Free Press Houston

Victor Garber finds truth in the moment

2011-09-06T18:30:42Z

Speaking to Victor Garber by phone was a great chance to compare film technique to stage technique from somebody on the front lines of both. Garber’s not a household name but if you saw him on the street you’d recognize him in an instant. While he’s known well enough for his role on the television show Alias, “It’s Titanic that everyone remembers,” Garber acknowledged.

To prepare for the role of the architect of the Titanic, Garber read a bio of ship designer Thomas Andrews, but added, “[Jim] Cameron tells you what he wants. When I finally saw the premiere I couldn’t believe what he’d achieved.” Titanic the movie is scheduled for a re-release in 3D on April 6, 2024. Garber also has roles in the upcoming films The Guys Who Move Furniture and Argo (directed by Ben Affleck).

But it’s the legit stage where Garber has found his most challenging roles, including parts in the original productions of The Shadow Box, Sweeney Todd, Damn Yankees (revival), Deathtrap, and Art to name a few. “On the stage you’re working with a different kind of spontaneity,” Garber said. “In film you have less rehearsal time, less research, you stay true to the page.”

But Garber was quick to remind that whether on the stage or in front of a camera “the goal is believability, and the truth is in the moment.”

Garber appears in a DVD that gets released today (September 6) called Entitled, a tense kidnap drama where he plays one of three fathers whose children are being held for ransom. Garber shares screen time with Ray Liotta and Stephen McHattie. As the seconds tick away each parent reveals different motives towards the outcome. Garber said, “It was the twists of the characters that appealed to me.”

– Michael Bergeron

DVD – Baseball’s Greatest Games

2011-09-06T02:21:33Z

The other day I was talking with a sports professional and naturally the conversation veered to the best sports movies. Naturally every sport divides the genre with multiple examples of films that mirror the variety of athletic disciplines. Take baseball; is The Natural a supernatural baseball film, not unlike Field of Dreams? The first Major League had Wesley Snipes and lots of laughs, a solid entertainer. But does it have the social relevance as well as the rock hard realism of Eight Men Out?

A recent series of DVD releases cover the top ten baseball championship games, Baseball’s Greatest Games. The series comes with a second audio track that consists of the radio broadcast of same. In BGG 1960 World Series Game 7 we witness the first series that was won in the bottom of the ninth inning by a game winning home run (Bill Mazeroski). Plus it’s the 60s, so we have lovely restored black-and-white images of bygone heroics. By the way this particular release also has a double disc edition with the second disc covering color film excerpts of that year, newsreels and interviews with actual participants like Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford to just name two.

Another entry in this series is BGG 1986 World Series Game 6. If you will recall this is the year that the Met took the Astros in the most exciting end-of-the-season pennant race in Space City history (the Astros had clinched the spot with a Mike Scott no-hitter). The Mets proceeded to prove the curse of the Bambino against the Red Sox. The thing about these Major League Baseball and A&E DVD releases is that they are as suspenseful and edge-of-your-seat thrilling as a good movie. Each inning jacks the tension another notch like the click of a torque wrench. In Game 6 we see a free-lance performance terrorist parachute softly onto the playing field in the first inning. The Reds have Roger Clemens on the mound in his third pro year. The Mets have Darryl Strawberry and Mookie Wilson. You cannot believe how many safe-on-a-steal slides and just-missed-it throws this game contains. Oddly enough watching this extra innings extravaganza led me to find the existence of a film (direct to video) called Game 6 (2005) that pits a playwright (Michael Keaton) who blows off opening night of his latest play to watch, yes you guessed it game six. Meanwhile he plots the destruction of a nasty theater critic (Robert Downey, Jr.) who will certainly pan the play. After all is said and done they stop trying to kill each other long enough to break drink and watch this exciting game.

And don’t even get me started on football films because North Dallas Forty is hands down the best gridiron film ever made. Actually it’s more of a dramedy, and starring Nick Nolte in one of his pivotal early film roles. Maybe Paper Lion, the original The Longest Yard and Any Given Sunday rank but nowhere close. Don’t even bring up Knute Rockne All American (1940), a film that had a minor yet memorable supporting role for Ronald Raygun as the dying Gipper. I’d be like in 25 years Alan Covert is elected President of the United States and he’s remembered for his humorous role as Adam Sandler’s sidekick in The Wedding Singer.

But not ironically the boxing film is the genre that defines American society. From the Wallace Beery boxing films of the 30s, to the fictional Barton Fink script (set in the 40s) where Fink’s writing a boxing movie, to Paul Newman as Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), a role that shot Newman to stardom and that was originally meant for the late James Dean. Rocky (1976) and Raging Bull (1980) and last year’s The Fighter, as well as the current Warrior are some other pugilistic titles that deserve a look.

– Michael Bergeron

Blogging while intoxicated: Goodbye and Good riddance to Rick Casey and Steven Thomson

2011-09-06T00:52:33Z

See the man in the white pants: he is the enemy (appropriated under fair use provisions)

By Alex Wukman

Houston media is a small, and always getting smaller, community. It’s not uncommon for Free Press Houston, Houston Press and 29-95 writers to share some words and a drink when we run into each other at a show or a bar. Over the years I’ve tried to remain cordial with my colleagues in the big corporate papers and when they left for greener pastures I felt that some of the things that made this city great had left as well. That is not the case this week. The Houston Chronicle’s “Metro Columnist” Rick Casey will be publishing his final column before heading back to San Antonio to head up a Texas politics based talk show, because they apparently watch those things in the home of the Alamo. In the eight years that Casey has had his name in the Chron he’s been accused of ripping off other journalists and almost always missing the story. I literally cannot count the amount of times I have been stupefied by how Casey completely seemed to miss the most important element of whatever he was writing about and did so in such a profoundly unfunny way that it made me wonder if 8 a.m. is too early to start drinking.

Despite Casey’s shortcomings, he was at least attempting to say something with substance. The same isn’t true for Culturemap’s Steven Thomson who is leaving to do something or other in London, the post wasn’t quite clear. For those unfamiliar with Thomson, and why would you be, he was the site’s assistant editor and wrote the insufferable ‘column’ Trendysomething in SoMo. After being the only person in Houston to A: identify South Montrose as a cultural and geographical area separate from say, the Museum District or the rest of Montrose and B: coin the irritating acronym SoMo to describe it, Thomson’s writing offered an unapologetic, unironic and unappealing look at the life of either a trust fund kid or a $40,000 millionaire. He wrote for, and about, the young town home dwellers who seem to want to take a community and an area of town so well-known that it gave it’s name to a gay bar in South Texas and make it into something that resembles Aspen east or, fuck I don’t know, Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Thomson’s lack of knowledge about the city he chose to live in couldn’t be more apparent than when he described the work of legendary Houston anti-art collective I Love You Baby, as “cartoon meets porn doodles.” It wasn’t just Thomson’s general lack of knowledge that launched much of his writing straight past infuriating to the land of downright insulting; there was also his tone deaf approach to the issues faced by a community he chose rechristen from “the ‘Trose” to the “hipstrict.” The rage inducing aspect of Thomson’s writing came partly from his complete and utter failure to acknowledge the struggles with identity and assimilation that have defined Montrose for 40 years but mostly from his treatment of substance abuse.

Take the April Fools’ joke about “being caught in a purple syrup swirl and sent off to rehab in the Rio Grande Valley.” Yes, because those of us who have lived in your “hisptrict” for longer than two years, and have lost friends to drug addiction and rehab, find the concept of a privileged white boy being hooked on the oh-so-declasse codeine syrup so fucking funny. I’ll be sure to recount the tale of your fake Shelby Hodge intervention to my friends facing 3-5 years for possession of a gram; I’m sure they’ll find it hilarious. Sadly, his April Fool’s piece wasn’t the one that made want to hurl my laptop out a fourth floor apartment window; that reaction was reserved for a piece published on April 15 of this year.

While the vast majority of Houstonians were slaving over their tax returns Thomson had the gall to describe brunch at Hotel Zaza as “a portrait of post-recession Houston.” Yes, Steven, the recession hit us all so hard that we can now only enjoy our “succulent Alaskan halibut with saffron-braised summer squash” and “brioche French toast bites dipped in vanilla bean maple fondue” as a way of showing solidarity for the “tiny black dress-decked waitresses” who change costumes midway through service into that of “delinquent school girls (cigarette-emblazoned blazer crest included).” Viva la Revolucion! I know when I hear someone say “this Cava is good, but not as good as the winery I stayed at in the foothills of the Pyrenees,” I think about paradigm shifts in Houston demographics, the economic devastation of middle America and post recession culture. Just like when I go out to eat and drink with my friends and wind up dancing on a table I always try to dust off my liberal arts degree and justify the decadence by writing a think piece about how the brunch scene is “an indicator of the city’s zeitgeist.” Methinks someone was reading a little too much Jay McInerny and Bret Easton Ellis while waiting on a mani-pedi, but didn’t get to the part about the emptiness of materialism.

If Casey’s articles made me wonder if 8 a.m. is too soon to start drinking, then Thomson’s writing proves it’s never too early for a shot of whiskey; and that’s not a good thing. And Thomson, since I know you’re reading this because you’re an egotistical wanker, if I see any of this on a book jacket in a few years I will personally punch you right in your smug little face. Now I need a goddamn shot.

Apollo 18

2011-09-03T19:28:26Z

The found footage genre film has become vogue after Blair Witch, and indeed works best with the vein of both documentary and horror movies. So when a studio pushes the concept with months of teasers and a healthy budget we get Cloverfield, a serviceable and fairly well done film.

Apollo 18 takes the concept a step further by pretending there was a doomed and covert mission to the moon, kept secret by the Department of Defense. Apollo 18 opens with no credits but a simple couple of sentences that inform us that the following movie was edited from over 80 hours of footage. Obviously we (or the Russians) went back (Apollo 19?) to recover the footage.

As Apollo 18 unwinds I had the feeling I was watching outtakes from For All Mankind, the brilliant documentary made from NASA archival footage (by Al Reinert). The set design and special effects are so well done that Apollo 18 should find an appreciative audience that consists of scientists and horror fans alike, or maybe a combo of the two. The rabbit in the hat trick here is making Apollo 18 look like the kind of stuff we’ve seen broadcast from the moon.

Without revealing too much let us say that the astronauts (well cast with non-familiar faces) find proof of another country landing on the moon as well as evidence of a strange kind of extra-terrestrial life. Apollo 18 has a definite beginning, middle and chilling ending. A lengthy credit roll shows how many effects companies were used to achieve the seamless story. Is Apollo 18 scary? Yes at times, and absolutely more engaging than the recent Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.

– Michael Bergeron

Seven Days in Utopia

2011-09-02T16:45:44Z

Despite being a parable with heavy religious overtones Seven Days in Utopia stands alone as solid movie making. That’s not to say that a heaping teaspoon of sugar won’t be needed to swallow the good-folk, God-fearing backbone of the film’s narrative. Robert Duvall plays a kind of Zen master of golf, part Yoda, part Mr. Miyagi, and then eventually part preacher, all in his inimitable Duvall way.

Lucas Black finds himself stranded in Utopia, Texas with a broken down car. Black has just lost his cool at a golf tournament and his subsequent auto accident provides a blessing in disguise as Duvall takes the amateur under his wing to make him a pro. Melissa Leo and Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood) are some of the townsfolk.

SDIU was lensed in Fredericksburg and Utopia and the production values are solid. The film actually ends on a cliffhanger and poses a philosophical question that I felt was more refreshing than to show Black making the putt. Interestingly Texas lends itself to films about golf as in Ron Shelton’s Tin Cup, or an indie film by Michael Hovis from the 90s, The Man With the Perfect Swing.

Duvall gives Black golf lessons each day he’s stranded in Utopia, but instead of actually playing the game he teaches the young man lessons in humility and perception. That’s where Utopia becomes Karate Kid as Black shows up with his clubs and Duvall hands him a paintbrush and they proceed to paint a picture of how to drive a ball caught behind a tree to the green. Seven Days in Utopia will please sports fans easily enough, but it’s biggest draw with be the religious crowd that will heartily embrace its not so subliminal message.

– Michael Bergeron

Updated: Anonymous shows HPD Lieutenant and Friendswood PD chief love racist and sexist emails

2011-09-03T15:42:14Z

By Alex Wukman

Hacker collective Anonymous recently made a huge cache of sensitive law enforcement documents available to anyone. According to the Anonymous release around three gigabytes of “law enforcement sensitive” and “for official use only” files were released including police records, internal affairs investigations, meeting notes, training materials, officer rosters, security audits, and live password information to government systems. Among the files released were the personal email addresses and passwords of nearly 30 active and retired Texas police chiefs and other high ranking law enforcement officers. Anonymous was able to release the personal information, or docs as they like to say, of several high ranking Houston area law enforcement officers including an HPD lieutenant, the chiefs of the Friendswood and Spring Valley police department as well as the assistant chief of the University of Texas at Houston Police Department.

Friendswood PD Chief Robert Wieners e-mails allegedly included the usual amount of police business such as Houston Regional Intelligence Center counter-terrorism documents, FBI Situational Information Report and Counterterrorism Intelligence Group reports and internal police meeting notes, search warrants and arrest reports. However, also included was an alleged March 2024 e-mail in which Wieners refers to a female suspect who started a car chase near the intersection of Yale and 610 as a “stupid bitch” who “got what she deserved.” Wieners then goes on to state “I’ll bet she was fat and black too.”

Wieners account also allegedly contains a chain e-mail entitled “1,400 years of inbreeding amongst Muslims.” The alleged e-mail is based on an article by Bryan Fischer a right wing blogger and radio host who serves as the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, one of the key sponsor groups behind The Response prayer event held last month at Reliant Stadium. In the article Fischer, fraudulently, states among other things that “the massive inbreeding in Muslim culture may well have done virtually irreversible damage to the Muslim gene pool, including extensive damage to its intelligence, sanity, and health.”

In the documents released from HPD Lieutenant Robert Mock’s personal Hotmail account. Mock, a 25 year veteran with almost 10 years supervisory experience, allegedly used this account for perosnal business relating to the purchase of a new home and forwarding racist and sexist joke e-mails. Mock’s alleged e-mail address is filled with forwards that perpetuate the stereotypes of ignorant Muslim extremists, drug smuggling Mexicans and submissive shopaholic women. One e-mail Mock allegedly received states, “I pray for a deaf-mute, gymnast, nymphomaniac with big hooters who owns a bar on a golf course, and loves to send me hunting, fishing and drinking. This doesn’t rhyme and I don’t give a shit.”

On at leas three separate occasions mock received an e-mail incorrectly citing famous comic Jeff Foxworthy as the author of a series of ‘jokes’ entitled “You May be a Muslim.” The e-mail was filled with such zingers as ” if you have more wives than teeth; you may be a Muslim,” and “if you wipe your butt with your bare hand, but consider bacon unclean.; you may be a Muslim.” Within the alleged e-mail exchanges released by Anonymous there is no record of Mock or Wieners objecting to the type of racist and sexist humor they allegedly received.

Update:

In the two days since this post went live the story has gone around the world and back. Eric Doyle at Eweek Europe identified the faction of Anonymous responsible for the hack as Chinga La Migra, a group who first garnered attention after hacking Arizona law enforcement in June. The City of Friendswood has repeatedly denied to Houston media that Wiener is the author of the racist e-mails. Mock, now an assistant chief with HISD, has been more concerned with the invasion of privacy that came from getting hacked than the fact that he received racist and sexist e-mails.

FFW – The Free Press Preview for September 01 – 07

2011-09-01T11:28:29Z

This Week’s Featured Show

Saturday September 03

White Mystery
with
The Energy
Vivian Pikkles & The Sweethearts Über Alles
@ The Mink - Dude, White Mystery tried to drop into town a few months ago but they ran into some trouble and had to cancel. That may have been a good thing as the venue they were slated to play is pretty awful about getting word out about shows and nobody even knew hey were coming. Dammit that ain’t right because this band deserves some attention if they are coming to town and we aims to do right by them this time. Made up of the red-hared brother and sister team of Alex (drums) and Francis (Guitar) White, the duo play some dirty dirty garagey business that’s so good, it will leave you wincing in pain. We talked to them a few months ago and you can read the interview here (link) if you missed it. Oh yeah, and the rest of the line up is damn good too.

Thursday, September 1

Repo Man Screening, featuring The Hates @ Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks (10PM) - Classic punky movie and classic Houston punks come together.

Legion, Metalloyd, Annihilist, Overdose, Deathrazor, K.T.C.M. @ Warehouse Live – Thrash Metal from The Netherlands – YUSS!

Vaz, Pygmy Shrews @ Super Happy Fun Land - Fans of the Fargo Amrep band Hammerhead will be happy to know that the guitarist and vocalist of that band make up Vaz and reportendly kick no less ass.

Turnin’ Headz : Blank Canvas Featuring Flotation, Justin, Raney Kidd (San Antonio), and Party Hill District @ The Mink – The monthly showcase of regional and local hip hop drops again this month.

Eileen Jewell @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck - Jewell is a rootsy singer songwriter who pulls influence from country, jazz, blues, rock and even jug bands if she in the mood. She’s also a seasoned busker, a Loretta Lynn fan, and can call Tom Hanks a fan.

Paco Estrada, Deadbeat Darling, Kirk Baxley @ The Continental Club - Fans of Dallas’ SouthFM may like to know that the soulful frontman, Paco Estrada, hasn’t let the band’s break-up keep him down.

Friday, September 2

Black Congress, The Men, Weird Party @ Rudyard’s - Triple dose of rock and roll testosterone. This month we actually did a feature on Weird Party who easily win on best idea on how to dump a band member check out the article if you haven’t already (Link).

Diplo @ Fitzgerald’s – The former Philadelphia teacher turned DJ, Producer, songwriter hits Fitz.

The Goodnight Summer Tour: Benefiting The Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities, featuring The Urgent Young, Castle Lights, Deep Ella, John Lefler (Dashboard Confessional), AThousandColors, Alkari, Spain Colored Orange, & Suite 709 @ Warehouse Live (Studio) – some good bands for a good cause.

Greg Babineaux Art Show, featuring Tom Gun, Infinite Apaches, & Then Underground @ Super Happy Fun Land – art and music, music and bands

Social Decay, H.R.A., Krullur, Termination Force, Gutter Rats @ Mango’s – crushing hardcore for the end of the week.

Blaggards @ Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar – Irish rawwwwwwk!
Fri., September 2 – Grave Babies @ Fitzgerald’s

Hippiefest: A Concert for Peace & Love, featuring Dave Mason, Mark Farner, Rick Derringer, Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals, & Gary Wright @ Arena Theater – Ummm I really am speechless here. Really!

Saturday, September 03

Andre Williams, Roy Head, Archie Bell, Little Joe Washington @ The Continental Club – Goddang this is a solid line up! Go to this show and you will get laid!

The Dodos/The Luyas @ Fitzgerald’s – Damn this is gonna be good but then I have a soft spot for indie pop. If you aren’t familiar with them here is a song I love to death:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Escatones, Infinite Apaches, Art Institute, Tom Gun @ Rudyard’s - Craziness ensues whenever the Escatones play. I heard they moved to Oklahoma becasue that’s where their van broke down. I dunno if that’s true but it’s a good story nonetheless.

Crustaceans, Chairs, Tom Gun @ Notsuoh - pleasant enough indie pop from Seattle.

Active Child, Com Truise @ Fitzgerald’s - So not my thing that it’s kind of the opposite of a good thing. I mean hey if somethign that sounds like Vangelis with a falsetto singer sounds awesome to you, have at it.

Kid Rock, Sheryl Crow @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion - Kid Rock is kind of like a pied piper of douchebags, tonight he leads them to the CWMP. (No hating on Crow though, she’s alright.)

Killer Mike, Jackie Chain, Yellow Boyz, The League of Extraordinary G’s @ Numbers - Killer Mike did some voice work on Frisky Dingo which was one of those shitty Adult Swim cartoons that was more funny for the fact that someone was collecting a paycheck for than for the content. Thankfully, the work Killer Mike does as a rapper is much much much better and the rest of this line-up is pretty sweet too.

Benny Benassi @ Stereo Live - Benny Benassi e’ un DJ di Italia. Infine, una scusa per usare mi minore della universita!

Wagoneers @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck - Hey, 20 years later, Austin’s Honky Tonkin’ Wagonneers have reunited.

World Grooves, featuring JayTee @ The Mink (front bar) – DJs action.

Asleep at the Wheel @ Dosey Doe Coffee Company (The Woodlands) - Hey weren’t these guys playign inside the loop just last week? No worries AATW are good enough for a second dose.

Sunday, September 4

Balaclavas, Black Leather Jesus, DJ Dull Knife, DJ Chemical Mange @ Notsuoh - No one else in Houston has as distinct a sound as Balaclavas and no one person can cause such earsplitting noize as BLJ. Sounds like a good Labor day sunday to me.

Venomous Maximus, Ancient Wisdom, Oceans of Slumber, Watching the Moon @ Rudyard’s - If you want crushing heavy ass music instead, then this may be another option.

Tuesday, September 6

Libby Koch @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck - Houston country singer who you can pair with your Shiner or Lone Star.

Wednesday, September 7

Andrew Karnavas & Runaway Sun (tour kickoff), Clory Martin @ Rudyard’s - The singer songwriter kicks off his tour. No mention if hell include any of his kid centric Andyroo material but anyone who writes songs about Salamanders and hopscotch is ok in our book.

Rattlehead, Kaustik, Owl Witch, Overdose @ The White Swan - Here is how it works. Metal is always awseom and if TheAdversary,org lists a metal show, I repost the show here. It’s that simple.

Periphery, The Contortionist, Textures, The Human Abstract @ Warehouse Live (Studio) - See what I mean? This was on TheAdversary.org’s calendar and I just reposted it here. I’m not even going to bother looking up the band. It’s metal and that is all you need to know!

Weird Party

2011-09-02T17:49:20Z

Weird Party (Photo by RamonLP4)

Weird Party is nothing but a big pile of sweaty, audacious, ready-to-scrap Rock and Roll. Etched in their new 7” is all the snot, spit, and fire of the finest punk. Live, they are possessed men who rage with a fury that infects any unwitting crowd. Hell, they might even steal your girlfriend at the end of the night if you’re not careful. The thing is, for all the wild shows and kick-ass Rock and Roll, you won’t find another band that is as smart, droll, and dedicated to their craft as these guys. We sat down with Buggy Rickshaw, Keg Noisily, Rowland Blackout, and DK Miller (Behest Peen wasn’t able to join us) at La Carafe last month and, I can honestly say, I’ve never had a harder time cutting an interview.

Keg – By the way, it was my idea to have a bar at Whole Foods. I came up with that idea and they stole it.

FPH – You should have figured some angle to make money with that.

Keg - I HAD an angle! They wouldn’t listen to me.

FPH – But they did listen to you….

Keg – Yeah, and they cut me out!!

FPH – When Weird Party started you had the thing where you could only have access through an invitation, you had business cards, and the limo thing with Jordan Graber. What was all that about?

Keg - Every bit of that is we’re a bunch of smart-ass idiots who sit around cooking-up stupid ideas to do and then dare each other to do it. You wanna hear what’s even funnier is the idea that didn’t happen ’cause it was too expensive. The first Summerfest we played, we were going to pay one of those airplanes that drag a flag behind them to say “Pray for Weird Party.” The card thing was actually a misunderstanding. We were talking about flyers and I mentioned an old punk flyer that looked like a business card and they actually made a business card. So when Bryan brought them in, we said “This is genius! Just go pass them out!” But it was a total misunderstanding and people just ran with it like Jordan (Graber) taking a picture of the girl’s hand with the card and I love that stuff. I mean it was all funny.

FPH – What was the worst idea you guys ever had?

Keg – We were going to kick-out a member by sending them a strip-o-gram but I don’t know if I want to elaborate any more….

FPH – No wait, that’s great…

Keg – Yeah, that IS a good idea. I mean, having never seen one, I don’t know what happens in a strip-o-gram – like do they deliver a message and then strip or…

Rowland - But it wasn’t a stripper; it was a dude in a banana costume.

Keg – Well, it was either or it may have been both – I don’t know – but we were going to do that to kick a person out.

FPH – If I got kicked out of a band, that’d be a classy way to go.

Rowland - Yeah, that was the point! See, you’d be happy about that.

Buggy - Nothing says “kicked-out” like a good pair of tits.

FPH – The stripper would be good but the guy in the banana suit…not so much…

Keg - And that’s an argument we had. If you do one, it’s a slap in the face but if you do the other, it might be a joy. Actually, we might have done it but Rowland fucked-up and sent him an e-mail.

FPH – Why a 7”?

Keg - I don’t think we originally planned on releasing a 7”. We just wanted to get some songs out with the new line-up.

Rowland - I like the idea of putting out 7”s. Why go all-out with an LP right out of the gates? Why not put out a little bit at a time? Tease ‘em at first. Foreplay. I don’t want to shoot my wad all at once.

FPH – What’s the focus of Weird Party?

Keg – 100% it’s on writing. We’re constantly working on riffs and Rowland is constantly working on his vocals and lyrics. For me, it’s all about making music that I would like to hear.

FPH – How was it releasing a 7” yourselves?

Keg - It’s nice not to wait for somebody else’s schedule. Our single from recording to release wasn’t very long. That’s nice because I’ve been in bands before where, by the time your record comes out, you really don’t care about what you did at all. In the end, I want to put out records that I will be happy with later on in life and make recordings that are compelling to listen to.

FPH – How is this band different from other bands you’ve been involved in?

Rowland - We practice!

Keg – Yeah, we have a good work ethic.

Rowland – …and it’s fun, it’s not drudgery. It’s work but we enjoy it. I’m older now – I’m not a young goofball like I used to be – so I can take it more seriously. I have less time to do it so, when we do meet, it’s more focused.

FPH – How does holding a job play into the whole Rock thing?

Keg - I think we have freedom; we’re not trying to make a living but what bands are anymore? I don’t want to trivialize it but this is like my golf. It’s a hobby but it’s a serious hobby that I want to do as well as I can. Hobby makes it sound like it isn’t good but…

DK Miller - … it’s a craft.

FPH – What’s your fan base?

Keg - Look at these handsome gentlemen – it’s young ladies. It’s a Death Rock Boy Band.

FPH – Death Rock Boy Band?

Keg - Death Rock is prior to Goth like early Christian Death and 45 Grave.

Rowland – Take that and add the boy band factor.

Buggy – At the record release, we had people dancing.

Keg – They weren’t on my side of the stage! I have a few guys interested in guitar gear on my side. Guys thinking, “What is that pedal? I think they stopped making that two years ago.” That’s all I’ve got. The other side of the stage is all young ladies checking the dudes out.

Rowland - We all bring our own demographic.

FPH – Hey, if you have the ladies and the guitar nerds…

Keg - …you’re covered. And the guitar nerds don’t bother the ladies and the ladies don’t notice the guitar nerds.

Rowland - They are at peace…in harmony.

FPH – Given all the work – the rehearsals, hauling big cabinets up stairs, all that stuff. Why do it? What’s the point?

Keg - It’s the same reason it’s always been; if you’re not a big strong tough dude or really intelligent, music is like magic. It’s a way to distinguish yourself in the world. It always has been.

Rowland - …and it makes chicks dance!

Buggy - When we play live, it’s a free moment to not be what we are during the day. I’ll look at these guys and I’ll see a nurse, an accountant, and a sign shop guy raging – that’s badass. It’s like magic. At the end of a set, it’s like waking up from a dream where I don’t remember any specifics about the show we just played.

Keg - It’s like running; it eradicates all the bad stuff in your head. It clears the decks of all life’s problems…at least for that time you are doing it.

FPH – Some people would argue, “Why do it if you are playing a shitty bar and you’re not going to get famous?”

Rowland – Well I’m pretty sure none of us are looking to get famous from this. And, I like the idea of playing in small, stinky clubs. I think that’s the essence of Rock and Roll.

DK Miller – I’d rather be playing at a small, stinky club than just sitting there drinking.

Buggy – That’s kind of how I felt when I was younger and I would go to shows. I would look around and I would see people who were DOING things as opposed to just being an observer and I felt I was much more about the people who were making those moments happen for everyone else. I like being a purveyor of joy as opposed to just being a recipient.

Keg - It’s about doing something, not just being a witness.

Rowland - I couldn’t wait to be the guy carrying an 8X10 cab up the stairs. I literally couldn’t wait!

Weird Party perform Friday September 02,2011 at Rudyards w/ Black Congress and The Men.

Their ‘Honey Slides/Sarah Palin’ 7” is available now.

Page One: Inside the New York Times

2011-09-01T03:47:21Z

The phrase “new access to accountability” sounds confusing at first but makes sense in the documentary Page One as the means to an end of traditional journalism versus new media. The purpose of a newspaper in a free society is mainly to question authority and Page One: Inside the New York Times (the film’s full title) goes a long way in establishing that the paper of record has a valid if ever decreasing role in today’s brave new world.

One of the Times reporters, David Carr, carries the moral spine of this movie on his back as he’s on-screen much of the time. Is the iPod a bridge to the future or a gallows asks Carr. Other editors, reporters and execs are featured in talking head style but it’s Carr who becomes the central character, even going so far as to reveal his addiction addled past, his recovery and his level headed devotion to his job. Another character that balances out Carr is reporter Brian Stelter, a newcomer at the Times who was hired because his instant news website and Twitter hipness was deemed so important that his relative inexperience didn’t matter.

Wikileaks (wikileaks.org) gets equal airtime since they are essentially providing the same platform to “let the people know” that the Times furnished to America when they covertly published The Pentagon Papers during the height of the Vietnam War. Archival clips show then President Nixon discussing the legality of prosecuting the Times for that historic publication. Nixon pops up again when the subject of Watergate is covered, and The Washington Post gets its moment in the sun.
Worker layoffs, covering war zones and upstart internet news websites are given narrative consideration. Cutting to the chase, Page One deserves your attention for being solidly made but for also giving the front ranks of journalism a heroic edge. Page One plays exclusively this holiday weekend (Thursday through Monday) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Brown Auditorium.

– Michael Bergeron

Talkin’ bout Tinsley on Great Day Houston

2011-08-31T20:14:50Z

By Alex Wukman

Yesterday morning I went down and hung out with Debra Duncan on Great Day Houston to talk about Eleanor Tinsley and the Free Press. Check it out and see if you can spot the plug.

[video