Most Popular
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Banned Books at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
No logic needed
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Movie Pirates
That couple in the back row — they're making out big time, but not in the way you think
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Former Death-Row Inmate Sent Back to Prison
Martin Draughon returns to the clink after becoming a test case for alleged flaws in GPS monitoring devices
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Breakfast Enchiladas at Mi Sombrero
At this old-fashioned Tex-Mex joint on North Shepherd, the huevos are served all day on weekends
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The Judy's Come Back
Just in time for SXSW, the Pearland New Wavers brush off the mothballs
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (28)
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Barack Obama and Me (263)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (12)
All This Useless Beauty
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What's the Problem Houston? (6)
The city's skuzzy alt-rock scene thinks it is dying
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Who's On Deck for the Houston Astros in 2008? (6)
The Astros' post-Biggio era begins with a lot of unanswered questions, but the biggest one of all is: Just how bad are things going to get?
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What's the Problem Houston?
The city's skuzzy alt-rock scene thinks it is dying
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Houston's Matt Clark Strums for New Orleans' Glen David Andrews
A River Oaks kid learns the Basin Street Blues
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Houston Music Festivals
The last three weeks of this month promise to be hard on your wallet, eardrums and liver
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Remaking Michael Jackson
Why waste money on (or steal) those bogus Thriller remixes when you can get better ones legally for free?
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The Last Word from the Press on SXSW 2008
We swear, we're done now
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Over the Weekend: Main Street, Astros, Beyonce and Jay-Z
12:29AM 04/07/08 -
Muxtape Monday: African Diaspora
12:07AM 04/07/08 -
Astros-Cubs: One Win (and Two Losses) for the ‘Stros, But Still None for a Starting Pitcher
07:57PM 04/06/08 -
$13 at Jax Grill in Bellaire
05:28AM 04/05/08
What we are writing about
- Altar Boyz
- Backroom at the Mink
- Cactus Music
- Chantal Akerman
- Continental Club
- Cuban immigrants
- Erykah Badu
- Frozen
- Houston art
- Houston local music
- Houston music stores
- Houston theater
- McGonigel's Mucky Duck
- Meridian
- Ornament as Art:...
- PlayStation
- Proletariat
- Roger Clemens
- Rudyard's
- Sig's Lagoon
- Sound Exchange
- southwest Houston
- Sugar Bean Sisters
- The Menil Collection
- There Will Be Blood
- Vinal Edge Records
- Walter's on Washington
- Warehouse Live
- Wii
- Young and Fertle
Recent Articles By John Nova Lomax
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Farewell T-99
Show business is sure going to miss Jimmy Nelson
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Exile on Main Street
Racket and the new guy take the annual Houston Press Music Awards Showcase plunge
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Ten Years After — the 1997 Houston Press Music Awards
Where are the bands and nominees today?
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2007 Houston Press Music Awards Showcase
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Worst and Weirdest
A sampling of some of the most out-there freak-outs and calamitous train wrecks H-Town bands have experienced the last few years
National Features
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Miami New Times
The Murder of Master Do
In a city plagued by killings, the most perplexing death is that of a killer.
ByTamara Lush -
SF Weekly
Pitching "Woo-Woo"
He'll find you a parking space and even watch your car--if the meter maids let him.
By Ashley Harrell -
Nashville Scene
Spank the Honkey
The victim of a racial slur exacts a special kind of retribution.
By P.J. Tobia -
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
Spring Break is Still Awesome
Try as it might, Ft. Lauderdale still can't shake America's die-hard partiers.
By Michael J. Mooney
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Zydepunks
Details:
Subject(s): Continental Club, Zydepunks
Finding Cajun and zydeco CDs in "World Music" record store bins has always annoyed me, especially when they are filed that way in stores in Houston. Sure, some lyrics are in French, but when you get right down to it, most modern zydeco has about as much business in the world music section as Labelle's "Lady Marmalade" and its voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir chorus. And then there's that whole thing with zydeco being more or less the official music of some neighborhoods right here in town.
But if there is a zydeco-tinged band on the Gulf Coast that you could truly describe as music beyond borders, it is this gang of tattooed twentysomethings from New Orleans. Zydeco and punk only begin to describe their mix, which also includes hypnotic Balfa Brothers-style Cajun melodies, frenzied klezmer, Breton folk and rollicking Gypsy styles; vocals come phrased not just in French, Spanish and English but also in Yiddish, Portuguese and German. So as they say in FrenGermIsh, laissez los güt tiempos rouler!
Local Irish rockers Blaggards are fresh off a national tour and a stint in Austin, which saw them as both the only Celtic-based band on SXSW's official talent roster and as one of the stars of the capital's St. Patrick's Day celebration. Blaggards don't musically span the globe à la Zydepunks. Instead, their formula is straightforward: Take trad Irish music, combine it with rock and ratchet up the pressure till the rivets start to pop. Dubliner Patrick Devlin and company more than make up for the simplicity of this idea with the sheer AC/DC-like intensity of their "stout Irish rock."
