Viva La Bands Tour w. Cradle of Filth, GWAR, CKY, and Vains of Jenna
Release Date: 2007-10-03 The Viva La Bands tour hits Sunset Station courtesy of pop-culture icon and skater extraordinaire Bam Margera, who pulled some of his favorite, high-energy bands together to play on one stage. On a bill filled with possible headliners, Vains of Jenna is the newbie, see story, page TK. A must-see is the…
Puddle of Mud & Saliva
Release Date: 2007-10-03 After much anticipation and delayed release dates, Puddle of Mud fans will be able to buy the band’s fifth studio album next Tuesday. The first single, “Famous.” has caught some good radio time, while the band just wrapped up filming a video for the next single, “Psycho,” on the actual set of…
Specialty Beer Dinner
Release Date: 2007-10-03 Beer connoisseurs unite! Chef Jeffery Balfour of Citrus Restaurant prepares six different gourmet courses, pairing each with the best Shiner brew to complement the flavor. One course consists of pan-roasted beef tenderloin, braised short rib, and bacon mushroom ragout served with the always robust Shiner Bock. A brewmaster/emcee imparts his knowledge on…
The Elephant Man
Release Date: 2007-10-03 Bernard Pomerance tells the story of, John Merrick, whose hideously deformed body obscures a sensitive and intelligent human being. Merrick is exploited by Victorian philanthropists and even those who care for him can’t help him as he becomes dependent on his deformity for his success. Contains brief nudity, recommended for mature audiences…
No More Kings
Release Date: 2007-10-03 If you were born in the ’70s or ’80s, that’s reason enough to check out No More Kings. The LA-based sextet looks to pop-culture and literary figures from that era for inspiration—Michael and K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider, School House Rock, Smurfs, Gulliver’s Travels, and more. They broke into the mainstream with their…
Gruene Music & Wine Fest
Release Date: 2007-10-03 Get rockin’ with three days of Texas wine, food, and entertainment in historic Gruene. Three separate venues from Friday to Sunday host performances by Delbert McClinton, The Silvertones, Ponty Bone & The Squeezetones, Billy Bacon & The Forbidden Pigs, Stoney LaRue, and more in addition to a grape stomp and tastings with…
Obituary, Full Blown Chaos, Alabama Thunderpussy, Hemlock, & Bitter End
Release Date: 2007-10-03 Alabama Thunderpussy comes charging into the Alamo City with enough southern truckstop rock to destroy the White Rabbit. Armed with new vocalist Kyle Thomas of Exhorder/Floodgate fame, don’t expect the band to soften up the sound, but do expect southern fried hits from Rise Again and River City Revival all the way…
Amuse Bouche
As reported on the Sacurrent.com Curblog last week, Liberty Bar proprietor Dwight Hobart has entered into a contract to buy the old St. Scholastica Convent on South Alamo, next to Steve Yndo’s St. Benedict Hospital redevelopment. The building has as much character — albeit of a 90-degree angle, stone-and-brick nature — as Liberty Bar’s nativity…
End User
Weird warranties: In March of this year, Linux.com and others reported that a Compaq rep had told a woman that the problem she was having with her notebook’s keys sticking and being unresponsive was not covered by the one-year warranty because she had replaced the Windows operating system with a version of Linux. A similar…
Okra-fied (not fried)
Okra, Texas, founded in the last decade of the 19th century, lies in North Central Texas between Abilene and Fort Worth, according to the Handbook of Texas Online. But like the fruit (technically — call it a vegetable if you must) that bears its name, it sits unacknowledged and often dusty on the peripheral shelves…
Nothing Left to Lose
Last night I attended the private screening at the San Antonio Museum of Art for “No More to Say & Nothing to Weep for: An Elegy for Allen Ginsberg,” put on by the Friends of Contemporary Art of SAMA. Prior to the film, Rudy Choperena was introduced as the new president of its Friends of…
Undermining South Texas
GOLIAD COUNTY– Twenty-six years ago, a man in a Cadillac pulled into Elder Abrameit’s drive. From the porch, the visitor said he had found the rancher through the land office, that he wanted to drill for uranium on his land. “I told him he was in the wrong business,” said Abrameit. “I said, you need…
The Mashup
Just when you’d filed him under Also-ran or Publicity Hound, Texas troubadour, novelist, and 2006 gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman is back, loaded for bear, and aiming for the pink dome. His latest zinger-driven treatise is accompanied by the news that he’s contemplating a second run for the Texas capitol, this time as a Dem. Let’s…
On the Street
Friday Night Lights The weekend was filled with fantasmal cycle activities. Another tree fallen in the San Antonio woods? Or a new beginning? Luckily, a camera was present to capture… something. Downtown Highlife rode again. The first commandment being ‘every ride is a new route’ was somehow faithfully held, even if by default,…
The Say-Town-Lowdown
The news isn’t good. But you likely won’t see it reported in San Antonio. Take a look at the September 17 USA Today. In an article titled “If you build it, they will check in,” reporter Barbara De Lollis described the boom in new hotel development around the nation, with hundreds of new hotels being…
Rebuke This
Texas Senator John Cornyn understands the awesome responsibilities that come with power. Nearly five years into his term, Cornyn may not have the most glittering record of legislative achievement. But rather than allowing his focus to be diverted by petty concerns such as the breakdown of public education, America’s ongoing health-care crisis, the shaky future…
The Que Que
Telecom tools The Queque’s wall of constitutional heroes is getting improbably crowded in this chicken-hearted time. Alongside our Thomas Kinkade-esque portrait of U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero — who ruled last month that the government needs to obtain court approval to get its hands on internet and phone records — we’re making room for a…
Buried treasures
The collision of punk, hardcore, and extreme metal has sent factions splintering in every direction — the epic Christian metalcore of Underoath, the thundering prog-throb of Mastodon, the intricate math-metal of Isis, the chest-caving experi-metal of OM, to name a few. Hot on the heels of such signature acts are North Carolina quintet Between the…
Dear Uncle Mat
I am in love with one of my co-workers. She is the prettiest girl I have ever seen and I am sure will ever see. Her smile makes me feel dizzy and stupid, like I am high. I am too scared to ask her out on a date. I am not ugly or really stupid,…
The Sound and The Fury
DJ/producer Ernest Gonzales has released music for years under the pseudonym Theory of Everything, but the October 2 release of While on Saturn’s Rings represents the first time he’s attached his own name to a solo album. The beat-heavy electronic sound collage, which Gonzales has dubbed “Down-South-Nintendo-Rock-Tronica,” features some crunchy electric guitar on “Summer Story…
First Friday preview
Following Fotoseptiembre, it’s only appropriate to fill local art galleries with 3-D squirrels, right? At least that’s what two upcoming First Friday shows will present to art patrons. Be on the lookout for local artists paying tribute to St. Francis of Assisi — patron saint of animals and the environment (whose official feast day is…
Vains of Jenna give the strip a Swedish massage
Two and a half years ago, Jackie Stone had just graduated from high school in Falkenberg, Sweden, when he and his bandmates decided to sell everything they had and head for London. Stone’s band, the oddly spelled Vains of Jenna, had just been offered a chance gig at LA’s infamous Whiskey A Go Go as…
ARTifacts
If you’ve never seen the Southwest School of Art & Craft Ursuline Gardens you have overlooked a truly magnificient piece of the city. The Gardens as well as the equally breathtaking Coates Chapel is the site of the annual — Gala in the Garden benefit. In the spirit of the season, the theme this year…
Aural Pleasure
Sondre Lerche is a gifted chameleon. On Duper Sessions, he established himself as a modern-day jazz crooner in the Chet Baker mold. With this year’s Phantom Punch, he satisfied his indie-rock jones and explored the possibilities of ambient guitar noise. With his new soundtrack to the Steve Carell film, Dan In Real Life, Lerche reinvents…
Gallery space to continue with legacy
The late Alberto Mijangos’s dreams for his gallery and art school, Salon Mijangos, continue to be realized by his family and curator Ben Judson. Mijangos died of lymphoma this past June. “We miss him terribly, We want to continue what he’s started and represent him as best as we can,” expressed Laura Mijangos-Kirk, Alberto’s daughter.…
Aural Pleasure
Granted, Adam Olenius’s airy, melancholy croon is particularly well-suited to the album’s reigning Robert Smith imitation. Album opener “Tonight I Have to Leave It” is indistinguishable from a Head on the Door track, echoing “Close to You” in its jangling guitars, swooning synth, and percolating, dance-floor-ready beats. It’s more than a little disorienting to anyone…
‘Zombie Prom’ not exactly D.O.A.
Here’s what I want in a zombie prom: bogeymen a-boogying; plenty of jazz hands falling off; a Charleston shuffle that’s authentically shuffling, and at least one production number in which the chorus gnaws off someone’s face. Alas, the Zombie Prom that opens San Pedro Playhouse’s main-stage season is more like Disney’s High School Musical, and…
Cd’s Nuts
You can’t refer to Iron & Wine as exclusively Sam Beam anymore, if you ever really could. Every album makes it clearer that those original 4-Track static-laden tracks were made from necessity and not artistic choice. The exponentially expanded instrumentation makes for some amazing moments. We get the straightforward songs we’ve gotten used to (“Lovesong…
Straight Shooter
The scenario the title suggests (a Hitman version of Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe) doesn’t materialize, but the story – Batman hauls Tommy Monaghan (Hitman) to the Justice League’s moon base to run some tests to determine the origin of Monaghan’s super powers; controversy ensues – is pretty solid. Green Lantern and Superman both, it…
Wedding bell blues
To fully appreciate what a watershed period the 1970s were for American cinema, you need to look beyond the obvious classics (Taxi Driver, The Godfather) to the films on the margins. At a time when moral ambiguities and political provocations were fair game, even transparently light romantic comedies and chest-thumping action films were capable of…
Corrections
Due to a last-minute change in cover art, last week’s “On the cover” incorrectly identified the photo. The image of John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the 1969 Bed In is by Ivor Sharp/©Yoko Ono. The inside portrait of Ono, which appeared on page 23 with the story “Double Jeopardy,” is by Tom Haller/© Yoko…
Critical Darling
Last Wednesday, a band of armed thieves broke into Francis Ford Coppola’s office in Buenos Aires and stole a laptop containing the script for his next film, Tetro. Question of the week, my ethicist readers: Is it twisted that I’m glad he was robbed … because it’s a sweet plot for a movie? (Ocean’s 14:…
Nothing Left to Lose
Last night I attended the private screening at the San Antonio Museum of Art for “No More to Say & Nothing to Weep for: An Elegy for Allen Ginsberg,” put on by the Friends of Contemporary Art of SAMA. Prior to the film, Rudy Choperena was introduced as the new president of its Friends of…
Cuco Peeps
“Why are they selling living- room furniture?” I thought as I headed to the paint department of one of those giant home-improvement tiendas. I was hoping to find five-dollar cans of discount colors people return when they had second thoughts about their taste in pintura. After spending mucho dinero to replace a consumptive central-air unit,…
Jane Austen Re-re-revisted
Best-selling chick-lit novel. Jane Austen tie-in. Big screen adaptation. Perhaps the first time these ingredients were juggled with any amount of aplomb, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones was tripping after her very own Mr. Darcy for a smashing-good box-office finish. With Austen fervor still simmering at the cinema on the heels of the more recent Becoming…
On the Street
Friday Night Lights The weekend was filled with fantasmal cycle activities. Another tree fallen in the San Antonio woods? Or a new beginning? Luckily, a camera was present to capture… something. Downtown Highlife rode again. The first commandment being ‘every ride is a new route’ was somehow faithfully held, even if by default, neglect, and…
Cuco Peeps
Dear Mexican: I’m a minority, and I know we can be overly sensitive sometimes, but I just can’t stand Carlos Mencia. Not only are his jokes asinine, but I feel they are actually racist. Whereas Dave Chappelle tried to make fun of society’s racist thoughts, Mencia seems to promote them. I know black folk liked…
David Sington’s so-so space program
Arguably the most far-reaching and influential event of 1969 (which, as years go, was a doozie), was the late-July success of the Apollo 11 mission, which allowed a planetful of rapt humans to watch via television as one of their own, for the very first time, walked the surface of a heavenly body not called…
Clothes-Minded
Southtown’s fashion scene just gained another heavy hitter – Hispanic T-shirt designers and overall fighters for justice INKA have moved to 724 South Alamo, right above La Frite Bistro. The 1,500-square-foot loft, which is undergoing renovations, houses the INKA offices and warehouse. The official INKA shop will open in mid-November. “Literally, smack dab in the…
Armchair Cinephile
PICK OF THE WEEK: Sony digs into its catalog for films with visual richness that demands high-tech remastering, and emerges with Francis Ford Coppola’s take on Vlad the Bad. An excellent choice, from the costumes by Eiko Ishioka to the exquisitely weird makeup that transformed Gary Oldman into a withered, ickily sensual Count. Bonus: the…
On El Camino again
A golden glow often surrounds early, life-forming experiences, so you may feel free to lower the luster level of what’s to follow. This particular memory has to do with traveling by bus in the highlands of Colombia during a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. At every wide spot in the road, it seemed, campesinas…
Reviews
Like Fast Food Nation and The Insider, Trade originated in a nonfiction exposé. In “The Girls Next Door,” which appeared in the January 25, 2004, New York Times Magazine, Peter Landesman reported on young women and men abducted into sexual slavery and transported from Mexico into the United States. To adapt it to film, screenwriter…
Remember Goliad?
Attention uranium miners! The ranching community of Goliad County has a few words to share with you. It has to do with the South Texas hierarchy and helping you find your place. We understand if recent expressions of resistance to your scouting out the territory and reopening of old uranium mills may have you out…
Remember Goliad?
Attention uranium miners! The ranching community of Goliad County has a few words to share with you. It has to do with the South Texas hierarchy and helping you find your place. We understand if recent expressions of resistance to your scouting out the territory and reopening of old uranium mills may have you out…
