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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Over the Weekend: Fotos, Dogs and Sausage
08:50AM 03/10/08 -
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
What we are writing about
- American Gangster
- Amy Sillman: Suitors...
- birth defects
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Recent Articles By Daniel Mee
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Rotten Piece
Rotten Piece performs Thursday, June 28, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 5216 Montrose, 713-284-8250. TEF, Crawling Iris, Carlos Pozo and Werewolf Jerusalem also perform.
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Radio Birdman
Radio Birdman performs Tuesday, June 26, at the Meridian, 1503 Chartres, 713-225-1717.
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Jerry's Kids
Jerry's Kids perform Friday, June 22, at Walter's on Washington, 4215 Washington, 713-862-2513.
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Necrophagist
Necrophagist performs Friday, June 8, at the Meridian, 1503 Chartres, 713-225-1717. Arsis, As Blood Runs Black, Beneath the Massacre, Cattle Decapitation, Cephalic, Daath, Faceless and Ion Dissonance also perform.
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Dan Deacon
Dan Deacon performs Sunday, June 10, at the Mink, 3718 Main, 713-522-9985. Video Hippos, Wicked Poseur and the Wiggins also perform.
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
By the End of Tonight/Tera Melos
A Complex Full of Phantoms
By Daniel Mee
Published: December 20, 2007-
Alvin's By the End of Tonight teams with Californians Tera Melos for this adventurous, eclectic split LP.
Subject(s): By the End of Tonight, Tera Melos
Between Motion Turns It On's Rima, Bring Back the Guns' Dry Futures and By the End of Tonight's half of split LP A Complex Full of Phantoms, southeast Texas officially has a true prog scene. Where MTIO thrives on texture and improvisation, Alvin's BTEOT aims to break the riff-density scale, assembling bits of Don Caballero, the Mercury Program, Dillinger Escape Plan and the Fucking Champs into musical structures as tight as a monkey's fist. Their unrelenting intensity and playful refusal to repeat anything at all can make BTEOT difficult to digest, but their songs' construction — impossible to predict yet effortlessly, indubitably logical — reveals a subtle, powerful intelligence. That's good prog in a nutshell. Yet even BTEOT are surpassed in capriciousness on Phantoms' second half by California genre-jumpers Tera Melos, who sound like Hella or the Cancer Conspiracy one minute — drummer Vince Rogers even pulls off a decent imitation of Hella's Zach Hill — and the Postal Service or Menomena the next. Although Tera Melos lack BTEOT's sense of purpose and flow, they are invigoratingly adventurous; their unannounced jumps from jazzy math-rock to mellow indie-rock to full-on electronic dance music may induce sonic whiplash in some listeners. Best is their emo/math-rock fusion of "Last Smile for Jaron," a welcome update of a subgenre largely abandoned since the late '90s.
Great review.
Comment by adr — December 20, 2007 @ 12:26PM