Trent Reznor, Supersize
Trent Reznor now looks like Greg Dulli acts. Dude is buff all of a sudden — BALCO’d out and shit. Towering over his adoring legions Thursday night at the Warfield in San Francisco, the Nine Inch Nails front man’s muscles glistened with pro-wrestler intensity and confidence. A momentary triumph of…
Letters
Anniversary Issues Mean Mac: Your anniversary-edition article about Jim (Mac) McIngvale gave me extreme nausea [“Big Mac,” by Craig Malisow, May 5]. Was this article written by Mac’s PR team? I have witnessed firsthand his tyranny at his store toward his servants, er, employees and vowed never to purchase from…
Addicted to Fluff
Hi, my name’s Racket, and I’m an American Idol addict. (Hi, Racket!) I would like to tell you that I have been clean and sober for a while, but as I type this it has only been about 11 hours since I watched an episode, and to be frank, I…
Getting Our Props
Margaret Downing, editor of the Houston Press, has won a national Unity Award from Lincoln University in Missouri in the Economics category for her story “A Closer Look at Dillard’s.” That feature investigated incidents that have led critics to label the department store’s security policies as racist and poorly considered…
Mama Mia
Alan Cole is dressed in a cowboy hat and long-sleeved button-up camo. His goatee is trimmed neatly. He’s tall and thick, built like a brick shithouse. You wouldn’t want to mess with Alan Cole. He’d whip your ass. No, Alan Cole is no pussy. In fact, he doesn’t even touch…
Sugar Coated
Nine years ago, John Foreyt, a psychologist at Baylor College of Medicine, was shown the cure for fatness. To say he discovered it would be inaccurate. It was invented by Positive Power Products, a California-based company that teamed up with an infomercial production company to trumpet the majestic news to…
Ume, with the Kants and Firebird
Urgent Sea, Ume’s new CD, doesn’t recall Sonic Youth all that much, except when bass player Eric Larson takes the occasional lead vocal. Hate to be a dick, but as Rich Little was to Johnny Carson, so is Larson to Thurston Moore. Thankfully, most of the fire in the belly…
Broadway Baby
Stephen Sondheim can be an acquired taste — one well worth acquiring, actually — but no writer of Broadway musicals has a more devoted following. And many of those followers are now discovering an obscure place in Texas named Odessa. Odessa, an oil town in the Permian Basin known mostly…
Eisley, with Reggie and the Full Effect and New Found Glory
In 2003, Eisley had all the momentum in the world. That year saw the four siblings — three sisters and a brother — from Tyler, Texas, shine with two amazing EPs, an opening slot touring with Coldplay and national press that included an MTV-produced “You Hear It First” promotion. Between…
Westward Whoa!
Amid the Christmas rush at the Mall of the Mainland in Texas City, Ruth Pavelko’s back scrunched into a prickly knot. The 49-year-old mom stumbled through the Foley’s parking lot to her Pontiac, her lungs feeling as if they were filled with Jell-O. Three blocks down the street, Pavelko lurched…
Drums and Tuba
Live, Austin’s Drums and Tuba leaves jaws hanging on the ground and renders categorization useless. Unfortunately, to date, the band’s records haven’t come close to capturing its onstage glory. Among the wealth of ingredients dumped on its Chicago-style jagged rock are a groove that makes jam-band fans spin like tops,…
Unsane, with Blackfire Revelation
This year marks the tenth anniversary of Unsane’s “Scrape” video, which paired the band’s brutal blasts with vivid footage of gnarly skateboarding injuries. That MTV moment marked the crest of the cult band’s pseudo-stardom, but for all its aggressively inaccessible tendencies (grotesque album art, feedback-throttled shows), Unsane remains just a…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, May 19 Another hectic work week, another excuse for you to get crunk today and call in sick tomorrow. But if you’re looking for something a little more — gasp! — chill to start off the weekend, head to Dean’s Credit Clothing, where hipsters in the know have been…
On the Dark Side
It’s a question to which the response should be more than a shrug, but it’s the only thing I can offer anyone who asks, “So, how was it?” The final installment in the mostly irrelevant second Star Wars trilogy is far superior to its immediate two predecessors, The Phantom Menace…
Muchos Luchadores
SAT 5/21 The muscles, the mayhem — the masks! What’s not to love about Mexican wrestlers? The paintings of San Antonio-based artist Angel Rodriguez-Diaz are a bizarre, compelling confluence of fine art technique, Hispanic trash culture and sly sociopolitical commentary. In his show at Rudolph Projects/ArtScan Gallery, Rodriguez-Diaz, originally from…
Mind Gamey
Matthew Parkhill’s Dot the I is the kind of tricked-up mental exercise that may intrigue the most impressionable film school students and a philosophy major here and there. But anyone who’s gotten through sophomore year without declaring him the next great thinker of the western hemisphere is more likely to…
Fore for Four
MON 5/23 Go ahead, throw on the checkered polyester pants and the snap-brim, Rudy-from-Fat Albert hat — after all, it’s for a good cause. This week, charity-minded duffers, rabbits, sandbaggers and other central-casting golf stereotypes from all over will be flooding the fairway to schmooze, putt, drive, bogey and raise…
Jane’s a-DJ
Perry Farrell is easily one of rock’s biggest front men. The visionary vocalist not only spearheaded two of modern rock’s most influential bands — Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros — but also organized and founded the Lollapalooza festival. Farrell has been a sort of Midas of music; everything he’s…
Capsule Reviews
Done to Death Vermont playwright Fred Carmichael’s 30-plus light romances and murder comedies have been a boon to regional theaters, and his works and patronage have been instrumental in the reputation and success of that state’s Dorset Theatre Playhouse. Now acquainted with one of his most performed plays, thanks to…
First Dance
Talk about backstage romance. In November 2003, while they were performing the lead roles in Houston Ballet’s Cinderella, dancer Lucas Priolo proposed to his real-life storybook princess Julie Gumbinner — just before the curtain went up. At the encore, Priolo came on stage with ring on pillow, falling to one…
Capsule Reviews
“Inversion” It looks like someone shot a giant cannon at the old Art League studio building on Montrose — you can see straight through it. Called Inversion, it’s an amazing, traffic-stopping project; the elderly wooden bungalow has been transformed into a piece of art instead of an art studio. The…
Thai Seas
Igor and I are intently eyeing the last shrimp. The succulent shellfish came tossed with avocado slices and slathered in a thick and creamy curry sauce. It is one of several spectacular dishes at Merlion Restaurant, a Thai eatery in Seabrook. The golden-colored phanang curry sauce is rich with coconut…
Colorful Combo
The asada y mar ($24.95) at Los Andes (3700 Richmond, 713-622-2686) takes the concept of surf and turf to Andean heights. It features grilled tenderloin with a deep charbroiled flavor, topped with an ethereal chimichurri sauce (garlic, parsley and olive oil) and combined with crawfish and lump crabmeat for a…
Mellow, Chilled-Out Fellow
Here are some of the superlatives you read from scribes far and wide about Rap-A-Lot recording artist Devin the Dude: “Your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper…,” “the most underrated rapper in hip-hop today…,” “the greatest hip-hop artist you’ve never heard…,” “the most uncategorizable figure in all hip-hop…” All of those superlatives…