PLUS: Summer Camps

Cover Story

Oh, America!

Apparently, almost nothing can get you kicked out of the Miss American organization.

by Ash Bell

Texas Platters

Omar Kent Dykes Big Town Playboy (Ruf Records) When Omar Kent Dykes cruised On the Jimmy Reed Highway in 2007, he stopped at many juke joints. Chicago is his departure point this trip, with Jimmie Vaughan riding shotgun by reprising his role of Eddie Taylor to Dykes’ Reed and a full cast of hitchhikers, including…

by Margaret Moser

Next Day Air

A misdelivered package of concealed cocaine kicks off events in this comic film starring Donald Faison, Mike Epps, and Mos Def.

by Marc Savlov

Texas Platters

Slaid Cleaves Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away … (Music Road) The reason Slaid Cleaves takes a long time between releases – Wishbones, his last effort of self-penned tunes, came out in 2004 – is that he’s very particular about what songs he shares with his audience. This concept coats the entirety of Everything…

by Jim Caligiuri

Texas Platters

Daniel Francis Doyle We Bet Our Money on You (We Shot JR) As a self-sufficient unit, drummer Daniel Francis Doyle has perfected a rhythmic sort of sing-speak to accompany his guitar loops and behind-the-kit spastics. His last two albums translated quotidian bedroom boredom into an art project – see how many layers can fit in…

by Audra Schroeder

Rudo y Cursi

Y Tu Mamá También actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna reteam for this cautionary tale about soccer-playing brothers.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

Texas Platters

Loxsly Tomorrow’s Fossils Nothing makes or breaks a band like a concept album. Set in a post-Kid A realm of saturated and robotic textures, Loxsly’s self-produced sophomore outing, Tomorrow’s Fossils, unfolds the story of a well-intentioned scientist who develops the capability to read people’s minds. Chaos ensues on par with the Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles…

by Austin Powell

Texas Platters

The Wooden Birds Magnolia (Barsuk) Essentially the solo flight of former American Analog Set leader Andrew Kenny, the Wooden Birds hum narcotic lullabies for the disenchanted. The sound permeating the band’s debut, Magnolia, is oddly familiar: a palm-muted percussive gallop that at times recalls a stripped-down version of Iron & Wine. “Hometown Fantasy,” adapted from…

by Austin Powell

Texas Platters

Coma in Algiers Your Heart Your Body Coma in Algiers’ follow-up to 2007 debut This Is Your Justice was recorded live in studio over the course of a single day. That on-the-spot feel is tangible throughout, which is fitting given that the local quintet’s noise-punk isn’t the kind that benefits from sonic polish. Opener “Why…

by Audra Schroeder

Texas Platters

Iron & Wine Around the Well (Sub Pop) “I try to write humanistic songs,” Sam Beam, the bearded poet behind Iron & Wine, told the Chronicle last year. “In the context of our culture, Abraham and Jesus are our mythology. We don’t have the Greek myths. We’ve got Cain and Abel.” No other songwriter has…

by Austin Powell

Headlines

• Outrage erupted in East Austin Monday, when Austin Police Officer Leonardo Quintana fired on two black youths, killing one, 18-year-old Nathaniel Sanders II. A crowd assembled as news of the shooting spread through the neighborhood, the police calling out SWAT in response to objects being thrown at officers. See “Eastside Police Shooting.” • Bye-Bye…

by Chronicle Staff

DVD Watch

The title of Chris Marker’s radical magnum opus is a reference to Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, which like revolution is seen only in parts, not the whole.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

TV Eye

Saying goodbye to this season’s shows and a reluctant hello to a summer of reality shows

by Belinda Acosta

Temple Stone

Japanese psych warlords Ghost won’t be as illusive as their name suggests after Saturday’s show at Mohawk

by Austin Powell

Ghost Discography

Ghost (1990) Enthralling introduction to Ghost’s mystical seduction, steeped in leader Masaki Batoh’s organic singer-songwriter fare (“I’ve Been Flying”), with flute flourishes from Taishi Takizawa. Originally released by PSF Records and reissued in 1997 by Chicago indie Drag City, Ghost’s eponymous debut takes a collective approach, amounting to Tibetan drones (“Moungod Te Deum,” “Moungod Radiant…

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Meat Puppets Sewn Together When Cris Kirkwood rejoined the Meat Puppets for Rise to Your Knees (see “Lake of Fire,” July 20, 2007), the album’s gritty folk dirge belied big brother Curt Kirkwood’s mortal relief. Post-punk’s Everly Brothers were back. With Sewn Together, the Kirkwoods and drummer Ted Marcus reanimate a Meat Puppets not seen…

by Raoul Hernandez

Texas Platters

Steve Earle Townes (New West) Four months after Townes Van Zandt’s death on New Year’s Day 1997, Steve Earle retreated to Galway, Ireland, site of one of Van Zandt’s final shows. Just more than two years clean and out of prison and helplessly watching his teenaged son, Justin Townes Earle, tread down the same disastrous…

by Doug Freeman

Texas Platters

Scott H. Biram Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever (Bloodshot) Amped sounds of a mad trucker crab broke open Scott H. Biram’s Bloodshot Records’ sophomore sticker, Graveyard Shift (see “Texas Platters,” July 21, 2006), but the bruised heart of “Lost Case of Being Found” and “Santa Fe” uncovered disarming vulnerability. Something’s Wrong/Lost Forever, platter six for the local…

by Raoul Hernandez

Texas Platters

Cyril Neville Brand New Blues (MC Records) In his debut full-length since relocating to Austin after Katrina’s floodwaters washed away his New Orleans home, the youngest of the legendary Neville Brothers sets course on a mighty wave of blues. Weaving the family’s famous NOLA funk with various shades of blues, Cyril Neville wrote or co-wrote…

by Margaret Moser

Luv Doc Recommends: Texas Burlesque Festival

No matter how much you pay some people, they still want to take their clothes off. Yes, nudity can be really sexy, but it can also be profoundly disturbing. You can’t smear Vaseline on the lens of reality … well, actually you can smear it on your eyeball, but you’re much better off using K-Y…

by The Luv Doc

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