If you have any idea what the Ticket’s Mike Rhyner is talking about when he waxes nostalgic about Dallas bands of the ’60s and ’70s, then you’re probably close to qualifying for a senior discount at IHOP. However, you probably also saw some great music in your day, frequenting long-forgotten…
James McMurtry, son of author Larry McMurtry, fronts a band called the Heartless Bastards. He also recently won the 2006 Americana Song of the Year and Album of the Year. Described by author Stephen King as “the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation,” McMurtry is known lately for blasting the…
When classical music is mentioned a few names invariably pop up, and Mozart is certainly one of them. A composer with a wide range of influences and output, he produced pieces for symphony, opera, solo concertos, quartets, quintets, piano sonatas, masses, dances and more, leaving work of a quantity and…
There are any number of crappy songs I never need to hear again, including the entire Styx and Steve Miller catalogs and, most of all, John Mellencamp’s revolting “Our Country.” Then there are some legendary songs that I’d like to go 10 years without hearing, if only because I’ve been…
In high school, I drove a red ’75 Camaro. It had a 350 V8, and in it I won my first (and only) drag race…against a Chevy Nova down Garland Avenue, no less. Now, for a girl it’s a little unusual to be totally stoked about an old Camaro, but…
Seeing a concert by the Gourds is one of those quintessential experiences that every Texas music fan should have at least once, like dancing to a fiddle tune at Gruene Hall or seeing Willie on the Fourth of July. Over 10 years, seven proper albums and countless concerts, they’ve proven…
Do you live for the company holiday party? Cozying up next to the spiked punchbowl far away from where the conga line forms and your boss barks the canine “Jingle Bells” into the karaoke mic (Just remember: That new account WILL be yours by New Year’s!)—now that’s our idea of…
Take some ’70s-era hippy folk, mix in a heap of religion, add a touch of makeup and stage it as a bouncy, Broadway-style musical performed at a “family-friendly” theater in Hurst. Sounds like a night in hell to me, but maybe you’re into that sort of thing. Well then, slip…
New Year’s Eve is bound to suck, right? Do you really want to go to another lame condo party in Uptown, do some lines off the latest issue of Luxe and end up screwing that cocktail waitress from the Candle Room? Eff that! This December 31, you gotta know the…
The Pegasus Theater’s black and white shows are a true Dallas tradition. For a while, I was going year after year to their small theater digs just outside of Deep Ellum, and then poof, they seemed to disappear. They ended up moving to Richardson but are definitely worth the drive…
Is it weird to anyone else that comedian Jeff Burghart includes a “Testimonials” section on his Web site? Something about that “Proof that people think I’m funny” page screams not only, “Look at my giant ego!” but also, “I might possibly be desperate for gigs…corporate functions are no problem!” But…
As a young acolyte of Beavis and Butt-head and Wayne’s World in the mid ’90s, I often found myself renting Dazed and Confused for its similar mix of badass jams and lowbrow humor. But when Richard Linklater’s masterpiece was already checked out, there was always The Stoned Age, the story…
It is said that a great actor or actress can “bring down the house,” but before I saw (and heard) the 25-year-old American Idol finalist Jennifer Hudson in the film version of the 1981 Broadway musical Dreamgirls, I can’t recall the last time I truly feared for the architectural stability…
History repeats itself: 11 Decembers ago, Universal had the season’s strongest movie—a downbeat sci-fi flick freely adapted from a well-known source by a name director. With a bare minimum of advance screenings and a shocking absence of hype, the studio dumped it. This year, they’ve done it again. The 1995…
It took Norman Mailer seven years and 1,282 pages to write 1991’s Harlot’s Ghost: A Novel of the CIA, and if memory serves, it took me 12 years to actually finish it. So director Robert De Niro and screenwriter Eric Roth can be forgiven for taking two hours and 40…
The Good German, directed by Steven Soderbergh from Joseph Kanon’s bestseller, is as much simulation as movie. Specifically, it’s the simulation of a 1940s private eye flick. It’s not just a period film, but one that feigns being shot as it would have been in that period. Filmed for maximum…
Bankrupt and brain-damaged in Rocky V, a bout fought so long ago that the other Bush was still sucker-punching Saddam, Sylvester Stallone’s titular pugilist returns to issue another beating in Rocky Balboa. How much punishment can an audience take? Even 007 gets his license renewed by younger models every decade,…
Part Christmas pageant, part tent revival, Jubilee Theatre’s jubilant Black Nativity could make a heathen care about the reason for the season. So full of the spirit are these heavenly hosts—a cast of 11 actor-singers, including Jubilee stalwarts Robert Rouse and Janice L. Jeffery—that when the production in the 147-seat…
When the Levees Broke (HBO) Spike Lee’s four-part doc, easily the best non-fiction film of 2006, gets a fifth part on DVD: a 105-minute epilogue that reveals just how little has changed since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005. Featuring new interviews with the displaced and displeased,…
Aside from that new ball, NBA Live 07 may be the worst product to bear the league’s name this year. The new basketball game from Electronic Arts is so glitchy that scores of buyers launched an online petition demanding a do-over. Luckily for the rest of us, consumers have a…
Agnes & His Brothers (First Run) All the King’s Men (Sony) American Pie: The Naked Mile (Universal) The Beauty Academy of Kabul (Docurama) The Celestine Prophecy (Sony) Checking Out (Allumination) Derailed (Weinstein) Dreamland (Sony) Invincible (Disney) Lady in the Water (Warner Bros.) Long Distance (Image) My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Fox) National…
The other day former Stars great Brett Hull was on the Ticket trashing the NHL execs for all their pea-brained ideas to make the sport more popular, namely a rumor that they want to change the cut of hockey uniforms so they are more like an Under Armour garment. Then…
