El Pepe Polkas
Okay, you’ve enjoyed dancing to polkas, cumbias, and rancheras for three weeks now at some of East Austin’s finer hole-in-the-wall conjunto/norte�o establishments. Now you say you need a little more room to stretch out, something more like a dance hall. Well, head to 1523 Tinnin Ford Road (just off of East Riverside and only two…
7 & 7 Is
We start this week’s missive with a question. What if some goofball geneticist decided to build a hybrid Charlie Brown composed of equal parts Leiber/Stoller and Charles Schultz? The horrific results of such tinkerings are explored on Polio’s “Charlie Brown Wins Again” (Read the Label). The music strikes out with the fury of an angry…
Dancing About Architecture
So I dropped in at that new radio station (101X) to see how things look over there (it looks like, well, a radio station under construction) and who do I run into but P-ing Butthole Gibby Haynes and “Leatherface #4” Robbie Jacks, trying to get into the fortress where the station is located (One Texas…
Bonus Tracks
ONLY BOWIE (Only Boy) If the reason most tribute albums fail is that they have no focus to them, Only Bowie suffers from no such lack of direction. Jeff Smith’s Only Boy Records presents here not just a cheap pun on its own name, but a testosterone-charged look (by mostly Austin bands) at a man…
RM 2222 at City Park Road Lost in Winkieland
City Park Road takes you to an actual city park, but a surprising number of Austinites have never followed it to the shores of Lake Austin from its stoplight interchange on RM 2222. This is a shame, because it may be the prettiest roadway anywhere near the River City, much more human-scaled than the beefed-up…
Record Reviews
ENCOMIUM: A TRIBUTE TO LED ZEPPELIN (Atlantic) Henry Rollins inadvertently defines “encomium” when he suggests in the liner notes to this Led Zeppelin tribute that there’s a secretly encoded message in “Stairway to Heaven” that reads, “We’re going to make a lot of money off this thing.” And in luring original Zep fans who’ve now…
Crazed Geetar by a Southern Hipster
“When it gits down to it, I play music. That’s what I do. I can’t ever remember not playin’ I mean, I was in bands in fifth grade! I guess I started around fourth grade.” “How old were you then? Eight or nine years old?” “Sumpthin’ like ‘at.” Evan Johns, who turns 39 on July…
The Adventures of Sancho Panza
by Mindy LaBernz photos by Johnny Medina Vile, humid Houston heat permeates Fitzgeralds’ cramped backstage. In the wings, Charlie Sexton’s nine guitars stand sweltering at attention. Road manager Corey Moore glides about troubleshooting, strategically arranging floor fans, hunting down face towels and water cups, all the while wisecracking with the band while they put on…
The Mother of All Mex
They say that no Mexican meal is complete without some chile. Perhaps this explains why the specialty of the house at Curra’s Grill, owned and operated by the Curra family of Nueva Rosita, Coahuila (not far from the border southwest of Piedras Negras), is jalape�os en escabeche. This relish of herbed jalape�os and vegetables cooked…
Council Watch
by Alex de Marban Today is expected to be Eric Mitchell’s biggest day as an officeholder yet. The newest and most volatile councilmember, who has publicly called some environmentalists “assholes” and who regularly accuses his colleagues of skullduggery, will see his brand of divisive politics put to the test when the council votes whether to…
Food-O-File
Two Fruit Salutes Peach Jamboree Corner of Robert T. Martinez & Hidalgo, off East Seventh St. Saturday, June 24, 8am-2pm The East Side Community Farmer’s Market is hosting its third annual Peach Jamboree. While listening to live music, you can: taste some jams, buy some peaches, hear some stories, have your face painted, and watch…
Midland Tangles With a Rare Bird Republicans Fowl Property Rights
For a short time, Midge Erskine was a hero. ABC World News Tonight showed her sitting in a private jet, cradling an injured whooping crane in her arms. The jet was whisking Erskine and the bird, which had been shot by a hunter, from Erskine’s home in Midland to San Antonio, where an avian veterinarian…
Kids ‘n’ Tell
“You have to start it `Once upon a time.'” So says my daughter whenever I read her a story now and start with anything but that timeless phrase. Though she’s only two-and-a-half, Rosalind already has firm ideas of what stories are and how they should be told. It isn’t that her mother or I consciously…
Naked City
Edited by Louisa C. Brinsmade, with contributions this week by Roseana Auten, Dave Cook, and Nelson England. BRADLEY ISD IN THE YEAR 2000?: The Austin Independent School District Citizens’ Bond Advisory Committee, which has labored since June 1994 on recommendations for facilities improvement and expansion, will issue its final report to the AISD Board of…
Scanlines
CHEUNG KING EXPRESS World Video D: Wong Kar Wei; with Tony Leung Chi Wah, Bridget Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro. The second of director Wong Kar Wei’s films to be released last year, Cheung King Express isn’t quite as ambitious or complex as its immediate predecessor, Ashes of Time, but it is no less masterful or brilliantly…
Road Shows
JUNE FRI 23 Acoustic Alchemy, Backyard FRI 23 Bluerunners, Antone’s FRI 23 Goodbye Harry, Dancin’ French Liberals of ’48, Emo’s FRI 23 Sixty Six, Steamboat FRI 23 Victor Essiet & the Mandators, Flamingo Cantina FRI 23 Mudhoney, Clawhammer, Liberty Lunch SAT 24 Lucky Dube, Liberty Lunch SAT 24 Tony Express, Aussie’s SUN 25 Yellowman, Tony…
About AIDS
Women who test positive for HIV infection fear loss of control over their lives, possible loss of their children and housing, and the ultimate loss of social supports. For this reason, many women who are tested and who test HIV-antibody positive keep the information secret. Women who are infected tend to isolate themselves and often…
Live Music Recommended
Liberty Lunch, Friday 23 Considering how indierock has become the rotting preserve of the juiceless and dull, I guess we should be thankful both these stellar outfits have graduated, albeit to the purgatory which lies between underground stardom and mainstream stardom. With My Brother the Cow, Mudhoney may have finally turned in their most focused,…
Coach’s Corner
“I’m not wrong enough to be right for you.” – my song… got any words?? The basketball season is over. For the past several months, many, many nights of my life, as it were, are lost to the sound of screaming announcers, bouncing balls, and topless bar advertisements. Now, adrift in a void, I’m bored.…
Shorty’s is Still Closed
Eleventh Street offers one of the starker contrasts in the entire City of Austin. Eastbound from Lavaca Street, you’ll pass the State Capitol Building on the left, and the north end of downtown on your right, both humming with activity even when the lobbyists aren’t in session. One good yawn away, across the I-35 bridge,…
Day Trips
Lake Georgetown was nearly deserted on a recent Sunday morning this spring. Only a few picnic tables were taken and an occasional boat crossed the lake. Most of the activity was in the campgrounds and by the lake shore where, in every indent, there was a fisherman casting line. According to U.S. Army Corps of…
Show Times
Showtimes listed below start Friday, June 23 and cover the week ending Thursday, June 29. *An asterisk (*) before a title means that no passes or special admission discounts (apart from matinee discounts) will be accepted for any screening. *Parentheses indicate weekend showtimes for Saturdays and Sundays only, unless otherwise noted. *Changes may sometimes occur,…
Hearth & Soul
La Brea Vinyl Pit Suz, I don’t know where else to turn. We bought this house almost three years ago. The previous owner considered himself a jack-of all-trades. We were able to repair his attempt at carpentry and his painting was an easy (although expensive) error to fix but when he decided he was a…
Diamonds Are Forever
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn base-ball, the rules, and realities of the game.” – historian Jacques Barzun If Barzun was right then both baseball and Amer-ica are in a slump. In October 1994, for the first time in almost a century, there was no World Series. The…
The Importance of Being Accessorized Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down
Anyone who really knows me is aware, or could guess, that I have a large wardrobe, extensive collection of accessories, and a nice big closet at home to put it all in; exclusive, that is, of my hats, which I keep, for the most part, at my studio downtown. My closet, six feet wide and…
Little City II
3403 Guadalupe, 467-2326 Open Sunday-Thursday, 8am-11pm; Friday & Saturday, 8am-midnight These days, coffeehouses in Austin pop up like ant beds in high summer. This trend once quickened the pulses of coffee fanatics, but now it’s just as likely to incite yawns. Why? Because the coffee itself too often proves disappointing. Espresso runs from overly bitter…
Film
BURNT BY THE SUND: Nikita Mikhalkov; with Mikhalkov, Nadia Mikhalkov, Oleg Menchikov, Ingeborga Dapkounaite, Andre Oumansky, Viatcheslav Tikhonov. Set against the backdrop of the Russian countryside under Stalin’s rule, this Oscar-winner for best foreign film is a brilliant, Chekhovian meditation on trust, love, and the intrusive horrors that period of time brought to otherwise normal…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
The loofah is considered a delicacy in parts of the U.S. According to Candle Burning Magic, to free yourself of Satan’s influences, you need two white altar candles, conjure oil, a personal candle, a black object candle, Mars oil, Seven Holy Spirits incense, and Satan Be Gone oil. According to Texas Monthly, the average biotech…
Mr. Fix It: Corey Moore
“I never one day in my life think that I have a job,” says Corey Moore, suckin’ on a Shady Thang a few weeks before going on the road as Charlie Sexton’s tour manager. A drummer turned drum tech turned tour manager, the eternally mellow Moore has followed a natural career track over the past…
Evan Johns
Burnin’ Down the Barn (Only Boy) It seems to me that if Evan Johns had more imitators/peers, there’d have to be a genre of rock named for him. Just as rock itself sprung from blues and country, and such offshoots as heavy metal and grunge jumped off from there, Johns takes the basics of rock…
