pack the crap up and torch it? Heavens, no! We need only take a page out of Dan Steinhilber’s…
Morrissey
It’s often difficult to critically analyze a beloved artist, because the reviewer’s tendency is to excuse irksome traits or loathsome sonic detours simply because of past greatness. And so while it’s tempting to give Morrissey a free pass for hauling in a children’s choir for several songs on his eighth…
Run Over by Metro
It was 11:30 p.m., exactly midway through the night shift at the garage, and time for Myesha Taylor Thomas to return to work cleaning buses. Thomas crumpled the box of Red Hots she had bought in the break room and tucked them into her navy blue uniform with the word…
All’s Welles
Considered by many to be the greatest English-speaking actor of all time, Sir Laurence Olivier set the standard for generations of thespians. Orson Welles, who scared the hell out of the country with his War of the Worlds radio drama, is heralded as nothing short of an American cinematic legend…
Hank III
Hank Williams’s grandson has a problem with Nashville. His two-disc Straight to Hell swipes at “pop country,” guys who “write those hit songs down at PolyGram” and women who need “more dick down on Music Row.” And that’s not even counting Hank III’s dismissal of Kid Rock: “He’s a Yank,…
Image of the Week
Backstage at Beauty and the Beast, even Mrs. Potts’s best teacups and plates are free to yawn like longshoremen or sit in unladylike ways. When you’re fighting your way up the showbiz ladder, it’s best to save all your magic for the stage. Click here to enlarge…
Infused Beats
In today’s clubs, the job of executing good dance music usually falls to the DJ, who’s in charge of segueing the right songs that will keep people out on the floor. The rare bird of dance music is an actual band, like Melbourne’s Infusion. Also called “Australia’s Best Live Act,”…
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O strutted, spit and cooed her way to indie-rock-icon status, the last dynamic female to front a rock band was arguably Courtney Love. The grunge widow propelled Hole to stardom in the ’90s with her inimitable martyr poses and baby-doll fashion on the landmark…
Sandwich Circus
Joe Dang, a Houston Vietnamese-American, was sitting at a table outside Lee’s Sandwiches on Bellaire considering his lunch. “How’s the sandwich?” I asked him. “The baguette is awesome, the best I’ve ever had,” he said, inviting me to sit down. “And the lemonade is good, too. But the sandwich is…
Ata Girl!
“Atahualpa Yupanqui” is quite a mouthful. So when the legendary Argentine folksinger became a household name in the ´60s, his countrymen smartly elected to call the dearly departed crooner and composer “Don Ata.” Beloved for keeping alive the music of his country’s indigenous people, Don Ata continues to influence lives…
The Blasters
The last time I saw Phil Alvin was eight or nine years ago. He was sitting on the curb beside his grime-covered tour van in the alley behind the Fabulous Satellite Lounge. It was a chilly night, but Alvin sat slump-shouldered at the curb in his sweat-soaked shirt, staring off…
Tempting Tuna
The seared tuna loin ($27) at Olivette (The Houstonian Hotel, 111 North Post Oak Lane, 713-685-6713) is a spectacular dish with a complex combination of flavors and colors. First there’s the fresh tagliatelle pasta, dished up with a good helping of a radiant green pesto made from arugula. Arugula is…
Wheel Good Time
There’s a special place in the music world for jam bands. Sure, the flavors of the month can fill up stadiums, sell shirts and get ridiculous video play. But a jam band? Heck, people will travel the country to follow them. Much like fellow jam bands Phish, the String Cheese…
Ghostface
Of all the Wu-Tang Clan members, Ghostface has had the most consistent output as a solo artist. His sophomore record, 2000’s Supreme Clientele, is a certified classic, while his other three releases are just a notch down in terms of quality. Bringing an old-soul sensibility to his emotionally charged raps,…
Foolin’ Around
Seeing that it’s April Fools’ Day, you’re sure to have people telling you they’re pregnant with your child, that your dog has been hit by a car or that you’ve suddenly come into a fat wad of cash. Yep, it’s a day of goofiness, and the usually cerebral folks at…
You Down with ICP?
Jazz is said to be one of the most complex and challenging forms of music to play. But Amsterdam’s storied, ten-piece Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, a.k.a. the ICP Orchestra, makes it seem easy. Pianist Misha Mengelberg and drummer Han Bennink, who have played with such jazz greats as Eric Dolphy…
The Sounds, with Morningwood
The glut of Swedish bands a few years ago offered only a nibble of what the Sounds had to offer. Their sophomore effort, Dying to Say This to You, shows the kind of growth that any band with only one record should be required to exhibit after garnering features in…
Godly Dance?
The dancers of Ad Deum are planning a trip to New York, and they want you to pay for it. But they don’t mind singing — or at least dancing — for their supper. In fact, they’ve worked extra-hard on the five new pieces that they will present in their…
Six on the Floor
Most Southern rap songs are backed by synthetic beats and performed by a huge entourage of nonmusicians. Not so with Tha Fucking Transmissions, a six-piece rap group that’ll bring it today at White Swan. MCs Cornbreadd and Hodge spit hard-knock rhymes on life, drugs and loss. And these MCs are…
Muldoon’s
I notice two things as I stroll into Muldoon’s (3839 Southwest Freeway, 713-621-8125): the chalkboard on the sidewalk offering cosmopolitans for $5, and a sign demanding all hats be removed before entering. I make myself comfortable on a cushy banquette in the back of the room and ask a bartender…
Scroll Stroll
James Redfield’s 1993 novel, The Celestine Prophecy, has sold more than ten million copies worldwide and spawned an entire set of best-selling spirituality books. Redfield also penned the screenplay for the feature-film version of Celestine, which screens this weekend at CenterPoint for Mind, Body and Spirit. The film follows the…
Hot to ‘Trot
Austin’s Voxtrot might very well be the hardest-working indie band in Texas. Thanks in part to frequent touring around the country, the quintet recently signed to Austin’s Peek-A-Boo label, and its two EPs are distributed all around the globe. The band’s bouncy and jangly beats are just plain delicious. And…
Puff Piece
“You want an easy job, go join the Red Cross,” someone says well into Thank You for Smoking, a gleeful farce about capitalist mendacity based on Christopher Buckley’s 1994 best-seller. The implication, made drummingly plain in the film’s every bon mot, is that our ethical barometers skew lazily toward goodness,…
Holy Party, Batman!
Looking to add a POW! to your plans today? Check out Infernal Bridegroom Productions’ Super Power Gala. The theater troupe that has become synonymous with offbeat productions is inviting you to an offbeat shindig. You’re encouraged to come decked out as your favorite superhero or villain. Live out your superhero…
Get the Wheel Story
We know, we know. You’ve been meaning to break out that bike that’s sitting on your porch. And you’ve been meaning to take some serious time off. Today, Drew Ettinger and Greg Parkolab can show you how to do both at their Bicycle from Coast to Coast Clinic. As the…
Life Interrupted
This is a sidebar to this week’s feature, “Run Over by Metro” This spring marks the fifth anniversary of when First Transit driver Clifford Wayne Kidd torpedoed a Metro bus into stop-and-go traffic, causing nine-year-old Jennifer Rodriguez to burn to death. Roland Rodriguez, Jennifer’s father, has never granted an interview…
Slugfest
We are in the middle of a B-movie renaissance, if you haven’t noticed. For years now, the politics of the multiplex have forced films to be either big-budget, Burger King-cup blockbusters or tiny “indie” projects about college-educated Caucasians with emotional problems (and viewed by college-educated Caucasians with emotional problems). But…
Shall We Danse?
While moving his mother into a Manhattan brownstone, Houston artist Jim Greene happened upon a stack of 200 prints of Picasso’s 1961 masterpiece Danse de la Paix. Somehow resisting the impetus to draw Sharpie mustaches on the frolicking figures, he turned the prints over to Buffalo Bayou Art Park so…
Racist or Roadshow?
They pop up occasionally on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow: little figurines and toys that someone dug out of an attic. The objects depict African-Americans as wide-grinning servants and watermelon-hugging simpletons. The appraiser names his price; a smile whooshes across the face of the finder; and maybe you feel a little nauseated…
Wheels on the Bus
In the late summer of 2004, the Houston school district thought it had found a place to locate its bus barn, which had to be moved to make way for the new district headquarters. Residents near the proposed site, the abandoned Acme Brick building, heard rumors and squawked about the…
Biblical Contortions
If you’re craving an antidote to the sanctity of repressed gay cowboys, you could do worse than Adam & Steve. This good-natured comedy from writer-director Craig Chester uses gently sly wit to poke fun at neurotic gay singles, coming of age in the ’80s, and dating in the era of…
Flex Appeal
You may have noticed while watching the Olympics that China tends to put out an insane number of gymnasts and acrobats (and subsequently, kicks the crap out of most of the world). Say what you want about how early they start training (at, like, three years old), but these folks…
Dolemite Is Dynamite!
Rudy Ray Moore wants some respect, and he wants it, like, yesterday. The man perhaps most famous for the ´70s low-low-low-budget Dolemite movies he produced and starred in is tired of no one recognizing him. They obviously don’t realize he’s the king of the “party records” (his most familiar title),…
Letters to the Editor
Power to the People Stimulated: I liked your article this week very much [“Bring It On,” by Josh Harkinson, March 9]. You obviously did a great deal of research into the current state of affairs on an extremely complex issue. The “environmentalists” and the “nukes” have been so polarized in…
Palfrey Sum
It seldom fails. Every year, just in time for the Oscar deadline, we’ll get a movie that doesn’t necessarily have a remarkable plot or director, but does feature an aging master (or mistress) thespian from the UK, who one might assume is a shoo-in for an award nomination, ensuring eternal…
A Force in Drag
Okay, she’s damn cute. And yeah, she puts a much-needed pretty face on a sport that’s full of thick — and red — male necks. But much like her counterparts Danica Patrick and Erica Enders, drag racer Ashley Force also has some serious skills. (She’s hit the 275-mile-per-hour mark, just…
Clan Ferdinand
The Scottish music scene takes place inside a space the size of a college campus. Visit a few selected pubs and clubs in Glasgow’s West End, and it’s likely you’ll bump into a member of Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai or Franz Ferdinand. I’ve been writing, talking about and following Franz…
Capsule Reviews
Ouroboros Tom Jacobson’s Ouroboros might be one of the most richly textured works Main Street Theater has put on in years. The story is told from two points of view in two productions shown on alternative nights. One, A Nun’s Tale, is a comedy; the other, A Priest’s Tale, a…
Getting Fresh
We hate to break it to you, but fluorescent lights aren’t effective tanners. So take a break today and get some real sunshine at Fresh Air Friday: Picnic on the Plaza. This lunchtime treat, sponsored by the Houston-Galveston Area Council, features free food from downtown restaurants, prize giveaways and the…
Where You Been?
Dinosaur Jr. appears , at
Capsule Reviews
“Girls’ Night Out” This exhibition presents works by women who explore the concept of “girl.” Group shows are notoriously uneven, and this is no exception. Organized by the Orange County Museum of Art, “Girls’ Night Out” presents an overall vision of girls/women that’s heavy on awkwardness, angst and mental illness…
The Party Frontier
Finally, a college party that doesn’t take place in a cramped dorm room. Each year, students at the University of Houston build a small town to host Frontier Fiesta, an open-to-the-public party to show off the campus. This year’s slate of attractions includes concerts by national acts (Tejano band Jimmy…
KACC Mentality
Nowhere does the truism that your college years are the happiest ones in your life seem truer than at KACC/89.7 FM, Alvin Community College’s “Gulf Coast Rocker.” This radio station doubles as the training school for virtually all would-be Dayna Steeles and Rod Ryans in the area. It may not…
Spray-On Soul
Somewhere between the time DJ Kool Herc got the party started in the 1970s and LL Cool J’s star turn on MTV Unplugged in 1991, hip-hop went mainstream. First it conquered the ‘burbs. Then it went global. Before long, kids in Tokyo were rapping. Along the way, hip-hop also muscled…
Ocean View
Once upon a time, Ocean Pleasant was a precocious five-year-old who’d pass the time drawing in her mom’s office. Just three years later, she’s a veritable household name in the local art scene, and her work consistently sells for more than $400. Today at La Strada, Ocean will debut her…
Mtley Goge
It started out as a normal day for Tim Murrah, owner of The Mink Bar on Main Street. “I go to work and there’s a message on my answering machine from Mtley Cre’s management,” Murrah told Wack in an exclusive interview. “So I got in touch with the guy [one…
Kid Stuff for Parents
Wonder Showzen: Season One (MTV) On the surface, the way this MTV2 puppetfest explores adult concepts through a kiddie-show format seems fresh as a Nantucket limerick. But Wonder Showzen’s execution is so bold and frankly hilarious that it feels wholly new. Whether it’s exploring diversity with a forbidden homosexual love…
The Boys Are Back
Yes, the roof of Minute Maid Park should’ve been closed. No, Jeff Bagwell probably shouldn’t have played. But the World Series is over, and now it’s a new year for your Houston Astros. The 2006 season kicks off today with a street festival in front of the stadium that starts…