PLUS: Vote Now in Best of Austin • Summer Camps

January 23 • 2009

Jan 23-29, 2009 / Vol. 28 / No. 21
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Cover Story

HBO: Way to Go?

Gay bishop Gene Robinson’s invocation added to the HBO special after gaffe excluding it in the original broadcast.

by Ash Bell

Broadway’s Back (but that’s not all)

“Broadway, that’s what fills up [Bass Concert Hall] the most.” So says April Holmes, interim director of the UT Performing Arts Center, and that explains why, in the first seven months after its reopening, Bass will play host to seven – count ’em, seven – musicals from the Great White Way. About once a month…

by Robert Faires

Phases & Stages

Built by Snow Mega Built by Snow’s nerdy novelty appears easy to write off, the electro-popsters wearing their brains on their sleeves in a “Giant Robot Attack” and the “Science of Love.” Fortunately, the local quartet’s quirk is cut with an emotional sincerity that’s not only endearing but at times surprisingly apt, as with the…

by Doug Freeman

Headlines

• Bye-bye, George; hello, Barack: President Barack Obama moves into the White House as former President George W. Bush retires to Dallas … and we can get back to the work of rebuilding our country and community. • The Legislature essentially went on inauguration hiatus after last week’s House overthrow of former Speaker Tom Craddick…

by Chronicle Staff

Informing Documents

Brandon Darby is no stranger to media attention, but he’s new to the kind he’s been getting since a St. Paul Pioneer Press article identified him in October as the informant who had “infiltrated” Bradley Crowder and David McKay’s “protest group.” A few days later, Darby’s friend and fellow Austin activist Scott Crow passionately defended…

by Chronicle Staff

Res Publica

Thursday22 TEXAS GREEN NETWORK MEETING 6-8:30pm. Red Bud Center, 3601 Lake Austin Blvd., 473-3200. www.texasgreennetwork.org. BILL SPELMAN CITY COUNCIL CAMPAIGN KICKOFF 5:30pm. Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto, 466-6939. Free. www.billspelman.org. Friday23 THE UNFORESEEN Join Save Our Springs Alliance Director Bill Bunch, rancher Henry Brooks, and filmmaker Laura Dunn for a screening and discussion of documentary…

by Chronicle Staff

Phases & Stages

Woozyhelmet Get Down (Soda Pop Sounds) Woozyhelmet has distilled some of the late-night debauchery since its house-party debut back in 1997. From the trio’s thrashy post-punk naying now radiate traces of New Wave, Pavement, the Dead Milkmen, and the Pixies on Get Down, the group’s third full-length. They catapult into brief Fugazi-esque opener “New Bear”…

by Francesca Camillo

Playing Through

If hot-rodders can still remake battered old cars into things of brazen beauty, the rest of us can get to work remaking America into something equally bold and brave

by Thomas Hackett

Page Two: Up, Up, and Away

Prologue “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, This ain’t no fooling around No time for dancing, or lovey dovey” – Talking Heads, “Life During Wartime” Once again, the electoral system as described in the U.S. Constitution has worked. There has been yet another peaceful change of administrations. The new president’s widespread and enthusiastic…

by Louis Black

Phases & Stages

Athens v. Sparta The History of the Peloponnesian War (Absence of Romance) Athens v. Sparta is exactly what the title suggests: a history of the Peloponnesian War of 431-404BC. Conceived and created by Charlie Roadman of locals F for Fake, the album sets narration by Hyde Park Theatre’s Ken Webster from the histories of Thucydides…

by Daniel Mee

Phases & Stages

T Bird & the Breaks Learn About It Even with the ongoing soul revival, no one’s mined the blue-eyed variety represented by shouters Eric Burdon, Mitch Ryder, and Delbert McClinton. With 11 members, Austin’s T Bird & the Breaks work that vein to the utmost, from the cry and croon of vocalist Tim Crane (T…

by Jim Caligiuri

Phases & Stages

13 Crack Tracks: Austin Bands Perform Songs From the Crackpipes Songbook (Chicken Ranch) It took a lymphoma diagnosis of Crack Pipes guitarist Billy Steve Korpi to pay tribute to Austin’s sanctified punk R&B originals, but 13 Crack Tracks proves one silver lining. The crooked songbook of the garage-soul brothers remains vast and ripe for the…

by Audra Schroeder

My Bloody Valentine 3D

This horror film is a full-on, old-school, gore-hound heaven – a supersaturated arterial goregasm with zero socially redeeming values for anyone other than first-year med students.

by Marc Savlov

Phases & Stages

Public Offenders Drop Jewels (A Call to Men) The Public Offenders’ nods to Tupac Shakur extend far beyond “A Girl Named Brenda” on the Austin quintet’s socially geared Drop Jewels. The late figurehead’s prophetic message is tattooed across the Offenders’ debut LP like the ink that covered his body. Drop Jewels is “A Call 2…

by Chase Hoffberger

Inkheart

This fantasy adventure, in which characters come to life when the books they’re in are read aloud, boasts a strong cast and an ingrained love for reading and the well-told tale.

by Marc Savlov

CIA San Antonio’s Classes for Chefs and Enthusiasts

In addition to chef-training programs, the CIA in San Antonio offers periodic hands-on classes – some for culinary professionals and some for amateur “food enthusiasts” – that cover various facets of Latin American cooking. While not exactly the same as taking lessons in Mexico or Peru, these classes are the real deal, and they’re practically…

by MM Pack

Phases & Stages

Greyhounds ¡No Más! (Luther) “I’ll take you to the KFC and buy you a combo dinner,” sings guitarist Andrew Trube on “It’s Alright” from ¡No Más!. The platter serves as an apt metaphor for this song cycle, unpretentious funky grooves dripping with grease and thick organ riffs oozing like gravy. The Austin-via-L.A. duo of Trube…

by Thomas Fawcett

Che: Part One

Steven Soderbergh’s filmmaking legacy is his aesthetic daring, and his latest – as massive and imperfect as it is – just might be his most daring work to date.

by Josh Rosenblatt

Record Review

David Garza Dream Delay (Cosmica) Between the technological tangle that seals Dream Delay, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen himself hollering amidst the miasma of “Minority Boys Got $,” and David Garza’s street-beat lyricism – “cloudy as Cocteau,” rampant as Jim Carroll – writhes Austin’s Prince. The Cured melodicism of opener “2 Sinners in the Garden” (“We are…

by Raoul Hernandez

Phases & Stages

Paradox Called to Mind (End of Earth) This also happened to the Beastie Boys on Hello Nasty. They found a rhyme scheme that sounded fresh over 32 bars and fashioned a whole album around it. On Called to Mind, Paradox’s inability to switch the game up is the Austin rapper’s Achilles’ heel. Fortunately, he’s set…

by Chase Hoffberger

Phases & Stages

The Gourds Haymaker! (Yep Roc) Few acts can make the tenacity of merely surviving sound celebratory, so maybe the Gourds really were made for these times. The local quintet’s 10th studio offering is polished and direct but still distinctly and eclectically Gourdian, from the growling New Orleans blues-funk of “The Way You Can Get” to…

by Doug Freeman

Phases & Stages

T Jarrod Quartet Jazz Offerings to the Schnauzer King (Music Room) Longtime Austin resident and pianist T Jarrod Bonta usually hobnobs in country music circles. In Texas, that necessarily includes Western swing, and if this debut effort had hot fiddles and steel guitar, it would be a Western swing album. Instead, it’s a delightfully swinging…

by Jay Trachtenberg

Phases & Stages

Undone: A Musicfest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen (Right Ave.) Robert Earl Keen as the “father” of the Texas/Red Dirt Music scene makes plenty of sense, so Undone, a double-disc tribute by some of that scene’s leading lights, was inevitable. No matter how big a Keen fan you are, it’s where you stand on artists…

by Jim Caligiuri

Phases and Stages

The Archibalds Easy Living (Superpop!) Joey Thompson, principle songwriter for the Archibalds, has a knack for bringing out the gold in other people’s trash. His character sketches spring to life on the band’s second full-length, Easy Living, with scandalous tales such as “Me & Your Sister,” “Gold Teeth,” and “Come on In,” while the small-stakes…

by Austin Powell

Phases & Stages

Randy Weeks Going My Way (Certifiable) The Los Angeles Times just picked Randy Weeks as one of the artists to watch in 2009, and Going My Way should guarantee all eyes and ears tuned in his direction now that he’s settled in Austin. A former member of the Lonesome Strangers, Weeks first gained attention when…

by Margaret Moser

Phases & Stages

Ume Sunshower EP A forcefully lusty, rich sonic mosaic, Ume’s five-song Sunshower EP is a more polished version of its classically dark, serrated work. The local trio still plucks from a hearty buffet of influences, just a bit more discriminatingly. “East of Hercules” opens with vocalist Lauren Larson’s panging guitar vista, nodding to the bombast…

by Francesca Camillo

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