Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Boys Night Out, Dear Hunter, & Pierce the Veil
Release Date: 2007-09-05 The Arizona natives spent the summer on Warped Tour — now they’re back on the road with Boys Night Out and The Dear Hunter in support of their self-titled album, which hit shelves August 28. The sophomore effort follows up their 2006 debut, The City Sleeps In Flames, which landed them on…
Marga Gomez and the Family Comica
Release Date: 2007-09-05 In her one-woman act The Family Cómica, Lesbiana comic and Culture Clash alum Marga Gómez provides a loving and lethal tribute to her show-biz parents with hysterical tales about trying to make it in Hollywood culture. $7/10, 8pm Friday & Saturday, Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, 922 San Pedro, Margagomez.com, (210) 228-0207
Bourbon Crow feat. Wednesday 13 w. The Cocaine Blues Band, Gentleman Joe, & Baum 666
Release Date: 2007-09-05 Under the alias Buck Bourbon, shock rocker Wednesday 13 exposes his versatility with a side project that echoes the days of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. His partner in crime is Rayen Belchere (Jessie Crow), and the duo makes its live debut with five Texas dates. The CD, Highway to Hangovers, is…
Cannibal Corpse, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Red Chord, GoatWhore, & The Absense
Release Date: 2007-09-05 A death-metal favorite, Cannibal Corpse boasts a massive cult following that’s persevered despite widespread censorship and criticism concerning the band’s graphic lyrics and album-cover imagery. The quintet just wrapped up a huge Latin American tour before gearing up for the Metal Blade Records Anniversary tour — the SA stop promises to pack…
Noa Baum
Release Date: 2007-09-05 Renowned Israeli-American storyteller and performance artist Noa Baum graces San Antonio with three public performances. In her one-woman show “A Land Twice Promised,” Baum recreates the human aspect of both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict through four women’s stories and memories. Free, 7:30pm Monday, Chapman Auditorium, TU, 1 Trinity Place. Complete schedule…
Drowning Pool w. The Exies & Cult To Follow
Release Date: 2007-09-05 Dallas rockers Drowning Pool have struck an unlikely alliance, as the band donates portions of ticket sales to non-profit orgs addressing mental health care for veterans. Check out budding San Antonio project Cult To Follow—the brainchild of Union Underground’s Bryan Scott sports Pitbull Daycare’s Jason West and Todd Connally, and 13 Muses’…
Wordstock
Release Date: 2007-09-05 Now an annual event, the UIW Wordstock Festival kicks off a new school year for college students across the city. With a stellar local music lineup of Flywood, 5 Star, and Window, games, food, and drinks (alcoholic and non) this year’s bash is a must for back-to-school students of all ages, disciplines,…
Sublime ‘Stephanie’
Pregnancy is fucked-up shit,regardless of age. I speak from observation, not experience, and generally I would refrain from swearing (at least in print) when another word or words would do, but they won’t. Perhaps during some pre-Existentialist, pre-ultrasound period human pregnancy was simpler, perhaps not, but what is clear today is that every knocked-up woman…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: A new line of Speedy Gonzales clothing came out earlier this year. As a black vendor in a predominantly Mexican market, I immediately thought about selling some of these items. I am 35 and, although I remember the cartoon coming on when I was a young kid, I can’t really remember much about…
Armchair Cinephile
PICKS OF THE WEEK: Earth, one of Jim Jarmusch’s most accessible, funniest films makes its debut on Stateside DVD, taking viewers on brief but captivating cab rides in five cities around the globe. Stranger than Paradise gets the Criterion treatment, where it’s paired with the almost-unknown Permanent Vacation. Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or-winning film is tough-to-watch,…
Clothes Minded
As part of San Antonio’s 16 de Septiembre celebrations, the Instituto Cultural de México will open a temporary exhibition of work by Mexican designers Pineda Covalin on September 12. Developed in collaboration with Mexico’s National Anthropology Institute in 1996, the line includes ties, scarves, handbags, shoes, jewelry, and apparel inspired by the art and traditions…
End User
The internetgiveth… In May, I devoted a column to griping about how difficult it has been to keep one’s calendars and contacts synchronized between devices and online services. I am super-jazzed to say that our wait is officially over, and I’m wearing my party hat. Plaxo, whom I mentioned at the time, has released a…
Funny queer
As an only child living with her parents in a Manhattan barrio, comedian Marga Gómez says for a while she thought her mother and father might be vampires. They were vaudevillians, who “only came out at night” to perform. This led Gómez to find her own calling in the entertainment industry. Turning to stand-up comedy,…
Question’s answer
Tucked away on the Alamo City’s North Side, a nondescript strip mall houses a professional recording studio where San Antonio hip-hop history is being made. Inside the dark studio, producer extraordinaire Polygrafic works behind the boards, while Daniel James Boskind, the emcee known simply as Question, directs from inside the booth. Seated in front of…
Art Facts
“I think I got tired of seeing billboards utilized for almost threatening messages — so you see all this public space that’s available and you never see anything positive up there,” says reformed adman Andy Benavides. The visual pollution inspired SMART — Supporting Multiple Art Resources Together — an evolving campaign that officially kicks off…
Sound and the fury
Forthe hellion in you looking for stygian environs and classic, dark punk rock, prepare for Texas horror rockers the Saturday Nite Shockers. Hosted by the Alternative Club Lounge (2211 San Pedro) on Thursday, September 6; roguish black dress and vinyl will be much appreciated. Freshly out of Electro Recording Studio with a new six-song EP,…
Portraits in oppression
German artistVaago Weiland registers physically like an extra in a Jean-Claude Van Damme film: a charismatic fireplug with a jaw as wide and likely to pop out at you as a cash-register drawer. He’s convincing as a pumped-up Hitler, a Son of Dixie, and an American soldier — roles he cycled quickly through at Friday…
‘Fox’ force five
If ever arecording had some powerful South Texas mojo working for it, the new collaboration between the Krayolas and Augie Meyers is it. Consider the karmic convergence required to pull this off: The Krayolas, a beloved but long-domant power-pop quartet, reunited this year after 19 years of inactivity to promote a compilation of their old…
Heartless in the Heartland
Lanford Wilson’s The Rimers of Eldritch is Our Town fed through a wood-chipper. And I suspect some Vexler patrons will want to toss Rimers in the ol’ chipper as well. For the play is nothing if not — and I truly hate this term — “challenging”: an unconventional 1967 drama about conventional morality, composed with…
Aural Pleasure
It’s dark in Detroit: The Go ride a haunted beat ontheir newest release. M.I.A. is a graffiti artist, video director, activist, and acclaimed rapper/singer, but the Sri Lankan Brit might also qualify as her own best critic. In the midst of the new tribal call-and-response anthem “Bird Flu,” she declares that she’s “making bombs with…
On the Street
Big, I Am A few Saturdays back there was a Camel sponsored event at the Limelight. Big Soy, Jester, and Sound Team performed. I previously wrote about Sound Team and their place in the tradition of famous Alamo Heights bands, with Christopher Cross being the obvious early example. There may have been a few words…
Aural Pleasure
With Howl, the Go help Detroit to bury that whole “garage rock” association (which, let’s face it, became a bit of an unfortunate stigma) once and for all. The overall sound here is somewhat reminiscent of L.A.’s neo-psychedelic Paisley Underground scene, if the Paisley Underground had produced better songs. And the Go has two terrific…
CDs Nuts
When Kweli stops philosophizing for a club/doin’ it number, the album actually suffers, but “Hostile Gospel” is easily one of the top 10 rap songs of the year. “Hell” is a plea for reasonable humanism Kurt Vonnegut would’ve enjoyed. “Eat to Live” is a glimpse of poor children’s lives with a specificity that’s devastating, and…
Censored
For 31 yearsProjectCensoredhas beencompiling a list of the major stories that the nation’s news media have ignored, misreported, or poorly covered. The Oxford American Dictionary defines censorship as “the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts,” which Project Censored Director Peter Phillips said is also a fine description of what happens…
‘A Land Twice Promised’
Israeli performance artistNoa Baum calls herself a member of the “peace camp,” but it was still difficult for her to hear the stories of a Palestinian friend in which Baum’s people were not victims or heroes, but occupiers. In the hope of recreating what was for her a deeply humanizing experience, she brings tales from…
The Que Que
Scab Salad Labor Day is past. Sunburns, hangovers, and rug burns begin their slow disassembly. Queque ditched city functions for an extended family bacchanal in Galveston. Buoyed by Country and Tejano beats, we stepped up to the shots but stowed our sarcasm as we tried drunkenly to remember which cousin it is that packs a…
The wit and wisdom of John Cornyn
From box turtlesand gay marriage to question-free curiosity, U.S. Senator John Cornyn has uttered more quotable quips during his first term in the Senate than most politicians do in a lifetime. Like an infomercial for President Bush and the Republican Party, Cornyn toes the line with a rigidity almost unseen in American politics. Sometimes Cornyn…
Of sewage and secrets
When your family is sick, a lot of things become your business. Like how local government is supposed to work, and how it actually behaves. In the case of the Lara family, it also meant tracking the condition of the neighbor’s water well and who had the best deal on bottled water that week. Elsa…
Dining on the Old Spanish Trail
In the 1920s, an ambitious multi-million-dollar highway called the Old Spanish Trail was constructed to provide the first major route between Florida and California. San Antonio served a crucial role. Not only was Fredericksburg Road the mid-point of this grand travelway, but its construction was championed locally by a torchbearer and fabulist named Harral Ayres.…
Runaway train
The original 3:10 to Yuma, released in 1957, is one of those Westerns that, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, you might catch on AMC while flipping channels, get sucked into, and, at the end of it, wonder, “How the hell have I never heard of this movie before? It should be a classic like High…
Amuse Bouche
Gooddeeds writ in meat and margaritas this week, diners, beginning with caterer Don Strange, who is receiving the Texas Treasure Business Award Wednesday from our very own Senator Leticia Van de Putte. The man who has stoked chuck-wagon nostalgia for 50 years will continue the celebration Thursday at his Welfare ranch with an auction benefitting…
Critical Darling
Disney,just pay Ebert whatever he wants. The man survived cancer. He’s out a voice and a mandible segment. I assume he’s not asking for a private Mediterranean island paved with gold bars. Even if he is, quite frankly, he and his thumb might be worth it. I stopped watching Ebert & Roeper once I realized…
Dear Uncle Mat
My friend “Jill”’s husband “Jim” is gay. His personality is a dead giveaway and I know women who are more masculine than him. Everyone can tell but Jill. Our circle of friends cannot agree if we should tell her or how. Do we confront Jim? She is talking about having kids soon and I just…
Director Michael Davis hopes ‘Shoot ’Em Up’ will kick your ass
Allow Michael Davis’s frothingly enthusiastic, fiendishly over-the-top directorial debut this much: By the time carrot-chiseling sharpshooter Mr. Smith (Clive Owen) perforates a pitiable goon’s brainstem with an especially pointy helping of beta-carotene (roundabout five minutes in, as I recall) and punctuates the performance with a growly “Eat your vegetables,” Shoot ’Em Up’s shown you precisely…
Free WIll Astrology
ARIES(March 21-April 19): A few years ago, the Cambodian government decided that the country’s karaoke bars had become hotbeds of vice. To suppress their evil influence, the prime minister called out the army’s bulldozers and demolished them. Keep that in mind as an example of how NOT to proceed in the coming week, Aries. While…
On the Street
Big, I Am A few Saturdays back there was a Camel sponsored event at the Limelight. Big Soy, Jester, and Sound Team performed. I previously wrote about Sound Team and their place in the tradition of famous Alamo Heights bands, with Christopher Cross being the obvious early example. There may have been a few words…
Postcards on a scandal from the edge of reason
Dear Focus Features, I want to lick your face. Wait, that was forward — super-forward. I am not a pervert. At least no more a pervert than Gwen Stefani appeared to be when she licked Moby’s bald head in the “South Side” music video. Incidentally, where did we come down on that? Moving on —…
Mex In Manhattan
El nueve once is what I call that day. Un día that started out with me co-anchoring a New York City early morning television show and then within minutes finding myself rushing toward the mortally wounded World Trade Center. As I ran down the street, I made note of the friendly, clear-blue sky and the…
