Cover Story
Tell It Like It Is
Cyril Neville holds nothing back
Beats per Minute: 48 Hour Music Video Competition Screening
Beats per Minute: 48 Hour Music Video Competition Screening The results are in.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Res Inexplicata Volans, chocolate milk
Are the Waters Rising at Bouldin Creek?
New FEMA floodplain maps raise neighborhood questions about proposed developments
In Print
‘Screenwriters’ Masterclass’
Extremely Grand Opening Schedule, April 29-30
On the eve of its long-awaited grand opening, UT’s Blanton Museum gets its art in the right place
Soccer Watch
Arsenal and Barcelona take Europe; and West Ham faces Mersey boys
Finley Murder Mystery Unravels
After more than a month of searching for the aspiring singer / songwriter, sheriff’s investigators charge victim’s aunt and uncle with her murder
TV Eye
A Look Back
TCB
Rap’s rise at the Back Room, Mother Truckers take over South Congress, Austin film crew documents the tenuous fate of New Orleans and Jazzfest, and a year’s worth of sexy local ladies
Garden of Delights
Korea Garden’s tempting menu is best tested one dish at a time, and most pass with flying colors
Scotty Needs Our Help!
Check it out! Austin High alum dispatches spazzy SOS (Save Our Scotty?) for GWB’s former press sec!
DVD Watch
Tsui Hark’s wide-screen riot of color, movement, and sound
Repressed Burial Fantasy
Eastside gallery Okay Mountain opens strong with “Repressed Burial Fantasy,” featuring new works by Jason Villegas that gently remind us we are all meat for a bigger creature at some point
Cleopatra Mediterranean Restaurant
Te drab-looking building off of I-35 that formerly housed an insurance company has been transformed by friendly Jordanian owners into a casual Middle Eastern eatery
Ghost Taxpayers
Despite what you may have heard from anti-immigration types about foreign freeloaders taking our jobs and our services without chipping into the national kitty, an increasing number of undocumented immigrants pay taxes.
The Sentinel
This serviceable action thriller disintegrates into an implausible mess that’s barely salvaged by the presence of old pros like Michael Douglas and Kim Basinger
Luminocity
With a program of large-scale video installations called Luminocity, some UT students are turning buildings, walkways, walls, and alleys into movie screens
Maria and Málaga
A world-renowned wine master and her chef show what Spain is made of.
Endorsements
Yes, it’s spring in Austin – and there’s an election in the air. We know our readers are asking themselves sagely, “Didn’t I just vote a couple of weeks ago?” Not exactly, since most of you skipped it – but the state specials and primaries and run-offs are over (at least until November), so try…
Silent Hill
Eerie but ultimately unengaging film adaptation of Konami’s smash series of video games has a pitch-perfect score and unnervingly nightmarish imagery.
Conspirare
For Austin’s sterling choral ensemble Conspirare, the first few months of 2006 has seen concerts here and far away and the release of a new and most comforting CD
Food-o-file
Awards, accolades, and openings give Austin something to celebrate
Naked City
Headlines and Happenings from Austin and Beyond
Lonesome Jim
Steve Buscemi directs this story about a lovable loser who moves back in with his off-kilter family in Indiana.
Arts Review
The Rude Mechs’ ‘Decameron Day 7:REVENGE!’ is a meditation on vengeance refracted through the lens of ghost stories, how-to guides, ‘Star Wars,’ and soap operas
Summer Camp Guide
Pack the bug spray, the laptop, the curling iron … I went to summer camp, and it was nothing like it was supposed to be. There were no panty raids, or Nair-filled shampoo bottles, or identical twins reunited after separation at birth. It was more like, my hair turned green from too much Sun-In, and…
PR Woes at TABC
Tough times for the TABC as agency’s Sales to Intoxicated Persons enforcement program comes under increasing fire
Stick It
Bring It On‘s scribe Jessica Bendinger writes and directs this teen movie set in the world of competitive gymnastics, and features leotard-clad girls who learn to stick together to fight injustice.
Arts Review
In the Zachary Scott Theatre Center staging of ‘The Exonerated,’ tales of people wrongfully imprisoned on death row draw us deeply into a world of injustice
Protest Retaliation?
For many in Austin’s immigrant community, the hope that swelled from the massive April 10 immigrant rights protests has turned to fear
Akeelah and the Bee
This story about a girl from the ghetto who wins the national spelling bee has lofty if sometimes unfulfilled goals, but is a rewarding tale nevertheless.
Arts Review
The brightly painted dead or decaying limbs in Hank Waddell’s exhibit ‘Tree Bones ‘draws viewers’ attention to the effect people have on the health of the environment
Recommended Discography
The Meters, Fire on the Bayou The Wild Tchoupitoulas The Neville Brothers, Fiyo on the Bayou The Neville Brothers, Yellow Moon Cyril Neville & the Uptown All-Stars, The Fire This Time The Neville Brothers, Valence Street Cyril Neville & the Uptown All-Stars, For the Funk of It The New Orleans Social Club, Sing Me Back…
Weed Watch
Pot / alcohol equalization movement spreads; DEA agent shoots himself in foot – literally
United 93
United 93 is a sober, humanistic portrait of America’s literal “first responders,” who in an instant were forced to wrap their heads around a new, unfathomable reality.
Arts Review
‘Testsite 06.1 ~ The Burden of Decision’ is an investigation of artistic collaboration with a strong current of Freudian repression and struggle running below the surface
Texas Platters
The New Orleans Social Club Sing Me Back Home (Burgundy/Sony BMG) Six weeks removed from the wrath of Katrina, a gathering of Crescent City natives assembled at South Austin’s Wire Recording studio to put their damaged feelings to analog tape. Built on the nucleus of Meters’ guitarist Leo Nocentelli and George Porter Jr. on bass,…
Enemies Mingle at Hill Country Conservancy Fiesta
Beer, brisket, and land preservation help unite political foes for a night
Film Geek
Unfortunately, this low-budget portrait of a socially inept film-store geek is annoyingly two-dimensional, and the film’s paper-thin plot and flat jokes don’t help either.
Readings
Elucidating the fine art of hanging around
Texas Platters
“I don’t miiiind,” yowls Austin’s Black Joe Lewis on the first track of his stripped-down, untitled new release on Weary Records. Produced by the Weary Boys’ Brian Salvi, the eight hellbent songs rip like the night train with James Brown as engineer. Lewis lives for trad blues and soul (“Please,” “Cousin Randy”), but make no…
On The Lege
Big Tobacco, poor smokers gain temporary reprieve, and other tax politics news
Hard Candy
Metaphorically speaking, Little Red Riding Hood eats Humbert Humbert in this story of an online predator and his jailbait, gamine prey.
Letters at 3AM
Three fronts of transformative change in U.S. society: the allowance of Christian proselytizing in the U.S. Air Force Academy, Halliburton’s receipt of government contracts to build detention centers for Homeland Security, and the rise of the Latino electorate
Texas Platters
Ian McLagan & the Bump BandSpiritual Boy: An Appreciation of Ronnie Lane (Maniac) Ian McLagan first encountered Ronnie Lane in 1965 when, struck by his son’s resemblance to the elfin bassist onscreen, McLagan’s dad called him to the telly to see Lane’s Small Faces on Ready Steady Go! Mere weeks later, the look-alike Londoners were…
Point Austin: Hot Topics
The hot air season is upon us – and everybody’s an energy source
After a Fashion
Stephen trips the bright lights (big titties) fantastic!
Texas Platters
Daniel Francis DoyleWho Are Your Customers? (Furniture) Judging from the cover of Daniel Francis Doyle’s debut 12-inch, a collage of various woodland creatures, he’s apparently found a way to channel all the voices in his head: thrashy guitar loops over heart-attack drums and his vocal chords as a sacrifice – done while wearing an early-Nineties,…
Beside the Point
Green Water’s move to Guerrero Park will officially die today.
To Your Health
Why are those sticky labels on fruits and veggies, and are they harmful if swallowed?
Texas Platters
White Ghost ShiversEveryone’s Got ‘Em (Chicken Ranch) Too bad HBO canceled Carnivàle, its supernatural drama wherein God and Satan used Depression-era showfolk as chess pieces, because Austin’s White Ghost Shivers would’ve been naturals for a cameo. Born in Storyville’s hot-pillow houses, gangster-clogged Chicago gin mills, and backwoods hillbilly hoedowns of the last century’s earliest decades,…
The Hightower Report
An Explosive New Politics; and Sports Brandalism
The Common Law
Common Questions About Deferred Adjudication
Texas Platters
Del CastilloBrotherhood (Smilin’ Castle) After a four-year wait, Del Castillo’s fourth disc sounds like a two-for-one package. The first half of Brotherhood comes humping from the gate like a teenage boy on his first date, rarely pausing to explore other tempos with nuance. While fun in the heat of the moment, when it’s over, the…
Rebel Radio
Four guys, six ‘Star Wars’ films, and endless possibilities
Day Trips
The nine li’l cabins of the Blanco Settlement offer rocking chairs, Frisbee golf, and a Jacuzzi among other amenities for your vacationing pleasure
Texas Platters
The Red Krayola Introduction (Drag City) Founded in Houston circa 1966, Mayo Thompson’s Red Krayola has surfed the margins for 40 years, gingerly transiting through psychedelia, punk, and post-rock while maintaining consistent fealty to Thompson’s sonic experimentalism. Though Introduction is riddled with more moments of pop-oriented melodic clarity than one might expect from the Red…
Open Festival Season
Taking aim at Banff and Blowin’ Up a Spot
Luv Doc Recommends: Eeyore’s 43rd Annual Birthday Party
Here’s an activity that’s not on the schedule out at Circle C: Eeyore’s Birthday Party – not that they don’t appreciate Pooh in the C, surely they do. It’s just unlikely that folks out in the ‘burbs would pay homage to a down-in-the-dumps donkey who mopes around like he just swallowed a shit sandwich. They’re…
