Cover Story
Mission: Improvable
Austin’s improv community gathers intelligence
How To Eat Fried Worms
This kids movie, which was filmed in Austin, is not as wormy as it sounds.
Arts Review
“Making It Together,” the second part of the summer UT art grad shows at the CRL, gives quick answers to questions surrounding the idea of collaboration in art
Iron Chef Alamo Battle Celluloid Episode I
Bullington vs. Eichelberger
Reissues & Box Sets
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys Legends of Country Music (Columbia/Legacy) Though hailed as the “King of Western Swing,” Bob Wills was never much for labels. The Kosse-born fiddler/bandleader didn’t consider himself a country performer, and Nashville never fully embraced him. First and foremost, Wills and his amazing cast of sidemen were dance-hall entertainers, playing…
Hoover/AISD Settlement Leaves Naughtiness Undefined
AISD board accepts resignation of Austin High art teacher, approves district’s settlement offer
Invincible
Mark Wahlberg plays footballer Vincent Papale in this story about how he captured a spot on the Philadelphia Eagles team in an open tryout.
Arts Review
In his ‘B-Boy Bluez,’ playing on a double bill with Maggie Gallant’s ‘Hot Dogs at the Eiffel Tower,’ Zell Miller III creates whole worlds on stage and performs his heart out for whatever audience he gets
Food-o-File
Movers and shakers, ranges and changes
Reissues & Box Sets
Rockin’ Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly(Rhino) God Bless Rhino for their all-encompassing love of the genre. Rockin’ Bones, a 4-CD, 101-song box set of punk and rockabilly from 1954-69, is like Nuggets for the ducktail crowd. The packaging, from the back alley knife fight on the front to the 45-shaped CDs and yearbook-style liner notes,…
Gubernatorial Booty
How our candidates for governor are spending their dough
Beerfest
The jokes in this latest film from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe are about as potent as near-beer.
Culture Flash!
A Blanton curator goes south, a solo show master goes back to Houston, an area quilter and portraitist go national, and the Long Center and KMFA go to the bank
Event Menu
Aug. 24-31
Reissues & Box Sets
Bruce Hornsby Intersections [1985-2005] (RCA/Legacy) Twenty years after the surprising success of his first album, The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby gets the deluxe treatment. Not that Intersections is your ordinary career retrospective. Perhaps the 4-CD/1-DVD set should be subtitled For the Fans. On the audio side, 26 of 53 tracks are previously unreleased live…
Bye Bye Bible
5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds earlier ruling that Harris County courthouse Bible monument must go
Idlewild
OutKast has been operating as two separate and distinct musical personas for at least three years now, and Idlewild unwisely continues this trend into the cinematic realm.
Readings
Ben Fountain’s debut collection of short stories
Reissues & Box Sets
Depeche ModeSpeak & Spell (Rhino/Sire/Mute/Reprise) Depeche ModeMusic for the Masses (Rhino/Sire/Mute/Reprise) Depeche ModeViolator (Rhino/Sire/Mute/Reprise) The CureThe Top (Rhino/Fiction/Elektra) The CureThe Head on the Door (Rhino/Fiction/Elektra) The CureKiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (Rhino/Fiction/Elektra) The Jesus & Mary ChainPsychocandy (Rhino/Blanco y Negro) The Jesus & Mary ChainDarklands (Rhino/Blanco y Negro) The Jesus & Mary ChainAutomatic (Rhino/Blanco…
Reissues & Box Sets
The BeatlesThe Capitol Albums Vol. 2 (Apple/Capitol) The “Back to Mono” movement be damned: the last thing rock & roll needs is jazz’s alternate takes. The second 4-CD flimsy of the Beatles’ U.S. catalog, a sorry series of slices and dices in the early years, follows up 1964 with two regurgitated collections, a soundtrack (Help!),…
The Greenest Zine in Town
The new Austin Environmental Directory – part investigative environmental reports, part encyclopedia of sustainability, and part yellow pages of everything green in Austin – is out
My Country, My Country
Using the Iraqi democratic elections in early 2005 as its focal point, this powerful documentary is the sad lament of Iraqis who truly want the best for their homeland, despite seemingly overwhelming odds.
After a Fashion
Fresh off the hunt from Dallas Market Center’s Holiday/Resort Show, your Style Avatar goes off on what’s good about Austin fashion
Reissues & Box Sets
SpoonTelephono (Merge) SpoonSoft Effects EP (Merge) This is a Spoon refresher course. Telephono, the then trio’s 1996 debut LP on Matador, is a vision of things to come, the wide-open spaces of 2002 breakthrough Kill the Moonlight filled here with static, manic energy. Like they had melded Wire through Pavement’s amps, Telephono is an impressive…
Reissues & Box Sets
BjörkSurrounded (Rhino/Elektra) When former Sugarcube Björk went solo in the early Ninties, few were surprised that the Icelandic singer proved herself a creative juggernaut. This beautifully packaged 7-CD career retrospective traces the evolution of an artist who starts out chasing commercial trends and finds her muse. Surrounded witnesses Björk’s traversing the distance between entertainment and…
Beside the Point : A Ton to Chew On
City grapples with weight loss, forcing bicycle helmets, and public safety staffing, among other issues.
Quinceañera
Don’t confuse this Sundance charmer with My Big Fat Mexican Debut, for its farcical scenes of high hair and waltzes form a genial, light-comic prism for watching race, age, class, and sexuality collide in one of America’s most economically and ethnically complex cities.
Day Trips
The Turkey Shop Smokin’ Cafe in Abbott is back and cookin’
Reissues & Box Sets
Windsor for the DerbyCalm Hades Float (Secretly Canadian) Windsor for the DerbyMinnie Greutzfeldt (Secretly Canadian) This is the heyday of Austin post-rock that everyone gushes about. This is the Trance Syndicate daydream, the sticky nights of the Blue Flamingo and the Electric Lounge, the time music was consumed by merit alone. Dan Matz, Jason McNeeley,…
Reissues & Box Sets
The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 5: 1965 (Motown/Hip-O Select) Now we’re talking – stomping, clapping, crooning, shimmying, yelling. Flashing open on the Four Tops’ merry widow, “Ask the Lonely,” Jr. Walker’s “Shotgun” soon has you eyeing that beer can while reaching for a pen. Even then, Florence, Diana, and Mary – the Supremes – are…
Budget Breakdown
Public Safety’s proposed ’07 numbers
The Illusionist
Surprisingly, this atmospheric movie starring some of the greatest actors of our time is a dull and enervating bore.
To Your Health
Can galvanic skin response tests be trusted?
Reissues & Box Sets
WirePink Flag (EMI/Pink Flag) WireChairs Missing (EMI/Pink Flag) Wire 154 (EMI/Pink Flag) Wire has often been copied but never duplicated, and that’s most evident on the British quartet’s 1977 debut, Pink Flag, mainlining shots of three-minute punk that was never quite the “punk” everyone was talking about in 1977. Wire always dangled on the edge.…
Reissues & Box Sets
The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records (Impulse!) It wasn’t just the distinctive orange-and-black spines and fold-out album covers that made Impulse LPs stand out from the rest of the jazz pack. In its 15-year heyday, from the early Sixties to the mid-Seventies, Impulse was best known for reflecting the social, cultural,…
The Hightower Report
Bad Bosses; and a Bill to Ban Sweatshop Labor
The Stunt Man
The Stunt Man 1980, R, 131 min. Directed by Richard Rush, Starring Peter O’Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey, Allen Garfield, Alex Rocco. Peter O’Toole was nominated for an Academy Award for his turn as an egomaniacal film director in this black comic thriller.
The Common Law
Security deposit – can they charge me for that?
Reissues & Box Sets
Sonic Youth(Geffen) Ciccone YouthThe Whitey Album (Geffen) Thurston MoorePsychic Hearts (Geffen) “There were fresh faces everywhere, alive, young, and full of ideas and dreams. We wanted to fuck it up, do something new, do something old in a brand-new way, at decibels that scorched your eardrums.” Sonic Youth’s original drummer, Richard Edson, lines SY’s remastered…
Reissues & Box Sets
Sonny StittStitt’s Bits: The Bebop Recordings, 1949-1952 (Prestige) No one’s denying that saxophonist Sonny Stitt was a superb player who left his mark on the jazz vocabulary. There’s always been some speculation, revived here in the cogent program notes by Chronicle contributor Harvey Pekar, as to whether Stitt developed his own style in the early…
How He Made ‘Fried Worms’
The dirt on director Bob Dolman
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Charles Lindbergh’s Lindy and Fred MacMurray’s Marvel
Reissues & Box Sets
Plasticland Make Yourself a Happening Machine(Ryko) Formed in 1980 by Milwaukee-based childhood chums Glenn Rehse and John Frankovic, Plasticland was one of the few Eighties psychedelic bands to transcend the thrift-store affectations of the short-lived Paisley Underground. Even if they were unabashed revivalists, they still earned a spot in music history. Between Rehse and Frankovic’s…
After the Storm
Austin’s Louisiana exiles remain suspended between before and after
Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund Grant Recipients
$125,000 to 18 filmmakers
Out of Bounds
The Fifth Annual Out of Bounds Improv Festival runs Aug. 31-Sept. 4, Wednesday-Monday, at the Hideout, 617 Congress, unless otherwise specified. Tickets are $10 each per block of shows. A festival pass is $65. For more information, visit www.outofboundsimprov.com . Wednesday, Aug. 308pm downstairs: The Becchini (Austin) Scott & Stacey (Austin) The Plurals (Austin) 8pm…
Soccer Watch
The Lady Longhorns beat UT-San Antonio in an exhibition match, and more
Reissues & Box Sets
Harry NilssonSon of Schmilsson (RCA/Legacy) Harry NilssonA Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (RCA/Legacy) Harry Nilsson Everybody’s Talkin’: The Very Best of Harry Nilsson (RCA/Legacy) You may have heard a song by Harry Nilsson and not even know it. That’s a crying shame, because he sang his balls off. These three reissues from the…
East Side Story
Austin evacuee Autherine Algere misses her old home but knows there’s nothing to go back to.
Film News
It’s dry as a bone out there, but this verdant pasture of industry info and celebrity gossip is no mirage
OoBer Alles
A guide to the troupes of the 2006 Out of Bounds Improv Festival (aka OoB V)
Flame On
Hot-saucy legends get fired up for the festival
Reissues & Box Sets
Johnny CashPersonal File (Columbia/Legacy) Johnny CashMan in Black: Live in Denmark 1971 (CMV/Legacy) Johnny Cash was at his zenith in 1971, still on his “A Boy Named Sue” roll and brimming with midlife vigor. Man in Black: Live in Denmark 1971 DVD features him in full showman mode to a clueless Danish audience while the…
Starting Over
Like the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast evacuees who fled their homes last year, the basic infrastructure of parts of Gentilly, along with many other New Orleans neighborhoods throughout the city, has to be completely rebuilt.
DVD Watch
THE MR. MOTO COLLECTION: Volume One20th Century Fox, $59.98 The story goes that after seeing Peter Lorre’s performance as the compulsive child killer in Fritz Lang’s M, an enamored Adolf Hitler wired the actor from Berlin, inviting him to “join the glorious film industry here.” “Thanks,” responded Lorre from his new bungalow in Hollywood, “but…
American Repertory Ensemble: Flight risk
American Repertory Ensemble had no trouble getting to Scotland for its recent weeklong gig at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival but had a devil of a time getting back home
Sweet Heat
The 16th annual ‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival
Reissues & Box Sets
Matthew Sweet Girlfriend (Volcano/Legacy) The problem with writing a powerhouse anthem is following it. When Matthew Sweet unleashed “Girlfriend” in 1991, it became an instant classic, electrified by Bob Quine’s exquisite lead. Then came Goodfriend, a promo-only release that was essentially an acoustic version of Girlfriend with live tracks featuring Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer”…
The Long Run
A five-point plan for long-term housing
TV Eye
Extended networks
100 Proof Comedy: Shot down stand-up
Four of Austin’s funniest comics have created a new showcase in which the hook is the comics doing what the audience does, i.e., taking a belt, knocking one back, hitting the sauce
The 2006 ‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival
Contest & Festival Facts
Reissues & Box Sets
Kashmere Stage Band Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974 (Now Again) While some ISDs cite the deterioration of high school band programs as the impetus for amateurish hip-hop immersion, few high school bands encapsulate the contemporary immediacy of teenage culture. Some 30 years ago, Houston’s Kashmere High School emerged as a breeding ground for an orchestral funk…
Petty Nastiness in WilCo
After more than a year of legal wrangling, federal judge sets date for jury to decide whether Williamson Co. Sheriff James Wilson demoted former WCSO officers Barry Simmons and Ralph Fisher in retaliation for reporting wrongdoing within department and/or for supporting Wilson’s rival, former sheriff Jim Wilson
TCB
Nineteen days on the road with Moonlight Towers later, TCB arrives in Austin a bitter, broken man but with plenty to report.
Paramount and State Theatres: Archives to UT
Some 3,000 items – from playbills and posters to contracts and correspondence – from the Paramount and State theatres are being donated to the UT Fine Arts Library
Celebrity Judges
Miguel Ravago Executive chef at Fonda San Miguel and co-author of the award-winning cookbook Fonda San Miguel: Thirty Years of Food and Art, Miguel Ravago has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation as one of the Southwest’s top chefs. Tyson Cole The executive chef at Uchi, Tyson Cole studied under sushi masters in New…
Reissues & Box Sets
Big Bill BroonzyAmsterdam Live Concerts 1953 (Munich) “You can’t get there without going through Big Bill.” This Taj Mahal-ascribed quote illustrates Broonzy’s influence on African-American music last century, and – thanks to these unvaulted concerts – into the future. One of 17 children born to parents who endured slavery, William Lee Conley Broonzy (1893-1958) went…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
Snakes on a Plane
This solid little B-movie arrives cloaked in the dodgy garb of a fanboy phenomenon.
Arts Review
Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s staging of I Am My Own Wife draws us intimately to its protagonist, German transvestite Charlotte van Mahlsdorf, and caught in this mystery man-woman’s spell
The ‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival Winners
R: Red Salsa; G: Green Salsa; SV: Special Variety; P: Pepper Sauce Individuals 1991 R: John Randall; G: Robert Leos; Other: Thomas Penn; Most Beautiful: Kenneth Harwell; Hottest: Ventura Uballe; Orange Sauce: Hans Granheim; Purple Sauce: Kevin Callaway 1992 R: 1) Alejandro Garcia; 2) Alejandro Garcia; 3) Eric Tovar G: 1) Malcolm Milburn; 2) John…
Reissues & Box Sets
Panama! Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75 (Soundway) Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia (Sublime Frequencies) Radio Thailand(Sublime Frequencies) Radio Algeria (Sublime Frequencies) At the crossroads of the Western Hemisphere, Panama! Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75 incorporates a wide array of cultural influence into its teeming jungle of tropical rhythms.…
Sprawl Ain’t All
Want to know what ‘conservation development’ means? Then head to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, or – if you’re interested, but not that interested – just read this story.
Material Girls
The Duff sisters star as heiresses who must learn to earn a living when their cosmetics firm goes belly-up.
Arts Review
Monologues about single women in New York may be overdone, but Jessica Hedrick redeems the genre with Sodomy and Pedicures, the story of a sex-starved communist’s daughter that’s self-aware, smart, fresh, and far from cliché
The ‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival 20,000 Lb. Challenge
How you can help the Capital Area Food Bank while having a blast at the ‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival
Reissues & Box Sets
Billy Bragg Volume 1 (Yep Roc) Brit politico-troubador Billy Bragg’s first Austin appearance, opening for Echo & the Bunnymen at the Austin Opera House, is now 22 years past. In that time, while adressing the Divided Kingdom’s niggling question, “What if Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Woody Guthrie had joined Joe Strummer in the Clash…
Weed Watch: South Dakota Medi-Pot Supporters Push Forward
After six years of failed attempts to convince state’s lawmakers to pass a law to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and prosecution, medi-pot supporters take their proposition to the public
Luv Doc Recommends: Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival
If for some inexplicable reason you moved to Austin and you don’t like Mexican food, leave. Seriously. Go back to whatever culturally impoverished, Applebee’s patronizing, Wonder Bread loving suburb you rolled down from and stop fucking up the office lunch run with your whining about acid reflux. Everyone is tired of you dipping the corner…
