Veggie Tales
It was expected to be one of the largest protests since the Vietnam War, and a radical cadre of young Houstonians was all set to join in outside the Republican National Convention in New York City. Only one thing stood in the way: They didn’t have a ride. Operating as…
Carrie Newcomer
If you don’t follow the folk world, you’ve probably never heard of Carrie Newcomer; if you do follow it, it’s unlikely you haven’t. Newcomer inhabits the upper level of the folkosphere, along with artists such as Nanci Griffith and Patty Larkin, who’ve earned their $25-ticket status with equal amounts of…
Letters to the Editor
Backing Up the Evacuees Step into their world: I can understand your frustration, especially regarding your desire to “get a story” [“Faded Love,” by Josh Harkinson, October 27], but try to understand this. What makes you think these people were so bad because they didn’t contact you? Do you know…
Thrice
Dave Eggers designed the ornate, Ouija-board-like cover for Thrice’s latest, Vheissu, and he’s an apt artist for an album that many critics will hail as a work of genius. This ambitious effort incorporates everything from a music box to simulated call-and-response field hollers. Thrice shortens the soft-loud dynamic cycle by…
Craig List
With his dreamy good looks, impressive falsetto voice and obvious musical talent, Stephen Lynch has the chops to be a legitimate singer-songwriter. But Lynch decided a long time ago to devote his time to performing songs about things like Nazis, abortions, anal sex, Satan, albinos, date rape — you know,…
Broadcast, with Gravenhurst
After a two-year absence, Broadcast returns with Tender Buttons, a searing, minimalist pop record. Seeing how the band has gone from six members to two, Buttons’ theme of letting go makes sense. Vocalist Trish Keenan and her only remaining bandmate, James Cargill, have toyed with the Broadcast concept a bit,…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, November 10 Um, your bare walls are showing. But you can cover them — and help the Avenue Community Development Corporation revitalize programs in Houston communities — by attending the ninth annual Art on the Avenue. The two-night benefit and art auction, which kicks off with a preview party…
dios (malos), with Swords and Go Spread Your Wings
Suburban Hawthorne, California (next door to El Segundo, where Q-Tip left his wallet), was the birthplace of the famously acid-damaged Beach Boys. Now dios (malos) has emerged from the same drug-drenched milieu. Formerly known as just dios (Spanish for “god”), the band reluctantly added malos (“bad”) after a cease-and-desist order…
A Date with George
Never in history has a man who proposed incest with his cousin, accidentally killed his fiancée and ate pastries out of the trash been so admired — nay, worshiped. But Americans love them some George Louis Costanza, perhaps the greatest weasel of all time, played brilliantly from 1990 to 1998…
Bum Rap
About halfway through Get Rich or Die Tryin’, the new movie starring rapper 50 Cent (a.k.a. Curtis Jackson) and loosely based on his life, 50’s character Marcus is in prison, being visited by his girlfriend, Charlene (Joy Bryant). Surprised by his inability to communicate with her, she asks the gangsta…
Picture Perfect
WED 11/16 In a 1982 issue of Image magazine, Geoff Winningham remarked, “In the late 1960s there wasn’t a photography collection anywhere in Houston. There was no institution exhibiting photography.” Winningham had opened Latent Image, Houston’s first art gallery devoted to photography, in the fall of 1970. Since then, the…
Love at First Fight
Keira Knightley, who is all of 20 but has the grace and gravitas of someone a good decade older, probably considers herself the luckiest lass in all the world at present. Just as Pride & Prejudice begins filling the cineplex with dewy, hopeless romantics who can’t get enough of Jane…
Go for the Goal
SUN 11/13 With the Houston Texans trying their damnedest to be the very worst team in the NFL (not that we don’t appreciate the subsequent high draft pick, guys), we’re focusing our attention on a different kind of football. Fútbol, that is. The MLS Cup, the grand finale of the…
Aboard Game
Pay attention, Disney: This is how you do a family film right. Neither pandering nor dull, Zathura plays exactly like a no-limits replica of the kind of space adventure that imaginative kids left to their own devices might enact. Assuming there’s no Xbox to distract them, naturally. Loosely based on…
That ’70s Band
FRI 11/11 We’re starting to yawn at retro acts like Jet and the Strokes. Sure, they’re all the buzz, but they’re really just saturating the music scene with derivative, carbon-copy songs from yesteryear. Thankfully, a few acts, like Houston’s Spain Colored Orange, create something new out of the old and…
Last Laugh
A common criticism of Hollywood from the right side of the political spectrum is that it hasn’t made any movies that deal with the war on terror, the way it did with World War II, for example. The truth is that it’s probably less an example of political bias than…
From Gaza, with Love
FRI 11/11 Ah, if only we could all just dance out our problems together. A Palestinian children’s troupe from Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip is spearheading the effort: The ten boys and ten girls, ages 13 to 16, bring their politicized steps to Houston this weekend. They met…
Dial Tone
Thornton Dial Sr.’s Meat (2003) has an undulating surface painted in raw, visceral pinks and reds. Dial builds up the surfaces of his paintings, not with paint — but with detritus. Meat is constructed from wads of clothing attached to a panel and coated in thick, gloopy paint that shines…
Live for Today
Metric appears , at . For more information, call 713-225-1717.
Capsule Reviews
“Angelina Nasso: Transparent Presence” Angelina Nasso makes paintings with dots of rich color that create the effect of dappled light. The works are abstract but feel like they just might resolve themselves into a recognizable scene. But the paintings on view at McClain Gallery are less satisfying than the last…
No Grae Area
Jean Grae appears , with at
Capsule Reviews
The Marriage of Figaro Mozart’s sublime operatic comedy of manners from 1786 is a masterpiece. It has everything: radiant melody, sparkling libretto, emotional depth, laugh-out-loud situations, truthful characters and a profound sense of life lived to the fullest. Mozart’s work is complete unto itself, incandescent and infused with sunshine. The…
Low Ride, Take It Easy
For the second time in three years, I’m at the Los Magnificos Car Show at Reliant Center, and it hasn’t changed all that much since ’03. There’s still a vast sea of chromed-up and candy-painted rides to greet the eyes, and absolutely bombarding the ears is a simmering hip-hop stew…
Blessed Are the Buttmunches
Beavis and Butt-head: The Mike Judge Collection, Volume One (Paramount) This three-disc, 40-episode volume chronicling Beavis and Butt-head’s early years will come as a relief to anyone who was stuck in a teenage wasteland when the MTV series first hit the air; turns out, we weren’t just stoned — this…
Black-Ass Fleas
The Black Eyed Peas — man, where the hell do you begin? It appears there isn’t a more qualified group to write about for this particular column. Their transformation from boho hip-hoppers to party-pop rappers (which entailed their bringing in photogenic white girl Fergie to sing hooks) has made them…
Street Fighters
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platforms: PS2 and XBox
Price: $49.99
ESRB Rating: M (for Mature)
Score: 8 (out of 10)
Our top DVD picks for the week of November 8
Bang Rajan (Hart Sharp) Big Fish: Special Edition (Columbia/Tristar) Blue Collar TV: Season 1, Volume 1 (Warner Bros.) Burn (Columbia/Tristar) Christmas With the Kranks (Sony) Cronicas (UMVD) Edward Scissorhands: Anniversary Edition (Fox) 50 Cent: Refuse to Die (New Line) Jumanji: Deluxe Edition (Columbia/Tristar) La Dolce Vita: Deluxe Collector’s Edition (Koch…
Rogue Wave
Poor man’s Shins no more, California’s Rogue Wave moves past the dwarfish indie rock that defined its debut into grand, 70mm glory on its second record. You can tell right away, when the giant chorus blows up big in the center of “Bird on a Wire,” with elephant-size drums stomping…
Naked Posole
Posole is a traditional Mexican soup from the Jalisco region that has become a popular weekend breakfast in Texas and New Mexico. At Taqueria Mexico on Bellaire Boulevard, the soup comes in a giant bowl with big chunks of pork and plenty of hominy. It looks a little naked –…
Road Trip
My wife gave me two distinct, easy-to-follow rules before I shuffled out the door: “Don’t cheat on me and don’t die!” The cheating part would be a breeze. I’m what you’d call a slow burn. Women fall in love with me over time, not in lust over a few drinks…
Damian Marley
The accelerated release date of Damian Marley’s third CD is owed to the tremendous response his “Welcome to Jamrock” single has received on urban radio. However, nothing about this CD sounds hurried. The nimble production by Damian’s older brother Stephen audaciously weaves hip-hop, R&B and even rock and roll beats…
Warm-up Course
One thing Italians know how to do is eat. Antipasto is like a series of tapas; but instead of serving them on different plates like the Spaniards do, the Italians prefer them all on one plate. At Damian’s Cucina Italiana (3011 Smith, 713-522-0439), the sumptuous assortment of cold foods called…
From Houston with Love
Somewhere, in a garbage dump in the bustling city of Lagos, Nigeria, sits a little bit of Houston. It’s a computer, once owned by the Houston city government, now helping to add to the pollution problem in Africa. That computer — and countless others from the city bureaucracy — are…
Bun B
Some MCs are dancers and dodgers — they’re like Barry Sanders on the mike, and it’s hard to get a grip on them. Bun B is not one of those rappers. As befits his stocky frame, he’s more in the vein of Jerome Bettis and Earl Campbell, a human cannonball…