ILLER THAN THE ILIAD
If it really is the medium that sells the message, then blue collar parents should prepare for a shock: If their kids get a hold of MC Paul Barman’s new disc, Paullelujah! (Coup d’etat), they just might start dropping allusions to semiotic theory and artsy Polish filmmakers. Barman is a Jewish kid, a skinny graduate…
THE MYSTERY OF MODERN MARIACHI
“There are several things we’ve had to work out,” Dowdy says. “One of them is just the whole transcription process of going from mariachi music to something a classically trained musician can read and play off of. In jazz, they use charts and then they set themselves free. With Mariachi Vargas, they play these incredibly…
SIX-STRING SWING
Before the more famous Django Reinhardt made his big splash, Eddie Lang was jazz’ premier guitar virtuoso. A new set from Mosaic Records, The Classic Columbia and Okeh Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang Sessions, collects the work of a violin/guitar duo that foreshadowed the partnership between Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. Lang was comfortable with single-note…
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
In a simple e-mail statement thanking the patronage, Steven Bishop announced the doors of Strutters closed for good on November 16. Once again, the building that housed the legendary punk club Wacky’s will sit dim and dormant, and everyone can go back to complaining about having to see shows at the same old venues over…
KPEN: HOUSTON’S PUBLIC RADIO FOR INMATES
It’s another dose of the peculiar heartbreak of the “Prison Show,” now entering its third decade. Emboldened by the gentle drawl of Hill, a former burglar himself, callers crowd the local Pacifica switchboard each Friday, bearing messages for husbands, fathers, sons. All the recipients are behind bars. “They make me cry,” Hill says of the…
NEWSFLASH: MONEY GROWS ON TREES
Local conservationists pushing for a progressive new city tree ordinance are hoping that a recently released Urban Ecosystem Analysis for San Antonio will bolster their case before the City Council. The study was conducted by American Forests, the nation’s oldest non-profit citizen conservation organization, and it used satellite photography to chart the city’s forestation levels…
JOURNEY WORDS
The album’s title refers to a life lived outside of conventional norms; it is also a play on Salinas’ growth as a poet. Whether backed by musicians, distorted and remixed, or recorded solo, Salinas’ work incorporates his love of jazz, as well as the Beat influences of his youth. The Beats, he says, helped him…
A LOVING ODE TO THE RISEN LOAF
Their shop closed down at the end of summer and we all went separate ways. A decade later I still carry with me a love, respect, and appreciation for handmade, homemade bread. Driven by hunger, I have experimented with different recipes, trying to duplicate those flavors from my memory. With Peter Reinhart’sThe Bread Baker’s Apprentice…
NEW REVIEWS
El Crimen del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro) “Startling news that priests are weak” Dir. Carlos Carrera; writ. Jose Maria Eça de Queiróz (novel), Vicente Leñero; feat. Gael García Bernal, Sancho Gracia, Ana Claudía Talancón, Angélica Aragón, Luisa Huertas, Damián Alcazár (R) During a bus journey to his assignment in rural Mexico, Father…
STILL PLAYING
Barbershop “Raises expectations for black comedies” Unlike most black comedies, this tale presents nuanced characters instead of stereotypes to be dissected, making the film — which depicts a day in the life of a Chicago barbershop — more like black dramas such as Soul Food than the pot farce Friday. (PG-13) SM Bowling for Columbine…
