Losing Ground
Losing Ground 1982, NR, 87 min. Directed by Kathleen Collins, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Seret Scott, Bill Gunn, Duane Jones, Billie Allen, Maritza Rivera. A marital crisis between a philosophy professor and her artist husband erupts when the painter’s model enters the equation and forces a re-examination of sexual emotions. Part of…
Phantasm I, II, & III
Phantasm I, II, & III R. Directed by Don A. Coscarelli, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm. The cult horror equivalent of the Holy Grail – will screen over three nights with director Don A. Coscarelli and stars Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm in attendance. The 1979 original is a…
Savinifest
Savinifest NR. Directed by Tom Savini, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Tom Savini, the special-effects wizard behind most of George Romero’s creep-fests (Dawn of the Dead, Knightriders, Martin) and other gonzo horror gems (From Dusk Till Dawn) will be at the Alamo – in person – for this special celebration of his…
Deulhan Hum Le Jayegnge
Deulhan Hum Le Jayegnge NR. Directed by Haim Shiran, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Jewish Life in Morocco, Tunisia, and Spain: A Retrospective of Haim Shiran’s Films is a three-night series of films by this Israeli film and television producer. All films screen with English subtitles and will be followed by a…
Academy Awards Party
Academy Awards Party NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Alamo Drafthouse hosts a screening party with prize giveaways, drink specials, sing-along contests, and clips of memorable moments from previous broadcasts and embarrassing failed projects of the nominees during commercial breaks. Admission is free, but to reserve a seat, buy…
Clash of the Titans
Clash of the Titans 1981, PG, 118 min. Directed by Desmond Davis, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Laurence Olivier, Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Burgess Meredith, Sian Phillips, Maggie Smith, Claire Bloom, Ursula Andress. Ray Harryhausen’s special effects take center stage in this epic father-and-son saga played out in the forms of Zeus (Olivier)…
Jewish Life in Morocco, Tunisia and Spain: A Retrospective of Haim Shiran’s Films
Jewish Life in Morocco, Tunisia and Spain: A Retrospective of Haim Shiran’s Films NR. Directed by Haim Shiran, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Jewish Life in Morocco, Tunisia, and Spain: A Retrospective of Haim Shiran’s Films is a three-night series of films by this Israeli film and television producer. All films screen…
Let It Rock
The Louisiana Hayride Years: Making Musical History in Country’s Golden Age by Horace Logan with Bill Sloan St. Martin’s Griffin, 288 pp., $14.95 (paper) Want all the down-and-dirty intrigue of Country Music Babylon without having to hide the book guiltily between the covers of an issue of Third Coast Music? Horace Logan, the producer of…
Favorite Finds
The Chronicle food staff’s retinue of restaurants that visitors to Austin shouldn’t miss.
SXSW Showcase Picks: Saturday
Thanks to the sheer number of bands, the nature of SXSW is one of conflicting times and schedules. Naturally, we then told our critics choose only one; one band, six slots, three nights. They’ll naturally be there, too — if only for a song.Greg Beets 8pm: The Causey Way, Emo’s 9pm: Los Skarnales, Saengerrunde Hall…
SXSW Profiles
The Frogs, Beerland@Gallery Lombardi Tent, 1am The Frogs, aka Dennis and Jimmy Flemion of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, first caused a ruckus with 1989’s It’s Only Right and Natural, songs of a fictional “gay supremacy movement” of which the brothers were supposedly members. Numbers like “Been a Month Since I Had a Man” and “These Are the…
SXSW Live Shots
Hank Williams III, Ray PriceWaterloo Park It was one of those weird changes in weather that native Texans knowingly refer to as a “narther,” catching much of the audience unprepared in T-shirts and shorts, wind flapping the banners onstage like it was the North Atlantic. The youngest Hank Williams warmed things up, though, taking his…
SXSW Music Festival
Friday Picks PATTI SMITH/THE ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO ORCHESTRA: Frankly, I’m a little scared. This is big. Bigger than Tom Waits at the Paramount last SXSW. Patti Smith, the mother of punk rock, playing for free in a town that adores her, absolutely worships her — plus 6,000 music-hungry tourists who aren’t about to miss this sight.…
Record Reviews
Giant SandChore of Enchantment (Thrill Jockey) This first release of new, studio-recorded material since 1994 from once-prolific Tucson veterans Giant Sand finds frontman Howe Gelb and his rhythm section (Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino) ripened and tightened following their hibernation. The short instrumental opener “Overture” sets in motion Chore’s surprising electronic cheese factor with…
Record Reviews
Super XX Man Volume IV (Peek-A-Boo) Don’t let the superhero pedigree fool you into thinking this is some sort of rousing bombast to save the world by. Super XX Man is actually the alter ego of Scott Garred, guitarist/vocalist for Austin popsmiths Silver Scooter. While Super XX Man shares Silver Scooter’s penchant for melody and…
Naked City
Incumbent Gisela Triana beats challenger Gus Garcia Jr. for the County Court-at-Law No. 5 seat despite Garcia’s name recognition.
Reflections
Moon Over Broadway Dir: D. A. Pennebaker, Chris Hegedus; Cast: Carol Burnett, Philip Bosco, Ken Ludwig, Tom Moore, Elizabeth Wilson, Rocco Landesman. 35 mm, 97 min., 1997 In their latest work, landmark filmmakers Pennebaker and Hegedus (The War Room) document the backstage life of Moon Over Buffalo, a play which had a nine-month run on…
SXSW Live Shots
Yo-Yo’s, Black HalosEmo’s Main Room When you’re face to face with a boozy crowd of leather-decked rockers, sometimes the best thing to do is to throw down with chaotic impunity and worry about such nonessentials as cohesion later. Such was the case at the Sub Pop showcase held Friday night in the unforgiving concrete vault…
Wirey Spindell
Wirey Spindell 2000, NR, 101 min. Directed by Eric Schaeffer, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jennifer Wiltsie, Samantha Buck, Zane Adlum, Devin Matthews-Johnson, Eric Mabius, Callie Thorne, Eric Schaeffer. Wirey Spindell is the name of a character who is a thinly veiled fictional representation of the real-life writer-director Eric Schaeffer. Wirey Spindell is…
Best Soul/Hip-Hop
RUNNERS-UP: Buttahfly, The Scabs, Big Game Hunter, Interstate 808
Best Concert By a Touring Artist
RUNNERS-UP: Bob Dylan, September 15, Erwin Center; Lyle Lovett, July 14-16, the Backyard; Tom Petty, September 17, Erwin Center; ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, December 30, Erwin Center; Black Crowes, April 8, Austin Music Hall; Wilco, August 15, Antone’s; 311, December 3, Austin Music Hall; Ben Harper, November 20, Austin Music Hall; Indigo Girls, October 26-27,…
Best Single
RUNNERS-UP: Ray Wylie Hubbard, “Conversation with the Devil”; Kelly Willis, “Heavenbound”; Dynamite Hack, “Boyz-N-the-Hood”; Toni Price, “Comes Love”; Sinis, “Rock Hard”; Natalie Zoe, “Never Too Old to Swing”; Kissinger, “Prettier Than You”; Radney Foster & Abra Moore, “I’m In”; Charlie Robison, “My Hometown”; Monte Montgomery, ” When Will I”; Ginger Mackenzie, ” The Garden of…
Let It Rock
Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America by Ann Powers Simon & Schuster, 288 pp., $23 What sets “bohemians” apart from everybody else is, apparently, a distaste for mainstream respectability (house, car, spouse), very often accompanied by some combination of fringe sex, drugs, or music. Ann Powers, rock/pop critic for The New York Times and self-conscious…
Favorite Finds
Introduction Here you are in Austin for SXSW: You’ve secured your lodgings (hotel, motel, the couch of a friend); checked and rechecked the show listings against a map of the venues to finalize your nightly plan of attack; you’re keeping an ear tuned to gossip on the street about the best daytime and afterhours private…
SXSW Showcase Picks: Friday
Thanks to the sheer number of bands, the nature of SXSW is one of conflicting times and schedules. Naturally, we then told our critics choose only one; one band, six slots, three nights. They’ll naturally be there, too — if only for a song. Greg Beets 8pm: Monkey Paw, Beerland 9pm: Black Halos, Emo’s 10pm:…
SXSW Profiles
John Paul Jones, La Zona Rosa, 11pm From August 1968 to December 1980, John Paul Jones played bass in Led Zeppelin. In the 20 years since, he’s worked as a producer, arranger, and composer for everyone from R.E.M. and Cinderella to Paul McCartney and the Butthole Surfers. His debut solo album, Zooma, came out last…
1999-2000 Award Winners
Band of the Year1. The Scabs 2. Vallejo 3. Sister 7 4. Trish Murphy 5. Lonelyland 6. The Damnations TX 7. Asylum Street Spankers 8. The Gourds 9. Monte Montgomery 10. Fastball 11. George Devore & Roam 12. Reckless Kelly 13. Asleep at the Wheel 14. Terri Hendrix 15. Pushmonkey 16. The Barkers 17. Dexter…
SXSW Music Festival
Friday Sleepers THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AUSTIN: A faith-filled congregation of some of Austin’s leading gospel evangelists would be an evening well spent any time, but the reason behind this Ballroom revival makes it even worthier. Austin attorney Greg Atkins is spearheading a drive to open a non-church-affiliated gospel music venue downtown, and has convinced…
Record Reviews
Friends of Dean MartinezA Place in the Sun (Knitting Factory) The poetic, sometimes grotesque beauty of an early 20th-Century German expressionist film like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari comes to life in the 1926 silent screen classic’s cardboard sets and painted shadows. Against this stark, impressionistic background, a nightmarish tale of madness spreads like an…
Record Reviews
The Causey Way With Loving and Open Arms (Alternative Tentacles) Chicken needed affection. She needed love. She needed to know that there was purpose in her life. She pursued all the “normal” paths: dance lessons, sleeping around, the latest fashions. Her pursuit earned her little more than a maxxed-out credit card, an intimate knowledge of…
Naked City
Grassroots support may be enough to get you out of the gate, but it can’t guarantee you’ll be first across the finish line. That’s the lesson that Susan Haney, a first-time candidate with plenty of enthusiasm and legal experience but scant money or Democratic party support, learned Tuesday night when she lost very narrowly to…
Reflections
What You Can’t Do on TV The First Amendment doesn’t necessarily cover freedom of speech rights for television, but that didn’t keep indie film guru John Pierson quiet. At his “What You Can’t Do on TV” panel Monday, Pierson shared controversial clips from Split Screen, a show he hosts for the Independent Film Channel. Pierson…
SXSW Live Shots
GomezLa Zona Rosa At 7pm on Friday it’s time to choose sides: the pop-groove lovefest of Gomez or the musically correct hairy-rock history of Patti Smith. We’ve waxed this week, so we go for Gomez. In true British fashion, the class system is clear on the streets: The cash line wraps around La Zona Rosa’s…
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Of Bonding and Bondage: Denise Caruso Keynote Address What is the difference between geeks scouring the sky for UFOs and the legions of X-Philes who obsessively watch the show they inspire? When is a Britney Spears fan a stalker and when is he a bored, lonely guy with a thing for bare midriffs? Or more…
Beyond the Mat
Beyond the Mat 2000, R, 102 min. Directed by Barry W. Blaustein, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Even if you aren’t a World Wrestling Federation zealot who stood in line for two hours to get your first-edition copy of The Rock Says signed by the author, you’ll find plenty to like about…
Best Tejano/Conjunto
RUNNERS-UP: Tosca, South Austin Gospel Choir, Blue Millennium, The Barkers, The Scabs, The Gourds, Teye & Viva Flamenco, Phil Pritchett, Schrodinger’s Cat
Best Concert Poster
RUNNERS-UP: Sister 7, Daniel Allen, Steamboat, July 2; Guitar Wolf, Billy Bishop, Emo’s, October 23; Scabs, Bob Schneider, Antone’s, any show; SINIS, Dave Gorem, Flamingo Cantina, October 30
Song of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: Damon Bramblett, “Heavenbound”, Kelly Willis; Monte Montgomery & Scott Byers Coolhot, “When Will I”; Ray Wylie Hubbard, “Conversations with the Devil”; Amy Boone & Debra Kelly, ” Unholy Train”, The Damnations TX; Bruce Robison, “Not Forgotten You”, Kelly Willis; Rob Kyle, Scott Ronig & Chris Lowe, ” Leaving Town”, Dexter Freebish; Len Brown, Sam…
Let It Rock
Trumpet Blues: The Life of Harry James by Peter J. Levinson Oxford University Press, 384pp., $30 Artie Shaw refers to Harry Jameson on a jacket blurb as “a gifted American musician who, after trading his genuine musical talent for a tawdry parade of hollow perks, finds he has made a bad bargain,” and calls James’…
Favorite Finds
Casino El Camino 517 E. Sixth, 469-9330 Daily, 4pm-2am As untold thousands of SXSW folks descend on Austin, the Big Man will be very busy indeed. Between SRO showcases, closed-door industry parties, and endless rounds of barroom schmoozing, conference attendees will approach the bright kitchen window at Casino El Camino in search of Austin’s perfect…
SXSW Showcase Picks: Thursday
Thanks to the sheer number of bands, the nature of SXSW is one of conflicting times and schedules. Naturally, we then told our critics choose only one; one band, six slots, three nights. They’ll naturally be there, too — if only for a song.Greg Beets 8pm: Wanda Jackson, Continental Club 9pm: Blue Noise Band, Elephant…
SXSW Profiles
Ed Burleson, Broken Spoke, 9pm They just don’t make ’em any more Texan than Ed Burleson. Not only is the 30-year-old Lewisville native a direct descendant of Gen. Edward Burleson, the first vice president of the Republic of Texas, he initially rode the rodeo circuit before giving it up for the somewhat less punishing world…
Decade Awards
Musician of the Decade1. Stevie Ray Vaughan 2. Davíd Garza 3. Alejandro Escovedo 4. Eric Johnson 5. Ian Moore 6. Jimmie Vaughan 7. Jimmie Dale Gilmore 8. Abra Moore 9. Joe Ely 10. Doug SahmAlbum of the Decade1. The Sky Is Crying, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble 2. In Step, Stevie Ray Vaughan &…
SXSW Music Festival
Saturday Picks OUTDOORS IN AUSTIN: On a good day, Austin really can be the center of the universe. When music and community come together under a big Texas sky, plenty of Shiner Bock in white plastic cups, the state Capital beams. For the third and final day of what SXSW does best — free outdoor…
Record Reviews
John Paul JonesZooma (Discipline Global Mobile) What does one do after being an integral part of one of modern music’s most influential bands? Short answer, whatever the hell you want. Long answer for Led Zeppelin’s multi-instrumentalist bassist John Paul Jones, a lot. Since Zeppelin, the musician’s musician has written film scores, taught electronic composition, recorded…
Record Reviews
Love as LaughterDestination 2000 (Sub Pop) Absolutely lousy with classic punk guitar grinds, bone-crunching drums, and snottier-than-thou vocals, Love as Laughter’s Destination 2000 spares no noise in establishing the new standard for smart and hard-assed garage rock. LAL’s ever-changing lineup, under the guidance of former Lync singer-guitarist Sam Jayne, has built their penchant for aggressive…
Going, Going, Gone?
Gary Bradley agrees to sell 1,000 acres of land to the city
Reflections
Masters of Cult Cinema Horror master John Carpenter and Austinites Robert Rodriguez and Harry Knowles were welcomed by a standing-room-only crowd to take part in a chatty, casual discussion on cult cinema that assessed such issues as violence in movies, the MPAA ratings system, and the future of filmmaking. Knowles kicked things off by introducing…
SXSW Live Shots
Beulah/Red DeliciousDay Party/Gallery Lombardi Lounge So I broke the cardinal rule of the rock critic’s SXSW experience: When there are two bands playing two different day parties at the same time, never leave the party you are at for the other, because the band playing that other shindig is inevitably running late. It is because…
Everything That Rises Must Converge
An Interview With Denise Caruso Denise Caruso likes to say she’s been writing about technology since before the Macintosh. Those writings have appeared both online and in print — from Wired to The Wall Street Journal. We spoke to her briefly following her keynote address at SXSW, titled “Of Bonding and Bondage: Cult, Culture, and…
Best World Music
RUNNERS-UP: Killer Bees, Tamasha Africana, Tosca, Teye & Viva Flamenco, Ta Mere, Two O’Clock Courage, Rubinchik’s Orkestyr, Govinda, Papa Mali & the Instigators
Best Cover Art
RUNNERS-UP: Bob Schneider, Lonelyland, Lonelyland; Jenn Marrs & David Gorem SINIS, SINIS; Amy Estes & Bill Gribble, Burn Your Piano, The Barkers; Sally Carns, Ride with Bob, Asleep at the Wheel
Best Alternative/Punk
RUNNERS-UP: Pushmonkey, Sister 7, Sixteen Deluxe, Sons of Hercules, Dynamite Hack, Meg Hentges, Spoon, Soak, Goudie
Postscripts
The details on the upcoming conference at UT’s Center for American History on the Peña diary and upcoming literary events.
Favorite Finds
Curra’s Grill 614 E. Oltorf, 444-0012 Daily, 7am-10pm So you’ve heard that Mary Steenburgen, Sandra Bullock, and even the President of the United States, for chrissakes, go to Güero’s Taco Bar and you want to see what all the fuss is about. Well, as you find out quickly, during SXSW (and even other times too)…
SXSW News: Saturday
Burning Down the House No, David Byrne didn’t show up at any South by Southwest 2000 showcases that I know of (not even Harvey Sid Fisher’s like he did last year). The Daily Chronicle, however, almost found itself waking up in a house on fire Thursday night, when its headquarters at the swank Radisson Hotel…
SXSW Profiles
Smackola, Stubb’s, 10pm Lyrically “smackin’ fools” left and right, Smackola’s bicoastal style engulfs the 27-year-old’s native “killa Cali” as well as the sticky verses of his present ATX surroundings. On the forthcoming Verbal KunKushunz CD, he comes “like Timothy McVeigh blowin’ the roof off this mother.” Smack’s not talking out the side of his mouth,…
Velvet Underdog
On the night of May 17, 1979, Sterling Morrison and John Cale stood in a La Quinta Inn motel room in Austin, Texas, grinning at one another like a couple of streetwise Cheshire cats. It was the second time the former bandmates had gotten to visit with each other in a month; Cale had returned…
SXSW Music Festival
Saturday Sleepers THE PEENBEETS: How about geekcore? Has that one been coined yet? Watching Austin’s Peenbeets on stage is akin to watching some bizarro hybrid of Saturday morning cartoons and Freedom of Choice-era Devo. It’s alternately silly and sophisticated, but it’s all pop Babylon, all the time. (Beerland, 8pm) — Michael Bertin SUPER XX MAN:…
Record Reviews
AstridStrange Weather Lately (Fantastic Plastic) The British press has heaped upon Astrid the highest praise one can on that cold and dreary island: They sound like summer. That cherished season in the UK is all about blue skies, pink people basking shirtless in parks, and music festivals dotting the countryside. The Astrid boys hail from…
Record Reviews
Poster ChildrenDDD (SpinArt) Nope, the Poster Children don’t have it in them to make a bad album. Their umpteenth release has them in near as strong a form as ever, which for this Champagne, Ill., quartet reaches back close to a dozen LPs and just over that many years. From the outset, the blaring intro…
Straight Shooter
“I can’t shut up. I have the worst verbal diarrhea,” joked Janeane Garofalo last Tuesday to a wall-to-wall crowd of admirers at the Paramount Theatre — and so began 90 minutes of brutal honesty. Clothed in her standard black ensemble and ready to rant about everything from acting to politics, Garofalo wowed the audience with…
Reflections
Enigma (Love Is a 4 Letter Word) Dir: Paul Ruven; Scr: Marian Batavier; Prod: Jean Pierre Claes; Cast: Jack Wouterse, Ariane Schluter. 35mm, 71 min., 1999 Bilingual Max wants to be an American film star. The main problem: He’s stuck in Amsterdam. To catch Hollywood’s attention, Max grabs a not-so-steady-cameraman and decides to pitch the…
SXSW Live Shots
Number Girl Mercury It was an ice water kind of night, having been viciously kicked in the head by old friend Jim Beam the night before, no Southern gentleman he. Number Girl lead singer Mukai made his carefully-enunciated intentions clear from the get-go, however; “I love Austin. I love Austin. I love … drunk.” You…
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Life Online: Confessional Websites and the Human Drama Mod: Pamela Ribon (Pamie.com) Steven Falk had a very big secret. The dark-haired Web designer with a biting wit and shielded eyes had a life that nobody around him — certainly not his friends and especially not his mother — knew anything about. The secret: He lives…
Best Acoustic Guitar
RUNNERS-UP: Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Stephen Bruton, David Garza, Guy Forsyth, Teye, Sara Hickman, Patrice Pike, Carter Pagel, Ginger Mackenzie
Best Live Music Venue
RUNNERS-UP: Stubb’s, Continental Club, La Zona Rosa, Steamboat, Saxon Pub, Red Eyed Fly, Emo’s, The Backyard, Cactus Cafe, Babe’s, Liberty Lunch, Hole in the Wall, Lucy’s Retired Surfer’s Bar, Cedar Street, Flipnotics, The Back Room, Mercury, Austin Music Hall, Speakeasy
Best Blues
RUNNERS-UP: W.C. Clark, Jimmie Vaughan, Toni Price, Chris Duarte, Lavelle White, Lou Ann Barton, The Scabs, Matt Powell Band, Omar & the Howlers, Big Foot Chester, Ian Moore, Blues Specialists, Antone’s Blue Monday Band, Stephen Bruton
Off the Bookshelf
Ingres in Fashion Representations in Dress and Appearance in Ingres’s Images of Women by Aileen Ribeiro Yale University Press, 224 pp., $55 “Fashion in portraiture has been both a blessing and a curse,” Ribeiro writes in this engaging, thorough, and beautifully constructed book. With sentences like “what Madame Place wears over her gown is a…
Favorite Finds
Acapulco Video 2009 E. Seventh, 482-0215 Mon-Thu, 8am-10pm; Fri-Sun, 8am-11pm For 14 years, this little restaurant has been a haven for the fresh-seafood loving residents of East Austin. It is in an old building that also houses shops for clothes, videos, and music cassettes. Two big-screen TVs show soccer games, and the place can get…
SXSW News: Friday
Talk to the Animals When the folks at Austin-based indie label Doolittle Records illustrated the badge for their annual private party at Club DeVille with a photo of a rabbit mounting a chicken and captioned the picture “Multimedia Merger,” they might as well have been playing Kreskin with their future. “It was a reference to…
SXSW Profiles
Black Kali Ma, Atomic Cafe, 12am From the pre-punk lunacy of Roky Erickson’s 13th Floor Elevators to the post-punk chaos of the Butthole Surfers, Texas has borne singular punk rock bands. The Dicks, featuring Vietnam War conscientious objector Gary Floyd (born in Alabama; forced into the government’s bidding in Houston) and San Antonio “terrorist thugs”…
The Witnesses
Maureen Tucker Friend of Sterling’s from childhood and bandmate in the Velvet Underground. Lives in Georgia with her family. John Craig Sterling’s best friend. Delivered a eulogy at his funeral. He lives in California. Joe Kruppa knew Sterling while on the faculty of the University of Texas in 1971 and became a lifelong friend. He…
SXSW Music Festival
Sunday Picks HOOT NITE FEVER: Freddie’s dead — R.I.P. Curtis — but the Seventies live on. Optimizing the recent acquisition of their coruscating disco ball, the Hole in the Wall/Free For All honcho Paul Minor honors the Me Decade and its super-chic, four-on-the-floor fashion. Among the all-star lineup of local talent revisiting early childhood memories…
Record Reviews
GomezLiquid Skin (Virgin) Blame record labels, blame radio programmers, or blame the unadventurous ears that clog this great nation of ours, but the fact is American bands get straightjacketed by genre. Brits, on the other hand, are allowed the elbow room to mix things up. Therefore, when a band like Gomez is heavily influenced by…
Record Reviews
PachinkoSplendor in the Ass II: Electric Boogaloo (Alternative Tentacles) The field of psychiatry ought to study why some angry white men shoot up the workplace, while others play music like this. If Splendor in the Ass II is any indication, society owes rock & roll a debt of gratitude for steering these Madison, Wisconsin-bred boys…
Die Hockzeitskuh (The Wedding Cow)
Director Tomi Streiff is wondering if I have a cow he could borrow. He imagines himself riding through downtown Austin on the heifer, waving to gawking onlookers, entreating them to listen to a thing or two about his feature film Die Hochzeitskuh (The Wedding Cow) — a light, charming romantic comedy playing at this year’s…
Reflections
Rated X: A Journey Through Porn Dir/Prod/DP/Ed: Dag Yngvesson; Music: Michael Gonzales; Cast: Jeanna Fine, Bill Margold, Sean Michaels, Toni English, Alex Sanders. Video, 92 min., 1999 (RP) Everybody’s seen it (and a lot of us, according to Ed Meese and company, have done it), but how many of us know what goes on Behind…
Austin Music Awards: 19 Years Old
Two things made this year notable for the 19th Music Poll. The first is the striking sweep of awards by Bob Schneider and the Scabs. The second is the presence of the Decade Awards. They bridge the gap with the proverbial passing of the torch almost literally from one generation to another. Anyone who saw…
Everything That Rises Must Converge
The New Networks Mod: John Geirland Panelists: Joseph Cantwell (Bravo Networks), Fred Graver (VH1.com), Jeanne Meyer (Pseudo), Lucy Mohl (RealNetworks), Rob Campanell (Blastro.com) Television of Tomorrow Mod: Gregory Kallenberg (Austin American-Statesman) Panelists: Pete Fernandez (PSW), Keith Kocho (Extend TV), Mark Meadows (Xerox-Parc), Suzanne Stafanac (Respond TV) If variety is truly the spice of life, then…
Best Bass Guitar
RUNNERS-UP: Bruce Hughes, Tommy Shannon, Chris Maresh, Darrell Phillips, Omar Vallejo, Kevin Smith, Glenn Fukunaga, Jimmy Smith, Brad Fordham
Best Local Music TV Show
RUNNERS-UP: Austin City Limits, KLRU; CapZeyeZ, ACAC; Rock.alt, AMN; Breakin’, AMN
Best Country
RUNNERS-UP: The Derailers, Asleep at the Wheel, Don Walser, Dale Watson, Cornell Hurd, Reckless Kelly, Wayne Hancock, The Damnations TX, Bruce Robison
Second Helpings: BBQ Joints Within an Hour of Austin
Cusines editor Virigina B. Wood and Chronicle writer Greg Beets serve up barbecue joints within an hour of Austin in this week’s Second Helpings.
Off the Bookshelf
The Missing World A Novel by Margot Livesey Knopf, 326 pp., $23 Although critics have compared Margot Livesey (Criminals) to the mystery novelist P. D. James, Livesey’s latest novel, The Missing World, does not focus on murder, but instead builds its fascinating and suspenseful web around the ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) events of daily life.…
Favorite Finds
HighLife Cafe 407 E. Seventh, 474-5338 Sun-Wed, 9am-midnight; Thu-Sat, 9am-1am Just last weekend I was singing the HighLife Cafe’s praises to a friend who was looking for a good first lunch date destination. “It’s got this great intimate quality about it without being in-your-face romantic,” I told him. “It’s downtown, but hidden from the Sixth…
SXSW News: Thursday
If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be … As you might expect, I was already drawn into the South by Southwest chaos by last Sunday, via an ASCAP party for filmmakers (I guess I always misunderstood exactly what it is that ASCAP does!) and some Interactive events (a few dozen guys upstairs at Jazz all playing…
SXSW Profiles
Sumack, Maggie Mae’s East, 1am “Our lead singer is getting more flowers than the Gomez guy,” says Sumack’s Rod Sherwood as bandmate Mark McAdam steps into the band’s RV with a fan’s bouquet. “The Gomez guy is getting the leftovers.” Like his four bandmates, Sherwood has a quick wit, which is propelling him through his…
It’s Kicking In
Given that his father is being honored on (at least) two separate occasions during this year’s South by Southwest music conference — at the Austin Music Awards and an Antone’s showcase on Friday — Shandon Sahm brought the Chronicle a few photos from Doug Sahm’s life that he wanted to share. The Sahms have received…
Dancing About Architecture
A recap of favorite SXSW venues that no longer exist, a few festival hot tips, some non-festival tips, a celebrity-sightings checklist.
Record Reviews
Shelby LynneI Am Shelby Lynne (Island Def Jam) Poor F. Scott Fitzgerald. As if Regis Philbin wasn’t enough, along comes Alabama-born Shelby Lynne proving beyond a reasonable doubt there are second acts in American lives. After a stint as a CMT ingenue gone awry, she dropped off the radar before re-emerging with this out-of-time gem.…
Record Reviews
The FrogsBananimals (4 Alarm) A little Frogs goes a long way — toward clearing out a party, pissing off your neighbors, generally wiping clean any trace of a sunny disposition you may have once had — and that’s exactly the way brothers Jimmy and Dennis Flemming like it. Despite a tendency toward mostly quiet, peaceful-sounding…
Poetry and Light
“Think of this as a work in progress,” said Louis Black, the avuncular yet curmudgeonly Chronicle editor and SXSW co-director, emceeing the seventh annual SXSW Film Awards Tuesday night at the historic State Theatre. Capping off a four-day conference and trade show (the film festival continues through Saturday), the event honored the achievements of a…
SXSW Live Shots
ROGER MCGUINNStubb’s, Day Party There was no mistaking the man in black — black T-shirt, black jeans, and sharp, black boots. Only the voice was different. Instead of a low, trembling, preacher-doing-battle-with-the-devil baritone, this was a somewhat fragile, crystalline tenor, and it sounded as sweet as 35 years of folk music ringing from a 12-string…
Reflections
The Killer Storm Dir: Monte Markham; Prod: Jason Markham, William Schlueter; Scr: Jesse Sublett; DP/Ed: William Schlueter; Ed: James Morgan. Video, 91 min., 1999 Call them Ishmaels. Like the narrator of Moby Dick, the Coast Guard and Air Guard servicemen who figure prominently in this History Channel documentary are caught in an epic drama of…
Everything That Rises Must Converge
So You’re Creating an Internet Start-up Mod: Eric Hellweg (Business2.0) Panelists: Joe Bogdan (Manatt, Phelps & Phillips), Bryan Boyer (DeepLeap.com), Janice Crotty (WholePeople.com), Dan Levy (Scient). Sunday, March 12, 11am Looking at the multihued hair, facial piercings, kooky hats, and funky clothes, you might think this crowd was headed underground for a techno-rave; the once-stodgy…
Best Drums/Percussion
RUNNERS-UP: Paul Pearcy, Brannen Temple, Frosty, Chris Layton, Dave Robinson, Alex Vallejo, Sean Phillips, Glenn Benavides
Best Music Store
RUNNERS-UP: Starit Music Co., South Austin Music, MusicMakers Austin, Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music Inc., Tommy’s Drum Shop, Workhorse Guitars, Rock-n-Roll Rentals Inc., Guitar Resurrection, One World Vintage Guitars
Best Cover band
RUNNERS-UP: Taboo, The Recliners, Dysfunkshun Junkshun, The Grooves, The Argyles, Mr. Fabulous & Casino Royale, The Atlantics, Glamourpuss, The Eggmen
Viva la Revolution!
Installation art may be notoriously hard to define, but its role in art history isn’t. It helped change the way we look at art, and the Blanton Museum of Art’s survey of three decades of installation art, “Blurring the Boundaries,” provides a window on the revolution.
Off the Bookshelf
Pure Poetry A Novel by Binnie Kirshenbaum Simon & Schuster, 192 pp., $22 A book titled Pure Poetry, about a poet living in New York, suggests exquisite meditations on the human condition, imaginative metaphors, and bold, colorful imagery. Not so. Lila Moscowitz, the heroine (and I use that term with reservations), kvetches and divulges, but…
Favorite Finds
Chumikal’s 3223 E. Seventh, 385-8898 Mon-Thu, 6am-8pm; Fri-Sat, 6am-9pm; Salvadoran menu served Fri-Sat nights only El Sabor 1141 E. Seventh, 236-1180 Mon-Thu, 10am-9pm; Fri-Sun, 10am-10pm If Austin Tex-Mex leaves your taste buds unenlivened, but you still hanker for the fiesty flavors of Central America, then visit Chumikal’s or El Sabor, both of which serve delicious…
SXSW Profiles
Tenacious D, La Zona Rosa, 1am It’s all about the D. Tenacious D, that is, the self-proclaimed “Greatest Band on Earth” — a “band” consists only of best buddies Jack Black (vocals/guitar) and Kyle Gass (guitar/vocals). Together, the duo are akin to Hamell on Trial as seen through the eyes of Spinal Tap director Marty…
It’s Kicking In
Sometime around 1969 … Life was beautiful and Doug was groovin’ with friends. This photo was probably taken during the California acid craze. Shandon thinks Doug’s saying, “Hey, it’s kicking in!”
Record Reviews
Patti SmithGung Ho (Arista) Blazing out of a foxhole of loss and dour contemplation, Patti Smith unfurls the flag and raises it high. Rock’s noble standard bearer is back, Gung Ho, and with a vengeance. When we last checked in, Smith was dusting off the ashes of one too many funeral pyres, making her way…
Record Reviews
Neko CaseFurnace Room Lullaby (Bloodshot) Garbage. That’s not an assessment of the material inside, but rather the look this Pac-Northwest denizen sports on the artwork of her sophomore croon-fest, Furnace Room Lullaby. Naturally, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and Lullaby is a dazzling dozen-song excursion through the battered heart and temperamental humor that…
Beat Box
SXSW: Tee-Double, Jungle Brothers, South Park Mexican, Botany Boyz, Big Daddy Kane
Fistful of Freaks
Shot over the course of two and a half years, the Hughes Brothers’ (Allen and Albert) documentary American Pimp dives headfirst into the rightfully maligned subculture of the black American pimp and comes up with a fistful of freaks, racial subdivisions, and outlandish tales that make Starsky and Hutch’s Huggy Bear look like the cheezy…
SXSW Live Shots
Ballistix, Unfadeable Young Guns, Ukalipthis, NOOKVelvet/Velvet Patio Sometimes even hip-hop’s four elements are no match for the older, more meterological ones. Thursday it came in the form of one of our patented blue northers, a (thankfully short-lived) torrent, every type of PA glitch imaginable, and for the writer, a deadline when his mom is still…
Reflections
George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire Dir/ Prod: Daniel McCabe, Paul Stekler; Scr: Steve Fayer, Daniel McCabe, Paul Stekler; DP: John Hazard; Ed: Daniel McCabe; Music: Mason Daring, Duke Levine; Narration: Randy Quaid. Video, 160 min., 1999 (RP) Few people in American politics are easier to hate than Alabama governor George Wallace. Quite possibly…
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Gonzo Marketing Mod: Will Kreth (Bizworker.com) A presentation by Christopher Locke Author Christopher Locke has worked for MCI, IBM, and Meckler media — but don’t call him a company man. This gruff, ponytailed bear does not suffer fools gladly, and the pinheaded suits that have been running the business world for the past couple of…
Best Electric Guitar
RUNNERS-UP: David Grissom, Wayne Sutton, Ian Moore, David Holt, Jimmie Vaughan, Adam Temple, Monte Montgomery, David Garza, Chris Duarte, Mike Barnes, A.J. Vallejo, Jesse Taylor, Rob Bernard, Stephen Bruton
Best Music Writer
RUNNERS-UP: Margaret Moser, Christopher Gray, Michael Corcoran, Ken Lieck, Chris Riemenschneider, Raoul Hernandez, John T. Davis, Greg Beets, Michael Point
Best Folk
RUNNERS-UP: Sara Hickman, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Adam Carroll, Lonelyland, Poor Man’s Fortune, Ane Egge, Asylum Street Spankers, Two O’Clock Courage, Shelley King Band
Articulations
Touring plans for the Rude Mechanicals; two two shows for theatregoers to see before they close.
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Favorite Finds
Taco Xpress 2529-A S. Lamar, 444-0261 Mon, 7am-3pm; Tue-Fri, 7am-9pm Sat, 8am-9pm; Sun, 9am-2pm For the past couple of years, South Austin Taco Queen Maria Corbalan has operated one of the most popular, most affordable genuine Tex-Mex joints in the city, open daily for breakfast and lunch. It’s a charmingly funky little place with counter…
SXSW Profiles
Hotwheels Jr., Blind Pig Pub, 8pm Thursday If they’re ever in the mood for a little rock opera, Hotwheels Jr. might consider the story of Job. The amount of patience demonstrated by the Austin quartet certainly ought to qualify them for the Chicago Cubs Forbearance Society, though co-founders Adam Farina (voice/ guitar) and Krissy Recla…
SXSW Live Shots
Austin Music AwardsAustin Music Hall”What can I say,” shrugged Charlene Hancock at the podium, husband Tommy X standing behind her in formal attire and a cowboy hat. “Music loves us, and I’m filled every day with it.” Voted into the Austin Music Awards’ Hall of Fame, the Hancocks all but glowed on the Austin Music…
It’s Kicking In
Doug Sahm and Bob Dylan … from a Rolling Stone photo shoot. At the time, the Sir Douglas Quintet was one of Dylan’s favorite bands. The two would go on to record a classic album for Atlantic Records, Doug Sahm & Band.
Record Reviews
MekonsJourney to the End of the Night (Quarterstick) New albums from the Mekons, which thankfully seem to appear on a more frequent basis these days, are always an adventure. With that as a given, Journey to the End of the Night, their 20th long player, still comes as a surprise. It’s surely the band’s most…
Record Reviews
Mary Lou Lord/Sean Na Na(Kill Rock Stars) This split EP functions as a document of a mutual appreciation society: both Lord, from Boston, and Minnesotan Sean Tillmann, the guiding light behind Sean Na Na, plan more collaborations beyond this EP, which merely puts them back to back in a sort of battle of the bands…
The Loyal Lieutenants
Forget “compassionate conservatism.” While you’re at it, toss the “reformer with results.” Education, taxes, welfare reform — none of those things really matter. For George W. Bush, one issue matters: loyalty. You’re with him or you’re not. There’s no in-between. It’s a lesson that he learned from his mother, Barbara, a fiercely territorial woman who…
SXSW Live Shots
Eric MingusElephant Room He started midway back of the room, bellowing in a growly blues wail, his easily 6’4″ frame meandering through the startled crowd as he made his way to the stage. “My grandfather blew his brains out all over the house. He didn’t even have the courtesy to go outside or to the…
Reflections
Grass Dir/Prod: Ron Mann; Scr: Solomon Vesta; Ed: Robert Kennedy; Music: Guido Luciani; Narration: Woody Harrelson. 35mm, 79 min., 1999 (USP) This is one terrific romp through the schizoid history of the marijuana “menace” in the U.S. of A. Even if you weren’t around 60 years ago when Harry Anslinger (the Herbert Hoover equivalent in…
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Power Convergence: The New Medium Mod: Bill Kurtis (A&E) Panelists: Matt Hulett (Atom Films), Richard Garriott (Origin Systems), Gregg Hale (producer, The Blair Witch Project, Lynda Obst (producer, The Fisher King), Quincy Yu (US Creative). The power panel on power convergence at a power Webcast by US Creative was about as sexy as these technology…
Best Female Vocals
RUNNERS-UP: Trish Murphy, Toni Price, Patrice Pike, Sara Hickman, Alice Spencer, Shawn Colvin, Christina Marrs, Marcia Ball, Amy Boone & Deborah Kelly, Ginger Mackenzie, Beth Black, Patty Griffin, Ana Egge, Lou Ann Barton
Best New Club
RUNNERS-UP: Mercury, Spiro’s, Mother of Pearl’s, Gaby & Mo’s
Best Funk
RUNNERS-UP: Sister 7, Funky London, Dysfunkshun Junction, Ugly Americans
Exhibitionism
STOMP turned the Paramount Theatre stage into a tidy salvage yard, where every piece of junk became a percussive instrument waiting to be heard.
Page Two
We are not sleeping.
Favorite Finds
Java Noodles Restaurant 2400 E. Oltorf, Ste. 14 & 15, 443-JAVA Mon-Fri, 11am-2:30pm, 5-10pm; Sat, 6-10pm; Sun, noon-3pm When I went on a food pilgrimage to New York City last fall, I made a point of eating at the two top-rated Indonesian restaurants there, just so I could have a base against which to judge…
SXSW Profiles
Sally Timms, Saengerrunde Hall, 8pm Thursday Sally Timms is still a member of the Mekons. “It’s my primary occupation,” she says with a chuckle, “Occupation’s the wrong word, it’s a hobby.” Her work as a solo artist, especially last fall’s just-under-the-wire Best of 1999 entry, Cowboy Sally’s Twilight Laments for Lost Buckaroos (Bloodshot), would have…
SXSW Live Shots
Lil’ Brian and the Zydeco TravelersLucy’s Retired Surfer’s Bar Young accordion gun Lil’ Brian Terry started his band’s set with several shout-outs to Creole-rich cities in Southeast Texas and Louisiana: New Orleans, Lafayette, Houston, Baton Rouge, and so on. Then someone shouted, “What about Houma?” “Oh yeah,” replied Brian. “We got Houma in the house!”…
It’s Kicking In
“The Armadillo was our stomping grounds” remembers Shandon Sahm (right). Here he stands with his sister Dawn (left) as Doug (background) hangs out with his pals.
Record Reviews
Asylum Street Spankers Spanker Madness (Spanks-a-Lot) Mae Questel and Val Doonican performing a duet backed by King Bennie Nawahu and David Knopfler in a distinctly vaudevillian style, but with a title phrase not coined till at least the Sixties? That’s the Christina Marrs-penned “Wake and Bake,” and such majestic anachronism is the heart behind the…
Record Reviews
Tom House’Til You’ve Seen Mine (Catamount) Though he calls Nashville home, Tom House doesn’t really fit in there. In fact, it’s doubtful he fits in any big town. His music is primitive and acoustic-based. Someone scrapes on a fiddle. Somebody else picks up a jug and blows into it. Meanwhile, a rhythm starts up, just…
Run Out on a Rail
Capital Metro fires its freight rail carrier, Longhorn Railway, and its litigious owner, Don Cheatham, and finds a temporary replacement.
Reflections
Rats Dir/Prod/DP/Ed: James M. Felter. 16mm, 75 min., 1999 (RP) For every person in Washington, DC, there are 14 rats, claims one on-camera source in James M. Felter’s occasionally unsettling, often funny, and always smart and empathetic documentary. While that human-to-rodent ratio may be grossly exaggerated, the film makes abundantly clear that our nation’s capital…
SXSW Live Shots
Hail Britannia: Episode Two The Royal We have been invited to an indie party so geographically obscure that our local rock star companion insists we pull over to buy a map from the Circle K. Eternally in search of a Spoon set, we have temporarily abandoned the Brits-only edict, but the decision has made us…
Reflections
From Swastika to Jim Crow Dir: Lori Cheatle; Co-Dir/Ed: Martin D. Taub; Prod: Steven Fischler, Joel Sucher. Video, 57 min., 1999 (RP) Early in their film, the documentarians behind From Swastika to Jim Crow delve into what it must have been like for European Jewish scholars fleeing Nazi Germany to end up in the Jim…
Click on This
Winners of the SXSW Interactive 2000 Web Awards
Best Horns
RUNNERS-UP: Ephraim Owens, Tomas Ramirez, Elias Haslanger, Tony Campise
Best Radio DJ
RUNNERS-UP: Jody Denberg, KGSR; Peg Simmons, KLBJ; John Aielli, KUT-FM; Larry Monroe, KUT; Kevin Connor, KGSR; Jen Garrison, 101X; Dudley and Bob, KLBJ-FM; Paul Ray, KUT; Loris Lowe, KLBJ-FM Fletch, 101X; Whipping Boy, 101X; J.B. & Sandy, MIX 94.7; Shelly Knight, MIX 94.7; Brian Beck, KGSR
Best Hard Rock/Metal
RUNNERS-UP: Human, SINIS, Godzilla Motor Company, Vallejo, Terminal 46, Powderburn, Endever, Lucid Dementia, Drawn Under
Exhibitionism
With the multimedia B-movie spoofs The Apocalytes and The Tetragons, composer-performers Chad Salvata and Sergio R. Samayoa serve up some well-scored soft-core sci-fi cyber-porn, heavy on the energy fielding (and the hyphens.
Public Notice
“Public Notice” is the sassy yet totally sincere public service column.
Favorite Finds
Dart Bowl Steak House 5700 Grover, 459-4181 Mon-Sat, 8am-10pm; Sun, 8am-9pm Sometimes even the most rabid live music fan needs a break from Austin’s annual celebration of hyper-packed clubs and leather-clad A&R people. Far off the bar-beaten path of SXSW, the Dart Bowl Steak House swaps the conference-based bustle of Sixth Street for the sporadic…
SXSW Profiles
Marah, Stubb’s, 10pm Thursday “Most alternative country shit I think is boring — most of the records people send me I don’t like. I’m not going to slag anybody, but there’s just so much mediocre music.” So thinks Dave Bielanko, who along with sibling Serge, forms the brotherly love half of Philadelphia fourpiece Marah (accent…
SXSW Live Shots
British Boys: Episode OneTwist/Maggie Mae’s Warning: All SXSW 2000 interaction will be limited soley to citizens of the United Kingdom. At the Convention Center, the ex-Posies manager is friendly and charming, but with no fringe and no accent; we must move on. Minutes later, driving down Sixth Street, we spot a tall man wearing a…
It’s Kicking In
The official Sir Douglas Quintet International Fan Club card issued to members during the mid-Sixties. Huey Meaux, one of the two who could make or break a band at the time, steered them into national prominence. The original Quintet from left to right: Augie Meyers, Johnny Perez, Jack Barber, Frank Marin, and “Sir” Doug (with…
Record Reviews
Bob SchneiderLonelyland (Shockorama) Who knew that underneath the obscene and sexist pig musical exterior of the Scabs lurked Bob Schneider, sensitive guy? Lonelyland, Schneider’s debut as a singer-songwriter type, is one more reason to coo over him, though (or maybe resent him as the case may be), because on it he proves himself to be…
Record Reviews
MarahKids in Philly (E-Squared) Marah’s E-Squared debut, Kids in Philly, is a crowded affair. Not only is it teeming with textured roots rock, there’s loads of other people commingling (spiritually, anyway) with the Philly fourpiece in some downright unconventional combinations. To wit: “Point Breeze” intros like “Free Ride” before transitioning into R.E.M.’s “Pop Song 89″…
Naked City
Just when you thought you wouldn’t have to cast another ballot until November, along come the City Council elections. So mark May 6 on your calendar as the day all you city folk trudge off to the polls again. In the meantime, neighborhood activist Clare Barry will add her name to the growing list of…
Reflections
Dark Days Dir/DP/Prod: Marc Singer; Prod: Ben Freedman; Ed: Melissa Freedman; Music: DJ Shadow. 35mm, 84 min., 1999 Marc Singer never considered himself a documentary filmmaker. In fact, Singer spent months visiting with a small sample of New York’s homeless community before deciding that he should be filming his time with them. A movie, he…
SXSW Live Shots
Estrus/Lookout! Showcases Emo’s “I fucked your boyfriend.” It’s definitely a punk rock show when you see a woman wearing a T-shirt with that inscription. Or more correctly, a punk rock showcase, this particular two-headed beast highlighting bands from indie punkish labels Estrus and Lookout! Punk-ish, because it’s not quite the original raw stylings that kicked…
Reflections
Legacy Dir/Scr: Prod: Tod S. Lending; Co-Prod/Ed: Daniel Alpert; DP: Randell Blakely; Music: Sheldon Mirowitz. 35mm, 90 min., 1999 (RP) In 1994, Tod Lending was conducting an interview for the PBS documentary No Time to Be a Child in the blown-out Henry Horner housing projects of Chicago. While Lending was speaking with welfare grandmother Dorothy…
Songs of Youth
Longtime buddies Tommy Rosen and John Comerford drew on their own experiences following rock bands from city to city to write Around the Fire, a free-spirited paean to life on the road directed by John Jacobsen.
My Best Fiend
My Best Fiend 1999, NR, 95 min. Directed by Werner Herzog, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . What happens when you put the two alpha males in a cage together? If you’re talking about German director Werner Herzog and his longtime “friend” and star Klaus Kinski, the answer is pretty much anything. The…
Best Keyboards
RUNNERS-UP: Marcia Ball, Ian McaLagan, Bukka Allen, Riley Osborn, Pete Gordon, Michael Ramos, Glover Gill, Graham Reynolds, Deborah Kelly
Best Radio Program
RUNNERS-UP: Eklektikos: John Aielli, KUT; J.B. & Sandy, MIX 94.7; Kevin & Kevin: Kevin Connor and Kevin Phinney, KGSR; Local Licks: Loris Lowe, KLBJ; Estrogen Fest: Sara Trexler & Jen Garrison, 101X; Afternoon Drive: Johnny Walker, KLBJ; Next Big Thing: Andy Langer, 101X; Just Jazz: Paul Ray, KUT; Texas Music: Larry Monroe, KUT; Blue Monday:…
Best Jazz
RUNNERS-UP: 8 1/2 Souvenirs, Jazz Pharoahs, The Brew, Tony Campise, Asylum Street Spankers, The Atlantics, Hot Buttered Rhythm, Los Jazz Vatos, Blue Millennium, Blue Noise Band, Tomas Ramirez, Tosca, Natalie Zoe, Jon Blondel
Exhibitionism
Austin Lyric Opera’s Aida looks like a million bucks, but its stunning visuals are undercut by some less-than-grand human qualities.
Letters at 3AM
In memory of a Shaman
Favorite Finds
G & M Steakhouse 626 N. Lamar, 472-2172 Daily, 7am to 3pm Two other customers are in the restaurant with me. One has been coming weekly for 17 years; the other two or three times a week for 12 years. They ask how long I’ve been eating at G&M. Sheepishly, I answer “this is my…
SXSW Profiles
Therapy?, Gallery Lombardi Lounge, 11pm Thursday Best known stateside for the alterna-rock single “Screamager,” off 1994’s gold-certified Troublegum, Therapy? frontman Andy Cairns and company have apparently spent the intervening years trying to figure out how to get back to the rough-and-tumble basics of their first outing, 1991’s creepy, crunchy Babyteeth. For Cairns, that was easier…
SXSW Live Shots
A Great Day In AustinTown Lake South By Southwest 2000’s first big schmooze wasn’t at the Four Seasons, but on Town Lake. And this time of year, it’s not even that surprising that while there were over 100 Austin musicians (plus Billy Gibbons) lined up for this gig, not a note was played. The occasion…
It’s Kicking In
Doug and Broose in the early Eighties The Border Wave-era Quintet had recently played “Fridays,” a late-Seventies/early-Eighties comedy show.
Record Reviews
The Black Halos(Die Young Stay Pretty/Sub Pop) As any and all forms of Seventies-era rock are exhumed for another go-round, awareness of the fine line between reverence and retread becomes as crucial as having a friend who runs a vintage store. Vancouver’s Black Halos (formerly the Black Market Babies) deftly negotiate this line with super-pop…
Record Reviews
The Love Supreme This is shed music, baby, well-dressed stuff that demands rock stardom before it’s even landed a record deal. The stylishly shod and shorn lead singer Noah Lit must be miserable in this unfabulous capital city of Austin. Where on earth does he find shoes? The local band’s transition from dull jam to…
Naked City
As usual, election night returns came slowly, turnout was low, and there wasn’t much suspense.
Reflections
Shafted! Dir/Scr: Tom Putnam; Cast: Morgan Rusler, Angelle Brooks, Hayley Man, David J. Alexander, JD Cullum, Gary Coleman. 35mm, 90 min., 2000 (WP) Steve Buczynski thinks he’s black superhero John Shaft. There are two problems, though; Steve is slightly more intelligent than a Labrador retriever (he spells his name “Shat”), and he’s white as a…
SXSW Live Shots
Sterling Morrison: The Velvet Underdog PanelAustin Convention Center For John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison’s initial qualification for membership in the newly formed Velvet Underground was the fact that he rode the subway barefoot. “He was a tall, filthy-looking character with no shoes,” recalled Cale. “That was Sterling.” The South by Southwest panel examining Morrison’s life…
Reflections
Noriega: God’s Favorite Dir: Roger Spottiswoode; Scr: Lawrence Wright; DP: Pierre Mignot; Cast: Rosa Blasi, Nestor Carbonell, Rez Cortez, Charley J. Garrett, Bob Hoskins, Dick Israel, Samantha Lopez, Eric Payne, Stefanie Walmsley. 35mm, 115 min., 2000 (WP) This black comedy of Third World politics is a surreal ride on the roller coaster of pan-American affairs…
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
The Ninth Gate
The Ninth Gate 1999, R, 133 min. Directed by Roman Polanski, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner, Frank Langella, Johnny Depp. The devil, apparently, isn’t in the details after all. That’s the hard lesson viewers will take away from this deadly — one might even say infernally — dull ordeal…
Best Male Vocals
RUNNERS-UP: Malford Milligan, George Devore, Guy Forsyth, Monte Montgomery, Jon Dee Graham, Joe Ely, Don Walser, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Dale Watson, A.J. Vallejo, Ian Moore, Ted Roddy, Will Walden, Kevin Russell, Tony Park, Wayne Sutton, Adam Carroll, Kevin McKinney, MC Overlord
Best Radio Station
RUNNERS-UP: KLBJ-FM, KUT-FM, 101X KVRX-FM, KOOP-FM, MIX 94.7, KAZI-FM, KFMK-FM, KEY-103, Micro-Kind
Best Record Store
RUNNERS-UP: Tower Records – Videos – Books, Cheapo Discs, ABCD’s, Thirty-Three Degrees, Jupiter Records, Antone’s Record Store, Local Flavor, Encore Movies & Music, Sound Exchange
After a Fashion
Reports from a rare week of fashion activity in Austin.
Favorite Finds
Mexican Food 101 Calamares = Squid Camarón = Shrimp Campechana = Cocktail of squid, shrimp, crab, oysters, and octopus Mariscos = Shellfish Ostiones = Oysters Pescado = Fish Pulpo = Octopus Barbacoa = Barbeque, Mexican-style Cabeza = Cow head Carne guisada = stew Carnitas = Whole pig, rendered and sliced Chicharrón = Crackling pig skin…
SXSW Profiles
John Cale, Texas Union Ballroom, 11pm Thursday John Cale was on the telephone recently, pondering the news of his upcoming honorary doctorate at Belgium’s University of Antwerp in May. It was an honor indeed, he agreed, then added in his sonorous Welsh accent, “But I don’t think it will have any value on a club…
SXSW Live Shots
BASTARD SONS OF JOHNNY CASHHole in the Wall Those California bands sure do dress nice. Nudie shirts, Tony Alamo slacks, crocodile boots that cost more than a lot of pawnshop guitars do. The illegitimate offspring of the Man in Black mixed it up on the newly reconfigured rear stage of the Hole in the Wall.…
It’s Kicking In
Postcards from the Road Doug didn’t send many cards (maybe because of his scrawl) while on tour, but took the time in Eureka, California, in 1992 to check in and make sure Shandon was being “a good boy.” He talks about seeing Charlie Sexton and the Arc Angels and frets about the heat. He escaped…
Record Reviews
Black Kali MaYou Ride the Pony (I’ll Be the Bunny) (Alternative Tentacles) Whoa! Who pissed off Gary Floyd? Besides his mother, that is? You Ride the Pony opens with “Kali,” the most menacing maternity-themed song since Glenn Danzig advised her children not to look his way. Given Pony’s pummeling nature, it’s not surprising that the…
Record Reviews
LakunaCastle of Crime (4AD) Former Throwing Muses drummer David Narcizo (with bassist Frank Gardner) hops on the trip-hop bandwagon with this spare, quietly engaging album that sounds like it was recorded in Bristol within spitting distance of RISD. Don’t be fooled by Narcizo’s presence in this project, though; his madslappin’ drumwork from the Muses is…
Naked City
Being as we are in the Era of Good Feelings in local politics, the Election Night rite has become as quietly familiar as an old shoe. An old, uncomfortable shoe. Actually, sorta more like waiting for a driver’s license. As is the norm for elections managed by Travis County, with their antiquated vote-counting machines, it…
Reflections
Just, Melvin Dir/Scr/Prod/Ed/ Music: James Ronald Whitney. 35mm, 96 min., 2000 (RP) This disturbing journey into the heart of darkness of an American family is an act of revenge, a filmmaker’s vendetta to right an unforgivable wrong. In other words: This time it’s personal. Whitney’s documentary consists primarily of interviews with members of his immediate…
SXSW Live Shots
THURSDAY NIGHT MUSIC AWARDS South by Southwest is too big for one live review to do it justice, and the Austin Music Awards are too early to cover the best of SXSW. Hence SXSW 2000’s Thursday Night Music Awards: Best Rumor: Last week, otherwise intelligent locals spent a lot of time asking for the name…
Reflections
Shadow Boxers Dir/Prod/Ed: Katya Bankowsky; DP: Anthony Hardwick, Tony Wolberg; Music: Zoël. 35mm, 72 min., 1999 (RP). “Is my make-up all right?” Not a question you’re likely to hear from George Foreman anytime soon, but still one uttered within spitting distance of the squared circle in Rankowsky’s portrait of women in professional boxing. The offhand…
Video Reviews
All New Adventures of LaureL & Hardy: For Love or MummyD: John R. Cherry III, Larry Harmon (1998); with Bronson Pinchot, Gailard Sartain, F. Murray Abraham. With his alleged screwing of Stan Laurel out of the Laurel & Hardy name on the diminutive funnyman’s deathbed, Larry Harmon (aka Bozo) became known to many showbiz aficionados…
Best Lounge/Swing
RUNNERS-UP: The Recliners, Mr Fabulous & Casino Royale, Hot Club of Cowtown, Nash Hernandez Orchestra, El Orbits, Asylum Street Spankers, Merchants of Venice, Natalie Zoe, 47 Indians
Best Miscellaneous Instrument
RUNNERS-UP: Mambo John Treanor, washboard; Alice Spencer, accordion; Lloyd Maines, pedal steel; Claude Bernard, accordion; Steve Rees, bagpipes; Rob Halverson; Carter Pagel, harmonica; Lynda Millard, flute; Matthew McConaughey, bongos
Best Record Producer
RUNNERS-UP: KVRX, Refurbished Robots; Billy White, Ginger Mackenzie; Carl Thiel, Lisa Tingle; Sean Garcia, The Barkers; Stephen Bruton; Derek O’Brien, Toni Price; Dave McNair, Kelly Willis; John Croslin, The Damnations TX; Tab Bartling, Tony Campise
Best Video
RUNNERS-UP: Various AMN footage, George Devore; “My Hometown”, Charie Robison; “Not Forgotten You”, Kelly Willis; “Cherokee Maiden”, Asleep at the Wheel
Let It Rock
What’s Welsh for Zen: The Autobiography of John Cale by John Cale and Victor Bockris BloomsburyUSA, 272 pp., $24.95 (paper) It will come as little surprise to his fans that John Cale’s autobiography What’s Welsh for Zen is uncommonly literate, expressively revealing, and darkly humorous. That means all the sex, drugs, and rock & roll…
Mr. Smarty Pants
The dirty South and the restless East.
Sipping Between the Lines
Chronicle wine writer Wes Marshall reviews the wine lists at two Austin hotels, the Driskill and the Four Seasons.
SXSW Profiles
The High Fidelity, Park Avenue, 1am Thursday “I’m really worried about the state of music in America,” says the High Fidelity’s frontman Sean Dickson in an alternately charming and acidic Scottish brogue. “Half the stuff that’s coming out of the States sounds like Paula Abdul. It’s so Eighties-teen-music-special, it’s horrible. That’s why I started a…
SXSW Live Shots
I AM THE WORLD TRADE CENTER Emo’s Jr. At one end of the continuum you have the Rolling Stones, who on this date in 1989 signed the most expensive contract in the history of rock & roll. No less than $70 million was promised to the band for a few dozen North American tour dates.…
It’s Kicking In
Viva Lee Sahm Doug’s mother — that’s pronounced “Veye-vuh” — was very supportive of her son’s musical career from early on. The matriarch of the family died in 1975; father Victor Sahm died at the height of Doug’s Top 40 career in 1965.
Record Reviews
Alabama Thunder PussyConstellation (Man’s Ruin) What does the title of Alabama Thunder Pussy’s third release Constellation aim to imply? A pointed arrangement? A broader vista? A star-cluster fuck? A little of each. On their third album for freak artist Frank Kozik’s metal blender Man’s Ruin label, the Richmond, Virginia, quintet opens with the partially live…
Record Reviews
Palaxy TracksThe Long Wind Down (Grey Flat) Somewhere between the mellifluous lilt of Galaxie 500 and the homemade psych-out angularity of the Soft Boys, there’s a sweet spot for the odd, faraway jangle that maintains intimacy without compromising energy. On their second release, Austin’s Palaxy Tracks mine this spot in a highly disciplined manner that…
Naked City
After winning a shoo-in primary, Gov.George W. Bush turns his attention to likely Democratic candidate Al Gore.
Reflections
Loving Jezebel Dir/Scr: Kwyn Bader; Cast: Hill Harper, Justin Pierre Edmund, David Moscow, Laurel Holloman, Nicole Ari Parker. 35mm, 87 min., 1999 (RP) With equal parts trepidation and affection, we watch Theodorus Melville metamorphose from a romantically precocious grade-schooler to a fevered, Urkel-like adolescent to a libidinously impetuous college student to a sweet, self-doubting Don…
SXSW Live Shots
The Patti Smith GroupWaterloo Park To term it a religious experience would not be an exaggeration. Patti Smith, poet, visionary, high priestess of punk, gathered the huddled masses in Waterloo Park for her glorious return to Austin in a ceremony that was at once an homage, an exorcism, and a holy communion of rock and…
Reflections
Shadows of Doubt Dir/Prod: Jonathan Stack; Co-Dir/Ed: Michael Levine; Co-Prod: Mike Smith; DP: Alejandro Smith, Rachel Libert, Simeon Soffer; Music: Wendy Blackstone. 16mm, 86 min., 1999 (RP) What an incredibly provocative film Jonathan Stack has produced here about the elusive search for truth in our criminal justice system. His documentary follows up on a shocking…
Video Reviews
The Nutt House D: Adam Rifkin (1992); with Stephen Kearney, Amy Yasbeck, Traci Lords, Stella Stevens, Emil Sitka. Before making names for themselves with the triumphant comedy/horror mix of the Evil Dead movies and Hercules/Xena TV series, buddies Sam and Ivan Raimi and Bruce Campbell and Scott Spiegel entertained themselves by lensing short, Three Stooges-type…
Best Mexican Traditional/Folk
RUNNERS-UP: Mariachi Estrella, Los Super Seven, Flaco Jiminez, The Texas Tornados
Best Singer-Songwriter
RUNNERS-UP: Bob Schneider, Terri Hendrix, Shawn Colvin, Sara Hickman, Lisa Tingle, Kelly Willis, Butch Hancock, Adam Carroll, Stephen Bruton, Doug Sahm, Ray Wyie Hubbard, Kacy Crowley, Cornell Hurd, Alejandro Escovedo
Band of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: Vallejo, Sister 7, Trish Murphy, Lonelyland, The Damnations TX, Asylum Street Spankers, The Gourds, Monte Montgomery, Fastball, George Devore & Roam, Reckless Kelly, Asleep at the Wheel, Terri Hendrix, Pushmonkey, The Barkers, Dexter Freebish, Kelly Willis, Soulhat, Toni Price
Let It Rock
Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic by Jim DeRogatis Broadway Books, 256 pp., $15.95 (paper) Lester Bangs (1948-1982) is the only rock critic in history who cultivated a star persona by writing record reviews. As a fan on the street rather than an observer in the stands,…
Day Trips
The New American fare at The Range in Salado alone is worth the 45-minute drive from Austin.
Picks of the Lists
Driskill HotelIron Horse Russian Cuvee Sparkling Wine ($50) Beringer Sbragia Limited Release Chardonnay ($85) Casa Lapostolle Sauvignon Blanc ($25) Caymus Sauvignon Blanc ($35) Chalone “Estate Reserve” Pinot Blanc ($50) Byron Pinot Noir ($45) Rosemount Estate Shiraz ($30) Guigal Gigondas ($50) Warre’s Vintage Port 1977 ($140) The Café at the Four Seasons HotelSalon Champagne ($305) Girard…
SXSW Profiles
Jody Denberg talks to Patti Smith
SXSW Live Shots
Adam CarrollGallery Lombardi Lounge Thirty-three. That was the number of people inside the Gallery Lombardi Lounge when Adam Carroll took the stage. It’s no stretch to say that kismet clearly ain’t on your side when you draw a Wednesday night slot in the SXSW lottery. Going up against the music awards in any town would…
Record Reviews
Therapy?Suicide Pact — You First (Ark 21) Like a long-repressed childhood trauma, Belfast’s Therapy? rears its hydra head to scare the living shit out of Seventies metal wannabes. The decade-old quartet’s first stateside release since 1995’s badly burned Infernal Love on A&M, Suicide Pact — You First is exactly what its title describes: a no-win…
Record Reviews
Bowery ElectricLushlife (Beggars Banquet) Lushlife, the third outing from NYC soothesters Bowery Electric, is a morphine drip of an album, so clear and precise in its smokey, sexy grooves that it seems almost too easy to compare them to fellow late-night nodders Portishead. Vocalist Martha Schwendener certainly fits the bill, though, not so much singing…
Naked City
Ann Kitchen bests Mandy Dealey in the Democratic primary for Texas House District 48, and Jill Warren heads into a runoff with fellow Republican Scott Loras.
Reflections
Kitchen Privileges Dir/Scr: Mari Kornhauser; Cast: Katharina Wressing, Peter Sarsgaard, Angeline Ball, Geoffrey Lower 35mm, 89 min., 1999 (WP) Proving that the scariest places are those created in your mind, Kitchen Privileges is that rare thriller: an eerie, atmospheric character study that manipulates on-screen events to affect viewer psychology. The result, I believe, is called…
SXSW Live Shots
Artists Only PanelAustin Convention Center The Internet is changing everything — that much you already know. There are those at the forefront of the technologization of the music industry who are using these sweeping changes to their advantage, re-creating the business around their own vision of the way things should be and taking great pleasure…
Film Fest Winners
Winners of the SXSW Film Festival Awards.
Video Reviews
Brain Donors D: Dennis Dugan (1992); with John Turturro, Bob Nelson, Mel Smith, George De La Pena, John Savident, Nancy Marchand. Who would’ve thought that the Marx Brothers, arguably the most difficult comedy team to analyze in the history of the medium, would be the ones best served by a parody/homage? In a film originally…
Best Pop
RUNNERS-UP: George Devore & Roam, Ginger Mackenzie, Dexter Freebish, The Scabs, Lonelyland, David Garza, Monte Montgomery, The Barkers, Kitty Gordon
Best Songwriter
RUNNERS-UP: Trish Murphy, Sara Hickman, Monte Montgomery, Alice Spencer & Will Walden, David Garza, Jon Dee Graham, Patrice Pike, Terri Hendrix, Adam Carroll, Bruce Robison, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keen, Alejandro Escovedo, Guy Forsyth
Best New Band
RUNNERS-UP: Mingo Fishtrap, Rajamani, Buttahfly, Dynamite Hack, Powderburn, Blue Noise Band, Shelley King Band, Joe West & The Sinners, Funky London
Let It Rock
The Art of the Fillmore: The Poster Series 1966-1971 by Gayle Lemke Thunder Mouth Press, 240 pp., $29.95 (paper) There was one essential difference between the San Francisco poster artists of the Sixties — Stanley Mouse, Rick Griffin, Lee Conklin — and those of other cities around the country, like Austin (Guy Juke, Jim Franklin,…
Coach’s Corner
Be true to your school!
Food-o-File
Virginia B. Wood on the delights of Dolce Vita and her updates on Austin’s restaurant scene.
SXSW Profiles
Roger McGuinn, Cactus Cafe, 10pm Crowning Columbia Legacy’s illustrious three-year restoration of the Byrds canon, concluding last month with the group’s last three titles (Untitled, Byrdmaniax, and Farther Along), the previously unreleased Live at the Fillmore, February 1969 rises like a Phoenix from a 35-year-old body of work that’s given rise to several generations of…
SXSW Live Shots
The Dylan GroupEmo’s Broken equipment cannot stop rock & roll. It didn’t stop Etienne Charry, who came all the way from Paris (France) with his crates full of robots and electronic gear. Somewhere during the flight something got broken, but the show went on nonetheless. The stage setup was reminiscent of Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” video,…
SXSW Music Festival
Thursday Picks THE DERAILERS: Bakersfield by way of Austin. The Derailers’ new CD, Full Western Dress, finds the band venturing further into Beatles-esque Sixties pop influences along with their familiar hats-off to Buck Owens. It’s country music with an edge, combining influences, and running it all through a Texas filter. (Waterloo Park, 5:30pm) — Jerry…
Record Reviews
Ann BerettaTo All Our Fallen Heroes (Lookout!) Richmond, Virginia’s Ann Beretta treads the punk rock road, songs like “Fire in the Hole” and “Eye for an Eye” calling to mind old-school punk bands like Minor Threat and All. Unison vocals, lots of guitar, lots of energy, lots of melody, short on hooks and originality. The…
Record Reviews
Beachwood Sparks (Sub Pop) Answering any lingering questions about what they’ve been up to since departing for the great beyond, Gram Parsons and Jerry Garcia have obviously been channeling themselves into Beachwood Sparks. The result is a plush melodicism and the shoegazing aura of the L.A. quartet’s self-titled Sub Pop debut, which lands somewhere between…
Naked City
Dawnna Dukes beats Stella Roland in the combative race for Texas House District 50.
Reflections
The Woman Chaser Dir: Robinson Devor; Scr: Charles Willeford; Cast: Patrick Warburton, Eugene Roche, Ron Morgan. 35mm, 90min., 1999 (RP) Strange bedfellows, commerce and art. They’re enough to make any one of us crazy. Take used-car salesman Richard Hudson (Warburton) — equal parts numbskull and iconoclast. He’s out to make a movie but along the…
SXSW Live Shots
Making Noise on the Net Panel Austin Convention Center “Almost nobody is currently making money on the Net!” Coming from Thomas Dolby Robertson during his hourish talk, this statement sums up the confusing, yet rife-with-potential, nature of music on the Internet. As a performing artist and founder of Silicon Valley music software company Beatnik, Robertson…
Competition Judges
Narrative FeatureMonte Hellman directed Two-Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter, Ride in the Whirlwind, and China 9, Liberty 37. Tim McCanlies wrote and directed the independent feature Dancer, Texas, Pop. 81 and wrote 1999’s acclaimed animated feature The Iron Giant. Kathleen Murphy is a film critic and contributing editor for Film Comment magazine. Documentary FeatureDon Howard is an…
Video Reviews
Stop Making SenseD: Jonathan Demme (1984); with David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison. Stop Making Sense is considered by many to be one of the best concert films of all time, and possibly the best (depending on how one feels about the band). There are people who find David Byrne to be affected…
Best Rock
RUNNERS-UP: The Scabs, George Devore & the Roam, Trish Murphy, Monte Montgomery, Sister 7, Soulhat, Jon Dee Graham, The Gourds, Joe Ely
Best Strings
RUNNERS-UP: Amy Farris, fiddle; Tosca Strings; Erik Hokkanen, fiddle; Gene Elders, fiddle; Will Tayor, violin; John Hagen, cello; Shane Madden, violin; Cody Braun, mandolin; Richard Bowden, fiddle, mandolin
Musician of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: Kelly Willis, Trish Murphy, David Garza, Sara Hickman, Doug Sahm, Patrice Pike, Jon Dee Graham, Terri Hendrix, Guy Forsyth
Let It Rock
All the Rage: A Riotous Romp Through Rock & Roll History by Ian McLagan Watson-Guptill Publications, 416 pp., $19.95 (paper) Ian McLagan was a member of not just one, but two of the greatest bands in rock & roll: Small Faces (McLagan, Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, and Kenney Jones) and the Faces (McLagan, Lane, Jones,…
About AIDS
Two drugs being developed from trees could help not only in the treatment of AIDS/HIV, but other diseases as well.
The Pink Pick
Kate Messer remembers when she first met Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison and they bonded over the Gibson SG like a couple of guitar geeks.
SXSW Profiles
Jean Caffeine, Empanada Parlour, 9pm It doesn’t matter that Jean Caffeine has just turned 40. “I wanna rock now more than ever,” she proclaims adamantly. “At this age, you get less self-conscious about what people think about you, and I find that gives me a lot of freedom.” Caffeine’s last release, Knocked Down 7 Times,…
SXSW Live Shots
Swollen CircusHole in the Wall, Tuesday 14 For the past five years, Michael Hall and Walter Salas-Humara have staged their “Swollen Circus” at the Hole in the Wall on the Tuesday before SXSW. The concept is simple: a dozen or so of their musical friends get 15 minutes apiece to perform “three concise pop tunes.”…
SXSW Music Festival
Thursday Sleepers TIM EASTON: Easton may be known to some as the frontman for Columbus, Ohio’s Haynes Boys, but on his solo albums he really works the whole Townes Van Zandt and John Prine storyteller vibe to full effect. Add arrangements that cover the entire mini-gamut of the Americana sub-genre. (Cactus Cafe, 8pm) — Michael…
Record Reviews
Daniel JohnstonLive in Berlin (Stress)Danny & the Nightmares Daniel Johnston has long been regarded as one of the fathers of the lo-fi movement, an honor it’s doubtful he would claim even if he understood it. Johnston’s music has been served well by the bare-bones cassette recordings of his songs, which offers no distraction or embellishment…
Record Reviews
Sex MobSolid Sender (Knitting Factory) The Downtown New York jazz scene, with its epicenter at the famed and funky Knitting Factory, has bred and nurtured its fair share of eccentric and genre-bending ensembles, and Sex Mob fits right in as a full-fledged, card-carrying member of this “irreverent school.” For starters, the Mob uses brief punctuating…
Naked City
Winners in the constables’ races include incumbents Bob Vann and Bruce Elfant. Rocky Medrano and Maria Canchola go into a runoff for Precinct 4.
Reflections
Live Nude Girls UNITE! Dir: Julia Query, Vicky Funari. Video, 69 min., 2000 (WP) The sex industry has long been criticized for its exploitation of women. What people rarely discuss, however, is the actual working conditions sex workers must endure. The ladies at San Francisco’s Lusty Lady had to face an increasingly hostile work environment…
SXSW Live Shots
Shelby LynneClub DeVille “This ain’t no Margaret Mitchell.” Ain’t that the truth. This is Ava Gardner does Memphis. Shelby Lynne looks so much like Austin pop siren Trish Murphy, right down to the leprechaun stature and snow-white, airtight couture, it was déjà vu all over again, considering that Murphy bewitched the Doolittle day party gathering…
Amongst Fiends
Amongst friends, it may be possible to drop the “r” and still remain the best of fiends. Director Werner Herzog demonstrates something of this capacity with his new film, My Best Fiend, opening this Friday at the Dobie, which explores his colorful relationship with the actor Klaus Kinski. Herzog’s movie is a personal documentary that…
TV Eye
At the SXSW Interactive 2000 Festival, columnist Belinda Acosta takes a peek at the television of the future; also, director Kevin Smith fumes over the television version of his indie hit Clerks, and the Emmys announce a change in voting procedure.
Best Roots Rock
RUNNERS-UP: The Derailers, Reckless Kelly, The Damnations TX, Ted Roddy’s Tearjoint Troubadours, Monte Montgomery, Joe Ely, Jon Dee Graham, LeRoi Bros., Blind Luck
Best Club DJ
RUNNERS-UP: DJ Kurrupt, Spiros; DJ Herb, Twist; DJ Mel, Nasty’s; Johnny Slug, Atomic Cafe
Album of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: Trish Murphy, Rubies on the Lawn; The Barkers, Burn Your Piano; Monte Montgomery, Mirror; KVRX, Local Live IV: Refurbished Robots; Ray Wylie Hubbard, Crusades of the Restless Knights; Bob Schneider, Lonelyland; Asleep at the Wheel, Ride with Bob; Toni Price, Lowdown and Up; Jon Dee Graham, Summerland; Sara Hickman, Newborn; The Damnations TX, Half…
