More Than a Mural
Alex Rubio and Vincent Valdez in front of the Burbank High School Gym mural, 1996. A great piece of art inspires, defines a community, and provokes…even if it depicts a giant hot sauce bottle and a soccer game. In 1994, Vincent Valdez created such an art piece (facilitated by a mural design contest sponsored by…
New(ish) local video: Hacienda’s “Younger Days”
Directed by Frank Weyos of Hawks (of Holy Rosary) and Sharon Stones fame. Who else wants some Showbiz Pizza? And just for the hell of it:
Gulf, fisheries, and death: already low bluefin tuna stocks to suffer
Bluefin stunt footage: courtesy of Greenpeace. Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com While fishing families along the Gulf are in for a world of hurt from the still-spreading BP oil spill â?? as are the crabs, shrimp, and redfish they depend upon â?? a larger open-water fish found in every grocery store in America may be facing more…
An interview with Steve Moore, the Mad Drummer
By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer paperboy5456@yahoo.com Drummer Steve Moore had no idea a show he performed at an amusement park in Elysburg, PA would resurface online two years later making him a viral video sensation. Since it was first posted on June 1, 2010, the video titled “This Drummer is at the…
OSHA-it
In the nick of time for your family weekend outing to the theme park of your choice, we just got off the phone with David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health (a.k.a. OSHA), who has lately been issuing some strong words to the entertainment industry, which includes funplexes like Six Flags…
City Wants Businesses, Apartments to Stop Being So Trashy
Long ago, (o.k. March) in a galaxy far, far away (a.k.a. outside the Loop), this reporter worked in an office that dumped thousands and thousands of bright white sheets of paper into the garbage on a regular basis. The explanation her then business manager gave was that the City simply doesn’t have a recycling program…
Foundation for a future: Robert Moskowitz at Lawrence Markey
Step into Lawrence Markey’s downtown gallery for a quick breather from the stress of the contemporary world. In the cool, Chelsea-like space it’s still the last century, and the simmering supernova of global mash-ups has yet to radiate the art market and fuse with our pre-recession runaway consumption. This is pretty much always true thanks…
Guitar Hero wants you to save rock ‘n’ roll
Video Games | Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock | Debut Trailer HD XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii So not just a whole hell of a lot of into in the debut trailer above, but the game sounds promising, if you’re still into that stuff (and we so totally are), but check out…
Splice
Splice Director: Vincenzo Natali Screenwriter: Vincenzo Natali Cast: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac, Simona Maicanescu, David Hewlett Release Date: 2010-06-04 Rated: R Genre: Film Our Rating: 3.00 All couples considering children should watch Splice. Or just ask ambitious biochemists Clive and Elsa who, in the course of an hour and 44 minutes, cycle through…
Hey! Pixies’ Doolittle Tour to stop nearby
In which the band it’s still hard to over-hype plays in its entirety its 1989 classic (plus B-sides such as “Weird at My School”) accompanied by the crazy light and video displays they could’ve never afforded back when they were actualy recording this game-changing music. You know the drill : They’re not coming here; they…
They used to call him the Streak, now he’s just a racist
Wow. Just wow. I’m not sure what’s more surprising here: the fact that, as of this writing, the above video for “Come to the USA,” which features Ray Stevens singing, in a giant sombrero mind you, about the evils of illegal immigrants and the politicians who coddle them while taking swipes at health-care reform and…
LP4
LP4 Composer: Ratatat Conductor: Ratatat Label: XL Release Date: 2010-06-02 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Order your powdered wigs, Mike Stroud and Evan Mast, because if Ratatat’s music gets any more baroque, you’ll be performing in poodle curls and satin coattails. Or as half-naked drummers, or conducting an insect orchestra, all of which one can imagine…
Gregg Allman
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 First off: the Gregg Allman Band is not the Allman Brothers Band. “Everybody in the Brothers has their own band on the side,” explains Allman. “There’s only one head chef, and when it comes to material it’s no holds barred. You can play anything you want to. … If you…
Twistable Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to Shel Silverstein
Twistable Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to Shel Silverstein Composer: Various Artists Conductor: Various Artists Label: Sugarhill Release Date: 2010-06-02 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Usually posthumous tribute albums — featuring covers of the departed’s masterworks by a bunch of Johnny–come–latelies with a 10th of the talent — are a total waste of time and money.…
Art opening: Fire in the Belly
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Blue Star unveils its new experimental satellite space on lower Broadway this month with Fire in the Belly, a group show culled from San Antonio’s many fine college art departments. “We were thinking there would be four or five students we would highlight,” said Blue Star Executive Director Bill FitzGibbons.…
The Bride Screamed Murder
The Bride Screamed Murder Composer: The Melvins Conductor: The Melvins Label: Ipecac Release Date: 2010-06-02 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Opener “The Water Glass” begins heavy, oozing the slow guitar sludge the band is best known for, but an abrupt drum roll signals the start of an incongruous military cadence. Beats me. “Evil New War God”…
Pablo Francisco
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Readers might recognize California-based comedian Pablo Francisco from MADtv or his Comedy Central special OUCH! He’s best known, however, for his uncanny vocal impression of voiceover artist Don LaFontaine (nicknamed “The Voice of God”), who recorded more than 5,000 film trailers before his death in 2008. If the audience is…
Treats
Treats Composer: Sleigh Bells Conductor: Sleigh Bells Label: Mom & Pop Music Release Date: 2010-06-02 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Few things annoy me more than having to confirm the buzz-worthiness of some band the bloggers latch onto from the moment they push record, but in this case that’s just too damn bad. NYC’s Sleigh Bells,…
The Human Centipede: The First Sequence
The Human Centipede: The First Sequence Director: Tom Six Screenwriter: Tom Six Cast: Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, Akihiro Kitamura Release Date: 2010-06-02 Rated: NONE Genre: Film I’ll admit my horror-geekdom up front: I took my friends to see IFC’s other graphic gorefest Antichrist, (the movie with Willem Dafoe penis-bashing), on my birthday.…
Shakespeare in the Park: Romeo and Juliet
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 One can only hope William Shakespeare would’ve approved of all the various mutations Romeo and Juliet has undergone since his possible death in 1616. After all, Shakespeare’s play (published in 1597) borrows heavily from (and adds characters to) Arthur Brooke’s The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562) and William…
Shakespeare in the Park: Romeo and Juliet
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 One can only hope William Shakespeare would’ve approved of all the various mutations Romeo and Juliet has undergone since his possible death in 1616. After all, Shakespeare’s play (published in 1597) borrows heavily from (and adds characters to) Arthur Brooke’s The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562) and William…
GWAR, Dirge Within, Mobile Death Camp
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 GWAR, which does not stand for “Gay Women Against Rape,” or “God What an Awful Racket” (or really anything at all), is celebrating 25 years of gory, comedic thrash metal with a two-year tour in support of Lust in Space, their 11th studio album. These elaborately costumed flesh-eating monsters from…
Pablo Francisco
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Readers might recognize California-based comedian Pablo Francisco from MADtv or his Comedy Central special OUCH! He’s best known, however, for his uncanny vocal impression of voiceover artist Don LaFontaine (nicknamed “The Voice of God”), who recorded more than 5,000 film trailers before his death in 2008. If the audience is…
San Antonio Summer Art & Jazz Festival
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Now in its eighth year, the Summer Art & Jazz Festival is a free outdoor shindig with local cuisine, arts and craft booths, 10 jazz concerts, and two youth jazz workshops. This year’s festival, themed “Guitars, Trumpets, & the Winds of Jazz,” kicks off with the United States Army Jazz…
San Antonio Summer Art & Jazz Festival
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Now in its eighth year, the Summer Art & Jazz Festival is a free outdoor shindig with local cuisine, arts and craft booths, 10 jazz concerts, and two youth jazz workshops. This year’s festival, themed “Guitars, Trumpets, & the Winds of Jazz,” kicks off with the United States Army Jazz…
Greek out
Russell Brand’s rock-’n’-roll road trip
Indian Jewelry, Rayon Beach, Plata
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Houston’s Indian Jewelry is about to embark on a tour of the U.S. and Canada in support of Totaled, a “weird, dirty” album they think would “sound best coming out of a pickup on a Galveston beach.” Although their abstract, feedback-heavy music often gets labeled as “dark,” there’s also light…
Tost of the town
Poujol is on his game
Art opening: Larry Graeber: Don’t Ask Why
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Larry Graeber’s installation of photographs and sculptural objects is based on the artist’s discovery of a mysterious, roadside plot of land where cattle graze in a forest that appears to be suffering from some sort of ecological turmoil. Although the show’s title asks viewers to accept this peculiar “microcosm of…
A slice at Alamo Pizza Parlor
Release Date: 2010-06-02 The Deco District, under the aegis of the very official-sounding Jefferson Woodlawn Lake Community Development Corporation, appears to have emerged as a model of said development. Anchored by the venerable Woodlawn Theatre and the muy tropical Deco Building (its colors evoking Miami, but never mind), Fredericksburg Road has morphed from struggling-to-survive to…
Art opening: Larry Graeber: Don’t Ask Why
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 Larry Graeber’s installation of photographs and sculptural objects is based on the artist’s discovery of a mysterious, roadside plot of land where cattle graze in a forest that appears to be suffering from some sort of ecological turmoil. Although the show’s title asks viewers to accept this peculiar “microcosm of…
Bella Luna
Release Date: 2010-06-02 Luna Fine Music Club seems to be one of those lucky establishments about which no one has a single bad thing to say. Considering the number of dumps and d-bag stomping grounds Bar Tab has visited in the last year — trying desperately to find the beauty in and purpose of each…
Art Opening: Jason Reed and Melissa Wilkinson
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2010-06-02 The UTSA Satellite Space seems to have a knack for crunching two exhibitions into one space. Although the work shown on one side of the gallery doesn’t always relate to whatever’s in the other room, lately it’s been fitting together nicely — mentally and/or visually. Melissa Wilkinson, who teaches art…
The Sound & & The Fury
Next week, there’ll be too many high-caliber national shows in town to shake a stick at (or buy tickets to, like a normal person), so use this week to appreciate the local scene. Ernest Gonzales says he’s retiring from DJing in order to concentrate on making original music. He’s already quit his weekly Flux gig…
Game theory
ModNation Racers PlayStation 3 (Sony) $59.99 Looks like Mario Kart with Little Big Planet people, you might think when you see the game case for ModNation. Well, congratulations, you’re a video-game reviewer. There’s not too much to add to that knee-jerk assessment, other than: (1) the graphics don’t have LBP’s tactile stop-motion feel, and (2)…
Chisme y Chicle
“It’s never too late to enter a convent,” proclaims the Liberty Bar at the Convent website. Love it — especially considering that the move from the venerable old location to the new, originally scheduled for May 26, is now announced as 11 a.m. June 2. Restaurants always open later than they first think. Maybe even…
Vintage House
On St. Mary’s near Southtown sits a lively storefront presided over by a flirty mannequin wearing a voluminous yellow skirt and striped tube top. She seems to be enjoying the fleetingly cool weather. Beside her stands a rack of summer dresses waltzing in the wind, waving to the cars as they pass by. The petite…
¡Ask a Mexican!
I work at a high school where there is a significant number of our students without papers. Two students that I had worked with for four years graduated last June (one from Mexico, the other from Paraguay), and they are now attending community college. They have both read your books. My questions are: What do…
Dear Uncle Mat
I am 24, and until last month had never done drugs in my life. I have always believed that life is better with a straight head. LOL, I am gay, so it isn’t that straight. I do drink, but not much, and I don’t like going to bars, either. I enjoy the movies, bowling, and…
Freewill Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19):If you’d like to be in supreme alignment with cosmic rhythms this week, I suggest that you completely avoid using the f-word. Likewise, you’ll maximize your chances for taking advantage of fate’s currents if you refrain from ever using the s-word, the c-word, the m-word, and the b-word. As a general rule,…
Air-quality roolz, more WAO drama, Bus Rapide(r) Transit
Battlebots I don’t know where you get your air, but Que2 suspects it doesn’t pass through an air treatment plant or labyrinthine network of pipes before it blows down your street. Unlike our centralized water systems, air comes to us as-is. When polluted by heavy industry or our millions of combusting engines there are only…
Training days
This article is the third installment in an ongoing series examining the City’s process for condemning privately owned buildings. Part one, “Kangaroo court,” which ran April 7, looked at Constitutional due-process issues with the Dangerous Structure Determination Board, which is composed solely of City employees and whose decisions are currently subject to a very limited…
Texas two-step
A man walks along a beach littered with millions of stranded starfish. He stoops from time to time to pick one up and throw it back into the ocean. Another man approaches and says, “Don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach, and stranded starfish all along it? You can’t possibly make…
Serious playtime
David Shelton opened his eponymous Stone Oak gallery a year ago, but has yet to mount a solo show (although next month he’ll break this streak with Alejandro Diaz’s Just in Queso). He seems to delight in bringing together unusual groupings of artists, and Good and Well, currently on view, is a prime example. Mimi…
Don’t touch my Arti-care
Isaw a funny clip on YouTube, a fairly lengthy rant by Penn — the talkier one of Penn & Teller — addressing the role and impact of the National Endowment for the Arts on “famous artists.” (You can watch it at youtube.com/watch?v=s-lHAkX8sLM if you’re interested). Apparently, the NEA’s ruined them. Back in the day, he…
Roots and branches
Ray Wylie Hubbard typically flies farther under the radar than contemporary Texas music pals Jerry Jeff Walker (who introduced the world to the Hubbard-penned “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother”) and Willie Nelson (whose label released Hubbard’s first solo album in 1978), but that doesn’t mean the 63-year-old singer-songwriter slacks off. This year he released…
Religious Asylum
God’s Favorite Band, the latest from Austin’s Asylum Street Spankers, is definitely a gospel album, but it’s no conciliatory turn away from a career defined by subversion. The post-modern jug band responsible for such songs as “If You Love Me (You’ll Sleep on the Wet Spot)” and anti-warmongering Tony Orlando riff “Stick Magnetic Ribbons On…
Live & Local
Note to local musicians: This performance, not bad for what it was, compels me to say, please: If it turns out the performance I’m scheduled to review for Live & Local isn’t going to be representative of your band, let me know, and I’ll come see you at a later date. Erekeecludi show up at…
Rhone Rangers Storm Auden’s Kitchen
Bruce Auden and Chef Patricia Wenkus have announced a winemaker dinner at Auden’s Kitchen for Thursday June 3rd at 6:30. There will be an actual winemakerâ??Eric Mohseni of Zaca Mesa. ZM, located in California’s Santa Ynez Valley, is known for its Rhône Valley varietals, and many will be on offer that night. Grilled calamari salad…
EPA vs TCEQ: Texas regulator’s system clouds air-quality waters
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com I don’t know where you get your air, but I’ll wager it doesn’t pass through an air treatment plant or labyrinthine network of pipes before blowing down your street. Unlike our centralized water system in San Anto, air comes to us as is. When polluted by heavy industry or our millions of…
