Cover Story
Black Sheep Boys
Okkervil River navigates the headwaters of its career
GoodFellas
Exhilaratingly up-close-and-personal account of life in the Mob.
“Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth”
“Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth” 2005, NR, 39 min. Directed by Philip Di Fiore. Worrell is the kind of musical creature whose sound is familiar even though you might not know his name. He’s the great keyboardist and synthesizer player whose unique soundscapes breathed new life into Parliament-Funkadelic and the Talking Heads. His otherworldly music…
Hold That Process
The Arts Commission recommends to City Council that the arts funding application process be suspended for the coming year
Cafe Bistro at Nordstrom
From shoe-shopping to problematic ordering to reasonably good refueling
Quality of Life for Blacks in Austin: Going Beyond Midtown
The city’s treatment of blacks – both governmentally and culturally – is questioned
The Hightower Report
Right-wingers seize upon Schiavo case; and white-collar hucksters enjoy their freedom
‘Fame’ Via Liverpool
The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts is making a rare visit to America to audition Yanks, and Austin is where it’s happening
La Terraza Grill and Bar
While dining recently at La Terraza, we couldn’t help but think about the lucky folks that stay next door at the La Quinta at the corner of I-35 and Oltorf
Austin’s Ethnic Makeup
52.9% white 9.8% black 30.6% Hispanic 4.7% Asian 2.0% otherMedian Family Incomecity $54,091 white $69,989 black $35,685 Hispanic $36,408 Asian $60,908Educational attainment — bachelors degree or morecity 40.4% white 52.4% black 19% Hispanic 15.5% Asian 67% (highest percentage in the country)Poverty ratescity 14.4% white 9.2% black 19.5% Hispanic 20.9% Asian 19.8%Unemploymentcity 4.4% white 3.2% black…
Warner Bros.: Avada Kedavra, Healy
‘Wizard People, Dear Readers,’ Brad Neely’s wonderfully wacked-out homage to ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,’ is no more
Arts Review
In ‘Genghis Khan,’ Salvage Vanguard Theater crafts a surprisingly traditional, surprisingly intimate, and absorbing operatic portrait of a lion in winter
Food-o-File
Scholarships, the Saveur Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival, tequila tastings at Santa Rita, and more
An Austinite in Iraq
Local man describes the progress, failures, and dangers in Iraq after humanitarian work there
Film News
Action: The state Senate and House incentive bills are in committee; a ‘Scanner’ delay; plus, Marc English, Joe Conway, and Sandra Bullock
Arts Review
In KillSport, Spank Dance Company’s latest, performers shoot, stab, bludgeon, and explode stuffed animals to satirize our lust for blood
GoliathSucks.net
The little guy takes on Clear Channel and wins, sort of
DVD Watch
Some kind of first for nearly everyone involved, the incredible ‘Carrie’ is done justice by its incredible DVD extras
Arts Review
‘Sky Above, Earth Below’ reveals the interest in the spiritual aspect of art shared by Stella Alesi and Connie Arismendi
Okkervil River Reviewed
Okkervil RiverBlack Sheep Boy (Jagjaguwar) Every one of us at some point or another has felt discarded, unwanted, withered. We stroll cautiously, head down, into empty rooms, always with eyes on our backs. Aggressive in truth and worth, Okkervil River’s fourth LP, Black Sheep Boy, traces this displacement. As the opening title cut, penned by…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
TV Eye
It finally happened. I am in that group PBS courts during fund-drive time with those extended remember when’ music special.
News/Print
Everything is illuminated extremely loud and incredibly close
About the Artist: William Schaff
“The black sheep boy grows horns, breathing smoke through his microphone,” sings Will Sheff on “So Come Back, I Am Waiting.” A similarly horned figure lurks on the cover and in the liner notes of Black Sheep Boy, as well as the cover of this very Chronicle, all images perpetrated by longtime Okkervil River collaborator…
Naked City
Terry Keel is qualified to comment on the death penalty, and you’re not
Page Two
Anyone who tells you the impact of a smoking ban will be negligible doesn’t appreciate that it’s the very number of Austin music clubs, including the swarm of the more marginal ones, that enables the scene’s vitality
Saw It on the X
ZZ Top’s one-man iconography machine, Bill Narum, shares his wares
Naked City
Ellis legislation stems from cases of Mexican nationals held on Texas’ death row
After a Fashion
Who is the Best Fashion Writer? Just ask the Saxon Pub! See inside for more details.
Phases & Stages
The DecemberistsPicaresque (Kill Rock Stars) You know those snow globes at airport gift shops? Any song from Picaresque fits inside. Where 2003’s Her Majesty the Decemberists unfurled tales of royalty, and debut Castaways and Cutouts talked of the sea, Picaresque drafts a whole new cast of characters just as colorful. “I am a writer, a…
Naked City
Legislator describes online learning as “the future of education;” actual educators disagree
Downfall
Hitler’s final days in the claustrophobic bunker are envisioned by the filmmakers, with an able assist from Bruno Ganz at the Fuhrer.
Letters at 3AM
The following examples of government mismanagement ought to be April Fools’ jokes, but they’re not
Phases & Stages
Originally aired on public television, The Man, His World, His Music (Sanctuary) preserves Johnny Cash like a home movie. Filmed in 1968 and ’69, the 80-minute disc finds the Man in Black onstage, visiting his childhood home in Dyess, Ark., in the studio, at the CMAs, at Wounded Knee, on the road, and relaxing at…
Naked City
Details of e-mail exchanges between nightclub owners and city manager
Academy Award-Nominated Short Films 2004
A program of eight short films nominated for live-action and animated Academy Awards in 2004.
About AIDS
“My doctor says I have resistance to (Drug X), but he is still prescribing it as part of my 3-drug ‘cocktail.’ Why would I still be on it if I’m resistant?” That’s a very frequently asked question, regardless of the drug – AZT, Epivir, Viread, whatever. It demonstrates a lack of understanding about what “resistance”…
Phases & Stages
BeckGuero (Interscope) Somewhere between 1996’s Odelay and the new Guero, Beck made a lot of friends that know a thing or two about programming. With the Dust Brothers dropping the beats and the fair-haired one providing the flow, Guero is a far cry from the introspective, emotional lyricism of 2002’s Sea Change, but the long-timers…
Naked City
Anti-tax group files Justice Department complaint
Beauty Shop
Amiable Queen Latifah comedy is the latest offering from the Barbershop franchise.
To Your Health
Are bioidentical progesterone pills similar to the natural progresterone cream in the treatment of menopausal symptoms?
Phases & Stages
Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out (Bar/None) As the story goes, Minutemen/fIREHOSE bassist Mike Watt gave L.A. violinist/singer Petra Haden, daughter of legendary jazz bassist Charlie Haden, an eight-track recorder with The Who Sell Out on one track, and instructions to use the other seven to reinterpret the classic album as an a cappella…
Naked City
Case stems from Houston shooting death
Melinda and Melinda
Woody Allen literally imagines a scenario as both a comedy and a tragedy, but we can’t understand why half of this movie isn’t at least amusing.
The Common Law
What is double jeopardy?
Phases & Stages
Susan CowsillJust Believe It It says a great deal for Susan Cowsill that only one of 14 tracks on her solo debut wasn’t written by her. “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” is a watermark of the folk-rock world, a hauntingly beautiful song of inner strength penned by English folkie Sandy Denny in the late…
Naked City
Activists fight the rain to honor civil rights leader
Sin City
This ultra-noir adaptation of Frank Miller’s black-and-white cult comic series is a visual feast ripped straight from the original medium’s blood-soaked pages.
Day Trips
The Warm Country Heart Theatre is a jewel among the boarded-up buildings and strip malls of the Paluxy River Valley
Phases & Stages
Josh RouseNashville (Rykodisc) Nine other blue-eyed pop simplicities are cause for reverie on Josh Rouse’s fifth LP, Nashville, more AM radiolike delights from the Seventies. Bread, for whom worthy new tribute disc Friends and Lovers: Songs of Bread (Badman) opens with Rouse, was never more missed, along with Dr. Hook, B.J. Thomas, and Boz Scaggs.…
Naked City
The evil genius buys some huevos
The Ballad of Jack and Rose
An insular father-daughter relationship comes apart in writer-director Rebecca Miller’s drama, which also stars her actor-husband Daniel Day-Lewis.
Bullet the Blue Sky
Going yard with a litany of baseball songs, a hot-rod show, and Trail of Dead
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Slow growing lobsters and dog leash death for Bonapartes
Phases & Stages
50 CentThe Massacre (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope) With all ears on his follow-up to 2003 debut Get Rich or Die Tryin’, 50 Cent leans heavily on sophomoric clichés that will surely be the death of us all. “I got an itchy itchy trigger finger, nigga it’s killing me not to spray this shit.” Representing the devolution of civilized…
Point Austin: Beside the Point: City Council Notes
City Hall notebook
Off the Map
An off-the-grid family copes with depression and a tax audit outside Taos, N.M., in this warm and unusual drama directed by Campbell Scott.
Adopting a Survivor’s Tale
Stephen Mills’ journey into the Holocaust leads a community toward tolerance
Soccer Watch
Down but not out for U.S.; and the champs welcome Chivas to MLS
Weird by Design
City’s proposed design standards emphasize livability, walkability, and flexibility
Halfway to Nowhere
As the Lege turns the corner, there’s still plenty of time for trouble
The Ones We Owe
Barbara Ehrenreich’s ‘Nickel and Dimed’ lionizes America’s minimum-wage heroines
The Secret Recipe
Journeyman chef Charles Mayes knows how to run a restaurant
Design: Standard by Standard
The proposed commercial design standards ordinance addresses 10 design areas, as listed below. The measures promoting or discouraging the various features addressed in the ordinance vary based on the size of the building and the kind of roadway on which it is located. The most strict restrictions are on large developments, big boxes, and national…
Lege Notes
Odds and ends from the 79th
Luv Doc Recommends: 28th Annual Southpaw Jones Birthday Celebration
There are something like 850,000 songwriters in the greater Austin metropolitan area. That’s a rough estimate, but if you’ve ever rolled up on a South Austin backyard barbecue thinking you’re not going to have to hear some Birkenstocked booze weasel regale you with a seven-minute-long stream-of-consciousness selection from his upcoming independently released, home-recorded CD, condolences…
