Most Popular
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Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Mescaline on the Mexican Border
Texas is the only state in the country where peyote is sold legally. Really.
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
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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Little Bitty Burger Barn
"It's okay to be little bitty in the big city" is an apt slogan for this new burger joint, where sliders rule
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Ghost Town CFS: Carriage House Cafe
Step back in time — to a spooky old carriage barn with a monster chicken-fried steak
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Barack Obama and Me (246)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Save Lobo: A Siberian Husky Mix is Sentenced to Die (28)
Why? Because he's big and intimidating and because one family complained about him over and over again
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (13)
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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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (6)
All This Useless Beauty
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Rotten to the Corps: A Question of Justice at Texas A&M (140)
Thanks to A& M and a district attorney, two cadets escape punishment for beating in a student's face
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge?
All This Useless Beauty
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Tired of the Hype, But That's All There Is
Next month, Houston gets to be a cool kid. But only for a week.
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The improbable redemption of Ashlee Simpson
"La La" Love You
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Rap's Rapidly Vanishing Female MC
The Why Chromosome
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A New Official State Song for Texas?
A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song
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Geraldo Rivera Is Stupid: A Review of His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.
06:06AM 03/09/08 -
Weekend Music: Help Save the Houston Music Scene
03:54PM 03/07/08 -
To Do: Hockey and Roller Derby
04:12PM 03/07/08 -
Sausage Fest: Bangers and Mash at Red Lion Pub
11:40AM 03/08/08
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Recent Articles By Chris Gray
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Suspicious Minds
commercial tie-ins
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Against Me!
New Wave
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Skyblue 72
concert preview
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The Gourds
concert preview
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Exile on Main Street
Racket and the new guy take the annual Houston Press Music Awards Showcase plunge
National Features
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SF Weekly
The Candidate
Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.
By Matt Smith -
The Pitch
How Not To Be a Rap Star
First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.
By Nadia Pflaum -
Village Voice
Project Runaway
What becomes a gossip columnist most?
By Michael Musto
Jenny Lewis, honey-voiced Rilo Kiley lead singer and the closest thing indie rock has to a Maxim cover girl, never claimed to be innocent. She dropped F-bombs all over the L.A. quartet's 2002 LP The Execution of All Things and warned potential suitors "Baby, I'm bad news" on "Portions for Foxes," the jewel of 2004 Warner Bros. debut More Adventurous. Now she's outdone herself on Under the Blacklight. As fans of her fragile, dysfunctional lyrics know well, usually Lewis's prettiest songs are also her skeeviest: This time, funeral diary "The Angels Hung Around" is shimmering country-soul left over from 2006 solo outing Rabbit Fur Coat, while the seductive, almost Cure-like "Close Call" contains the savory couplet "Funny thing about money for sex, you might get rich but you die by it." Blacklight is sexy (vampy rocker "Moneymaker") and creepy (underage sex fable/Stax homage "15") in almost equal measure, energized by the other three Rilos' skillful, if unlikely, appropriation of trash disco ("Breakin' Up"), porn sound tracks ("Dejalo") and '70s soft-rock ("Dreamworld"). Power-pop tail-wagger "Smoke Detector" thankfully injects a little humor amid all the sleaze, but where most bands going to seed sound pathetic, Rilo Kiley just sounds invigorated.
