One Hot Beach
SAT 9/3 Mikki Chernoff, a Playboy scout and part-time radio host, has become famous for her Mikki & Her Mates parties at Galveston’s East Beach. For the uninitiated, at the events, the centerfold models of Chernoff’s silicone-enhanced sorority harass hordes of dudes who’ll do anything to get close to a…
Bite It
Don’t be fooled into believing that the Killer “B” Cookies ($1.29 each) at Berryhill Baja Grill (2639 Revere, 713-526-8080) are your ordinary pecan sandies. For one thing, each is hand-formed with five distinct indentations, imparted by the fingers that made it. For another, this cookie has bite. The addition of…
Tori Amos
Five steps toward becoming Tori Amos: Step 1: Be the kid of a preacher man and drop out of music school. Step 2: Release two elegantly, ridiculously intimate solo albums, and inspire millions of girls to don fairy wings and take up the piano. Tour around humping your piano bench;…
Saturday Morning Live
SAT 9/3 “I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day,” quoth the immortal poets of KISS, setting the standard of hard-rockin’ debauchery for generations to come. This weekend, though, local metal fans may find their schedules reversed, since Houston’s MetalFest at the Meridian is scheduled for no…
Victor Wooten
Known primarily for his role as bassist in Béla Fleck’s Grammy-winning New Grass Revival band the Flecktones, Victor Wooten is a phenomenal composer and bandleader in his own right. Widely respected by fellow musicians and acclaimed by the bass cognoscenti (he’s the only three-time winner of Bass Player magazine’s Bass…
Kanyemania
Sophomore albums are made to be trashed, especially when they follow hugely successful debuts. And there may be no artist in pop music history who richly deserves such a lambasting more than Kanye West. To call West’s behavior over the last year “insufferable” fails to do him justice; to list…
The Chocolate Bayou Festival, Featuring Angie Stone
This two-day fest serves up one of the best buffets of music styles in the city. Among the locals, you’ve got your top-shelf zydeco in Step Rideau, your red-hot blues in fiery guitarist Sherman Robertson, your sizzling R&B/funk in former Prince/Mavis Staples sideman Rick Marcel, your mellow-cool smooth jazz in…
Scars and Bars
Scott H. Biram appears Thursday, September 1, at the Continental Club, 3700 Main, 713-529-9899.
Drift Wood
The problem with making black-lacquered high school satire is this: Heathers came out in 1989, and it pretty much did the trick. There’s always room for an excellent addition to the genre, and in 1999, it appeared in the form of Alexander Payne’s Election, a film blessed both with a…
The Return of the Houston Kid
at the Continental Club, 3700 Main. Lee Roy Parnell opens both nights. For more information, call 713-529-9899.
Assault ‘n’ Prepper
Remember Nick Cannon? For a while there, he seemed to be the next big young heartthrob, right after starring in the marching-band movie Drumline and the remake of the ’80s comedy Love Don’t Cost a Thing. When Dave Chappelle joked that his son was leaving him for Nick Cannon, people…
Banging with Bang! Bang!
Chicago band Bang! Bang! calls itself a “sex rock trio” and offers up an uproarious mix of sleazy indie rock and dag-nasty punk that calls to mind Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Electric Six and Johnny-cum-lately cock-rocker Louis XIV. With tracks like “Spank” imploring the listener to “take it like a…
Capsule Reviews
“Bill Traylor, William Edmondson and the Modernist Impulse” Bill Traylor and William Edmondson are two African-American artists whose work came to the attention of the art world and the broader public in the late 1930s because of its modern aesthetic. This Menil exhibition explores the modernist aspects of their work…
Missy Elliott
Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott is quite a piece of work. Not only has she devoted her lauded career to proving that she can be overweight and sexier for it (as well as very, very active in bed), she also has used her videos to turn otherwise forgettable rappers into surreal sci-fi…
Cranked
January 22, 1990, was the day Olivia died. She was sitting in an idling Nissan Sentra at a traffic light, next to her toddler son. A car hit her going 80. It crushed her ribs and pierced her lungs. “Dead,” the medics said. Even so, the doctors cracked open her…
Brad Paisley
If Brad Paisley’s albums can’t withstand the corrosive effects of Music Row’s candy factory, no Nashville insider’s can. Not only does this West Virginia native enamel them with as much raw inspiration and rigorous craft as any Nashville newcomer this decade, he regularly rinses the sugary coating off country’s contemporary…
Against the Odds
KILT-AM is the king of sports-talk radio in Houston. It airs all the Rockets and Texans games; it airs the Jim Rome show; it airs some of the most popular hosts in town. One thing it doesn’t air anymore: point-spread experts. With the college football season already started and NFL…
Nortec Collective
Tijuana just might be the Las Vegas of Mexico — a boomtown sin city widely regarded as bereft of any culture above kitsch. Creemos que no, say the members of Nortec Collective — an assemblage of Tijuana-based musicians, DJs, poets, painters and filmmakers. As Roberto Mendoza, a.k.a. Nortec performer Panóptica,…
Animal House
Things probably started going badly at the house on South MacGregor Way long before it caught fire last December, killing Phi Kappa Theta’s German shepherd, Nila. Just the month before, the fraternity had caused a stir when a tarp shielding the backyard fell down. Behind the tarp was a massive…
New Pornographers
As its moniker implies, Twin Cinema essentially doubles the theatricality of previous Pornographers efforts. While the title track constitutes hooky indie pop, the album as a whole conjures images of a Rent-like musical, with most numbers custom-made for cast members to belt toward the balcony. The shifting ensemble assembled by…
Letters
The Minutemen and Terrorism We’re a target: I’m amazed that so many people get upset over the Minutemen watching our borders [“At the Ready,” by Keith Plocek, August 18]. When did “watching” become such a bad thing? I suppose that the same critics also decry the “Neighborhood Watch” program. What…
David Allan Coe
Remember when male country stars were — at least ostensibly — dangerous dudes? Back when Cash was singing about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die, ex-con Merle Haggard was warning people about his fightin’ side, and Waylon rumbled in that whiskey-cocaine baritone that he could get…
Real Crazy Party
If you’re a fan of MTV’s Real World, you’re aware that the show’s Austin permutation just isn’t as scandalous as seasons past. But hey, the show has had its moments. So what have we learned from our young RW friends Wes, Melinda, Nehemia, Johanna, Danny, Rachel and Lacey? For starters,…
Low Yield
At the opening of The Constant Gardener, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles’s adaptation of the novel by John le Carré, we hear a conversation before we see it. The screen remains black, still running credits, as a man and a woman negotiate a departure. Slowly, the scene dawns, revealing the couple…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, September 1 If you’ve ever marveled at how bizarre your dog looks when you don’t have your contacts in, you’ll appreciate how everyday objects are rendered alien in the new exhibit “Strangely Familiar” at DeSantos Gallery. Photographer Clay Harmon views his work as an exploration of camera technology as…
Setting the Stage
The dog days of summer might be howling, but for the past few weeks, Houston theaters have been silent as snow. Thankfully, the seasons are about to change — in more ways than one. Watch the marquees around the city, and you’ll find a multitude of reasons to buy a…
Cool Cat
When you’re one of the world’s best-known children’s authors, there’s a certain amount of pressure to maintain a squeaky-clean persona and avoid any hint of adult sensibilities. Theodor Seuss Geisel — a.k.a. Dr. Seuss — had another, more adult side to him. But when it surfaced, it didn’t alienate his…
Capsule Reviews
Honky Tonk Angels The three women who populate Ted Swindley’s surprisingly mediocre Honky Tonk Angels have a dream. Angela, Darlene and Sue Ellen all want to be country singers. Stuck in individual ruts, they’re desperate to “fly away” to Nashville, the Hollywood of country music. Watched over by their guardian…
Bayou Ball
You probably wouldn’t guess it, but mild-mannered Mayor Bill White can drop some serious smack. His Honor has been talkin’ trash to City Councilmember Ronald Green about an upcoming hoops game. White and Green are slated to go head-to-head Saturday for the Cynthia Cooper Roopster Roux Youth Basketball Tournament, part…
The Little Weed that Could
For Paul Druecke’s conceptual project Bright Sun Partial Shade, he commissioned a work of art from another artist and donated it to the city. The work, Weed (Totally Terrific) by Scott Wolniak, was installed in Market Square Park and unveiled in an elaborate ceremony/performance to which Druecke invited an array…
Catfight
SAT 9/3 When the Texas Southern University and Prairie View A&M football squads meet this Saturday, the Tigers and Panthers should deliver a bite more vicious than the one that brought Siegfried and Roy’s show to an end. The historically black universities will clash for the 12th time in the…
Crab Shells and Stink Beans
The menu at Vieng Thai, the best Thai restaurant in Houston, is spell-binding. I’ve never heard of half the dishes on it. And although I’ve eaten three belt-busting meals here, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I want to keep coming back until I’ve eaten all 12 appetizers,…