Cocksure Cinema
Adolescence is a strange time in a young man’s life. Girls, for those who swing that way, suddenly become interesting; hair begins popping up in brand-new places. And that’s not the only thing that starts popping up. So what does the average young man do when faced with these changes?…
The Barenaked Ladies
Apparently, the Barenaked Ladies have come to grips with a stark realization: When you’re in your mid-thirties and carrying mortgages in Toronto’s snootiest neighborhoods, trying to maintain an image as a nerdy frat boy does little to advance your career. It’s not that the pop band — the Wiggles of…
The Art of Retail
Pop artist Peter Max has said, “There’s no such thing as too commercial,” and he means it. Home-shoppers will already be familiar with Max’s sales-friendly work. His prints are helpfully offered in small, medium, extra-large or oversize. Consumers can get matches for their couches — whether they’re love seats or…
Shakedown Cruise
Russell Crowe to his agent: “More Oscar-bait. Now.” Agent, considering his cut of Crowe’s $20 million payday: “Yes, sir.” A possible scenario, anyway. Thus, Crowe is back in another iconic, self-serious performance, and his beefy mug will stare down upon us from this season’s heroic movie posters until Tom Cruise…
Monster Trucks on Ice
MON 11/17 For some reason, Americans love to append the words “on ice” to certain cultural phenomena. Flintstones? Put them on ice. Riunite? On ice, so nice. Monster trucks? Wait a minute… Monster trucks on ice? Perhaps that’s the logical next step for this form of extreme entertainment, sort of…
Lying Through His Beat
In the annals of fraud and fakery, a discredited ex-magazine reporter named Stephen Glass will likely wind up a mere footnote. The people who forge van Goghs and the con artists who bilk naive grandmothers out of their life savings (not to mention certain fast-dancing corporate executives) even more richly…
Color Bars
SAT 11/16 Combining images and music isn’t just for MTV anymore. Inspired by the paintings and writings of Postimpressionist Paul Gauguin, the multimedia presentation “Red Dogs and Pink Skies” is the brainchild of New York composer Bruce Adolphe and avant-garde artist Evan Polenghi. Adolphe says the idea is based on…
Buffalo Dancers
It turns out that a bunch of unemployed, working-class joes from Buffalo, New York, can hold their own in the rarefied world of musical theater. In Terrence McNally and David Yazbek’s The Full Monty, steelworkers storm the stage — and man, oh, man, can they tear up the boards. Based…
The Unplugged Menace
WED 11/19 Taking its name from the Cromwell-era fighting force known for its religious radicalism, New Model Army took up the fight long, hard and often during its heyday in the late ’80s. The punk-influenced British trio wore its post-Buzzcocks leanings on its sleeve. They presented themselves as anti-new wavers,…
Fishing for Answers
The Columbine tragedy inspired Jane Martin’s Good Boys. This play about violent teenagers and their parents may be well intentioned, but it posits an unlikely situation that gets only more implausible as the 90-minute, intermission-less show wears on. Set on a lonely pier in Florida, the play tells the story…
The Music The
SUN 11/16 Musicians are poets, but they still have to be musicians. Albums aren’t supposed to be books on tape set to a tune. So it is with the music of The Planet The, a Portland-based prog-rock band that revels in dabbling in the weird. Vox/guitarist Charlie Salas-Humara explains: “If…
Collaborators
“The Paper Sculpture Show” is special in a couple of ways. Since it relies on printed material instead of unique objects, it is open simultaneously at several galleries around the country. Also, the exact number of artists involved cannot be known, and most of them are anonymous gallerygoers. It all…
Simple Salad
Without exotic ingredients, salads usually don’t make much of an impression. The goat cheese brûlée salad at Farrago World Cuisine (318 Gray, 713-523-6404) may not be fancy, but it still manages to stand out. Red and yellow beefsteak tomatoes add color to baby field greens tossed with toasted pecan pieces…
Slow Down for Crabs
Our order of six blue crabs arrives just as King of the Hill starts. My daughter Julia and I are seated at a table out on the porch of Blue Water Seafood. I place the bowl of melted butter between us, and we reach for our nutcrackers. By the time…
Bang Your Head
Sex and death: two themes that artists across the ages have concerned themselves with to varying degrees of success. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are no exception, except the death part is accidental. On October 9, the first night of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Australian tour, flamboyant singer Karen O was…
Hail to the Freak
Well, it’s that time of year again when media outlets take it upon themselves to choose a person of the year, someone whose presence was left indelibly on the preceding 12 months. And while I’m assuming that many of the candidates this year will be fairly obvious (Bush? Ah-nuld? the…
They Want You to Want Them
Cheap Trick appears Friday, November 14, at the Verizon Wireless Theater, 520 Texas Avenue. Wayne Kramer (former guitarist for the MC5) opens. For more information, call 713-230-1600.
Tee Time
Justin Pineset has been class president at Lee High School two years in a row. The senior shadowed the mayor twice and has monthly meetings with the superintendent. He has worked at the Museum of Natural Science for the past four years. Pineset wears a white silk shirt and tie…
Return of Los Vatos Rudos
Los Skarnales are the Dropkick Murphys of Houston. As the Murphys reflect Boston and its dominant Irish-American subculture, the Skarnales are the musical embodiment of Houston’s increasingly prevalent Mexican-American sabor. Both bands filter their heritage through a punk ethos, both bands are composed of and create music for working stiffs,…
Send in the Election Clowns
What a difference a couple of years make. In the Houston Press Best of Houston issue in 2001, Houston’s District H councilman Gabe Vasquez received Best Politician honors. Last week, he missed the runoff in the race for city controller after earlier deciding not to seek re-election to his City…
The Shins
Oh, Inverted World, the Shins’ debut, made you want to believe in small, simple pop music again, boasting lyrically obtuse songs you could hold in your hand and ogle before passing them on to friends, who you could only hope might treat the songs with the same respect. Damn, even…
Lineup Change
The Houston Chronicle’s team of sports columnists has remained pretty stable since the firing of Ed Fowler six years ago. Then again, the lineup of My Wife and Kids hasn’t changed much either lately, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good product. The Chron’s group — Fran Blinebury, Dale Robertson…
Joss Stone
The question isn’t whether this works. It doesn’t. There’s promise, and the band is good, but the feel is NPR at the Apollo, and Stone’s showy, half-trained vocals are pumped so high in the mix that it’s difficult to concentrate on anything else. The question becomes, then, To which biz…
Is There a Robot in the House?
Activities hour is humming along at the Silverado Senior Living center when Arthur rolls into the room. No one seems to notice him much. He moves slowly, but he won’t stick out for that — after all, he’s not the only one who moves slowly around here. Residents of this…
Mates of State
Mates of State appear Thursday, November 13, at Fat Cat’s, 4216 Washington Avenue. Palomar and Balikbayan are also on the bill. For more information, call 713-869-5263.
Letters
On Target Enlightened killing: Robb Walsh’s article “Shooting Bambi’s Mom” [November 6] is one of the finest articles I’ve read about ethical hunting and the place of regulated sport hunting in environmental and wildlife conservation. As a lifelong “fair chase” sport hunter, I am constantly outraged by anti-hunting idiots on…
Andy Caldwell
He’s a house DJ, and he’s from the San Francisco Bay Area. Logically, we could stop this piece right here, since that sentence alone would attract house-music lovers from all points of the city to check out this guy, best known for his turntable skills in the deep soul collective…
Papa Don’t Preach
Lunch with John Axelrod is a frenetic experience. A man with exquisite taste, European flair and an all-black ensemble not available at the Gap, the conductor and artistic director of OrchestraX tosses out ideas and thoughts faster than he can finish a sentence. In both French and English, Axelrod subject-surfs,…
Anticon USA Tour, with Alias, Sole, Oddnosdam, Telephone Jim Jesus, Work, Babel Fishh and Killers For Hire DJs
When we heard there was this hip-hop/techno-loving, Oakland-bred maven named Alias coming to town this week, we didn’t know whether to pity him or admire his ballsiness. It’s bad enough that when his handle is mentioned, people automatically think of that super-cool spy show with Jennifer Garner running around in…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, November 13 Are you ready to rock en español? Maldita Vecindad has been infusing Latin rhythms into a ska-punk stew ever since 1985, when its members joined forces as students in Mexico City. They gained a following the hard way, by touring intensely as relative unknowns and playing in…
Cody ChesnuTT
“Brian Wilson in a pimp hat.” That has to be the best description we’ve come across while perusing what folks have said about Antonious Thomas, the chocolate cat-daddy who now calls himself Cody ChesnuTT. Although his light-headed falsetto and occasionally innocent lyricism do remind you of the visionary Beach Boy,…