I’ll be honest, when I heard about what the owners of CycloSocial Co. wanted to do, I thought, in theory, it was a great idea. A “party bike” that took up to 15 of your closest friends, co-workers, drinking buddies, and random strangers on two-hour tours around some of the trendiest, hippest (dare I say),…
On September 24, 1996, the then-newly-beloved, post-grunge band Weezer released Pinkerton, the highly-anticipated follow up to its brilliant (and universally lauded) self-titled debut (aka the Blue album). The band’s second record, which wasn’t very well-received at the time, was, in terms of sound, a flat-out ambitious and tortuously emotional departure from the sunny, polished, harmony-laden, pop-rock…
If you listen closely, you can almost hear polka music that’ll soon start streaming out of Munich this Friday. Can’t afford the plane ticket to Deutschland? You can still celebrate in spirit in San Anto as several German-influenced joints celebrate the holiday as well. Kick things off with an Oktoberfest craft beer tasting on Thursday, September…
Hailed as one of the most bizarre groups in recent pop music history, South African rap-rave trio Die Antwoord, made up of Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser and DJ Hi-Tek. They’re like a zef Cerberus, a foul mouthed three-headed entity that slays and kills whatever they touch, from toy making and starring in films (2015’s Chappie and Harmony…
Neighborhood Joints — Is there anything better than leaving work and picking up a tasty pizza on your way home? A few, but this isn’t the “Things that are better than Pizza” Issue. Thankfully, San Anto has neighborhood joints to spare. Here’s a few that are busy cranking out hot pizzas for area residents. Alamo Pizza: Order in…
Pizza and beer — it’s not rocket science. Even still, San Antonio has a few mad scientists that make eating great pies and drinking equally winsome craft brews a reality. Barbaro: The Monte Vista pizza palace keeps customers on their toes with their eclectic craft beer menu, which changes all too often depending on what kegs and…
Mirroring its 1991 premiere performance, the Guadalupe Dance Company marks its 25th anniversary with a bang on Diez y Seis de Septiembre. Celebrando Tradiciones will pull out all the stops. Accompanied by the Mariachi Azteca de America, the company will perform newly choreographed works by members of the Asociación Nacional de Grupos Folklóricos as well as some…
San Antonio-born, NYC-based artist and photographer Wendy Bowman brings her old hometown a thoroughly engrossing look at one of its most vibrant neighborhoods in her Fotoseptiembre exhibition entitled “Southtown.” In the newly created series, Bowman returns home, wearing the hat (and garnishing the lens) of a native and interloper at once. Her focus on the…
Chef, restaurateur, gardener, father, writer Mike Sohocki knows what San Antonians want. After leaving The Cove to open 1800-inspired Restaurant Gwendolyn, earning a James Beard Award nomination along the way, opening the city’s first noodle shop with Kimura and likely working on other secret projects, the chef opened what could be his best eatery to date. At…
Two videos out of Texas, both of which quickly went viral, show the aftermath of two different pool parties. In one, a handful of angry bros throw a series of wild punches as the party devolves into an all-out dude-brawl. In the other, a bunch of kids are just standing around in a suburban neighborhood.…
Let me quote the Millennial bard, Aubrey Drake Graham, in saying “I’ve always been me I guess I know myself.” I know I hate big menus. I know I hate a multitude of choices. I know to order efficiently at a quick-service restaurant. Because when it comes down to ordering your lunch or dinner at…
There are a few good uses for a laser pointer, from leveling a shelf to wearing out your hyper dogs at the end of a long day. Pointing it toward the sky at any aircraft is not one of those uses. A 25-year-old San Antonio man learned that the hard way this week. According to…
I have made many poor decisions in my life, a nd many of them were about food. When I was 18, I ate Chunky’s Four Horseman Hamburger in the second- fastest time ever, after which I spent 12 hours puking every 30 minutes into a toilet, the unchewed globs of half- eaten ghost peppers tumbling…
When people hear the term “burlesque” some still think of that 2010 film with Christina Aguilera. For others—like performers Lita Deadly, Jasper St. James and Dino Foxx—it’s a more nuanced label, one associated with radical, freeing self-expression. Those performers will shake up the city this weekend with San Antonio’s fifth annual San Antonio Burlesque Festival. …
As far as museum fundraisers go, the McNay’s Art to the Power of 10 maintains a refreshingly approachable vibe reflected in a casual dress code and comparatively affordable ticket price. In addition to raising funds to support the McNay’s growing collection of contemporary art, the sixth annual cocktail party and sale doubles as a condensed…
“Pizza is a lot like sex… when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.” Well, we beg to differ. Bad pizza is bad. We’ve all had it by now, either by our own hands or someone else’s, and we’re solely talking about pies at this point, but bad pizza happens. Which makes good and great pizza a…
If you follow the contemporary art scene, it’s safe to assume you’re already familiar with the powerful work of San Antonio-born, Houston-based artist Vincent Valdez. Exhibited at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery in 2013 and at Artpace the following year, Valdez’s arresting exhibition “The Strangest Fruit” comprised large-scale, full-body portraits of the artist’s friends…
While writer-director George Lucas’ debut THX 1138 gave viewers an Orwellian nightmare in a distant dystopian future, his follow-up, 1973’s American Graffiti, offered an idealized look at a halcyon past recent enough for most of the audience to misremember right along with the auteur. With a tagline asking “Where were you in ’62?” Graffiti served up…
Ming’s Thing, the pan-Asian purveyor of all things delicious at the Pearl Farmers Market, is opening a noodle bar just a few steps away from its commercial kitchen. First launched in early 2012 at the Quarry Ranchers & Farmers Market (RIP), Ming’s Thing is a market staple because of its signature sloppy joe steamed buns,…
Big changes are coming for Jamaica Jamaica Cuisine, one of the handful of Jamaican eateries in San Antonio. The shop, which opened five years ago at 2011 Austin Hwy., will move to a new location further south at 2026 Austin Hwy. Their last day of service at the current location was this past Saturday, September…
On Sunday, September 11, Sandra Cisneros finally attended the José Rubén De León-directed stage version of The House on Mango Street at The Classic Theatre. Her verdict? Two enthusiastic thumbs up… and a few tears down her cheek. “Sandra wept most of the time,” De León told the Current. “She thanked each actor personally, signed…
Tens of thousands of Texas children with disabilities have been kept out of special education over the past decade due to an arbitrary benchmark that state education officials can’t really defend. That was the startling conclusion of a Houston Chronicle investigation that dropped over the weekend that sought to explain just why it is that…
I have long accepted that nostalgia plays a large part in determining how good something you eat actually is. A flavor, a taste, a smell, something will trigger a long-lost memory and trigger an almost immediate gastronomic response in you. That is exactly what happened to me when I grabbed some grub at Fat Tummy…
Photographer Marco Antonio Sanchez is something of a purist. Not a purist in the sense of photography, per se, because photography as such can be an artifice too. No, Sanchez is a purist in terms of his love affair with the subject, and thus the subjective and singularly attuned eye of the photographer. In his…
Thanks to such cinematic gems as The Woman in the Window (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and The Third Man (1949), the term “noir” is more immediately associated with film. But years before filmmakers thought to wrap their fatalistic tendencies and World War II-era cynicism into a gritty, smoky crime-drama format informed by the visual hallmarks of…
If you’re feeling in the mood for singing nuns, lonely goats and a bit of “Do-Re-Mi,” you’re in luck, because the national tour of The Sound of Music lands at the Majestic this week. Set in pre-World War II Austria against a dichotomous backdrop of mountainous vistas and an ever-increasing number of Nazi flags, the…
Monday is the worst day of the week for many people. It’s certainly the most hectic day for us here at the San Antonio Current as we race to meet our deadline for the upcoming week’s print book. To put it frankly: on most weeks, Monday’s a shit day. This week, literally. Today, a kind reader…
The U.S. Bartender Guild’s San Antonio chapter is official hosting its own celebration of all things tiki this week (the group had previously operated under Austin’s USBG chapter while working towards chapterdom) from September 12 through 18. Tiki cocktails — a remnant to tiki the pervasive tiki culture that took over the U.S. post WWII…
Chef Quealy Watson was shocked that more than 130 people showed up to slurp up his Tenko Ramen pop-up during Labor Day. Thankfully, a friend had lined up for ramen at 5:30 and I was able to score a bowl without waiting for hours on end (sorry, everyone that was there). “As a chef, that…
If video killed the radio star, Chris Conde might be a martyr. Conde, a local queer experimental rapper, just dropped another video, “Growing Up Gay,” shot live at one of his recent his Hi-Tones shows, his fourth video to date (“not necessarily a single,” he tells us). “I just felt like with everything happening in…
Chef Jason Dady is at it again. This time, he’s getting a little nostalgic with it as he opens The Bin Tapas Bar inside the former home of Bakery Lorraine next week. Modeled after the old Bin 555 at Artisans Alley, which he opened in 2006 and later closed to make way for Umai Mi, which…
Chasca, Fea, Wayne Holtz, Chris Conde and more at Phantom Room Tuesday, September 13 San Antonio’s Fea plays the Phantom Room this week with Wayne Holtz and San Marcos’ Chasca. Chasca’s self-described “Rocky Horror dramatics” complement their alternative glam-rock sounds, proving some from that town just a bit north can hang with the rest of…
First, Tim Duncan retires, and now this. Spurs fans who also love doughnuts were treated to spurs-shaped pastries during the last few playoff seasons. And unlike UT, the Spurs didn’t give this Southside bakery any grief over their fanatic treats. The bakery found at 359 Bustillos Drive announced Sunday evening that they were closing on Facebook. Fans of…
We live in a fast-paced world where the “human factor” is often neglected. At Stonegate Pharmacy, we believe the “human factor” should never be neglected. At the heart of Stonegate Pharmacy, is the simple yet brilliant idea that treating you as an individual matters. Heart is the driving force behind our commitment to create an…
Last week, things went from bad to worse for Tim Duncan’s former financial advisor. Just last year Duncan twice sued Charles Banks, his former investment advisor, claiming he’d “encouraged, promoted, hustled” the 15-time All Star into investing in a series of bad ventures, including companies that Banks had an interest in or he himself controlled.…
Tonight Kraftwerk, the German pioneers of electronic music, make their first appearance at the Tobin Center in San Antonio. Hailing from Dusseldorf, Germany, the current members are Ralf Hutter (founding member), Fritz Hilpert, Henning Schmitz, and Falk Grieffenhagen. The list of ex-members is both extensive and impressive (original members Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother split…
For all the gloom that the Spurs’ offseason has produced, there is at least one silver lining: people can stop saying they’re too damn old. Even by the team’s own standards, last year’s team was especially long in the tooth. Their average age, 31.6, was easily the highest in the NBA, the fifth time they’ve…
Guitarist Nick Long and drummer Travis Hild of the San Antonio blues/rock duo Lonely Horse have been through a lot over the past year — good and bad. On one hand, the band saw plenty of attention after their win at the Afropunk Battle of the Bands in 2014. But the project ultimately folded after…
Launched earlier this year and officially introduced to the public in May through the collection Life Lessons: Confessions, Viva is a group of writers and theater artists dedicated to working with emerging artists and exploring issues surrounding social justice, responsibility and diversity. Simultaneously diving into the local theater landscape and engaging various factions of the…
Paper Tiger just released the lineup for the 2016 edition of Night of the Creeps, a Halloween festival that began last year. The event tasks local acts to cover bands from the past. It’s half tribute show, half costume party, as the bands encouraged to dress up and recreate the original band’s aesthetic. And the…
People say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in the event of the robot apocalypse Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider better hope robots say that, too. Originally labeled “krautrock,” the catchall for Germany’s psychedelic rock movement in the 1970s, classical music students Schneider and Hütter soon moved into less populated territory,…
La Botanica will celebrate all things mujer with the first-ever Chingona Fest on Friday, September 16 and Saturday, September 17. The two-day event, organized by Cristina Martinez, Denise Hernandez, Bonnie Cisneros and Rebel Mariposa, will feature “pláticas, música, arte, workshops, sustenance, zines, poesia and dance party” but it’ll also feature the Chingona Awards, a celebration of women…
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu advises “the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.” Similarly, the rules for three-day dog-grooming gauntlet GroomWars stipulate: “Dogs must not be in season at the time of completion,” most likely to prevent canines in heat from providing their own definition of “doggystyle.” The point is,…
The San Antonio Parks Foundation and the City of San Antonio present Jazz’SALive, San Antonio’s official jazz music festival. Join us, free of charge, on September 17th and 18th to celebrate 33 years of jazz in the historic and newly renovated Travis Park. Jazz’SALive features award winning national, regional, and local talent with diverse styles…
Dear Nina, Stop making us beg. It feels like it’s been a year since your album was “cooked,” but you sure did make us wait. The album, the solo debut by the Girl in a Coma singer, will finally be released on October 28 via Cosmica Artists, but she’s been kind enough to tease us…
Rogelio “Roger” Carlos was just photographing the construction of his family’s pediatric clinic on the far northwest side on May 20, 2014 when an undercover San Antonio police officer, dressed in civilian clothes, approached him. Unfortunately for Carlos, he was also wearing a white T-shirt. The San Antonio Police Department says the undercover officer thought…
The staff at Il Forno does classic Napoletano pizzas extremely well. The antipasto is hands-down one of the best in town (today’s pear and gorgonzola looked beyond dreamy). The panzanella with kalamata olives, watermelon, roasted pecans, grilled focaccia doused in awesome balsamic is making my mouth water right now. But the staff is also not…
Bottomless mimosas are going the way of the Dodo (or iPhone headphone jack, if you will). Even if you haven’t noticed that unlimited mimosas have faded from menus during your most recent Sunday Funday excursion, we know of at least two eateries that have stopped offering the cocktails due to visits by the Texas Alcoholic…
For some people, September 11 has become a day to remember those lost during the single worst terrorist attack on American soil. For others, it’s become a marketing gimmick to sell some mattresses. On Thursday, someone on Facebook shared this video with local TV station Kens5 showing what appears to be an advertisement from a…
Sat 9/10“Kick it Old School” For this massive group exhibit, the result of a juried open call for submissions, photographers were instructed to “kick it old school” by limiting their processes to more traditional (non-digital, non-manipulated) equipment and methods. Thus, the work exhibited herein coaxes viewers into a journey through the history of photography and…
Under the plea deal he struck with Guadalupe County prosecutors, Taylor E. Kregear could have been sentenced to a maximum of 12 years in prison for two second degree felony counts of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl back in 2014. Instead, court records show, state District Judge W. C. “Bud” Kirkendall sentenced Kregear to just 30 days…
Fresh off her loss in the long-shot race for Texas Lieutenant Governor, longtime state lawmaker Leticia Van de Putte unexpectedly jumped into the crowded field of candidates hoping to be San Antonio mayor last year. Her entrance immediately disrupted the field, splintering the voting block that had been seen as a dead lock for Mike…
If you often dream of stuffing your face with Kalua pork sliders, you’re in luck. Husband and wife team, Kalani and Imelda (Mel) Young are opening the city’s first Hawaiian food truck. The Hawaii natives hailing from Waipahu and Kalihi have been in San Antonio since 2007, and they were missing flavors of their hometown…
Federal efforts to combat the spread of the Zika virus are about to run out of money. Because Congress. Last week, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Washington reporters that “the cupboard is bare,” saying the agency had no more emergency funds to respond if, say, another cluster of Zika cases popped…
Another month, another winning choice of featured artist by Provenance Gallery. Visual artist, San Anto transplant, recent UTSA BFA grad and self-described military brat Allison Valdivia often finds herself “looking to the past, looking to [her] family and culture to find a sense of who [she is].” Her new exhibit, coyly (maybe subversively?) titled “Family…
For quite a while now, if you’ve been paying attention, it’s been clear that comic books and comic strips are far from being kid’s stuff. The initially undervalued medium presents a wealth of possibility to writers who want to tell their stories with visuals and to art illustrators who know that a few well-chosen words can make…
Thu 9/8 “Gabriela Iturbide: A Lens to See” As part of this year’s Fotoseptiembre, Ruiz-Healy Art will present “A Lens to See,” a solo exhibition of photography by Graciela Iturbide. The selections, gathered from the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University, one of the largest archives of contemporary Mexican photography, mark the first time Iturbide…
Creepoid, a four-piece rock act from Philadelphia, announced a new batch of tour dates Wednesday morning including a stop in San Antonio. The local show will coincide with the band’s appearance at the Sound on Sound Fest the weekend of November 4. The group’s newest album, Cemetery Highrise Slum, released in June 2015 via Collect…
The coffee connoisseurs at Brown Coffee Co. know sometimes the urge to drink great java doesn’t just happen in the a.m. With that in mind, Brown Coffee Co.’s location at 1800 Broadway will now stay open until 9 p.m. The shop, opened in 2013 by one of San Antonio’s first coffee roasters, will now be…
Ahead of a public hearing next week over a new Mexican American Studies textbook the state is considering teaching in Texas public schools, a group of scholars and professors on Tuesday submitted a scathing 54-page report that calls the text “a prolific misrepresentation of facts.” The result, according to the analysis submitted to the State Board…
