STUFF TO DO THIS WEEKEND
You’re about to leave work, right? Here’s some stuff to do! (Check our calendar, too, of course) And apologies for the eclectic formatting. TONIGHT: (comin’ right up, in fact!) 1. Just Before The Dawn They say: “Media Installation by “mothematicians” Matt McLaughlin & Maray McChesney. The mothematicians cordially invite you to our red velvet masquerade,…
It’s Salsa, Not Hot Sauce
By Haylley Johnson Fighting with the speaker at the Taco Cabana drive-thru near my house never gets old for me. It is the same scenario every time I go to buy a breakfast taco — I drive up, I order, and then I try to ask for salsa. The poor guy on the other end…
Exponential Records spins into new monthly
You read about it here, now see the label live in action. Exponential Records moseys into the Mine Shaft Saloon (902 NE Loop 410, behind the Magic Time Machine) with Let’s Be Friends, a new monthly music series featuring live music acts and DJs this Saturday night. The show starts at 10 p.m. and the…
Conservative educators denounce Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall
Amie Ninh amieninh@hotmail.com The posthumous imprints of labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez can be found in the namesakes of places dispersed throughout the country and even in a holiday in some states. However, this may not be enough to salvage his legacy in Texas classrooms. As part of an evaluation on the current…
A New Head Shop in Town
Alicia Ramirez aliciak2010@mac.com At the corner of St. Marys and Durango is a newly opened shop that might seem out of place in an area where tourism is the name of the game and hotels reign supreme. Entrepreneur Hans Enriquez’s college experiment turned out to be a success with the creation of head shop Lazy…
Amerivespa 2010: San Antonio!
You’ll recall a few months back SA scooter diva Dawn Brooks was lobbying madly to bring the annual rally to the shores of the (newly expanded) San Antonio River Walk. The result: Done and done! (No confirmation on Pee-wee yet) Per Ms. Brooks: Hello All, I am sending out emails letting everyone know we got…
A More Perfect Union?
Alicia Ramirez aliciak2010@mac.com Grand Hyatt workers, leaders from the Unite Here union and local activists came together to rally in support of the July 17 vote that could allow workers to seek union representations. Hotel worker George Ibarra is confident that they will win the vote to unionize. “We’re a lot smarter than this hotel,”…
Club Calico
Release Date: 2009-07-08 Bar Tab is all about making sense of the drunken mess of San Antonio bars; like string theory physicists, we’ve been trying to divine order from chaos. A few months back we initiated an investigation into oddly named dive bars (see “DROWN Vol. II & III,” April 8, at sacurrent.com). So far,…
Crosseyed Seagull
Release Date: 2009-07-08 Bar Tab is all about making sense of the drunken mess of San Antonio bars; like string theory physicists, we’ve been trying to divine order from chaos. A few months back we initiated an investigation into oddly named dive bars (see “DROWN Vol. II & III,” April 8, at sacurrent.com). So far,…
The Germs
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-07-08 Germs singer Darby Crash died of a heroin overdose December 7, 1980, but that’s no reason to stop the rock, right? Reunited in 2005 behind Shane West — the actor cast to play Crash in biopic What We Do Is Secret — the remaining Germs continue to tour sans frontman…
Still Liberty after all these years
Release Date: 2009-07-08 When we describe the menu at Liberty Bar as “different,” it’s not a euphemism for “not good.” Twenty-four years in one of the toughest industries around, and Liberty has a roster of passionate regulars the envy of local restaurateurs. For natives, it’s often first on the list of places to take out-of-town…
Second Saturday at Arte Cosmico
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-07-08 Contemporary Art Month, people: still going on! Local painter and raconteur LA David, who hands out, for the record, possibly the most awesome business cards in the city, is taking off for “Planet X” sometime soon, not to return until 2012. Before his enigmatic launch, however, he’s got a painting…
Drown Vol. IV
Release Date: 2009-07-08 Bar Tab is all about making sense of the drunken mess of San Antonio bars; like string theory physicists, we’ve been trying to divine order from chaos. A few months back we initiated an investigation into oddly named dive bars (see “DROWN Vol. II & III,” April 8, at sacurrent.com). So far,…
Got Nuffin EP
Got Nuffin EP Composer: Spoon Conductor: Spoon Label: Merge Release Date: 2009-07-08 Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album Genre: Rock/Pop Spoon is officially a "comfort food" band. Whether you spin early effort A Series of Sneaks or commercial breakthrough Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: Singer Britt…
Octohedron
Octohedron Composer: The Mars Volta Conductor: The Mars Volta Label: Warner Bros. Release Date: 2009-07-08 Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album Genre: Rock/Pop The Mars Volta’s fifth studio album is a full 25 minutes shorter than their fourth, and doesn’t get around to a real guitar solo until about five minutes into "Luciforms," its second…
(500) Days of Summer: Music from the Motion Picture
(500) Days of Summer: Music from the Motion Picture Composer: Various Artists Conductor: Various Artists Label: Sire/WEA Release Date: 2009-07-08 Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Soundtrack Genre: Rock/Pop The soundtrack for pseudo-indie rom-com (500) Days of Summer spans the emotional range of a complex romantic relationship – from radiant joy (Hall & Oates’ "You Make…
Wait For Me
Wait For Me Composer: Moby Conductor: Moby Label: Little Idiot Release Date: 2009-07-08 Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album Genre: Electronic/Dance The weeping strings on the orchestrated "Division" immediately make it clear that Moby isn’t targeting nightclubs with his ninth disc, Wait For Me. After last year’s dance fest, Last Night, the mellow vibes on…
CAM: enough to make it float
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-07-08 If photographer, gallerist, community-gardener, curator (and occasional Current contributor) Justin Parr posits his emerging-artist hotspot Fl!ght as an alternative to television (the gallery’s url is “turnitoff.tv,” and he sells stickers and T-shirts enlivened by a boob tube that brags “I OWN YOU”), it’s not from lack of respect for one…
“I’ll Take Romance (Sexy Version)” – Ken Slavin
Slavin is bringing sexy back to this Oscar Hammerstein/Ben Oakland composition, assuming Frank Sinatra is your personal Cialis. If the audio weren’t so pristine, you’d never guess Slavin’s take on the title song from the 1937 film (a semi-obscure vehicle for opera star Grace Moore) was recorded 70 freaking years after the fact. Backed by…
THE SOUND & THE FURY
For the third consecutive year, our friends at Drunken Monkey Promotions are daring to inject some energy into a sweltering SA summer with Monkeyfest, a three-night festival spotlighting some of SA’s finest underground bands. While there are a few holdovers from last year (Sons of Sancho, White Elefant, Austin’s Muchos Backflips), this year’s festival is…
The incredible shrinking Grammy
Starting in 2010, the Grammy Awards will merge the Rock and Hip-Hop categories into a single new slot: "Best Rock/Hip-Hop album." For example, you’ll have, say, Bruce Springsteen, competing against Eminem. Weird, huh? Of course, I’m only kidding. Who would think of such a thing? There’s no way the National Academy of Recording Arts &…
ARTifacts
The annual “When did CAM really begin?” debate is underway via email, and as Artifacts types, it’s reaching its cyclical denouement, in which all parties agree that it was 1986, the same year Blue Star (CAM’s home), the Current, and the Esperanza opened their doors (OK, Esperanza’s technically January ’87, but the founding paperwork dates…
The QueQue
Fission math CPS’s leadership has unleashed its Nuke 2.0 public-relations campaign on San Anto. Salvo one: the pocketbook play, scores a direct hit. Last week, CPS Energy’s top brass announced to its board of directors that the two-reactor expansion of the South Texas (Nuclear) Project will cost a mere $13 billion, financing included, a number…
Remembering the time
There’s a little-known Michael Jackson recording that I’ve been flashing back to ever since MJ’s death last Thursday. It’s a lilting reggae ballad by Austin Tex-Mex cult hero Joe “King” Carrasco called “Don’t Let A Woman (Make a Fool Out of You).” The story goes that Carrasco, then working on his 1982 album, Synapse Gap,…
The Parade suit marches on
Judge Fred Biery’s June 30 order dismissing the First Amendment lawsuit against the City’s Parade Ordinance is a marvel of economy. In two-and-a-half double-spaced pages he sweeps aside reams of evidence suggesting that the City discourages free speech and assembly with arbitrary expenses, favoritism, and laughable march “alternatives” for groups that can’t afford thousands of…
Drown Vol. IV
Bar Tab is all about making sense of the drunken mess of San Antonio bars; like string theory physicists, we’ve been trying to divine order from chaos. A few months back we initiated an investigation into oddly named dive bars (see “DROWN Vol. II & III,” April 8, at sacurrent.com). So far, we’ve realized not…
Weapons grade
According to data provided by the Texas Education Agency, firearm incidents on school campuses have decreased precipitously since the 1999-2000 school year. San Antonio Independent School District Police Chief Jeff Ward confirms that firearms are “just something we don’t see, thankfully.” During 1999-2000, 31 separate firearm incidents were reported at schools in Bexar and surrounding…
Amuse-BOUCHE
What, can’t make it to the farmers market at Pearl Brewery every Saturday before the lines form? Mason Arnold, a UT-Austin grad who dreamt up Greenling Organic Delivery in Austin four years ago, expanded service to San Anto in 2007 and has been collecting enviro-entrepreneur awards along the way `see the MashUp, September 24, 2008`.…
Give us Liberty
Just north of downtown, the old two-story building that houses the Liberty Bar still tilts sharply to one side, a reasuring signpost for regulars, and an endless source of commentary for newcomers. “When you come inside, it seems to lean to both the east and the west,” says chief cook Oscar Trejo. “It’s just weird.”…
S’NUFF film
Maybe it’s one of the sappiest, most overused clichés of all time, but there’s no denying that children really are our future. Well, to be more specific, children are the future, because by the time all the little Hunters and Emmas are ready to inherit the semi-habitable burnt-out husk of a planet left to them,…
The summer games
Wolverine kind of sucks. He’s a surly, egotistical d-bag with a ridiculous costume, short man’s syndrome, and a hairy back, but at this point he’s probably more popular than every Marvel hero other than Spider-Man and Iron Man. The laughably terrible X-Men Origins: Wolverine has grossed more than $175 million to date (fun fact: that’s…
Loretta Rey
Cynthia Wayne grew up the adored only child of a beautiful dancer mother and a handsome filmmaker father. She graduated from Jefferson High School in the late ’60s, changed her name to Loretta Rey, and moved to Los Angeles during the pinnacle of West Coast, high "flower child-dom.” She initially crashed in an old school…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: Why is it that ever since the U.S./California let you people immigrate, tunnel, weasel, or whatever into this country that nothing good has happened and/or come from it? California’s welfare program is burdened with low-life Hispanics. The prison system is 70-percent Hispanic, 45-percent gang-based. Real-estate values have dropped sharply, violence due to gangs…
Dear Uncle Mat
Things are pretty shitty for me right now. I was recently laid off from my job and have started bartending at a local hole in the wall to pay the rent. I had to sell my car and am barely making the ends meet. I am afraid I may have to break my lease because…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Miracle of miracles: A pointless pain in the butt will soon stop bugging you. Meanwhile, an annoying itch in your heart is subsiding, and may even disappear. As a result of these happy developments, you will be able to concentrate on a much more interesting and provocative torment that has been…
Tommy C
The force of the bass at SA Dub .2 is more like a physical presence, penetrating you in waves, vibrating your vital organs like an internal Sharper Image massage chair — a not-unpleasant tingling sensation they could probably sell as a black-market cancer cure. Maybe a dozen people hang out upstairs, sipping beers, occasionally chatting…
Deadline day miscellany
Mid-morning, it looked like the Current’s favorite bubblegum-robotics duo, Hyperbubble, would handily win Best Swag Bag of the day: tube of sunscreen, hot lavender shades, and their brand-new maxi-single “Better Set Your Phasers to Stun”. Gilbert Garcia made off with that, so look for commentary soon. Then a package from Whole Foods arrived with one…
