Cover Story
Working-Class Hero
Is Michael Fracasso’s Austin’s best kept musical secret?
Haack: The King of Techno
Haack: The King of Techno 2004, NR, 70 min. Directed by Philip Anagnos. This well-recieved documentary takes a look at enigmatic underground musician and inventor Bruce Haack, who pioneered the electronic music scene. His work spanned from Mister Rogers Neighborhood to game shows to more elaborate compositions. The film complements Haack’s style by employing all…
Do the Right Thing
Do the Right Thing 1989, R, 120 min. Directed by Spike Lee, Starring Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Joie Lee, John Turturro, Rosie Perez. During a heat wave in Brooklyn, racial tensions in a predominantly Black neighborhood hit a boiling point in Spike Lee’s provocative masterpiece.
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 1970, NR, 77 min. Directed by Jaromil Jires, Starring Jaroslava Schallerová, Helena Anýzová, Jan Klusák. A surrealist allegory from Czechoslovakia about a young girl’s coming of age.
Exhibitionism
Austin Symphony’s return to Mahler’s Fifth Symphony under the baton of Peter Bay revealed a mature and confident orchestra pulling itself up another notch
Phases and Stages
Li’l Cap’n Travis… In All Their Splendor (Glurp) Rave all you want about Li’l Cap’n Travis’ Southwestern splendor, embodied by the coastal motel art of the Austin sextet’s third album and the sunset steel and Calexico-like marimbas of streaming opener “Steady as She Goes.” Drawling vocals, strummy rhythms, and shambling, kaleidoscope live shows; LCT is…
The Batting Order
The major players in the special session feature a range of motives
Short Cuts
South Austin’s best-kept video-store secret might not be such a secret for much longer
Exhibitionism
The House, director J. Ed Araiza’s third collaboration with the student artists at St. Edward’s University, is unapologetically about them, which makes for the show’s strengths and its weaknesses
Phases and Stages
FiveheadGuests of the Nation (Tight Spot) Noisy guitars crunch a bevy of late-Eighties/ early-Nineties rootsy post-punk on Fivehead’s long-awaited new full-length, Guests of the Nation. The Austin-based quartet soars and shuffles with a musicianship that deftly matches one of the local scene’s best independent acts. It’s almost as if Uncle Tupelo and Hüsker Dü never…
On the Lege
The first days of the special session feature a rhetorical slugfest between the governor and the comptroller
Watching Outside the Box
How many industries do you know of that can capitalize on dated inventory while ringing up sales for “failed” merchandise?
In Person
BookPeople, April 16
Phases and Stages
Kino EyeInternal Architecture Seems as though every new Austin band is some permutation of 1983 post-punk. Kino Eye is no exception, though there’s not a whiff of Joy Division here. Nor a hint of the Fall, and only a morsel of Gang of Four. Instead, this local fourpiece builds on the spirit of early PiL,…
Bradley’s Lazarus Lotto Goes to Court
Gary Bradley’s bankruptcy trial features the spectacular rise of the Lazarus Trust
DVD Watch
Pickup on South StreetThe Criterion Collection, $29 According to the supplemental features on Criterion’s sterling new digital transfer/treatment of 1953 grifter standard Pickup on South Street, commando Sam Fuller’s 20th Century Fox debut was also the pistol-packing screenwriter/director’s first “A”ssignment under Darryl Zanuck. A half-century later, The Front Page pitbull’s blitzkrieg police report (80 minutes)…
Page Two
A few modest school-finance proposals
Phases and Stages
Significant DigitsBird Austin’s Melissa Mullins and Aimee Jost want to be Kim and Kelley Deal. They’re just screaming – sometimes literally – to be inducted into the hall of women rockers. They’ve got the song structure down. They’ve got the lyrics down, too. What’s lacking is solidity, conviction, and an experienced producer. Ever-present harmonies are…
Futrell to Council: Deficit Shrinks … a Bit
The city budget report looks a wee bit rosier, but with plenty of thorns
After a Fashion
Stephen goes west, sees some big rocks, and only adds to the splendor of the Marfa lights…
Phases and Stages
Bob SchneiderI’m Good Now (Vanguard) Bob Schneider has found a musical formula that works, and he ain’t budging from that anytime soon. That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t grown. In the 100 years (OK, three) since his solo debut, Lonelyland, a lot has happened in the ubiquitous local singer’s life that’s reflected in the more…
It’s a Car, It’s a Canvas … It’s an Art Car!
Art cars roll through downtown
Gloomy Sunday
As the turmoil of WWII engulfs Hungary, a Budapest eatery becomes home to a love triangle.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Cab Calloway careers, cosmetic cutouts, and our country’s clothing
Phases and Stages
Gurf Morlix Cut ‘n Shoot (Blue Corn) After a couple of albums of clattering rock ‘n’ blues, Gurf Morlix climbs aboard his tractor and takes a ride down a country road. Cut ‘n Shoot finds the local guitarist and producer concentrating on the broke-down side of heartbreak performed with a honky-tonk groove that’s plowed deep…
Vibrating Hardware Wars
Competing makers of tongue vibrators get down and dirty in the courtroom
Academy Award-Nominated Short Films 2003
A package of some of the most recent animated and live-action Oscar nominees.
Soccer Watch
Iran left out (again!), Germany mad over beer, and Cameroon embarassed by naughty uniform scandal. Who said soccer was boring?
Phases and Stages
So they’re not moving to New York after all. Great news for all us Disco Hospital patients, but This Microwave World’s Love Your Zine, Let’s Go to Bed is so Williamsburg you can almost smell the East River. Louche, kinetic, and a little frayed, this six-song volley dares you not to dance. “Fun Fun Fun”…
The Show With No Home
The current antsiness among broadcasters nails a local favorite
Connie and Carla
Witnessing a mob hit can be a real drag.
The Common Law
A relative passed away recently, and the duty has fallen to me to wind up her affairs. We don’t know if she left a will. What can I do?
Phases and Stages
Bonny HolmesBoxful of Trouble While not quite in the same league as Don Walser, who reached his full potential and began his music career in earnest after 60, local Bonny Holmes releasing her first CD at the age of 50 is just as intriguing. Too short at just nine songs, Boxful of Trouble finds Holmes…
ACC Chooses Robert Aguero
The ACC board of trustees selects Robert Aguero as the college’s new president
Man on Fire
Denzel Washington heads up a pulsating kidnapping thriller.
To Your Health
Should L-glutamine powder be taken with meals or between them?
Phases and Stages
Eve Monsees & the Exiles(Serpent) Opening her debut with “Surprise, Surprise” is a canny move for Eve Monsees. The song was only one of four Jagger-Richards originals on the Rolling Stones’ third album, part of an era when artists cut their musical teeth playing covers. With 11 covers and three originals, Eve Monsees & the…
Naked City
Breaking stories from Austin and beyond
13 Going on 30
Magic wishing dust allows Jennifer Garner to completely skip over her teens and twenties.
Second Helpings: Catfish, Part I
Catfish Parlour 4705 E. Ben White, 443-1698 Daily, 11am-10pm 11910 Research, 258-1853 Monday-Saturday, 11am-10pm These two large, informal fish houses have been serving up satisfying family-sized catfish meals as long as we can remember. Just leave your tackle box in the garage. When the gang’s hungry, take a crowd to eat in, call ahead to…
About AIDS
Have you ever wondered where to go for an HIV test? Does your regular doctor offer anonymous testing or counseling about risky behavior and HIV prevention? Do you know where HIV testing is free? The Austin-Travis County Health Department offers HIV testing at many places around Austin, plus scheduled testing in various bars and clubs.…
Phases and Stages
Friends of Dean MartinezRandom Harvest (Narnack) Jim Thompson wrote pulp like an oyster irritating pearls. Year after year, beginning in the Forties, the Oklahoma-born Texan secreted another volume of desolate mayhem. True Friend of Dean Martinez, Austin’s Bill Elm, has been churning out similarly haunting yarns on his white-hot pedal steel since 1995’s forlorn The…
Big Boxing at Mueller
Could Mueller’s ‘Smart Growth’ include big-box retail?
The Seagull’s Laughter
Set in 1950s Iceland, this film is equal parts noirish mystery and coming-of-age tale.
TCB
Austin City Limits, cannonized!
Day Trips
Bask in the bluebonnets’ beauty on your way to some delicious barbecue
Phases and Stages
Patty GriffinImpossible Dream (ATO) There’s a school of thought that says we’re all driven by an unnameable something, a vague but pleasurable psychic tickle. On her latest release, Impossible Dream, Patty Griffin has mastered the art of drawing attention to the nameless, achy yearning inside all of us, swaddling it in anger, desire, sadness, and…
When Is Plagiarism Not Plagiarism?
UT engineering dean says no discipline for professor who published public relations articles under his own name
Two Men Went to War
A WWII comedy of errors begins when two British military dentists swap their drills for grenades.
As Theatre for Children Matures
In 40 years of nurturing young people’s love for the stage, Coleman Jennings has helped a profession develop, too
Oops!
In her review of Esther’s Follies [” Exhibitionism,” Arts, April 16], Heather Barfield credited Elisa Shepard with being one of the performers who is “energetic and top form as pop-star divas, sorority girls, angry punk rock magician’s assistants, or soap opera queens.” She should have given the credit to Laura Mathis for those performances. The…
Phases and Stages
Ojo del SolSunrise to Sunset Like Del Castillo, Ojo del Sol is an Austin Latin rock band built around groove-based rhythms, emotive Spanish and English singing, and dual guitar work. While Del Castillo is known for fret board frenzy, Ojo del Sol prefers a more laid-back approach, melting nylon-string guitars with drums, bass, percussion, and…
The Hightower Report
Tyco stays the course, and the USDA rolls over for Big Beef
The Arkansaw Bear
The magic and spirit of Second Youth Family Theatre’s production of The Arkansaw Bear make for a moving story of a child coping with a grandparent’s death
Elegance Out of Town
Monica’s 701 is fine dining, indeed
Phases and Stages
Years went by with nary a solar flare from Austin’s gentle cosmonauts Seven Percent Solution, who made intensely atmospheric, melodic space rock throughout the Nineties. Once again we have contact in the form of A Five and Dime Ship. On this new instrumental quartet’s self-titled debut, Seven Percent guitarist James Adkisson and drummer James Harwood…
Melodramatic Entrance
On set with ‘Shades of Life,’ the multicultural soap-opera access show giving minority actors a shot at exposure
Oh, What a Lovely War Protest!
The Accidental Activist tells how the Lysistrata Project became a global anti-war phenomenon, from the perspective of Kathryn Blume, who co-founded and lived it
The Austin Diner
We know they can do breakfast. But what about lunch?
Phases and Stages
One of Austin’s quiet little musical secrets is the Jazz Pharaohs, a group for whom the Ellington adage “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” is their stock and trade. Led by clarinetist and vocalist Stanley Smith, this feisty ensemble of good-time swingsters has held down a Wednesday evening happy hour…
Good News and Bad News
John Pierson’s ‘Spike Mike Reloaded’
Articulations
City Council adopts new guidelines for the Cultural Arts Funding Program, Michelle Schumann shoots off for a Canadian piano competition, and some ‘palpable hits’ to get your sweet William for Shakespeare’s birthday
Food-o-File
Wrapping up the Saveur Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival means good news and bad
What’s So Special?
Gov. Perry calls a special session, and pits property taxes against schoolchildren
Lasses, Sasses, and Cineastes
LadyFest Texas movie night
Exhibitionism
It Ain’t Nothin’ but the Blues is a blues primer covering every variation on the form, and in the Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s production its lessons are driven home with verve and fervor and musical excitement
A Special Agenda
The leading proposals focus on cutting taxes and finding substitute funds
In Space
Google bombs
Luv Doc Recommends: Eeyore’s 41st annual Birthday Party
If you moved to Austin so you could hang out in places like Cool River with smartly dressed, well-groomed professionals, you probably should have read all the way to the end of the promotional brochure. You wanted Round Rock, Pflugerville, or maybe Cedar Park. Here inside the loop, Austin considers itself the Freak Capital of…
