Carnifex Put Fans First On “Decade of Despair” Tour
After saying off the road during 2013 to write new material, Carnifex reappeared like a phoenix with last year’s Die Without Hope. So the San Diego-based death-metal group begins a new chapter with a healthy appreciation for their very patient fan base, and a sense of thankful acknowledgment to those…
‘American Woman,’ Canadian Band: The Guess Who Keep On Rockin’
Most classic-rock fans would agree that the hard-charging “American Woman” is the most recognizable and lasting song from Canadian rockers The Guess Who. Not too shabby, considering that they also charted with a slew of other FM radio standards in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The anti-U.S. protest lyrics…
Mighty Mastodon Promises “Loud Noises, and Lots of Them”
America’s greatest progressive metal act is undoubtedly the Southern rockers known as Mastodon. Their uniquely creative aesthetic is unlike any other band’s in the States — or the world, for that matter. The four-piece out of Georgia also claims a most original architecture when it comes to music design and production…
Soulfly Brings Down Old Testament Wrath on New Archangel
From his musical beginnings as lead singer and guitarist for Sepultura onward, Max Cavalera’s contribution to metal can’t be underestimated. Along with his brother Igor Cavalera, Sepultura’s offering of primitive drum work, ariose guitar riffs and incredible screaming vocals brought an impressive brand-new to the heavy-metal canon. More importantly, the…
Stray Cats Look Feline and Feral In Early-’80s Glory
Stray Cats – Live at Rockpalast (DVD/2CD) 145 mins., $24.99 Today, the Stray Cats are best remembered as the flagship band of the ‘80s rockabilly renaissance, their retro riffs and pompadoured quiffs perfect for the then-fledgling MTV in videos like “Rock This Town,” “Stray Cat Strut” and “She’s Sexy + 17.” And…
Karen Stokes Dance Company’s Sunset on White Oak Bayou Continues the Group’s Water-Related Performances
Choreographer Karen Stokes admits putting together the site-specific concert Karen Stokes Dance: Sunset on White Oak Bayou was a bit daunting. “The challenge is to look at the history of Houston and the architecture and meaning of [Allen’s Landing] and translate that into contemporary dance. That’s pretty crazy,” she laughs…
Tony Award-Winning Pippin Returns to Houston
As Berthe, Adrienne Barbeau (Swamp Thing, The Fog, Maude) “sings a wonderful song while hanging upside down from a trapeze.” She says it’s not that difficult (“Well I’m totally dependent upon the porter who’s flying me.”) and she even gets the audience to join in the singing. It’s the return…
Tony Joe White Reminisces on a Career Inspired by Lightnin’ Hopkins
The last time we saw Tony Joe White he was in town to play at the original Walter’s on Washington maybe 15 years ago. We’d met White ear lier for what was supposed to be an interview at the old Days Inn at I-10 and T.C. Jester, but upon arriving…
Sign Activist Photo Bombs TV Shows With Cryptic Messages, Then Chronicles Work
“This Side of Paradise: New Photographic Work by Texas Artists” reveals innovative techniques in the medium, including one artist who reassembles imaginary buildings using thousands of indexed and archived images (Leigh Merrill), a fascination with material reality manifested in images of rocks and mounds juxtaposed with actual concrete and sand…
The Other Place: A Mystery Inside Someone’s Head
The whole thing would be easier to do if this was a movie. No quick scene changes (and there are a lot of them) to figure out. “We can’t wait 15 minutes while they pull a sofa out,” says director Don Stephenson. But he eagerly accepted the challenge, both because…
Mac Wellman’s Dracula Is a Comedy of the Blackest Sort
The black comedy Mac Wellman’s Dracula, like its inspiration, is a horror story. “But here, the horror isn’t the monster. The horror [for the men in the play] is all of these out-of-control women,” says Jennifer Decker, artistic director of Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company. Are there out-of-control women in Dracula?…
Four Outrageous Texas Music Myths and Legends
Texas has played an enormous role in the history of rock music, and in our continuing series of rock myths and legends, we thought it would be interesting to look at some of the strange music stories with a connection to the Lone Star State. 4. IS THERE A BUDDY…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 49: Charcuterie at Kris Bistro
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
Should School District Cops Be Allowed to Choke Students?
Grabbing suspects by the throat or putting them in chokeholds are actions many police departments prohibit in most circumstances. Some departments outright ban the practice, and after the public saw video last summer of a New York police officer choking Eric Garner to death, police chokeholds became clouded in even…
Recap: The Ment’or BKB Young Chef Competition 2015 in Houston
Lee Foden-Clarke is moving at high speed, practically oblivious to everything going on around him. There are cameras snapping, flashes going off, video cameras broadcasting live, on-lookers and supporters watching with baited breath, as well as two chef-judges hovering close by, scoring his performance and technique. He’d been cooking for…
Texas Suing VW Is Such Adorable Hypocrisy
It was bound to happen, but we still have to laugh that Texas, of all places, became one of the first states to file a lawsuit against Volkswagen and Audi over the global emissions scandal. No, seriously. Texas may not exactly be known as an environmentally friendly (or even environmentally…
The 8th Annual Underground Druid Film Festival Comes to Alamo Drafthouse
Billy Burgess, founder/curator and all-around head honcho of the Annual Druid Underground Film Festival, tells us it’s hard to describe the line-up of shorts he’s compiled for this year’s screening. “Really, you have to see it,” he tells us. Is there any one film that is representative of the festival, that…
ACL Fest Weekend 2: The Good, the Bad & the Weird
THE GOOD BRAND NEW After reading multiple reviews earlier this week complain about how the band never plays “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows,” you can imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I recognized the song starting over the PA. Brand New have never been one…
Doctor Who: “Before the Flood” Is Capaldi at His Best
The ninth season of the revived Doctor Who is quickly shaping up to be one of the best of any season the show has ever had. That probably sounds hyperbolic, but in many ways we’re getting the perfect meshing of the classic show’s charm mixed with everything that went right…
Dak & Bop Needs More Soul to Turn Itself Into More Than a Korean Wing Stop
At Dak & Bop in the Museum District, orders of Korean-style chicken wings arrive cradled in plastic baskets lined with white squares of parchment. The chicken here is fried twice, which renders away some of the fat, a tradeoff to achieve whisper-thin, crispy skin. On opposing corners of the parchment…
The Steve Sarkisian Firing: A Lesson in (Poor) Leadership
It was an early Sunday morning in late September back in 2013, following a 62-41 loss by the USC Trojans to the Arizona State Sun Devils in Tempe, that Pat Haden’s botching of the most important hiring decision in his tenure as USC athletics director began. More specifically, it began…
This Week in Houston Food Blogs: Local Pumpkin Desserts You Need
This week, we’ve got a review of Houston’s hottest new British restaurant, a recipe for a true Southern classic dish, and a conversation about barbecue with some people who know it better than most. We know that you want to see what everyone’s saying about Hunky Dory Tavern at 1819 North…
Going Under: What Can Happen If Your Anesthesiologist Leaves the Room During an Operation
It took less than five minutes for everything to fall apart. Michelle Hunt, 45, arrived at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital a little before noon on April 17, 2014. She was going through an endoscopy, the last step before she and Martha Wilson, her partner of ten years, would both undergo…
Bayou City Haunts: The 2015 Houston Press Halloween Guide
Everyone’s favorite spook-tastic holiday is back! And this year, it’s looking to be bigger and better than ever. Mark your calendars, because Houston-area haunts have quite the show to put on. From naughty parties and seriously freaky Halloween parties to nerdy museum nights and family-friendly festivals, we’ve rounded up the…
5 More Spooky Haunted Places to Visit in Texas
As we get closer to our spookiest holiday, it’s time to delve deeper into the heart of Texas, unearthing more places around the lone star state that are reported to be the haunts of restless spirits. As we’ve discovered previously, there are tons of supposedly haunted locations scattered all over…
Get out of the Pumpkin Patch! 13 Beers to Drink This Fall
Fall and cooler temperatures spur beer drinkers’ instincts to move away from lawnmower beers and lighter IPAs and into spicier, darker brews. We talked with three local beer experts to find out what they recommend seeking out this autumn and, believe it or not, only two in this list include…
Young and Restless: The Astros are Way Ahead of Themselves With a Breakthrough Season
The proverbial ink was barely dry on the Houston Astros’ 3-0 American League wildcard game victory over the New York Yankees, but the celebration was well under way. There were the Houston Astros, adorned in ski goggles, carousing and spraying booze all over anything that moved right there in the…
Upcoming: Chris Cornell, Deafheaven, Katie Grinnan, Mike Servito, Robert Cray, Selena Gomez, Subhumans, etc.
57 State: Fri., October 23, 8 p.m., Free. The Hideaway On Dunvale, 3122 Dunvale, Houston, 713-977-3515. Against the Current: Tue., November 10, 7 p.m., $10 to $13. Walters Downtown, 1120 Naylor, Houston, 713-222-2679. Agnostic Front: With Ricochet. Wed., November 11, 8 p.m., TBA. Walters Downtown, 1120 Naylor, Houston, 713-222-2679. Alan…
Meow the Jewels Is a Fancy Feast Beyond Expectations
Run the Jewels have, for the past two years, been blowing up beyond their wildest dreams. Early this year I wrote a guide to how that happened. One of the biggest appeals of the duo is that they can so effortlessly jump lyrically between rap mafioso bravado, science fiction, social…
Kimmie Rhodes Is Ready to Move Forward
The inside of Kimmie Rhodes’ Austin-area home is more like a museum archive these days. Decades-old papers, photos, letters and reel-to-reel tapes occupy various nooks and crannies, material that the Texas singer-songwriter has been digging through for weeks that belonged to legendary KOKE-FM radio disc jockey Joe Gracey, her late…
Crushed City: Astros’ Heartbreaking Game Four Loss to Royals Brings Back Bad Houston Sports Memories
In the aftermath of the Astros 9-6 loss to Kansas City on Monday, rookie phenom Carlos Correa responded to media queries about the collapse they had just witnessed. “You guys are acting like we’re out of it,” he said. “We’re not out of it.” He’s right, of course, but the…
KHOU and DISH Finally Reach Deal, End Blackout
Late last Friday night, following a few weeks of tense negotiations and a twice-extended deadline, KHOU and DISH still hadn’t come to terms on a new contract, so the CBS affiliate suddenly went dark for DISH customers. But the nuclear winter did not last long. Two days later, the two…
The Sword Plunges Back Into Houston
The Sword, Kadavar, All Them Witches Fitzgerald’s October 11, 2015 Upon their emergence from the very loudest corner of Austin’s music scene more than a decade ago, the Sword were decried by quite a few around the country as a gimmick band, merely aping the monolithic riffage of Black Sabbath…
Crestmont Village Residents Will Finally Abandon Their Deplorable Apartments This Month
When Christina Douglas’s ceiling fell onto her kitchen floor in July, she had had enough. She called management immediately and asked them to please come see her apartment. “Look up there and see my ceiling,” she told him. “I have no ceiling.” A pipe had burst and everything had fallen…
Good Luck Parking Near Minute Maid Today
The Astros are back at Minute Maid Park today after yesterday’s 4-2 win over the Kansas City Royals. That means they’re on the brink of the American League Championship Series. That means today’s game is an important one to watch. That apparently also means parking rates out at Minute Maid just…
Why Bob McNair Is the Worst Owner in Houston Sports History
The Houston Texans, we are often told, are the ideal franchise. The owner doesn’t interfere with the coach or the general manager. The players are paid well and treated as professionals. The team goes out of the way to ignore any player with a troubled history. It’s an organization of…
Houston Sports Fight Songs: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Inspired by the Houston Astros’ win over the New York Yankees in last week’s American League Wild Card Game, rapper/legend Bun B hit the studio and recorded “Crush City,” a rally rap that finds the Trill OG donning orange and blue, name-checking Tony Sipp and George Springer, and putting on…
Texas Southern University Has Seen Four Shootings in Six Weeks
Following the violence earlier this month at Oregon’s Umqua Community College, gun rights supporters again called for laws to allow for more firearms on college campuses, like the campus-carry law the Texas Legislature passed earlier this year. A string of shootings at Texas Southern University since late summer, however, hint…
Lott Entertainment Opens Season With Alternative Cabaret Queen Bridget Everett
Cabaret Queen — well with an alternative bent so right up our alley — Bridget Everett is on her way to Houston to present what will be the season opener for the new Lott Entertainment Presents as part of their Joe’s Pub Series. Lott Entertainment Presents is the brainchild of…
100 Favorite Houston Dish #50: Cauliflower “Steak” at Backstreet Cafe
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
Joe Jackson’s Fast-Forward Button Is In Perfect Shape
Joe Jackson Cullen Performance Hall October 11, 2015 Joe Jackson’s Houston stop last night was not only highly entertaining, it answered a question pondered more than 30 years ago by a long-departed esteemed Houston music critic. Early in his set, Jackson admitted to the fans that he couldn’t recall the…
American Idiot: Sex, Drugs, and Operatic Punk ‘n’ Roll
The set-up: Wow, man, what a rush! SRO Productions supplies an intoxicating high with this imaginative, exhilarating performance of Green Day’s American Idiot, a punk rock opera that’s more excessively “verismo” than any work Mascagni or Puccini, those Italian masters of the genre, could have dreamed. The execution: Rootless young…
College Football, Week 6 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
Six weeks into the season, we are starting to get to the point where we can narrow down the number of undefeated teams and begin thinking about the teams that “control their own destiny” in this new post-BCS, yay-Playoff era that in which we now exist. After all, in the…
This Week in Houston Food Events: National Gumbo and Dessert Days
Monday, October 12 National Gumbo Day You should celebrate this important day with a big bowl of gumbo, and we’ve got a few specials you should know about. Tony Mandola’s at 1212 Waugh is offering half-off gumbo all day, which means you can get your fix for just $5, and…
Dish of the Week: Pork Vindaloo
From classic comfort foods to regional standouts and desserts, we’ll be sharing a new recipe with you each week. Find other dishes of the week here. This week, we’re taking a look at Vindaloo. Also written as vindalho or vindaalo, vindaloo is a curry dish popular in the Goan region…
Out of Town Art: Hit the Road to Boerne, Round Top and Galveston
October 16-18, Boerne – The Texas Hill Country Invitational Art Show & Sale is back for its 13th year, with more than 50 artists participating this year. All this week, artists have been painting in area parks, recreational and heritage centers as part of their “En Plein Aire ‘Paint Out’”…
5 Driving Laws No One Bothers to Follow
At times, driving in Houston is taking your life in your hands. This is particularly true if you are one of those rare birds who follows every driving law regardless of what others around you are doing. And this doesn’t mean sensible things like speed limits (most of the time),…
Keuchel Brings Astros to Within One Game of ALCS With 4-2 Win Over Royals
Until Sunday, only four pitchers—Roy Halliday, Justin Verlander, Ubaldo Jimenez and Clayton Kershaw—had thrown 124 or more pitches in a postseason game in the last decade. Astros ace Dallas Keuchel added his name to the list with a seven-inning, one-run, 124-pitch gem leading Houston to a 4-2 win over the Royals…
5 Signs You Might Be a Facebook Creeper.
Social networking sites like Facebook are amazing when you consider how conveniently they allow people who live all over the world to interact with one another. Some people keep their circle of friends pretty small, using it mostly to keep up with family and others they know well offline. And…
Best of Houston 2015 Music & Nightlife Winners Keep City’s Soul Intact
Beyond the obvious, finding a common thread among this year’s Best of Houston winners from the realm of music and nightlife pursuits takes a little study. But it can be done. With a few exceptions, our winners are both small businesses and local institutions that have now served multiple generations…
Houston Ballet’s The Nutcracker Last Chance to See the Ben Stevenson Version
More than 1 million people have seen The Nutcracker as choreographed by former Houston Ballet Artistic Director Ben Stevenson. For many, it was a chance to introduce their children to the beauty of storytelling without words, in athleticism and grace set to wonderful music. For the Houston Ballet, it has…
Matilda Offers Artful Staging of a Classic Roald Dahl Book
The set-up: FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a Matilda virgin. Published in 1988, Roald Dahl’s classic kid’s book about little Matilda Wormwood and the transforming power of the printed page passed me by. I was a little too old to be suckered into reading kiddie lit. I also skipped the movie…
Counting Crows, Citizen Cope Keep It Mellow at The Woodlands
Counting Crows, Citizen Cope Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion October 8, 2015 If you have ever ventured up north to the Woodlands for a concert, then no doubt you have encountered a mess of traffic on I-45. The trip to watch the Counting Crows and Citizen Cope on Thursday was definitely…
Astros Take Royals, Announcers by Surprise With Game One Win
Late into the night, well after the Astros had sealed their 5-2 win in game one of the American League Division Series against the Kansas City Royals, should-be Hall of Famer Pete Rose candidly admitted what Astros fans have openly wondered for years, “When are we going to stop criticizing…
Why Are Neighbors Angry That the Glenbrook Golf Course is Becoming a Botanical Garden?
Glenbrook Golf Course has seen better days, but there are plans in the works to give the old golf course a face lift, whether the people in the southeast Houston community want it or not. Back in January, the Houston City Council approved a deal to hand over the care…
The 10 Most Disgusted Texans-Colts Rapper Tweets
The Houston Texans’ 2015 season began with HBO’s Hard Knocks introducing the team to America at large. It took a month of filming and some fancy editing to present to the nation our sometimes thrilling and frequently frustrating NFL franchise. Home Box Office could have saved all that time and…
Cougars Destroy SMU, Storm Out To 5-0 Record
The Houston Cougars defeated the 1-5 SMU Mustangs 49-28 last night. That pushes the UH record to 5-0 on the season, and maybe now it’s time for the question to be asked: are the Cougars for real? And if the team is real, does anyone in Houston really care? It…
Jody Seabody and the Whirls Are Back In Action On ‘Holographic Slammer’
In 2012, we spoke with local act, Jody Seabody and the Whirls, for the release of their debut full-length, Summer Us. But despite the fact that it’s been nearly three years since its release, the group hasn’t seemed to lose any traction when it comes to keeping their fans happy. If…
Orbit: Houston’s Best Mascot
Want to know where the best dog park in town is? How about the best places to bike, jog, or have a picnic? Well, you can check out our picks in the sports & recreation section of this year’s Best of Houston issue, which we published this week. You can…
Texas A&M Study’s Super-Obvious Conclusion: Busy Oil Fields Mean More Traffic Accidents
Well, Texas A&M has gone and put out what is possibly the most obvious “finding” ever issued by government-funded researchers: When oil fields start booming, there are more traffic accidents and they’re more expensive. (In other stunningly obvious news, puppies are cute and Thai food is delicious.) Right now, oil…
Houston’s 5 Best Weekend Food Bets: Mangia! at the Houston Italian Festival
The Houston Italian Festival @ University of St. Thomas Friday – Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday & Saturday; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday 3800 Montrose This 37th annual Italian festa is ready to feed your body and soul all weekend long. Hit it for tasting tours of…
NFL Week 5: Colts 27, Texans 20 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
Last Sunday, after the Atlanta Falcons’ complete annihilation of the Texans in Atlanta, I went on a tirade to open the Texans’ post game show that was full of honesty, truth, data, and bile. Texan fans listening live seemed to love it, other than the fact that its genesis was…
The Alley Returns Triumphantly With One Man, Two Guvnors
I searched high and low for that proverbial kitchen sink to make an appearance in the Alley Theatre’s uproarious production of Richard Bean’s inspired farce One Man, Two Guvnors, which inaugurated the venerable theater’s return to its downtown home after a year-long hiatus at the University of Houston and multi-million…
Upcoming Houston Food Events: A One-of-a-Kind Greek Wine Dinner
As part of Athanasios and Vasiliki Parparoussis’ first trip to the United States ever, Helen Greek Food and Wine, 2429 Rice, will host a special Wine Dinner on October 12 at 7 p.m. The restaurant will be offering a six-course menu, some of the dishes inspired by Vasiliki Parparoussis’ own…
Janet Jackson’s “Unbreakable” Shows Off Her Superhero Side
As luck would have it, my childhood and adulthood were at a crossroads last Friday. As I’ve stated extensively, Janet Jackson was the female singer of my childhood. I wasn’t too far into Whitney Houston’s golden-girl image that grew into awesome sassy aunt as her career started to wane in…
Why Texas Is Trying to Keep Juvenile Offenders at Home Instead of in Lockup
Zenobia Herring had not seen her grandson in two-and-a-half years, and so one of the first things she noticed when she picked him up at the Texas Juvenile Justice Department’s Houston office was his height. By the time 17-year-old Rodney Doakes returned home on October 6 from Giddings State School, he had grown…
Openings and Closings in Houston: New Szechuan Restaurant Gets Glowing Reviews
Corkscrew BBQ’s brick-and-mortar is now open at 26608 Keith in Spring, and they’re slinging much-admired barbecue every day from 11 a.m. until it’s gone (which appears to be somewhere between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., judging by their Facebook posts). Mike Smith of the Houston Chronicle Prime Property blog reports…
10 Houston Bars Everyone Should Visit at Least Once
When you publish a list like this it is bound to create discussions, both from those who agree and disagree with it; we do feel confident that these are essential bars in Houston for everyone to visit at least once, as the title states. Anyone going to these bars for…
Wavves Delights the Pro-Wrestling Fan In Us All
Pro-wrestling enthusiasts belong to one of the oddest fandoms in all of nerd culture. We are die-hard about it generally to the point of almost being religious, yet we always seem to have to put an asterisk by our enjoyment of it. No one asks people why they would bother…
The Best Houston Freestyle of All Time Is…
A key component of hip-hop has largely been forgotten these days, due to oversaturation more than anything else. The freestyle used to be a major thing, from lunchroom tables to recording booths and mixtapes. You could count on your hand the number of freestyles that have impacted your life in…
Chron Endorses a Homophobe for the HISD School Board, Again
Maybe the members of the Houston Chronicle editorial board had a change of heart. Or perhaps it’s just a case of collective amnesia. Whatever the case, as the Burnt Orange Report first noticed today, the Chron’s esteemed endorsers yesterday threw their support behind a Houston ISD school board candidate the…
Ratings Wars: 5 Reasons the Texans Will Outpace the Astros on TV Thursday Night
It is a myth to believe that NFL football was always the dominant sport in Houston. There were times when the Oilers were so bad that, of the few thousand fans that did show up to the Astrodome on Sunday, at least some were wearing paper bags over their heads…
Day For Night Lineup Revealed; Kendrick Lamar, New Order, Phillip Glass On Top
Kendrick Lamar, New Order and the Phillip Glass Ensemble are the top names booked by Day For Night, the multimedia festival headed for Houston in December. Some of these artists have not performed in Houston in years, if ever. Barring any later additions, the remainder of the inaugural lineup is below:…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 51: Telur Balado at the Rice Bowl II
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
Colts-Texans, Week 5 — Four Things to Watch For
I’m not going to lead in with a paragraph about how this is the “biggest game of the Texans’ season,” or how they can take over first place in the AFC South potentially (with a 2-3 record, no less!), or how ridiculous it is that this team continually plays its…
“Flag Desecration” Laws Are Still Unconstitutional, Even in Texas
In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag was a protected form of free speech and invalidated so-called flag desecration laws across the country. It’s the kind of landmark free speech ruling professors make first-year journalism and law school students memorize. Yet Texas not only still…
Get Your Wrestling Fix With The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
In The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Luis Galindo plays Macedonio “The Mace” Guerra, a fighter apparently put on earth to make the prettier, more crowd-pleasing wrestlers look good. “He’s a nobody wrestler. He’s not a superstar. He’s what’s known in the wrestling world as a ‘jobber’ which makes the…
Coming Up: Onstage With Hal Holbrook at the Alley Theatre
Just out of college, Hal Holbrook and his then-wife Ruby toured small towns in Texas, putting on shows wherever they could find an audience. “We played nearly 200 little towns in Texas, Amarillo to Laredo.” And what he remembers from that, other than how cold it could get in their…
Five Emo Bands That Are Still Killing It
Get your handkerchiefs ready, kids, because tonight at House of Blues, Brand New, Manchester Orchestra and Kevin Devine are going to make you cry. This all-star cast of emo bands is one of the best parts about the ACL Fest overflow in Houston, and it’s one of those rare lineups…
Let’s Think About the Arts and Entertainment Section of Best of Houston
Want to know what the Houston Press thinks is the best film festival? Best new club owner? Best movie house? That and more was revealed this week in this year’s edition of Best of Houston which came out earlier this Tuesday online. (And in case you’re wondering: Jazz on Film…
Been Pulled Over Lately? The ACLU of Texas Wants to Hear About It
The death of Sandra Bland took on a whole new narrative once the dash-cam footage of her July 10 traffic stop-turned-roadside arrest became public. Before officials released the footage of Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Brian Encinia pulling Bland over outside Prairie View A&M, the case gained national media…
We Could All Learn a Lot From Billy Idol
Billy Idol House of Blues October 6, 2015 We could all learn a lot from Billy Idol. Our common vocabulary is now peppered with words that describe what happens when face-to-face communication collides head-on with smartphone overuse. Nobody lives in the moment anymore, people will tell you. All we do…
My Family Won’t Accept My Man. Help!
THE GIRL I WAS TALKING TO SUDDENLY CUT ME OFF Dear Willie D: First of all, I’ve been a fan since I was 13. But anyway, I started talking to this girl on Twitter a while back; her name is Melissa. I’m from Mississippi, she’s from Australia, and we had…
Texas Finally Pledges to End Prison Rape
Last year, on the eve of yet another GOP presidential primary run, then-Gov. Rick Perry sent the feds a letter saying Texas would not comply with long overdue reforms to end rape in prisons and jails. The letter, first reported by the indefatigable criminal justice blog Grits For Breakfast, portrayed…
Astros, Keuchel Shut Out Yankees 3-0, Advance to ALDS Against Royals
It has been 10 years since the Astros made it to the playoffs, that year making it all the way to the World Series before being swept by the White Sox. In 2015, their postseason will last a little longer after the ‘Stros went into the Bronx and beat the…
HPD Presented Its Body Camera Policy to Council Yesterday, and It Was a Mess
As we’ve written before, there are plenty of examples that show why the Houston Police Department badly needs department-wide body cameras. Take for instance the death of Blake Pate, an unarmed man shot and killed on Christmas Day 2011 by an HPD officer who, despite his troubling disciplinary history, was…
Texans Release Former Starting LB Mike Mohamed
In a 2015 season that has already had its share of injuries to core, foundational players like running back Arian Foster and left tackle Duane Brown, the Texans have also had a few “under the radar” injuries that have hampered their ability to do execute some very specific facets of…
A Quick and Dirty Guide to Tonight’s Astros Watch Parties
The Texans are a dud (again), but tonight the Astros make their first postseason appearance in a decade – a long-overdue opportunity to rinse out the rancid taste of getting swept out of the 2005 World Series by the Chicago White Sox. Excitement is high. First pitch of the one-game…
Game Control: Just How Overwhelmed Have The 2015 Houston Texans Been?
Like 10 other NFL teams, the Houston Texans sit at 1-3 at the season’s quarter pole. They’ve lost to one of those fellow 1-3 outfits (Kansas City in the opener) and they’ve beaten one (Tampa Bay). Both of those games took place at home. Their two losses are at the…
