Bringing Home Baby
THU 10/6 It might be the stellar lineup of veteran talent that draws audiences to the world premiere of Tony-winning writer Ken Ludwig’s new comedy Be My Baby — and rightly so. Husband-and-wife duo Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter “bring with them a delicious chemistry that just infuses the story,”…
You Got Served
All the publicity for Waiting… has focused on the scene in which an annoying customer at the fictional chain restaurant ShenaniganZ sends her food back to the kitchen, where it meets with all sorts of nasty modifications, courtesy of some dandruff, pubic hair and mucus. The teaser posters depicted similarly…
Oh No! I Left It in My Other Suit!
Capitalismos, favorite boy child, we must apologise / Up in the rafters a rope is danglin’ / Spots before the eyes of rock n’ roll. — The Mekons, “Memphis, Egypt,” 1989 Love’ll get you like a case of anthrax / And that’s one thing I don’t wanna catch. — Gang…
Head Scratcher
Too clever for its own good, Tom Stoppard’s Hapgood often comes off like a convoluted math problem — it calls for lots of attention to details (of the how-many-people-went-through-which-door-when sort) that in the end, nobody is likely to care much about. Keeping up with the Alley Theatre’s rather glitzy production…
Rock and Roll Bestiary
When it comes to naming bands, “wolf” is the new black. No fewer than eight wolf bands played at last month’s potentially career-making CMJ Music Marathon in New York. Three of them — AIDS Wolf, their Sub Pop labelmates Wolf Eyes (at Fat Cat’s Thursday, see Playbill) and the much-ballyhooed…
Capsule Reviews
By the Bogs of Cats The past weighs heavily upon the residents of the desolate, wind-swept peat bogs of rural Ireland — especially for Hester Swane (a fiercely determined and utterly believable Michelle Edwards). Hester was abandoned long ago by her father and mother, and now she’s losing her lover,…
Vagina Music Roundup
If the kind reader will indulge Wack in a little cultural trend analysis: In the movie Walking and Talking (1996), Ann Heche’s husband (played by Todd Field) turns off a cassette of Lilith Fair-esque warbling during a road trip, saying, “Do we really have to listen to this vagina music…
Keepin’ On
The Saturday before Hurricane Katrina hit, artist Michael Guidry spent the day at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where he’s the assistant registrar. He and the rest of the staff were going through “normal hurricane preparedness.” They took down some works in the sculpture garden, moved some paintings out…
Wolf Eyes, with Prurient and Rusted Shut
Wolf Eyes is the closest that pure, antisocial noise gets to the mainstream. The fact that the notorious Detroit band’s latest disc, Burned Mind, is out on Sub Pop (Nirvana’s old label, duh) is more of a testament to Sonic Youth main man and Wolf Eyes fanatic Thurston Moore’s lingering…
Capsule Reviews
“David Fulton: In and Of” David Fulton’s paintings are filled with snaking, overlapping lines that make reference to geography — the paths of rivers, the edges of coasts, the outlines of lakes. For this exhibition, Fulton has expanded the scale of many of his works. Conversion (2005) is the standout…
Another Look at a Legend
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Universal Studios) Alfred Hitchcock may be the best pop filmmaker in our history, and this gorgeous 14-film set is certainly worthy of the master. Licensing issues kept it from being as “definitive” as the box claims — missing, most notably, are Hitchcock’s classic Cary Grant…
The Warlocks, with the Gris Gris and Architects
Never let it be said that the spirit of the ’60s died from a lack of nostalgia. California bands like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Warlocks have been trying for years to revive the fun-loving, drug-munching decade that birthed the psychedelic movement. On their latest album, Surgery, the L.A.-based…
Funtime Is Over
After almost 40 years as a summer destination, AstroWorld is closing down. Folks looking to drag their sweaty asses over acres of baked concrete in order to wait hours in line for a two-minute ride will now have to travel to San Antonio or Arlington. On the land where the…
Roll Play
Last year’s Katamari Damacy was so quirky, it should have been subtitled “Marketed to Stoners.” Its star, a little green prince, was forced to roll a giant gravity ball to atone for the sins of his father, the King of the Cosmos, who had gotten drunk one day and knocked…
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
Back in my misguided youth when I was discovering the transcendental delights of Blind Willie McTell, Woody Guthrie and Jelly Roll Morton, an accidental introduction to Ramblin’ Jack Elliott was one of those “Eureka!” moments. In an era when pop music was undergoing a huge electro-psychedelic transformation, here was a…
Goat Tales
We never knew whether it was illegal to keep our goat inside the city of New Orleans. We never had to know. Because our Bywater neighbors never cared what parties we threw, what concerts we hosted, what goats we kept. Whereas my parents in Conroe aren’t even allowed to hang…
Our top DVD picks for the week of October 4
The Amityville Horror: Special Edition (Columbia/Tristar) Beyond the Gates of Splendor (Fox) The Black Keys Live (Fat Possum) Christmas With SCTV (Sony Music) Count Duckula: The Complete First Season (Koch Vision) Cream: Royal Albert Hall (Warner Strategic Marketing) Drawn Together Uncensored: Season One (Paramount) The Fly and The Fly II:…
Devendra Banhart and Hairy Fairy, with Bunny Brains
So much indie buzz, so little time. “Freak-folk”/”beard-rock” flag-waver/standard-bearer and Houston homeboy (by birth, anyway) Devendra Banhart is name-checked so often on Pitchforkmedia.com and other more-alternative-than-thou outlets, chances are if you’re in a position to have heard of this guy at all, it probably feels like he’s coming out of…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, October 6 Let’s hear it for the girls. Maybe art used to be just for art’s sake, but “Coexisting Art” goes the old saying one better by opening an exhibition representing women in art for women in art’s sake. The exhibit highlights the work of 15 local, contemporary painters…
A Mighty Wind
Swirling, choking dust clouds first alerted Gerald Long and his wife, Vivian, that the McCarty Road Landfill had begun operations in 1972. The grit-filled air around their home in northeast Houston stung their eyes. They bickered with dump managers, and over the next few months the dust began to clear…
Supergrass
Once an irresistibly goofy Britpop trio with ungainly muttonchop sideburns, the guys in Supergrass have reached a point of maturity where they finally seem more interested in studying the menu than in making goo-goo eyes at the waitress. On their fifth full-length, Oxford’s retro-groovers have outgrown monosyllabic teen anthems to…
Oh, the Horror!
If your twisted little heart beats for the horror/slasher aisle at Blockbuster, this is your week, as the hellish and horrific will be celebrated at two freaky fests just in time for Halloween. The celebration starts with a visit from B-movie-producer-director-mogul Charles Band. Though most of his films will never…
No Redemption
He crept into her bedroom at night to fondle her. She was only ten years old and defenseless against a grown man, her stepfather. The number of times it happened, he can’t recall exactly, certainly fewer than five, maybe two or three, he says. She never told. His wife never…
Paul McCartney
The Beatles always amounted to far more than the sum of their parts, a point driven home every time a hopelessly flawed solo effort by either John, Paul, George or Ringo hits the streets. And though Chaos & Creation in the Backyard represents Macca’s strongest work since 1980’s McCartney II,…
To NOLA, with Love
SAT 10/8 Among the tragedies Hurricane Katrina has visited upon New Orleans: The city’s thriving music scene may be forever altered. And this weekend, local and Louisiana musicians and entertainers are doing something about it. Steered by a phalanx of local sponsors including the Astros, the Aeros and the Houston…
Ownership Wrongs
Heather Mickelson leaves work on a Monday afternoon and drives home to her ritzy condominium in Tremont Tower, the new six-story monolith of steel and neon-red stucco on Westheimer. She owns a unit there. But not the building’s security guard. Mickelson, 27, catches his attention at the door to the…
Calexico/Iron and Wine
Two albums and three EPs into his career, the man known as Iron and Wine is still plucking songs from his original 2001 home demos, and his latest release is further proof that there’s not a clunker in the bunch. On In the Reins, Sam Beam realizes his dream to…
Tex-Mex Twist
A burger is the last thing you’d expect to find at a Tex-Mex place, but then again, the Last Concert Cafe (1403 Nance, 713-226-8563) isn’t your typical Mexican joint, and its tostada burger ($7.25) isn’t your typical hamburger. It starts out traditionally, with the standard lettuce, tomato, pickles, mustard and…
Breakfast of Champions
As the Peña house stirs, 12-year-old Joshua Chapa is leaning out of bed and pulling on his shorts. Then, like too many days before, he walks to the bathroom and vomits. He finishes getting dressed slowly. Then he checks his backpack and gathers his books. By the time his dad,…
Can
Finally, Can fans are blessed with remastered/reissued treatments of the classic early albums. This CD was originally a 1974 vinyl release titled Limited Edition; it was soon rereleased with six additional tracks under the title Unlimited Edition. Despite being a collection of fragments and oddities, there is a cohesion and…
Cajun Cave
Every now and then, someone opens the big metal exit door and a shaft of blindingly bright sunshine slices through the cool, dark interior of Roadhouse Cajun Bar-B-Q. It takes your eyes awhile to adjust to the dark again. When you’re partying at Roadhouse, it’s hard to remember that it’s…
Letters to the Editor
Ultimate Schmultimate What a co-inky-dink: I find it really “coincidental” that the Houston Chronicle issued its Ultimate Houston list just two weeks before your annual Best of Houston issue. I’m sure you guys are really impressed, too. However, it’s good to know they realize that you are indeed serious competition…
Writes and Wrongs
This fall, the roll call of gigantic ghosts inhabiting cinematic biographies continues unabated, with Joaquin Phoenix as a shrunken Johnny Cash in Ring of Fire, David Strathairn as an inscrutable Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the ambitiously manipulative Truman Capote in,…
Foxy Roxie
As glitzy as it may seem, the life of a showgirl can be murder — literally. Take Roxie Hart, the devil of a bombshell at the center of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s sexy, 1920s-era Broadway sensation Chicago. She kills a man for her career. But fortunately, gorgeous redhead Michelle…
Goy Gevalt
Director Curtis Hanson, a journeyman only recently bestowed the title of Great Director, has already made his horror movie (1973’s The Arousers), his kiddie action comedy (1980’s The Little Dragons), his teen sex romp (1983’s Losin’ It ), his handful of Hitchcock riffs (1987’s The Bedroom Window, 1990’s Bad Influence…
When Steve Met Tracy
WED 10/12 Last season, Tracy McGrady promised the city of Houston he would lead the Houston Rockets out of the first round of the NBA playoffs. In the playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks, T-Mac showed the kind of drive that Rockets fans had been longing for, but his team…
Say Cheese
Ah, Wallace and Gromit. Who doesn’t get a little lift at the sound of those names? Who doesn’t feel the edges of her mouth begin to tickle toward a smile, her heart grow warmer with images of the love between a (plasticine) man and his (plasticine) dog? Perhaps you’re not…
Psst, Didya Hear?
FRI 10/7 Beth Ditto is barely able to speak. “My voice is really shot,” says the lead singer of the Pacific Northwest rock band the Gossip, with a strained rasp. “The third week of tour is definitely the harshest.” The Gossip is traversing the country promoting its upcoming full-length album,…
Something Missing
In 2001, Jonathan Safran Foer made an astounding literary debut. “A Very Rigid Search,” published by The New Yorker, was his hilarious, heartbreaking account of an attempt by a young American man (named, cheekily, Jonathan Safran Foer) to find a Ukrainian woman who had saved his grandfather from the Nazis…