With a Blade TV show in the works from Spike TV and powder-faced My Chemical Romance fans carrying the goth torch at Hot Topic, this would seem the perfect time to resurrect the Castlevania franchise. Castlevania debuted 20 years ago on the Nintendo Entertainment System and was an instant classic,…
British sculptor Anthony Caro is most famous for the lean, linear metal abstractions he made in the 1960s, playful pieces that seemed to float in the air. So it’s surprising to see the lumpy, earthbound assemblages of clay and steel in “A Life in Sculpture: The Kenwood Series,” an exhibition…
One of the perks of being an artist is that you usually end up with a fabulous art collection, compensation for all those years of living in an unheated studio and subsisting on beans and ramen noodles. An artist’s private stash is generally the product of a good eye, good…
Be he ever so humble — and he really is, as you’ll see — there’s no one quite like William Fucking Reed, host of the Shake! Motherfucking Dance Party. First off, what’s up with the middle moniker? “My parents weren’t very original, I suppose,” he says with a laugh. So…
It’s as if jolly ol’ Saint Nick himself laid a massive Yule log right in front of my Xmas fir with a missive ordering me to burn, baby, burn. Sure, this time of year, most good little boys and girls are having sugarplum dreams of iPods and Xboxes, but I’d…
There’s an open bottle of Veuve Clicquot next to us as we sip champs to the tune of the Shakira and Alejandro Sanz duet “La Tortura,” deep in the bowels of Phase 54 (www.phase54.com), this dope spot out near I-10 and Elliot Road that’s blowin’ up like George Clooney’s waistline…
Thursday 22 Acme Roadhouse: College Night with DJ J. Alan (Top 40) Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: DJ Suzy (hip-hop, dance) Anderson’s Fifth Estate: Area 51 with DJ Jeremy (goth, industrial) AZ 88: DJ P-Body (jazz fusion, funk) Club Dwntwn: DJs Kirby and Chris Shannon (dance) Cypress Lounge: DJ Giv (punk) e4:…
Phil Spector’s legendary “Wall of Sound” is the inspiration for this massive, engrossing collection of early ’60s girl groups. While Spector’s best-known sides are absent, it’s amazing to hear how creatively energizing his hits were during a brief period usually disparaged as a downtime in “rock’s maturity.” Among the standard…
The septet Nous Non Plus scares up sumptuous cool on its self-titled debut, whipping elements borrowed from The Strokes, Stereolab, and The B-52’s into delectable French pastries. And so we get delights like “Lawnmower Boy,” in which the band makes like Guitar Wolf on a New Wave kick; the disco…
With everyone supposedly declaring war on Christmas in 2005, what better time for the good Reverend and his merry band to release We Three Kings: Christmas Favorites? In case you were hoping for “White Christmas” crossed with “Bales of Cocaine,” forget it. The Rev purposefully eschews sex, drugs and booze…
The Adolescents have been around for so long now that founding guitarist Frank Agnew’s 18-year-old son, Frank Agnew Jr., is also playing guitar in the legendary Orange County, California, punk band’s current formation! This year, the group is actually celebrating its 25th anniversary (granted, it’s spent more than half of…
All hail Slayer! The monstrous sound of Reign in Blood inspires to this day. Unfortunately, much of what it inspires is adolescent claptrap such as the majority of death metal. Even though most fans of this “scariest” form of music are pimply dipwads, every once in a while the music…
Jennifer Bartlett at Bentley Projects: If you want to see how a painter’s brain differs from the gray matter of people who don’t know which end of a paintbrush to hold, go see this retrospective of work by the famed California-born artist. In a piece titled Boats, Bartlett places a…
It’s a pop culture tenet that Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was a perv. Carroll, who wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, was a shy, stuttering deacon and lifelong bachelor with an interest in little girls that, to contemporary eyes, appears very Michael…
State of Emergency Better late than never: Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your recent “Ambulance Chasers” article (Sarah Fenske, October 27). Ms. Fenske’s story appears, in large part, to be based on innuendoes, half-truths and distortions coming from Southwest Ambulance’s management and union. Until now, Rural-Metro/Southwest has…
The Amazing Race: The Seventh Season (Paramount) Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.0 (Universal) The Biggest Loser: The Workout (Lions Gate) Bob the Butler (First Independent) Cry_Wolf (MCA) ER: The Complete Fourth Season (Warner Bros.) The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sony) Frankie & Johnny Are Married (MCA) The Great Raid (Miramax) Ice…
It’s impossible to talk about The Ringer, a comedy about someone pretending to be retarded in order to rig the Special Olympics, without mentioning that episode of South Park in which Cartman does the same thing. The Ringer was already in production when that episode was made, and has taken…
The Jerry Lewis chromosome is running amok again inside Jim Carrey, and if you don’t feel like getting clubbed half to death with a slapstick, stay away from Fun With Dick and Jane. On the other hand, if Carrey’s tireless antics — slithering onto nightclub tables, speaking in tongues, and…
Those who will sit around wondering whether Munich is the work of an anti-Israeli or just a self-hating Jew — which is to say, Steven Spielberg, who has been branded both by Israeli officials and newspaper columnists in recent weeks — give the movie and its maker far too much…
“Agony and beauty for us live side by side,” laments Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), the most successful geisha in Gion. You’ll know how she feels: Memoirs of a Geisha, as directed by Chicago’s Rob Marshall, is beautiful to look at, but when it comes to the dialogue and storytelling, agony just…
Some soul singers have sung their joy — Sam Cooke and Stevie Wonder not least — and made their best art. But Anthony Hamilton comes from a bluesier tradition, with a lilting, earthbound voice that knows struggle, and a masterwork in 2003’s heavy Comin’ From Where I’m From. Ain’t Nobody…
What’s more selfless than a bodhisattva who discovers nirvana but postpones his own enlightenment until he can get everyone else up to speed? How about Bodhisattva with a capital B, a two-man sonic tag team that uses every limb and brain synapse to give us ADD listeners the ultimate in…
