Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Hunter Valentine
Exposure on Showtime’s The Real L Word has catapulted Canadian rockers Hunter Valentine to celesbian status. Formed in Toronto in 2004, the band (lead vocalist/guitarist Kiyomi McCloskey, bassist Vero Sánchez, drummer Laura Petracca, and guitarist Aimee Bessada) has developed its hard-edged sound over the course of three albums (2007’s The Impatient Romantic, 2010’s Lessons from…
Aly Tadros: 'The Fits'
"No time to waste," Aly Tadros repeatedly coos at the end of "Silence and the Truth" — and she means it. The Fits, Tadros’ deliberate and refreshing second solo record, is a jazz-leaning folk tapestry full of easy-going yet impressive finger-picking, vocal bravado, and gypsy breakdowns that swirl like smoke plumes caught in the wind.…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Ventanas
Brought to life by dancers Antonio Arrebola and Tamara Saj, vocalist José Cortés Fernández, guitarist Ricardo Díaz, and maestro Teo Morca, Arte y Pasión’s Ventanas charts a journey to Andalusia and “into the human psyche.” Internationally recognized, Arrebola has performed at the Bienal de Málaga and Seville’s Festival Flamenco de la Alameda de Hércules. In…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: What Made Milwaukee Famous
Named after an ode to Schlitz made famous by Jerry Lee Lewis, Austin-based indie-rock outfit What Made Milwaukee Famous knows it takes time to get things right. Upon joining forces, original members Michael Kingcaid, John Farmer, and Jason Davis got acquainted for a year before going public in 2003 and spent five years perfecting their…
Where to watch the Superbowl in San Antonio, according to you
We asked our readers on all social platforms what bars they’ll be hitting up for the Superbowl this Sunday. Check out their responses then start planning your own Sunday Funday! [View the story “Best Superbowl bars in San Antonio” on Storify] Best Superbowl bars in San Antonio We asked our readers on all…
SA’s Lydia Mendoza immortalized on a U.S. stamp
The U.S. Postal Service kicked off its new Music Icons series with a stamp honoring the great Lydia Mendoza (1916-2007), one of the first and greatest female singers in Texas music. The stamp, designed by Neal Ashby and Patrick Donohue, features a photo of Mendoza in the ’50s, taken for Ideal Records. Born in Houston…
Puppy dies after being burned and stuffed in garbage bag
Well, here’s a heartbreaking way to start your weekend… Police are looking for the dirtbag(s) that burned a puppy alive this week. Early this week, a woman found a badly-burned, barely-alive puppy (pictured above) stuffed in a garbage bag and dumped on her front lawn on the 2400 block of Hicks Avenue. According to…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Michael Guerra Band
San Antonio’s Michael Guerra is a young but experienced accordionist who has the best Texas music has to offer: that rootsy, bluesy mix of rock and Americana. Whether solo, with The Mavericks, or playing alongside other Lone Star greats, Guerra is the type of artist unafraid of making quality music palatable for all without sacrificing…
Playing Chess in the Mosque by Mo H Saidi
We’re all good at something (maybe I shouldn’t be quite so casual about that or vague). Sometimes that something translates into another area, sometimes it doesn’t. To get a bit more specific: chess is a game of foresight, but so is soccer. Players and pieces move around the field to their objective. It’s all about…
Q&A: Actress Sarah Shahi holds her own in ‘Bullet to the Head’
Actress Sarah Shahi plays Sly Stallone’s daughter in “Bullet to the Head.” In director Walter Hill’s new action film Bullet to the Head, actress Sarah Shahi (Old School) plays Lisa Bobo, the daughter of Sylvester Stallone’s character Jimmy Bobo, a Washington D.C. detective who goes after the man (Jason Momoa) who killed his partner. During…
SA on American Idol: The Alamo City goes to Hollywood
The San Antonio batch of American Idol auditions aired last night and countless Alamo City singers wowed judges Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Keith Urban, and Nicki Minaj with that special brand of soul that we ooze here in town. With the Etta James loving Adam Sanders, mother-of-three Cristabel Clack, mariachi badass Victoria Acosta and 28 others…
‘Public Space, Public Transit, Public Art,’ free talk at UTSA-Downtown
The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, now under construction, will bring a lot of art to downtown–some of it will be street side. To find out what might be in the works, check out this free talk: In the summer of 2012, the UTSA College of Architecture, in partnership with the City of San Antonio’s…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: “Borrowed People/Constructed Places”
Old pictures tell new stories in “Borrowed People/Constructed Places,” a group show uniting artists Anne Leighton Massoni, Libby Rowe, and Kris Sanford. Employing “appropriated familial and found imagery,” the trio constructs narratives that balance “between voyeurism and intimacy.” In her series Holding, Massoni juxtaposes images connected by painted lines that draw curious parallels. Three-dimensional structures…
‘Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer’ screened at Sundance
“I hope you like loud music and leftist politics.” — Maxim Pozdorovkin, introducing the film to its last Sundance audience PARK CITY, Utah — Just as the three infamous women known as Pussy Riot stormed the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow to the shock of churchgoers, this film was a surprise favorite at…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Matchbox Twenty
Do you yearn for the grungy glory days of alt-rock radio? That simpler, cargo-shorted, tip-frosted time before the airwaves were muddled by plastic club music and hip-pop? Well even though Marcy Playground, Candlebox, and Hootie and the Blowfish may have faded, Matchbox Twenty are here to keep the dream alive. Of course lumping leader Rob…
Soules: Castro’s ethics reforms fall short
With recent ethical lapses casting a pall over City Hall, Mayor Julian Castro this month announced the creation of an ethics auditor. The new watchdog position would be responsible “for helping to achieve a high-caliber ethical culture and maintain that culture here.” The move came after Castro and City Manager Sheryl Sculley for months downplayed complaints over…
A$AP Rocky: 'Long. Live. A$AP'
A$AP Rocky’s Long. Live. A$AP is the latest ushering in of rap relevance. It’s hard to escape a conversation about the genre without dropping a mere mention of the hip- hop superstar. Still fresh off his prestigious mix-tape rounds, A$AP Rocky continues his lyrical onslaught and rap takeover. He immediately introduces himself by chronicling early…
'Pretty Vacant': the Sex Pistols and Esteban Jordan meet in a SA film classic.
It’s hard to hold a DVD of Pretty Vacant, the short film by Jim Mendiola — it burns your hands. The film, which won Best Narrative Short competition at South by Southwest that year, is a warm, sweet, funny, and edgy jewel that only gets better with the passage of time. It involves rocker La…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): *Wageni ni baraka* is a Swahili proverb that means "guests are a blessing." That’s not always true, of course. Sometimes guests can be a boring inconvenience or a messy burden. But for you in the coming weeks, Aries, I’m guessing the proverb will be 98 percent correct. The souls who come…
Confessions of a revenge pornographer
When we first talked with East Texas attorney John Morgan a week after he filed his lawsuit targeting Texas revenge porn, the number of women signed on to say they were victimized had nearly doubled. Morgan is suing on behalf of 32-year-old Hollie Toups of Beaumont and some 30 other women whose vindictive exes uploaded…
Industry News: San Antonio bars gain accolades, Meat Week, and mushrooms
Southern Living named two San Antonio bars as some of the best in the South. Ocho was called out as a stellar hotel bar, and Floore’s Country Store was lauded for their live music. The two establishments represented Texas well, along with lounges like Midnight Cowboy in Austin and the Foundry in Dallas. Carnivores unite!…
Blake Cormier and the Awkward Situation: 'Blake Cormier and the Awkward Situation'
Recorded by the San Antonio expatriate Cormier with minimal help and released on Christmas day, this album is a welcome surprise. Following right along with the general aesthetic of Cormier’s old band, Druggist, these songs are tight alt-rock exercises, devoid of unnecessary adornments, catchy, and overflowing with an occasionally melodramatic angst. Gone here, however, is…
Hand-crafted cocktails at The Brooklynite
A wise driver doesn’t give her mechanic instructions when taking the car to the local garage, or specify medical treatment when visiting a doctor. These are professionals that we rely on, trusting their judgment. Likewise, when seeking a different sort of aid from a bartender. Or so it should be. Gone are the days of…
Toro y Moi: 'Anything in Return'
Toro y Moi, AKA Chaz Bundick, makes a play for radio spots but may find himself lodged in the final rotation spot of the party’s vinyl playlist. Anything in Return is an infusion of dance-pop sensibilities, trading in the last crest of the chillwave trend for more club-friendly beats. The album touches off on jazz…
Tarnation: Environmentalists, landowners and Valero await decision on the Keystone XL pipeline
The town of Wells is easy to overlook, just a few blocks of homes and a school stretching along a busy state highway. Paths that shoot north from the main drag plunge you deep into a forest of towering East Texas pines. In November, construction crews here navigated bulldozers, feller bunchers, and excavators through rows…
Interview with 'The Invisible War' director Kirby Dick
Q: The Invisible War premiered at Sundance last year, shortly after news broke on San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base scandal. The scandal dates back to at least 2008, a time period your film covers. Were you aware of what was occurring at Lackland? KD: We had heard stories; we had some knowledge. But for…
'The Americans': Spies in the suburbs
The Americans (9pm Wed, FX) We’ve seen many dramas about married couples living a lie in the suburbs, with tensions cracking the cheery façade. The lie in The Americans, however, is bigger than most. Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (Keri Russell) are KGB agents passing as a normal American couple during the Reagan era, with…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: Grammar question/rant. If Spanglish is a legitimate dialect/language, why do you feel the need to italicize every instance of code switching? I seriously doubt that when you speak you emphasize every puta palabra (emphasis intended here), but that’s what your article reads like. We all know that you are speaking Spanglish — not…
'The Invisible War': will a win at the Oscars change anything for raped women in the military?
Of this year’s Oscar-nominated films, none is more relevant to Military City, USA than Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War. With rigor and empathy, this documentary (now available on iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix) exposes the startling scope of sexual assault throughout the United States Armed Forces. The Invisible War is groundbreaking in the mass of evidence…
Ill Prospekt: enigmatic SA band presents EP
Ill Prospekt feat. National Parks, Eye of the Day, Verisimilitude $3-5 9pm Sat, Feb 2 War Room 2718 N St Mary’s (210) 735-7775 warroomsa.com San Antonio outfit Ill Prospekt — a shape-shifting collective of purportedly up to 30 or 40 musicians united around a man referred to as Dr. Grey — stands out as something…
Hot Joy: Quealy Watson's weekend pop-up restaurant
Asian restaurant names, most of which may be perfectly unremarkable in their original setting, often are the source of hilarity, or at least bemusement, when used out of context. Hung Far Low? (Google worst restaurant names, and you’ll quickly see what I mean.) My assumption is that Hot Joy, the Sunday-Monday pop-up at The Monterey,…
Urban Homesteader: Citrus farming in the backyard
A few years ago, my husband and I inherited two Meyer lemon bushes. They came from friends who had them in large pots flanking their front door, on a small porch that could no longer accommodate the reach of their large-leafed branches, or the bees attracted by the nearly overwhelming perfume of abundant blossoms. Lucky…
Chisme: San Antonio duo more into making music than just rapping
Chisme, Parking, Evolve, Evak, and DJ EZ Dave $3 10pm Sat, Feb 2 Hi-Tones 621 East Dewey chisme.bandcamp.com It’s an uncharacteristically frigid afternoon in Southtown, and 31-year-old Ariel Faz — the Alamo City hip-hop veteran known simply as R.e.L. — is surrounded by bicycles. Rocking an old-school Spurs cap and his trademark mustache, the new…
Return of cowboy hats for Bexar deputies
In a press release put out by Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau today, it was announced that Bexar County deputies may now don “an optional western hat.” This marks a triumphant return for the hats, which were banned in the ’90’s by a previous sheriff. “I have heard from many deputies that they wanted the western hat…
Lamar Smith cries ‘amnesty’ over bipartisan immigration reform plan
There’s big news this week that a bipartisan group in the U.S. Senate have drafted a framework plan on how to overhaul the nation’s broken immigration system. There are many questions not answered by the five-page blueprint drafted by the senators that went public Monday. But the proposal would do two major things: further boost…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Diana Ross
Rising to prominence as the lead vocalist of the pioneering Motown trio the Supremes, Detroit native Diana Ross counts a Guinness World Record for Most Successful Singer of All Time (1993), a Kennedy Center Honors (2007), and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy (2012) among her accomplishments. Just after launching a solo career in 1970, Ross earned…
