ABERCROMBIE AND SUCH
There’s an old joke that periodically makes the rounds in jazz circles: Don’t trust anyone who tells you he loves free jazz; he will probably lie about other things, too. Judging by his long, successful career as an influential and popular purveyor of free, extended improvisation, guitarist John Abercrombie doesn’t fit the free jazz mold.…
SOUND AND THE FURY
A Week On The Scene TALKING MONEY After enduring seven excruciating days and nights of non-stop banter by fourth-tier “celebrities” from the local media, KSYM DJs raised $55,590 in the station’s 2003 pledge drive. Finally, they can get back to playing the first track of Beck’s Sea Change over and over again. In related news,…
EPOXY GLOW
Iliana Lopez: Where do the Epoxies fit in today’s music scene? FM Static: It’s more of a response to the type of music we saw going on – all black leather jackets and cowboy hats sort of verging on metal rock – somebody needed to stand up for ridiculous music. We are committed to a…
LA DURA REALIDAD DE LA DICTADURA
Casi no hay pueblo americano que se salve de la experiencia ingrata y devastadora de ilusiones que una dictadura impone. Basta una sola en la historia de un país -y los hay que han tenido varias – para marcarlo para siempre con el signo candente de la amargura, el odio, el temor siempre terrible a…
(AN EXCERPT FROM) ‘RILEY’S BLUES’
(AN EXCERPT FROM) ‘RILEY’S BLUES’ A POEM BY JEFF KNIGHT He went to all the blues jams at all the black clubs on Beale Street, and (Oh My God!) He cut their hearts out. He cut their hearts out, night after night, blue note after blue note rising, falling, tumbling liquid from that big Gibson…
THE WEIGHT OF THE WAIT
If you’ve had an AIDS test, you’re familiar with the often agonizing two-week wait for the results, assuming that you followed up to see if you were infected. Now a new test, offered for free by the San Antonio AIDS Foundation, allows you to learn your HIV status in 20 minutes. OraQuick, distributed by Abbott…
SWIMMING TO AUSTIN
Maybe you started seeking remedies for SPALDING GRAY 8pm Thursday, March 20 $19-32.50 Paramount Theater 713 Congress, Austin 888-597-7827 (Star Tickets) the potential illness, and your path led you to a faith-healing cult in Tibet. While there, you met a woman whose illness was so unquestionably legitimate that it made you doubt not only…
TREE HUGGERS, 1; DEVELOPERS, 0
It’s true – to the delight of the environmental community and the chagrin of many developers – Garza led a renewed charge for a more restrictive tree preservation ordinance, which was three years overdue. The ordinance went into effect immediately as the council unanimously voted for it after four-and-a-half hours of deliberation on March 13.…
THE HARSH REALITY OF DICTATORSHIP
Universal history has witnessed the odious difficulties encountered when trying to import a political system and its ideals into a society that barely understands them or, even worse, is doubtful of its value for their interests and traditions. In our hemisphere, in our Americas – not only the America of Martí, the Cuban patriot -…
METAL HEALTH
After all, this is the same guy who publicly bashed Kurt Cobain only days after his suicide, and who set a new standard for cock-rock misogyny with the lyric: “Got you in a stranglehold, baby/then I crushed your face.” But when the Nuge sat down last summer for a television interview with San Antonio heavy-metal…
SHOW TIMES
FRI 3/21 – THU 3/27 These show times are provided by the theaters and are subject to change. The Current includes show times submitted by press deadline, and is not responsible for the changes in the ever-morphing film industry. All times are p.m. unless otherwise indicated. DOWNTOWN AMC RIVERCENTER 9 Did not submit showtimes by…
VIOLENT VERMIN
Seemingly trapped, watching his nonexistent social life ebb further away, Willard Stiles (Glover) is either glued to his invalid, demanding mother’s bedside, or stuck getting brow-beaten by his belligerent boss. All that changes once Willard discovers a legion of rats dwelling in his cellar who uncannily understand (and, more importantly, listen) to him. His newfound…
NEW REVIEW
OPEN HEARTS (Elsker dig for evigt) Dir. Susanne Bier; writ. Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen; feat. Sonja Richter, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Mads Mikkelsen, Paprika Steen, Stine Bjerregaard, Birthe Neumann, Niels Olsen (R) Although the cinematic austerity of Dogme 95, the Scandinavian movement that forbids artificial lighting, commentative sound, voiceovers, makeup, lens filters, and overt editing,…
Armchair Cinephile
STRANGERS FROM STRANGE LANDS The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) The Man Who Fell to Earth (Anchor Bay) Little Otik (Zeitgeist) Metropolis (Kino Video) Futurama (Fox) In the classic 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox), the alien is too smart to stick around for X-Files-style analysis; he blends into human society, trying…
STILL PLAYING
ABOUT SCHMIDT Dir. Alexander Payne; writ. Louis Begley (novel), Payne; feat. Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates (R) Schmidt is a road movie set on the other end of life’s cycle from Nicholson’s Easy Rider, as full of metaphoric ambition and as devoid of solid meaning. The actor is utterly convincing as a…
ORCHESTRAL MANEUVERS
San Antonio Symphony survives its latest crisis, but still grapples with long-term concerns The irony of the moment couldn’t have been clearer: receiving a career-threatening bombshell while playing a buoyant, exultant piece of music that Shostakovich San Antonio Symphony cellists David Mollenauer (front) and Giovanni DiGiosia perform during a recent free public concert held…
TWO JUICY
Valentine, one-half of the two-piece, Athens, Georgia-based ensemble Jucifer – co-songwriter and long-time boyfriend Edgar Livengood brings up the rear on drums – plays at Sin 13 on Thursday, March 20. Last week, the couple drove from the Austin SXSW showcase to a gig in Louisiana. After that, they trekked back to Texas to play…
