On the Street
On the Road Again Down a dark alley behind Hogwild Records is the unlikely opening (in many ways) to the new club that hosted San Antonio’s own Girl in a Coma. Cops circled around on Dewey looking for…something. I can’t imagine anyone calling in any complaints. They were probably just looking to commandeer some…
On the Street
On the Road Again Down a dark alley behind Hogwild Records is the unlikely opening (in many ways) to the new club that hosted San Antonio’s own Girl in a Coma. Cops circled around on Dewey looking for…something. I can’t imagine anyone calling in any complaints. They were probably just looking to commandeer some six…
So I’m going to LA
So, I was sick a few weekends ago, and, sprawled out on my daybed/couch, made ecstatic by Will Arnett’s brief appearance in The Sopranos (my illness was a perfect excuse to catch up on the last five years of pop culture), I began to ask myself: In my wildest dreams, what awesome people would I…
Big Tex meetin’
Get your Big Tex questions answered, or at least aired, at a public meeting Tuesday, January 15, in the Brackenridge High School cafeteria — at 400 Eagleland Drive, just across the river from the offending site. Among the info EPA will share at the confab: The federal clean-up agency has issued a Unilateral Administrative Order…
So I’m going to LA
So, I was sick a few weekends ago, and, sprawled out on my daybed/couch, made ecstatic by Will Arnett’s brief appearance in The Sopranos (my illness was a perfect excuse to catch up on the last five years of pop culture), I began to ask myself: In my wildest dreams, what awesome people would I…
Big Tex meetin’
Get your Big Tex questions answered, or at least aired, at a public meeting Tuesday, January 15, in the Brackenridge High School cafeteria — at 400 Eagleland Drive, just across the river from the offending site. Among the info EPA will share at the confab: The federal clean-up agency has issued a Unilateral Administrative Order…
Believe: ‘El Orfanato’ is the most solid straight-up thriller in years
El Orfananto (The Orphanage) Director: Juan Antonio Bayona Screenwriter: Juan Antonio Bayona Cast: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep, Montserrat Carulla, Geraildine Chaplin Release Date: 2008-01-09 Website: http://www.TheOrphanageMovie.com Rated: R Genre: Horror See, if people would just watch the classics, shit like this wouldn’t happen. Ex-orphan Laura (Belén Rueda) and her pragmatic-doctor husband Carlos, having…
As Filthy As It Gets
Release Date: 2008-01-09 The filthiest two-of-a-kind are back! If you missed out last year you’re in luck, because As Filthy As It Gets returns for its mind-blowing adventure with the rowdy and irreverent Methane Sisters. And if you did catch the Filthy pair of Monessa Esquivel and Annele Spector, you know why it was named…
Lotus Tribe w. S.E.L.F, DJ SYPTEK, & more
Release Date: 2008-01-09 San Antonio hip-hop collective Lotus Tribe gears up on the second leg of “The Love/Hate Tour” promoting the S.E.L.F. LP, The Art & War of Misanthropic-Philanthropy. The tour began this summer in Atlanta, hitting the east coast and the Midwest before coursing through California and Texas. LT has a lot in store…
Adam Carroll & Owen Temple
Release Date: 2008-01-09 Owen Temple has been building a fanbase and wowing critics since his 1997 debut, selling nearly 20,000 copies of his 2002 release Right Here and Now. He reunited with legendary music producer Lloyd Maines for his new album, Two Thousand Miles, a dusty backroads blend of heartache and hope that showcases Temple’s…
The Crossing Grand Opening
Release Date: 2008-01-09 Former home of The Sanctuary, The Crossing opens its doors for the first time as a live music venue since last year’s switch. Sporting a shiny new interior, the club celebrates its Grand Opening with Girl In A Coma in their last SA show before a European tour with Morrissey. Also appearing…
Haste the Day, Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Drop Dead Gorgeous, & Gwen Stacy
Release Date: 2008-01-09 Scan the song catalog of Scary Kids Scaring Kids and you’ll find numerous references to knives, guns, and blood. You’ll find song titles such as “My Knife, Your Throat,” and “A Pistol to My Temple.” But the scariest thing about Scary Kids is not their fondness for weapons or arterial spray, but…
Film Noir
Release Date: 2008-01-09 Join Gallista Gallery and Arte Cosmico Studio for one of the all-time great examples of film noir, Detour. Rick Martinez will be showing movies from 6-8pm in the main gallery, and outside on the patio from 8-10:30pm. Live music by I Ching Gatos, open mic poetry, and other Second Saturday festivities. Free,…
Willie Barcena
Release Date: 2008-01-09 Comedian Willie Barcena’s talent has garnered him 10 appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, in addition to appearances on many TV shows and comedy tours. Barcena’s old jobs prepared him for comedy — his security guard, plumber, roofer, and limo driver gigs gave him a background for everyday life humor.…
Dramatic Readers Theater: Transparencies
Release Date: 2008-01-09 Gemini Ink’s Dramatic Readers Theater will team up with the Southwest School of Art and Craft for Transparencies, a performance featuring poem, song, and story excerpts. The collaboration will be centered on SSAC’s well-received exhibition Over, Under, Around and Through, featuring the large-works of Linda Hutchins, Tracy Krumm, and Piper Shepard. The…
Seth Walker
Release Date: 2008-01-09 Seth Walker’s confidence and versatility offer a refreshing perspective on the blues genre, his self-titled new album a tour of blues that encompasses soul, swing, R&B, and a handful of slow ballads. The Austin-based singer/songwriter joins HYENA Records for his first-ever national release, which draws from the entire roots and Southern soul…
Trippin’ To Momma’s
Release Date: 2008-01-09 The filthiest two-of-a-kind are back! If you missed out last year you’re in luck, because As Filthy As It Gets returns for its mind-blowing adventure with the rowdy and irreverent Methane Sisters. And if you did catch the Filthy pair of Monessa Esquivel and Annele Spector, you know why it was named…
CDs Nuts
Distortion Magnetic Fields (Nonesuch) Stephen Merritt’s throwaway romantic lyrics and sentimental ’80s pop cheese have always been best interpreted by the man himself, and Distortion is maybe the strongest argument yet for that rule. Heartbreakers like “Old Fools” and “I’ll Dream Alone” are great additions to the Magnetic Fields’ collection of dopey, brilliant sap, but…
aural pleasure
Verse of Truth Trash and Beauty Ledaswan (Self-released) Sometime in the 1990s, the semi-sleazy cable channel, USA Network, got into the business of producing made-for-TV movies (sort of anti-After-School-Specials) starring some of the legendary teen TV stars of the day. But in 1997, USA created a true gem with Friends ’Til the End, starring 90210…
Applewhite bears more fruit
Twelve-hundred acres along the south bank of the Medina River just inside Loop 1604 flout the hardcore realist who says there is no such thing as divine intervention. Think of all the times the well-deserved letter of clemency didn’t arrive in time, you say, that no happy synergy speeded a pardon ahead of the executioner’s…
THE QUE QUE
Gavel Road With the rattle and hum of presidential pandering already established in the noise floor of American media drone, Queque has inhaled deeply of the oracle’s secret element and seen through the mist this army of campaign advisors that have laid down from Iowa to New Hampshire and the darker chamber of our hearts.…
Blowback in Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto and her supporters who died with her during the suicide attack on December 27 are the latest victims of decades of dangerous U.S. support for Pakistan’s military regime. The country’s dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, has held his grip on power despite increasing popular unrest. The Bush administration got nervous, turning to Bhutto to…
Stripwax T-shirt
Free Stripwax T-Shirt Size: XL To qualify: Please send an email to freebies@sacurrent.com Include your name and email address where you can be reached. One winner will be picked by The Current on Friday and notified by email.
Home on the Range
My friend Rob, who spends a lot of time in third-world countries, once told me a story about a scorpion. He said the only time he killed one was in a hotel room in Nicaragua, and that he beat it so hard his arm was throbbing the next day. That’s how scared he was. At…
Revealing Briefs
WEATHERFORD — Ric Williamson, the controversial chair of the Texas Transportation Commission, died of a heart attack just before the end of 2007, prompting many of his friends and colleagues to offer kind tributes. Perhaps the most interesting, however, came from Texas governor Rick Perry, who quoted Jonathan Swift to describe Williamson: “When a genius…
Our Body Mousepad
Our Body Mousepad To qualify: Please send an email to freebies@sacurrent.com Include your name and email address where you can be reached. One winner will be picked by The Current on Friday and notified by email.
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: I feel that the more Mexicans who come to this country, the better. I am a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In our Book of Mormon, on page 54, it says on the left side of the page in verse 6: “There shall none come into…
Coming up babies
Oh, fictional unwanted fetuses, little prom queens of Cinema ’07 — you didn’t ask for all this attention. You didn’t apply to be sired by Seth Rogen; in your dark gestation, you didn’t perceive of a life spent baking pie after pie after fucking pie with Keri Russell; you didn’t dream of being pushed through…
A little something old and new
As I approached 2008, I began to make the usual resolutions — one on my list included covering a wider array of art, which meant hitting a few art locales I have yet to cover. On my list was the San Antonio Art League & Museum, a place I’ve wanted to check out but haven’t…
Clothes-minded
As Filthy as it Gets, starring Monessa Esquivel and Annele Spector as the seriously messed up Methane Sisters, covers a lot of ground. Part performance art, part live music, part video, it’s also as much about fashion as anything else. The Sisters started four-and-a-half years ago with one awful, orange polyester dress. “It looked like…
CRITICAL Darling
Have I mentioned that I would give it all up — this (glamorous) life journalistic — should the opportunity to become Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry’s apprentice present itself? Closest I’ll get — unless you’re reading me, for some reason, Mr. Gondry, and feeling benevolent — is the joy of participating…
ARTIFACTS
If you’ve recently checked out the Juxtapoz website, you may have come across the work of one of San Antonio’s own, Scotch! (winner of 2007’s Best of San Antonio — Best Anonymous Public Art for “Tricycle Girl”). Uniting Artists through Crime — a project Scotch! and his partner worked on — is a collaborative effort…
Dear Uncle Mat
I recently discovered that my boyfriend used to be fat. Really fat. There are all of these pictures of him with his family and friends in his apartment and I didn’t even recognize him! Last week I finally asked who the guy in all of the pictures was and he laughed, said I wouldn’t believe…
Operation Homecoming
As Plato noted many wars ago: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Only a fool can say to what end wars are fought. More than a million Americans, veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq, can say something personal about war. In a project called Operation Homecoming, the National Endowment for the Arts dispatched…
A bit campy, a bit elitist
Alex Rubio’s installation at Artpace — which closed January 6 — was the standout in the most recent round of Artpace residents and not just because of his powerful and signature use of color. Maybe it is the history of the building, but Rubio’s tire shop completely transformed the gallery and upon entering, I felt…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “My calling hasn’t called yet,” wrote Rennie, an Aries reader from Austin. “Please, Rob, say a prayer to all the applicable gods and angels, asking them to do whatever it takes to make sure that I am at home when it finally does.” I’ve got good news for Rennie. Many Aries…
Armchair Cinephile
PICK OF THE WEEK: Zodiac (Paramount) Notoriously detail- oriented filmmaker David Fincher evidently got more obsessive than his studio could stand this year, with an engrossing procedural about a hunt for a serial killer who never gets caught. Seven minutes of his “director’s cut” are restored in this new release — and better still, the…
Tuesday still belongs to the women
Where would the arts be without the society ladies of 100 years ago? Snide notions of quaintness and dilettantism aside, many of San Antonio’s most venerable arts institutions (and many others around the country) were founded by educated, cultured women who may have lacked professional or legislative efficacy, but still ruled with daintily poised, lace-adorned…
Pie in the sky
If you eat, you probably like pizza. Oh, sure, there are people out there who don’t enjoy the tantalizing taste experience of a slice, but I’ve never met one. I mean, it is only, like, the most perfect food. All the meat, dairy, and veggie product you need in a single meal served up on…
Transform and roll eyes
Transformers Animated (Cartoon Network, Saturdays, 10:30 am) Even before you see the new Cartoon Network series, you get a sense of who the new Transformers is aimed at. Transformers Animated, as the show is called, suggests that its target demographic ain’t people who grew up watching the original Saturday morning series or Transformers: Generation 2…
Straight Shooter
The Darkness Vol. 3 #1 Words by Phil Hester Art by Michael Broussard, Ryan Winn, and Matt Milla $2.99, 32 pages (Top Cow) If comics have taught us anything, it’s that bargaining with/being possessed by demonic entities results in total awesomeness. Examples: Ghost Rider, Spawn, Hellboy, and KISS. The Darkness (aka Jackie Estacado), with his…
Amuse-BOUCHE
Jersey pizza by way of … San Antonio? Next time you’re sampling pies on the Eastern Seaboard, take a good look at the oven that spit out your slice of heaven. There’s a good chance it’s a Roto-Flex, a multi-level oven with rotating decks manufactured in the Alamo City. Maruca’s, a popular East Coast chain,…
Spittin’ Game
Rock Band (Harmonix) Xbox 360 $169.99 Rock Band might be the coolest party game ever, but if you don’t have any friends it’s just one more sad reminder that video games can’t make you cool. Unlike Guitar Hero III, Rock Band is designed with multiple players in mind — solo mode is only thrown in…
Blinded by science
“I think a lot of pseudo-sciency topics, they just catch some archetype in our minds, something that we find just more viscerally interesting,” says Trinity University assistant professor of physics and astronomy Dennis Ugolini. In this age of Intelligent Design and Global Warming denial, Ugolini’s January 9 Food for Thought lecture, Science vs. Pseudoscience, sounds…
Whipped Creem Dreams
I spent much of the holidays obsessively poring over my favorite Christmas gift, a hard-bound, coffee-table collection of the best of Creem magazine, published last year by Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins. As someone who admired the magazine’s enthusiastic but irreverent take on the punk explosion of the ’70s, I would have preferred to see…
So long, Frank Lloyd Wright
Art Garfunkel knows exactly where he stands in today’s music industry. Although he admits he does not know what the future holds, the 66-year-old, carrot-fro’d crooner seems to realize he will never approach the pinnacle he once co-inhabited with Paul Simon from 1965 to 1970, an era in which the duo spawned some of the…
There Will Be Blood
There Will Be Bloood Tuesday, January 15th 7:30pm at Santikos Silverado 16 1604 and Bandera Road Pick Up your Passes at the SA Current Office 1500 N. St. Mary’s Mon-Fri 8:30am-5:30pm Quantities are limited. Limit: One pass per person.
THE SOUND & THE FURY
For nearly a year, Druggist has been operating as a stripped-down duo, with Blake Cormier handling bass/piano/vocals and Zach Dunlap on guitar. The artistic success of the group’s 2007 release, There’s Already an Everything, proved that their songs can work with even the barest treatment, but the band has happily returned to the realm of…
Whipped Creem Dreams
I spent much of the holidays obsessively poring over my favorite Christmas gift, a hard-bound, coffee-table collection of the best of Creem magazine, published last year by Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins. As someone who admired the magazine’s enthusiastic but irreverent take on the punk explosion of the ’70s, I would have preferred to see…
Assassination tango
* * * “Yeah, we’re going to South America. You know, Uruguay…” — Answering machine in the Coen Brothers film Blood Simple. * * * “The problem with Putumayo is that they don’t like tango,” a colleague told me a few months ago in Miami. My friend was right. The multifaceted, cool,…
Doctors Against N-BAF
New York’s Senators have said that N-BAF is “too dangerous” for their state. Maryland site lost for proximity to “major population center” (D.C.). Now a coalition of North Carolina doctors have organized against the Homeland Security germ lab. (See below for a letter to the editor in the Raleigh News & Observer.) San Anto is…
On the Street
Appetite for Construction (Aka, “Destruction Can Be a Creative Force!”) For days I pondered making the impossible journey all the way up to Austin via bike. Almanacs were almost consulted. Wind charts were somewhat referenced. Temperature guages were considered heavily. And at 7:45 am when it was 37 degrees Fahrenheit, innate common sense took…
Doctors Against N-BAF
New York’s Senators have said that N-BAF is “too dangerous” for their state. Maryland site lost for proximity to “major population center” (D.C.). Now a coalition of North Carolina doctors have organized against the Homeland Security germ lab. (See below for a letter to the editor in the Raleigh News & Observer.) San Anto is…
On the Street
Appetite for Construction (Aka, “Destruction Can Be a Creative Force!”) For days I pondered making the impossible journey all the way up to Austin via bike. Almanacs were almost consulted. Wind charts were somewhat referenced. Temperature guages were considered heavily. And at 7:45 am when it was 37 degrees Fahrenheit, innate common sense took over.…
