Cover Story
The Comics (Artist) Panel
Five Austinites on the state of the sequential art, from comics to comix to manga and beyond
Craddick Losing Ground in Speaker Race?
The blogosphere is abuzz with news about the Speaker race in the Texas House. The latest: • Robert Talton is the first Republican chair (Urban Affairs Committee) to publicly pledge support for incumbent Tom Craddick’s opponent Brian McCall. • Craddick is hemorrhaging pledges. • Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie) says he’ll also throw his hat in the…
‘Statesman’ Misstates Ford’s Mistake
Only the Statesman editorial board could fuck up something as simple as a tribute to president Gerald Ford. On Ford’s defining moment, his quick turn-around in pardoning Nixon, they say “as the nation got to know this modest man better, most accepted that Ford really did act in what he believed was the best interest…
John Edwards – Person of the Year?
Seems like I’m not the only one to take Time’s accolades seriously, John Edwards has announced he’s running for president in 2008 – via YouTube. To wit: I thought Edwards made a great potential VP in 2004, his debate with Cheney being a timeless example of youth and idealism versus age and… pure evil? I’m…
The Year that Almost Was
Indeed, the year is drawing to a close, and we’re preparing our Top 10 lists. Hard to believe, but Northcross only blew onto the scene in the year’s fourth quarter. What were the local, state, national and international stories that mattered the most in 2006?
The Cowboys Get a Special Talking to (Cue the Sentimental Music)
Despite the warnings of my three visiting Christmas spirits, I’ve neglected my blog again. This time, however, it wasn’t because of laziness or boredom or even the lure of sweet, sweet Internet pornography. Nope, I haven’t been blogging lately because, when my positive, pro-Cowboy rants became laughingly naive, I hung up my keyboard, afraid I’d…
Thank You, ‘Time’ Magazine
As the year sputters to an end, we see more round-ups, countdowns and accolades. More often then not, they’re pithy, inconsequential and arbitrarily awarded, but every now and then, they make the right choice. Like Time awarding me – a blogger, MySpacer, YouTuber and Flickrer (I think I got that one right) – their Person…
Bowl Week: or, Holy Hopping Baby Jesus, It’s Eastern West Virginia Tech vs. Cal-Poly San Luis State!
Yes, friends, it’s here. Bowl Week. ‘Tis the season for the conclusion of football season. Bowl Week? Before we get to the good stuff – the BCS bowls that actually mean something – we are offered a plethora of bowl games that seem, like illiterate families from the Florida panhandle, to multiply every year. Thanks…
Doomsday Clock
Responsible Growth for Northcross has an application ticking-off the 60-day building moratorium at Northcross minute by minute. Heavy.
Soccer Watch: Mid-Winter Break Edition
Inter Milan’s 11th straight win this week tied the Italian Serie A record. (Roma, who set the record last year, has gone 9-1-1 in that time – and lost five points in the title chase.) Jolly Old England: Most of the soccer world is taking a year-end break, but the Brits have their traditional full…
Saving Small Business Downtown
Another local happening that got neglected in our yuletide insanity was announcement of the Congress Avenue Retail Retention and Enhancement Fund. In promoting the program last week, the mayor said the fund would enable “judicious, strategic investments in Congress Avenue,” but made no attempt to obscure its impetus: “The inspiration for this program is, of…
A Win-Win for Wal-Mart, Las Manitas
In preparing a post on the Congress Avenue Retail Retention and Enhancement Fund, I’m struck with a blinding flash of brilliance: in lieu of McDonald’s, why doesn’t Las Manitas reopen as an eatery inside the Northcross Wal-Mart? Those giant arched Ms can’t be hard to come by – who wouldn’t want a McNitas in their…
McCall Comes Calling
Austin consultant Alfred Stanley plans to kick off the New Year with a new political action committee, Too Close to Craddick, and an accompanying Web site that takes aim at House Democrats who are way too chummy with Speaker Tom Craddick. “I intend to lose some friends over this,” Stanley said. Yet Stanley believes there…
Local Roundup: Holiday Hangover Edition
Wake up, man. Snap to it! It’s high time to dig yourself out from this yellowing snowpile of neurotic family members and curdled eggnog. There’s a whole world out there that’s been going along just fine minus you, you know. Just what the hell have we missed? First Traffic Light Installed at Mueller: Thursday, Public…
Caption This Picture
In our haste to pack it in for the holidays, we almost neglected to call attention to this slightly off-kilter picture of Lee Leffingwell and Mike Martinez cleaning newly-purchased Eastside parkland. Grace it with a caption in the comments section below.
Toros Pregame Report
Toros Report
Texans Improve All-Time Record to 1-9 vs. the Colts
The problem the Colts had coming into Reliant on Sunday wasn’t that they had to win to clinch a first-round playoff bye but that the Texans had to not lose to avoid the embarrassment of dropping to 0-10 all-time vs. Indy. Houston’s 27-24 win was the biggest of their five-year existence since their stunning defeat…
Sunday Afternoon at the Convention Center
Austin Toros vs. Sioux Falls Skyforce Dec. 17 Pregame: Just my luck: My first game back with the Toros after an unexpected trip home, and the team’s new main man, Jay Williams, former first-round draft pick of the Chicago Bulls – the guy I had come to see – is dressed to impress in a…
Merry Chritmas to All!
Regular posting will resume by the middle of the week, as we nestle in the bosom of our respective families. It’s nice and warm there! Until then, happy holidays!
Tricks of the Trade?
The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports that former top Texas drug cop Barry Cooper next week will launch a new Web site to promote his video “Never Get Busted Again,” which Cooper says will show viewers how to hide their stash, “avoid narcotics profiling” and to fool, “every time,” those pesky drug-sniffing police dogs. Needless to…
Smokin’ the “Colombians”
Mexican soldiers say they’ve found a new hybrid marijuana plant that can grow outside year round and is immune to herbicide, reports the Associated Press. Soliders in the mountainous western state of Michoacan, which has been ground zero for a raging Mexican drug cartel war, have been trying to clear the mountainsides of the plants…
‘Chronicle’ Site Back Up
Which is why you’re reading this, duh. But comments are still wonky, for reasons unknown. As you might imagine, posting around these parts will be a might light through the holidays, however. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, a joyous Kwanzaa a hep Tet, and a Festive New Year to you all. UPDATE: Comments a’workin’. Happy Holidays!
Graves Appeals Prohibitively High Bond
Lawyers for Anthony Graves on Dec. 21 fired back at Burleson Co. District Judge Reva Townslee Corbett, who, in an apparent screw you to the federal bench, the day before set a $1 million bond for Graves to be released from jail. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March overturned Graves’ 1994 capital…
The History Boys
If you like your British movies quick, raunchy, reflective, and bittersweet, then The History Boys, based on the stage play, is for you.
The Common Law
Tips for buying on eBay during the holidays
Music DVDs
Elvis: The Ed Sullivan Shows(Image Entertainment) Elvis Presley’s 1956-1957 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show make you feel awfully sorry for the ventriloquist that followed him. Seeing E get dropped like an atom bomb into the larger context of Sullivan’s something-for-everyone variety hour makes the resulting cultural sea change all the more resonant. Footage from…
Music DVDs
Before the Music Dies Bless Before the Music Dies’ little heart. What true music lover hasn’t despaired that Ashlee Simpson outsells Shelby Lynne 10-to-1, or when the same Fergie song comes on their local Clear Channel station thrice in 90 minutes? Anyone with a broadband connection and an iPod, that’s who. B4MD’s overall logic never…
Phases & Stages
YusufAn Other Cup (Ya/Atlantic) The Cat came back. Twenty-eight years after disappearing into the Muslim faith, London-born Steven Demetre Georgiou, 58, returns: on only his third life and a reedy chorus of Cat calls harking back to the second. As Cat Stevens, Yusuf Islam wrote Seventies radio nirvana (“Wild World,” “Peace Train,” “If You Want…
Disaster Assistance: Numbers vs. People
FEMA spent tens of millions of dollars improperly on hurricane evacuees, Government Accountability Office says; others beg to differ
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Folk-rock grudge match and the unmanning of men
Music DVDs
TupacThe Complete Live Performances (Death Row) Known as both an exceptional studio rapper and actor, Tupac, it stands to reason, also thrived as live performer. Nope. It’s possible that the young, brash lyricist faltered in live settings as a mere victim of hip-hop circumstance. Too many otherwise proficient MCs tend to scream into their microphone…
Music DVDs
Red Hot + Blue(Shout! Factory) Cole Porter (1891-1964) didn’t live to see his community decimated by AIDS, but in composing the common ground for director Neil Jordan’s vaudevillian meeting of Kirsty MacColl and the Pogues on “Miss Otis Regrets/Just One of Those Things,” he’s celebrated in this earnest propagandist video project from 1990. Alex Cox’s…
Phases & Stages
AterciopeladosOye (Nacional) Inevitably, Colombia’s Aterciopelados – “Velvety Ones” – have located the velvet rut. 2000’s career creamer, Gozo Poderoso, got even Grammy’s attention, but neither solo album from the group’s yin-yang, nor a 2002 greatest hits broached a follow-up. Now, Oye leaves word of Triple-A. Platter six packs its predecessor’s “powerful pleasure,” but flatter, as…
Point Austin: Wal-Mart’s Xmas Gift
Bringing coal to Northcross, something better for the rest of us
A By-No-Means-Comprehensive List of Austinite Comics Writers and Artists
Some of the most illustrious comics creators to have made their home in Austin sometime between 1960 and 2006
Two Trips to Costco
A private chef and a mom share their notes
Music DVDs
Leonard CohenI’m Your Man (Lions Gate) Lian Lunson’s I’m Your Man would be a fascinating documentary of Leonard Cohen had she included more Leonard Cohen. Lunson alternates between hypnotic interviews with a Zen Leonard and clips from a lackluster 2005 tribute concert, time better spent conversing with the poet himself. A closing duet with U2,…
Music DVDs
Mobb DeepLife of the Infamous: The Videos (Loud) Representing Queensbridge to the fullest, Mobb Deep chronicles its journey from Juvenile Hell to G-Unit affiliation with this relatively uniform collection of 16 videos. Between recurring themes and the obvious peaks of “Shook Ones Pt. II,” “Quiet Storm,” and “Got It Twisted,” Havoc and Prodigy illustrate the…
Phases & Stages
The Blue VanDear Independence (TVT) The Blue Van likes it retro: guitar, harmonies, and organ – lots of organ. Yet Dear Independence, the Dutch quartet’s sophomore effort, plays out less like a Nuggets comp – as heard on the British invasion of 2005’s debut The Art of Rolling – and more like a measured R&B…
Beside the Point
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like 2007
The HRC’s Beckett Online: Googling for Godot
With “Fathoms From Anywhere: A Samuel Beckett Centenary Exhibition,” online in perpetuity, Web-wanderers can plumb the depths of the Ransom Center’s Beckett collection, which is among the world’s finest
Two Trips to Costco
From a Family’s Perspective Some things, like oysters, are acquired tastes. Others, like chocolate, inspire instantaneous devotion. Costco falls into the latter category. The buzz about Costco had reached deafening proportions before I decided to give it a go and check it out myself. The noise began as chatter when we lived in Southern California…
Music DVDs
Bob Dylan: The Unauthorized Documentaries(MVD Visual) The producer/director of these three rough studies – 1966 World Tour: The Home Movies, World Tours 1966-1974: Through the Camera of Barry Feinstein, and 1975-1981: Rolling Thunder and the Gospel Years, itself “totally” unauthorized – is a Bob Dylan impersonator. Joel Gilbert, frontman for L.A. tribute band Highway 61…
Music DVDs
MetallicaThe Videos: 1989-2004 (Warner Bros.) Metallica’s lyrical and visual adaptation of Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun for “One” represents the pinnacle of all metal videos. The lurking shadows and stalking depths of its black-and-white footage became a standard motif for the Bay area wrecking act. Conveniently packaged here are all 21…
Phases & Stages
Sufjan StevensSongs for Christmas (Asthmatic Kitty) Some locals were so turned off by Sufjan Stevens’ pretentiousness during his September shows at the Paramount that they erased his music from their iPods. At the time, it seemed like a ridiculous reaction to every indie hipster’s favorite singing-songwriting Christian, but Songs for Christmas actually lends the tiniest…
Reefer Madness
Results of new study suggest environmental factors have more influence on behavior than government would like us to believe
Austin Theatre: That was the year that was
Three of Austin’s finest theatre folk – director/actress Lorella Loftus, director Sonnet Blanton, and lighting designer Jason Amato – describe how 2006 was for them and the local stage scene
Two Trips to Costco
From a Professional’s Perspective Costco is many things to many people, but I’d be the first to agree that shopping there isn’t for everyone: If you don’t possess beaucoup storage space, a big fridge, the wherewithal to navigate recalcitrant carts the size of rowboats, and the muscle to lift and tote heavy loads, then Costco…
Music DVDs
Waylon JenningsNashville Rebel (Legacy) Waylon Jennings merits all the recognition Music Row cares to bestow, but clocking in at a mere hour, padded by a pair of archival commercials for RCA, Nashville Rebel, coinciding with the 4-CD box of the same name, doesn’t cut it. Sure, it rolls out hits: a 1970 performance of “Only…
Music DVDs
Iron MaidenDeath on the Road (Sanctuary) 2003’s fantastical Dance of Death was built for the stage. With Bruce Dickinson cast as both Phantom of the Opera and the grim reaper, Death on the Road, filmed in Dortmund Westenfalenhalle, Germany, comes in two separate audio formats capturing a typical Maiden voyage through a blitzkrieg of angles…
Worldwide Radio Wrestling!
HD format hopes to body-slam satellite radio to an industry draw
The Hightower Report
The Nobel Prize for Greed; and Camp Wellstone Winners
Rogue Performance Venue: Paradise lost
James Cotton thought he’d found an ideal spot for his new theatre, but he may be forced to leave over conflicts with a neighboring rehearsal studio for bands
The Host on High
Some entertaining words of caution
Music DVDs
Bloodied but Unbowed: Bloodshot Records’ Life in the Trenches(Bloodshot) Compressing more than 12 years into 31Ú2 hours, this rollicking chronicle of Bloodshot Records, the Chicago indie that gave the world “insurgent country,” focuses more on the music than any storyline. Through videos and live performances, it follows the label’s irreverent, often drunken sensibilities while giving…
Music DVDs
The WhoThe Vegas Job: Reunion Concert Live in Vegas (Passport Video) Oh, the irony! The Who pulls out all of the stops during “Won’t Get Fooled Again” – Roger Daltrey’s microphone lasso, Pete Townshend’s windmill strum – while falling victim to the multimillion-dollar hoax that was Pixelon.com. It’s a shame this October 1999 concert wasn’t…
New Channels on the Local Scene
HD channels currently or soon to be available: KUT-FM 90.5 News/Variety KHFI-FM 96.7 Contemporary Hits KVET-FM 98.1 Rockin’ Country KASE-FM 100.7 All New Country KPEZ-FM 102.3 Christian Contemporary KBPA-FM 103.5 Smooth Jazz KFMK-FM 105.9 Spanish Oldies KINV-FM 107.7 TejanoSource: iBiquity
Vertical Helical Scan, We Hardly Knew Ye
You’d better record this on your VCR – it’s probably the last time we’ll ever mention it
365 Days/365 Plays: Week 7
The yearlong festival of plays by Suzan-Lori Parks continues with seven short plays presented by Red Then Productions in Week 7
Just Another Drop of the Midleton, Please
It’s Irish whiskey weather
Music DVDs
16 Horsepower Live (Alternative Tentacles) The word eulogy is synonymous with 16 Horsepower’s sound. So it’s fitting that this 2-DVD set eulogizes the gothic Denver grindhouse the only proper way: live. Disc one features Brussels, 2002, but it’s the second disc that reveals concerts from a younger, hungrier band, including a 1996 German performance, as…
Music DVDs
Cream(Image) Well after the Eagles but only two months prior to Pink Floyd, hell froze over again with the May 2005 reunification of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce. In its wake, 110 minutes of rock doc skimps on “Sunshine of Your Love” in favor of Spinal Tap narration and talking heads blowing wrong…
Gift List: HD receivers
A sampling of some available receivers
The Out-of-Print VHS Titles You might never find on DVD
The format wars leave casualties: Films that perhaps were once available on VHS but take forever, some fornever, to come out on DVD. Sometimes listings like this nudge the powers that be into action, but don’t count on it. The bad news: Out-of-print videos can be pricey if you can find them on eBay or…
Arts Review
Rob Nash’s It’s a Wonderful Life, 70s Christmas Special, Starring the Fonz is a masterful melding of Seventies television and Frank Capra’s film, but unless one has studied either subject in depth, the meeting proves perplexing
Wine of the Week
Big bargains at the big box
Music DVDs
Neko CaseLive From Austin TX (New West) As enthralling as Neko Case is on album, the alt.country diva’s live shows can be occasionally listless. This 2003 Austin City Limits performance poses no such problems, though at 42 minutes, it’s much too brief. With modest backing by Jon Rauhouse on pedal steel, guitar, and banjo; Tom…
Music DVDs
Blind FaithLondon Hyde Park 1969 (Sanctuary) When Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Rick Grech, and Stevie Winwood played their debut gig as Blind Faith before 100,000 people at London’s Hyde Park in 1969, they proved their own toughest act to follow. London Hyde Park captures the short-lived supergroup’s awe-inducing set with narrative and additional footage positing…
37th Street Lights
Will the elaborate holiday illuminations burn brighter or burn out?
Crew Stories
Jeff Schwan, stuntman
Arts Review
Volitant Gallery’s exhibition “Take Me to Bed or Lose Me Forever,” which both employs and questions many of love’s clichés to reflect on our experience of the emotion, is a smile and a good laugh
Food-o-File
Lambert’s Barbecue’s big debut and, yeah, more gingerbread
Music DVDs
Jeff TweedySunken Treasure: Live in the Pacific Northwest (Nonesuch) Jeff Tweedy isn’t afraid of you and will beat your ass. Not really, but he would prefer folks not talk while he’s trying to sing. This radical idea is a recurring theme of Sunken Treasure, a travelogue of last February’s Seattle-to-San Francisco solo trek. In Portland,…
Music DVDs
Widespread PanicEarth to Atlanta (Sanctuary) String Cheese IncidentLive From Austin TX (New West) Upon the release of Earth to America, Widespread Panic simulcast a live performance at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre to movie theatres nationwide. This two-disc set of that show finds the Georgia juggernaut in grand form. Over the course of 26 songs, including sizzling…
WilCo Constable Lawsuit: Crying wolf … and mayhem
Courthouse dogs bark that Constable Gary Griffin may have broken law by including mental-health-call-related 911 logs as evidence in his civil case against county
In Space
Hurry! Surely your 2006-launched site qualifies for at least one of the 16 categories
TCB
Last-minute musical gift ideas, a nasty feud down South, and a quiet move portends Red River’s inevitable eastward migration
Arts Review
Arthouse’s EVR: e-flux video rental offers a chance not only to see some very interesting, hard-to-find pieces of film and video art, but also to participate in a study of our own patterns of communication
Holiday Wish Lists 2006
Give ’til it helps: Part 2
Music DVDs
The Passing Show: The Life & Music of Ronnie Lane (Eagle Vision) Whether he was playing for 120,000 or 12, Ronnie Lane remained a musician’s musician whose influence far outstripped his wealth. He walked away from the Faces in 1973 as Rod Stewart’s impending superstardom broke the band in America, instead sinking his money into…
Music DVDs
Rory GallagherLive at Montreux (Eagle Eye) From the late Sixties until his death in 1995, Rory Gallagher inflamed blues-driven guitar rock with a passion worthy of his Irish heritage. Live at Montreux gathers the best of his five appearances at the venerable Swiss festival with a handful of bonus tracks, all expertly shot. Gallagher’s this-one-goes-to-11…
2006 Political Procrastinators’ Holiday Gift Guide
Some of these ideas might even be real
DVD Watch
“They felt the film was … simply unendurable. That no one would go see it.”
Rocky Balboa
This final chapter in the Rocky saga is terrific – maybe not great, like that first kiss of fist in ’76, but good, solid, exhilarating entertainment of the stand-up-and-cheer variety.
Kurt Vonnegut, Loud and Clear
Austinite rescues archival interviews
The Kingdom of Heaven
Psychedelic pioneer Powell St. John, on the Right Track Now
Music DVDs
Bobby DarinSeeing Is Believing (Hyena) Shortly before his death in 1973 at age 37, Bobby Darin starred in an NBC variety show while Dean Martin’s program went on summer hiatus. Most of the 20 songs on Seeing Is Believing are culled from this show, though the packaging is too flimsy to offer particulars. Despite the…
Music DVDs
MarahSooner or Later in Spain (Yep Roc) Skeptical about Marah being one of the best live bands in the world? This DVD/CD set offers weighty proof. This two-hour performance recorded in late 2005 in Spain is a few notches above bootleg quality with bobbing audience heads obscuring the quintet and the sound less than crystalline.…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
TV Eye
Heroes and zeroes
Vajra Sky Over Tibet
In this documentary, the director wears his affection for Buddhist philosophy unashamedly on his sleeve, and as a result his movie nearly drowns in solemnity and noble intentions (not to mention chanting).
Page Two: A Little Light-Rain Music
A holiday meditation
Powell St. John Reviewed
Powell St. JohnRight Track Now (Dream Tracks) The remarkable nature of Right Track Now isn’t quite evident until the second disc, when chiming guitar meets the trippy burble of an electric jug on “You Don’t Know.” For the uninitiated, the 13th Floor Elevators debuted “You Don’t Know (How Young You Are),” written by Powell St.…
Music DVDs
The Go-BetweensThat Striped Sunlight Sound (Yep Roc) “The future’s so bright I’m not gonna wear shades,” smiles Grant McLennan gently at the conclusion of “The Acoustic Stories” half of this two-disc set. Three months after its February release, the 48-year-old Australian died from a heart attack in his sleep, at home in Brisbane. Seventy-five minutes…
Phases & Stages
Loreena McKennittAn Ancient Muse (Verve) Loreena McKennitt remains the queen of Celto-spiritual music, a classically trained Canadian whose sweeping catalog dates back to the 1985 release of Elemental. Her last studio release, 1997’s The Book of Secrets, was a crossover triumph, the tour de force that finally disseminated her panglobal musical vision via “The Mummers’…
FLDS’ Jeffs to Stand Trial
“Prophet” accused of abetting rape by arranging and presiding over the 2001 “spiritual marriage” of a 14-year-girl and her 19-year-old first cousin
Night at the Museum
Amid crummy sight gags and predictable physical comedy, sputtering scenes, and the stale and watered-down Stiller in another nonsense story, Night at the Museum is at best a rotation of backdrops for a parade of visual effects.
Letters @ 3AM
One of the great lessons of civilizations is that smarts don’t count for much in the long run
Music DVDs
The CarsUnlocked (Docurama) If you can handle elementary camerawork and shockingly hideous haircuts, it’s worth remembering that the Cars were the first band to apply the lessons of New Wave and European art-pop – brevity, copious synthesizers – to mass-market rock. Spanning 1978-1987, Cape Cod dive bars to sports arenas (including Houston’s Summit), the Boston…
Phases & Stages
Consider Jay-Z’s much-ballyhooed comeback a hot mess. Most of its beats are either too plastic flash (“Oh My God,” “Show Me What You Got,” and “Hollywood”), or downright listless (“Lost One,” “Minority Report,” and “Beach Chair”). Jigga’s failure to captivate as an MC results in his sounding more like a whiny old man than the…
Civil Rights Lawsuit Filed Against APD
Police deptartment and former officers violated man’s civil rights when they held him down, Tasered him, and punched him repeatedly in connection with a minor traffic accident last fall, suit charges
We Are Marshall
There are football movies, and then there’s this 800-pound gorilla of a gridiron weepie, which should be penalized for roughing the viewer.
After a Fashion
Gather ’round children and listen to the tale of how Eight Is Enough factored into a big family reunion
Music DVDs
KissKissology: The Ultimate Kiss Collection Vol. 1, 1974-1977 (VH1 Classic) Commentary on more than five hours of mostly live Kiss footage from the New York metal quartet’s beginnings well into its peak comes courtesy of the franchise’s controlling partners, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, the two founders and band members that didn’t drink or do…
Music DVDs
PixiesLive at the Paradise in Boston (Eagle Vision) Imagine 90 minutes of indie rock perfection, from “La La Love You” to “Caribou,” with only 200 of your closest friends. The Pixies stole 2004 with a successful reunion tour, and after the summer festivals, they returned home to Boston’s Paradise. The results are intimate and playful,…
Phases & Stages
Tomasz Stanko QuartetLontano (ECM) Tomasz Stanko knows how to set a mood. The veteran Polish trumpeter’s seventh album for ECM, Lontano, is all about using space to create a mood. He does so with a post-Miles vision and an elegance that’s earned him the highest accolades from the European jazz community. In listening to the…
Presbyterians, Neighborhood Compromise
Redeemer Presbyterian Church 1, Rosewood neighborhood 1, IRS 0
The Good Shepherd
Matt Damon abandons the cat-and-mouse theatrics of his Bourne identity to play the reserved fictional functionary whose life serves as the prism through which this film examines the early years of the CIA.
Soccer Watch
Bob Bradley names 29 players to U.S. men’s training-camp rosting
Music DVDs
Wu-Tang ClanLegend of the Wu-Tang Clan: The Videos (Loud) Hasn’t it seemed lately like heads have been forgetting just how utterly overwhelmed we once were by the rise of the Wu-Tang Clan? When the “Method Man” video emerged in ’93, rap fans took notice of its smoky grime in mass. Fashioning themselves as Shaolin swordsmen,…
Music DVDs
Fun From None: Live at the No Fun Fest 2004 & 2005(Load) If you like incomprehensible, confrontational noise, you probably know about the No Fun Fest, a yearly NYC event organized by noise mastermind Carlos Giffioni. This 2-DVD set, bravely filmed by Chris Habib, piles on the weird, yet the druggy strobe effect he employs…
Phases & Stages
Frida HyvönenUntil Death Comes (Secretly Canadian) With a fragile voice and strong, simple hand, Swedish nymph Frida Hyvönen lands stateside with her debut. Until Death Comes doesn’t transform the fabric of reality, but without stepping completely outside the box, Hyvönen does what Cat Power and Tori Amos never could: She embodies humanity, warts and all.…
Myth, Reality, and the State Budget Surplus
Depending on who’s doing the talking, next year’s budget will have Texas sitting on billions of dollars … or hot air
Dreamgirls
Dreamgirls is an infectious experience of sequins and songs that lives up to the hype. Opens Monday.
Day Trips
River View Bed & Breakfast in Blanco provides small-town ambience while offering guests a central base camp for exploring the Hill Country
Music DVDs
U2U218: Videos (Interscope) U2’s videos match their ambition: causing a mob scene in downtown L.A. (“Where the Streets Have No Name”), knocking about Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport (“Beautiful Day”), rocking the Louisiana Superdome with Green Day (Skids cover “The Saints Are Coming”). Released separately, Videos exceeds U218’s audio analogue thanks to two extra versions…
Music DVDs
Half-Cocked (Rumur) “We started playing these shows so we could make money, so we could eat.” Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky’s fictional story of life on the road in 1994 isn’t much of a stretch. Soaked in the era’s rock, Half-Cocked tracks Truckstop, a nonband acted by nonactor musicians Tara Jane O’Neil, Jason Noble, and…
Graves Free on Bond; Prosecutor Withdraws
Burleson County DA files motion voluntarily recusing her office from handling the retrial of Anthony Graves, convicted and sentenced to die for a 1992 multiple murder in that county; 5th Circuit again rules in Graves’ favor, denying state motion to keep him locked up until he can be retried
Luv Doc Recommends: Armadillo Christmas Bazaar
If Abercrombie and Fitch wanted to really be controversial, they would put up a huge billboard next to I-35 featuring Santa’s shirtless, unripped, extruded pink torso in some red denim hip huggers with the fly unzipped…just enough to expose his snowy white treasure trailhead, but not enough to free the salty Cyclops, as it were.…
