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 (253)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (21)
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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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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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (7)
All This Useless Beauty
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HoustonHipHop.com Relaunch Party (5)
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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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Over the Weekend: Fotos, Dogs and Sausage. And Hannah Montana Too.
08:50AM 03/10/08 -
Last Night: The Slits and Friends at Numbers
05:39PM 03/11/08 -
Spring Training: Pain, Pain and Ball Girls
06:14PM 03/11/08 -
Jameson’s Rarest Vintage Reserve at $250 a Bottle
12:20PM 03/11/08
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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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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
The late Big Robert Smith, Third Ward-bred vocalist for everyone from Grady Gaines to Albert Collins during his 50-plus-year career, was a belter, not a singer or even shouter. His foghorn of a voice was pitched something like a baritone sax, and the rotund dynamo with the wavy processed 'do never blew his instrument with anything less than full-on gusto. Smith could sing anything — pop, blues, soul, classic rock — and does on this live disc recorded at the Continental Club in 2005. He's at his best on ballbusters like "Rock Me," "Old Time Rock and Roll" and especially "Knock On Wood," which comes complete with several trademark bloodcurdling screams. He doesn't fare quite as well on more delicate songs such as "Fever" and "Dock of the Bay." Smith's voice is a poor fit for the former, and the latter is marred by some El Orbits slip-ups. And I dig standards as much as anybody, but wish Big Robert would have chosen either "Mustang Sally" or "Stormy Monday," not both. But quibbles aside, this is a solid Texas blues disc that recalls those Sunday-evening soirees and Blue Monday jams over on Dowling Street or down in Sunnyside that, sadly, are rapidly slipping into Houston's past.
