Surrender

Ascher is sprightly, kicking

sand, ocean and moonlight .

The weeds washed

back to sea. It’s the scene he,

Celeste and I were robbed

of that afternoon.

I’m glad his mother dragged me out again, soaking

black water and moon shards, huffing

warm salt and picking

granules from the hard

basil lemonade gone

tepid.

I wade in until I’m deaf

of my family,

the blink of the wash house behind

me, the quilt of lunar and liquid

in front.

Still standing, knowing

the world wouldn’t see me die.

My reason for coming

back is why Celeste goes out,

courting any death disguised as a thrill.

I’m calm until she disappears

but rationally respond.

She wouldn’t wade too far.

I’m not afraid.

I can do nothing.

“Mortal,” she says, upon return.

That’s how she felt between Aransas Pass

and the abyss.

We walk with Ascher and I

think I understand now.

Life will always be a series of quiet

panics and respites, made

worthy through trials and exaltations

We can only plant

our feet, breath deep and

hold.

I never told her so.

Whether for better or worse,

I’ll never know.

Building a Still (In Brazos)

“I’m about to turn 30.”

In a college town, where the kids look freed from shrinkwrap, saying your age is like copping to an airborne herpes anyone can catch. Even though the only people who care are the 25-year-olds. They use “us” and “we” talking with you. 

It’s not just the age. You exercise, avoid poison, hustle with the kids you work with. But you’re a prime buck checking IDs and throwing out fawns that were in diapers when you first heard this song on the radio—the one where he settles for a burger and a grape snow cone—the one this kid is singing too loud while falling and puking on his date.

“Fuck you, you fucking douchebag!” he yells, the river of youth swirling around him on the sidewalk. Tonight he’s a maroon-faced pain in the taint, but he’ll get his BS in Engineering, find work on an oil rig, marry some other girl and make more money than you ever will a year or two before you got your act together.

“Shut it,” says your benevolent roommate (same age), tossing green beans to flank your birthday ribeye. “Choose the happy. Choose it. You can.”

And you wish she was the 22-year-old bartender with the same hobbies and name as the girl you almost married, horizontally glistening under slivers of moonlight. Wisdom and assurance (however self-indulgent) at 4 a.m.

But redemption is neither a fledgling beauty nor a labor of love. It’s being too old in a town too young, knowing that each second is a penny flung into a cosmic well.

What Dissing SOHNS Taught Me About Entertainment Crit

Around this time last year, I reviewed SOHNS' To Ward It Off And Drown It Out, a record that I had actually partly previewed at a party the previous October (in 2010). I remember the girl I was dating at the time had a migraine and SOHNS helped her headache about as much as a hammer and ice pick. It's important to note because I took the assignment in January 2011 with an impression already formed concerning the music. 

That said, nothing prepared me for the experience of listening to the record. "Are you hearing this?" I asked my (different) girlfriend. I don't remember how she responded, but I can tell you that my own reaction was purely visceral. Alex Méndez screeched like a banshee to the hardcore missile strike engineered by Wes Dunn (bass/vocals), Marcos Garza/Gossi (guitars/vocals; he goes by both surnames) and Lawrence Mercado (drums/vocals).* I read over the lyrics and hated them immediately, wishing the album's entire printing to recieve a Milli Vanilli-like steamrolling, especially as I read SOHNS' Facebook manifesto. The pride they took in a record so utterly imposing and willfully unlikeable was an affront to my sensibilities as a critic. How could they?

It was with that frame of mind that I endeavored this review, one that garnered several polarized comments (some of which I'm sure came semi-anonymously from members of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy). I proudly wrote:

Méndez’s vocals aren’t discernible unless read, and, on paper, their ambiguity is a shit-stained middle finger. To quote Jawbox, a likely forebear of SOHNS, this album is all nerve, no brain.

I knew what I was writing was provocative (which is a nice way of saying I was being a knowing asshole) and submitted it in part to prove something. I knew better than SOHNS what a good record was. Fuck these guys for spending two years on an album I couldn't stand and being proud of it. Never mind that my experience with hardcore and metal begins and ends with The Refused, Jawbox and the artier features on rock radio (Metallica, Tool, Sabbath). I wield the pen and, therefore, the authority.

It was a low-point in my short tenure as a professional entertainment critic for one reason: I developed a personal vendetta--however convoluted and self-serving--with the band. Sometimes critics circumvent the art and instead go for the artist. Pitchfork (all due respect) has developed a reputation for such reviews and the rep is neither unwarranted nor unjustified. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum and Ian Cohen can build a sterling case around persona in informing art. His reviews of recent work by DJ Shadow and Childish Gambino are authoritative studies of character. Whether you agree that the music is still good and/or bad is beside the point.

But at worst, to-the-artist examinations become my discussion of SOHNS, wherein I paint Méndez as a douchebag of songwriting complete with if-you-have-to-ask-you-just-don't-get-it subtext (the shit-stained middle finger). And that's simply not true. Revisiting the album in late summer, I found most of my criticisms of the album to hold water. I'm still not fond of the vocals' take-it-or-leave-it shrillness and still find the lyricism vague. But to pretend that SOHNS aren't masters of sonic terror is foolhardy. I still haven't heard another SA-release that is so assaulting. Recorded by Chris Common (who also worked with Mastodon), To Ward It Off And Drown It Out demands to be heard. It's loud, dynamic and positively invasive. But the record's brevity and detailed composition reveal a band willing to sacrifice length (read "awesome sauce" for many metal bands) in favor of kinetic pacing. "Battlorches" remains the album's crowning moment, where SOHN's seem to be scoring the 2012 apocalypse. In other words, To Ward It Off and Drown It Out is a record like many of its locally released brethren: prone to some indulgences with other moments of sheer exhultation. I should have written as much.

In the months following the review, I thought of Paste Magazine's 2007 record of the year: The National's Boxer. The publication revealed that their initial review of Boxer was far from mediocre (a 3 out of 5), but the album didn't provoke a My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy-style slam dunk. Instead, it spent the year worming its way into the staff's heads and they found themselves in agreeance: The National had it.

All of this is a way of explaining three important things. First, visceral reactions to new art must be tempered with time, thought and a willingness to take the high road. My review trafficked in negative absolutes, which is bad territory if one thinks they might ever change their mind about something. Secondly, a critical reaction to any work must be regarded as all art: alive and perfectly capable of evolution. Knowing that my own attitude towards To Ward could change, I should have resisted certain "rhetorical flourishes." Lastly, artists are people; sometimes touchy, off-kilter, social idiots but people all the same. The sad truth about my SOHNS review is that I used to be in a band and would have been horrified to read the same words about myself. I would have much preferred something more thoughtful, substantive and certainly less personal.

I count these revelations as important lessons in my own artistic journey and I perfectly understand that chronicling them may damage my cred. A writer whose work and counsel I greatly admire once told me that writing is a priesthood, where one regards their subjects from a saintly distance in an effort to write clearly and justly. That writer (and others I'm sure), would look at revealing one's own inner workings to illustrate humanism in the craft as revealing weakness. If this is true, so be it. My subjects commit sometimes unsettlingly private things to disc, canvas, print, and celluloid. The least I can do is return the favor. 

*This article initially conflated the lineup at the time of  the album's release with the musicians responsible for recording (resulting in a minor change). I regret the error and thank vigilant readers for helping to correct.

Homunculus

I keep re-scheduling with my therapist.

Talk until I’m hoarse.

Drag Celeste in one day,

Where she admits she likes being hit during sex as punishment.

Get Dr. Bowling to tell me he’s not a doctor,

before showing me childrens’ drawings of OCD dysfunction.

He recommends Feeling Good,

but I leave feeling great after just talking for an hour.

Six months and I say I’m better,

after I yell at my father, legs collapsing.

I hate him for thinking he wasn’t raised for intimacy.

Get goosebumps thinking of denting his temples.

Find my brother sitting alone in the closet,

the tissues between his legs and his eyes like wounded animals.

All we know is

our father broke our hearts.

And the rest is searching

blindfolded for a fish in black water.

Specter Quickening

On Halloween, the heat finally lifts.

I take up my sneakers and hoody,

run amidst

bashful pirates and precocious witches.

A first.

My periphery populated:

Mini-dragons, penguins and Batmans haunt,

but I keep pounding,

fleeing the disquiet of home

but knowing the specters of the time and place.

I’m parting predators mid-street.

Finally beyond the neighborhood.

Quickening at the elementary school's sight

North of the Loop. Pausing

at the medical construction site.

The dozers and dump trucks

sleep, the tools of man yearning

for a cherubic hand to give them purpose.

Wind dry-biting my face,

I collapse at the knees,

heart primed to jump out of my neck.

Hot arms, icy hands.

Baby’s breath swelling my lungs and throat.

Simple, I huff inwardly.

Something simple.

Something.

Reckoner

College radio
sound tracking the city lights
just beyond the trees awaiting rain and
and growth to raise them up
or cut them down,
respectively.

I looked into the windshield
through the flickers of modern life
beyond the desperate dark.
Thought of past lovers
in future tense
and all gained and lost by
anyone anywhere.
Felt the buzz in my spine
crawling in through my ear
from ominous power lines.
Ate hot garbage from a paper bag,
called it a contemplative thing
birthed out of necessity.

Napkin-mouthed, I silently
wished I smoked,
so I could put off driving
five more minutes
to two more hours work on a 
Wednesday midnight
no one will remember.
 

Israel

 Fierce trafficked in non-sequiturs

like Gary Larson on Adderall.

"I'm not as think as you drunk I am," he'd say to his boss

while delivering newspapers.

"Are you a fan of the country superstar Garth Brooks?"

 Wednesdays he'd let Mr. Paisley

the turtle do laps in a mop bucket while

replacing the water in the tank.

"He used to be mine," Israel said,

wiping the fake wooden logs with a towel.

"Then I gave him to the boss's son. He got bored."

 Israel's face was the angular vacant.

A long, not-quite-frown, sheltering

both mumbled vulgarities and restentments of the times.

"I don't think I should have to go to college," he'd say,

before taking a long weekend to hunt ghosts and

dye his girlfriend's hair.

 Israel Fierce was nothing if not recession proof.

 He lowered his former turtle into a new tank

like putting a newborn to nap.

"This is the circle of life," he noted.

Think About This

"Let’s be realistic: Teachers aren’t miracle workers. There’s only so much they can do to address problems that troubled students bring to class every day, including neglect, abuse, and unaddressed medical and mental health issues. The obvious and subtle ways that poverty inhibits a child’s ability to learn — from hearing, visual and dental problems to higher asthma rates to diminished verbal interaction in the home — have been well-documented. So let’s seek to improve the state of families."

-Paul Farhi [L&R], of the Washington Post

The Brute's Damn Good Videos

You'll think it a movie trailer until you realize it's meant to be a movie, albeit a small one.

Marking Time, Waiting for Sleep

 The wet thump in your chest,

at first pogoing my skull,

before slowing to a muted meter.

Sound of you drifting.

Peel the sheet,

feel the fan that I only like now.

You're a deathly monolith ,

save for the loud exhales through your nostrils.

I think of the butt of your palm against my labia.

Painful. Thrilling.

Like the way you stood

too close to me two nights ago,

laughing jollily at something I said,

while I remained casual about

my husband wandering the bar.

For Ernest (Or Because Of)

One third carat ring.

Round cut, set in white gold.

No scratches.

Never worn.

$225.00



Warren Waxes

When the devil come at you, it be real pretty.

That girl in class with the big breasts,

that ass that got its own area code,

knaw’mean?

“Warren, why you so quiet?” she say.

“Why you so cute?”

“Why don’t you come to my crib and

we can study before my parents come home.”

Playa’ come runnin’, right?

[hold for laughs]

Then you be going to class

on two hours sleep all week.

You was learnin’ other things.

That’s how Diablo get you.

Sends that honey-hot Jezebel

to pull your mind out of them books,

or your job, or your brothers and sisters and into…

[eye brow raise, devilish smirk]

Something.

And you called it love, right?

[gesture, hold for cheers]

[wait, pace]

But you know better now.

[hold for crowd]

You a lil’ older.

[hold]

Maybe a lil’ colder.

[hold]

We know that the honey of Jezebels

don’t hold anything against the sweet milk of Jesus!

[hold]

Say word?

[score]

Through a Latex Lens

Chuck Kerr

From the 12/1 issue of The Current:

It’s always interesting to see what public servants will do when they’re on their way out.

On October 3, District Court Judge Michael Peden, who retires from the bench at the end of the year, signed two injunctions aimed directly at how strip clubs conduct business. The judge’s injunction sought to ensure the clubs were “specifically restrained from allowing individuals to appear in a state of total nudity.”

Lawyer Jim Deegear, representing all-nude clubs XTC and Paradise, told the San Antonio Express-News at the time that he doesn’t expect the injunction to hold up in appeals court, but that, for now, “The cautious thing to do is to follow the order.”

It was the latest volley in seven years of “display ordinances” levied by the city against San Antonio’s prosperous naked club scene. It started in April 2003 with an order forbidding exotic dancers from being fully nude while performing and from coming into physical contact with patrons. Additionally, the ’03 ordinance levied annual fees on dancers, managers, and club owners. Each was required to pay $50, $100, and $375, respectively, and all needed to register with the San Antonio Police Department. The fines and regulations were meant to curb what the San Antonio City Council deemed “negative secondary effects” of the strip club industry. In the seven years since its passage, the Human Display Ordinance has undergone sometimes broadly redundant, sometimes more meticulous revisions. The “no touch” rule eventually became a “three feet” rule. ID badges for dancers became required gear.

Deegear, currently representing eight other strip clubs in court, called the negative secondary effects and the data associated with them bogus. According to the city, there are four major problems propagated by the existence of strip clubs: an increase in drug use, a decrease in property values, an increase in prostitution, and an increase in certain health problems. Over a burger at Fatso’s Sports garden, Deegear elaborated.

“[They’re] relying on old, generalized data that applies to a variety of sexual businesses (not just strip clubs) and using it against them,” he said, sounding not unlike Gregory Peck from the 1962 film To Kill A
Mockingbird.

For example, in order to prove that strip clubs are a place where the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease is higher than anywhere else, the city consulted anecdotal evidence from police officers regarding what they’ve heard about the contraction of STDs in strip clubs, he said. They have yet to consult a formal study and, furthermore, the action that would allow STD contraction in a club (sex via prostitution) is already prevented by law, Deegear said. No further legislation is required, he said.

Drug use/exchange and prostitution occur no more frequently than at regular music venues in San Antonio, Deegear added. All a patron needs is money and a general disregard for the law. “[Meanwhile] modern [strip] clubs are a large financial investment for those who make them,” he added. “The evidence will actually show that surrounding property values will go up.”

So if the secondary effects are non-issues, what is the inferred purpose of the city’s actions?

“It’s to drive the clubs out of the city because certain people have morality problems with clubs,” Deegear said. “No one is going to … say, ‘I love strip clubs and the people in them should have a lot of rights.’ It’s much easier for a city councilman to cave to [club opponents] because there’s no constituency that supports strip clubs.”

Former club DJ Frank Paul (not his real name) began work in 1996. He worked Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. and earned $65,000 annually for about seven years. He worked all day, partied all night, and sometimes partied all day at work. He told his extended family that he was a telemarketer on commission. Friends were sometimes skeptical when he produced $200 bottles of tequila as Christmas gifts, but he just told them that he was good at what he did for a living. Which wasn’t a lie. “At that age, I had no car payment, no wife, no kids,” he waxed nostalgically, sitting with me at The Venue off Lexington and Euclid (now Woody’s).

In dandy fashion, he played dumb when some dancers came to chat with us. “This is my first time in a place like this,” he said.

Paul considered the strip club an honest living. A DJ could make a small salary from some clubs, but the bulk of the money came from dancer tip out, which is entirely based on goodwill and mutual respect. Paul would talk up his dancers on the PA system while cueing their favorite music, hoping to create an environment where the girls felt like they weren’t working and visitors felt like they were on vacation. A DJ earning his keep could expect to make $10-$25 from each dancer per night. On the busiest nights, Paul worked with as many as 20 girls.

But the strip club life wasn’t without its problems, he said. The mainstream rise of R&B and hip-hop drove out the older white men (the biggest spenders) as the roaring 90’s wound down. Plus, the dancers were prone to domestic problems — drugs, drama, abusive spouses — or just the self-importance associated with being entertainers. When the decade was ready to wake up to its millennial hangover, the city’s market was already becoming oversaturated. In 2000, shadier clubs started catering to dancers who were fired by the stricter businesses and offering discounted table and lap dances. They were selling a diluted product, said Paul, but those problems were nothing compared to the 2003 ordinance.

Paul called the scene that followed the Human Display Ordinance “a ghost town” thanks to the elimination of nude lap dances. Business picked up again, however, after clubs found ways around it. Dancers started covering their breasts with transparent latex film (so they still looked and felt nude) and wearing string bikini bottoms or thongs. Since 2003, many clubs have been in and out of court battling individual citations and updates to the original law. Combined with some bad business dealings and a struggling economy, it became much harder to make money, Paul said. In 2004, he became a personal trainer.

On Monday night, I met with Stephen Wing, a DJ at Sugar’s off 410 near Vance Jackson. He confessed to making “much less” than what Paul says he made in the 1990’s, but maintained that it’s still “enough for my car, house, and kids.”

When asked about a decline in business over the last decade, he maintained that, actually, business — even with the recession, perhaps because of it — was great. He credited Sugar’s high-quality yet affordable experience. “San Antonio loves their deals,” Wing said. Looking around, it appeared obvious. You’d think 8 p.m. on Monday at a strip club would be dead, but 10 dancers were working and having no trouble getting patron attention.

Which raised the question: if the clubs aren’t going to comply with the ordinance, the city isn’t going to produce more compelling evidence of negative “secondary effects,” and citizens are going to continue visiting clubs, why the need for a revolving door of laws that clubs find ways around? You might also wonder who cares about sex workers going broke after making respectable money for so long?

People who think it’s about the money are missing the point, Deegear said.

“You’re never going to completely regulate a topless club because, at some point, you’ll be running into federal law,” he said. “[Also] the freedoms that you and I take for granted … those cases are made usually at the fringe of society. In the case of the clubs, dance expression is one of the things protected, however marginally, by the Constitution. We fought wars over this.”

Deegear said he has filed a request for a new trial over Peden’s decision, and that if that is rejected he is prepared to appeal.

--

Please check out the work of the graphic artist who graciously produced the accompanying photo. His name is Chuck Kerr.

Side Man - Chris Taylor's Brushes with Fame

From the 10/4 issue of The Current:

Self Portrait by Chris Taylor

In March, as spiritual pop-smith Chris Taylor cruised Twitter, he stumbled upon a world-wide song-writing contest held by Dave Stewart. Stewart sought a musician to write lyrics and vocals to a piece of music he had already composed. The co-founder of the Eurythmics and producer of No Doubt, U2, and Mick Jagger, happened to be one of Taylor’s lifelong influences. So the veteran 42-year-old musician downloaded Stewart’s work-in-progress, gave it two listens, and wrote the breezy, sweet “Here and Gone (But Everlasting).”

“I’m like, ‘I got 20 minutes to kill,’” Taylor explained in a corner of a Northside Starbucks. “I didn’t even have a microphone, so I just sang into the [MacBook] mic.”

Taylor won the contest two weeks later, but the serendipity didn’t end there. In May, Taylor went to Nashville to submit his illustrations for a children’s book. Stewart happened to be in town, recording his first record in nearly a decade. Taylor met up with the producer and rubbed elbows with national players, including country superstar Martina McBride. Then Stewart proudly played his new acquaintances his collaboration with Taylor. “When you’re a songwriter, [it doesn’t] get any better than this,” Taylor said.

Here at home, Taylor’s job duties now include “worship leader,” “weekend do-gooder,” and “recovering near-celebrity.” Back in 2001, he attended the Dove Awards, the Christian music world’s Grammys. His solo debut, Worthless Pursuit of Things on the Earth, earned him a nomination for “Rock Album of the Year.” Taylor was amused because he never expected the national industry to care about a San Antonio songwriter. He still went to the show, but not in the standard tuxedo. He opted for a t-shirt and jeans.

“I was going through a separation with my ex-wife,” Taylor said. “I was so uncomfortable … it just seemed appropriate. You know, it was a nice t-shirt.” The shirt was handmade, with a message reading “I Need a Hug,” a sartorial cue of the emotional turbulence to come.

In 1993, Taylor led Love Coma, an alt-rock Christian group. They toured nationally in support of two full-length albums but quickly grew frustrated with the Christian music industry’s focus on evangelism over expression.

“It seemed like once you got on a Christian record label, they geared you towards the youth,” Taylor told UTSA’s Paisano in 2008. “I didn’t want to become a big Christian car salesman. I wanted to write mysterious songs that had a sort of truth to them, but the sort of truth that anyone could relate to, whether they believe in God or whether they believe in themselves.”

As Love Coma struggled with major label expectations, members started jumping ship. Guitarist Matt Slocum joined Sixpence None the Richer. Drummer Chris Dodds joined Two Tons of Steel. Taylor went solo and eventually produced his Dove-nominated record, not without some temporary bitterness about his former bandmates’ success. Then his divorce happened, with September 11, 2001 following shortly thereafter, prompting Taylor to do some major soul-searching.

He turned to a life of service, eventually becoming a worship leader at Rock Hills Church. On weekends, he does laborious charity: moving furniture, cleaning bathrooms, handing out food and water, and supporting inner-city San Antonio. In the last decade, he’s stayed with writing his universalized, spiritual tunes and hoping God doesn’t think they suck. Taylor also married again. Despite a professional music career nearing 20 years, the brushes with fame (or the famous) still sparkle for Taylor, as when Stewart leaned over to tell him something while they listened to their song in the Nashville studio.

“[Stewart said] ‘The other night I was in France and I played the song for The Edge [of U2] and he loved it,” Taylor said. “So for four minutes, I had The Edge’s undivided attention. I’m glad I wasn’t there because I probably would have wet myself.” 

Academy Fight Song: SA's School of Rock

From the 8/4 issue of The Current.

Greg Zaragoza

 Watching Elora Valdez sing Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” is humbling beyond calculability. Sure, she’s still working out the kinks of handling Axel Rose’s range and her delivery is a little on the close-eyed, focused, and mannered side. But as she taps her foot and traces her voice along the trail of dead that is Rose’s vocal, I’m impressed, and she’s still got eight weeks to practice before she performs the track to a packed house. She’s 11 and sounds better than half the screamo vocalists in town. Valdez’s talent is obvious, but the context of her performance is just as important. She’s one of the leading students at Rockstar Academy on West Avenue.

The Rockstar Academy is exactly what you’re picturing, minus Jack Black (obligatory reference achieved) — an informal music school run by Michael Morales, an ex-hair-rock chart-topper — “a soft version of Def Leppard” goes one description on YouTube — who conceived the Academy as a way to get his kids off his back.

“My kids wanted to do music, and I couldn’t talk them out of it,” he explained post-rehearsal in his Studio M, where Academy classes are held. “I decided … we were going to cut to the chase, and we were going to teach them only what they needed to know. We’re not going to do sight-reading or theory; we’re going to do rock. I developed a no-holds-barred, no-filler curriculum for my sons.”

His boys formed the Zots, a post-cursor to the straightforward, monster-riff sound Morales built his career on in the ’80s. (Side note: Watching tweens play a musical style once fit for trashing hotels is surprisingly endearing.) The Zots’ performance at Oyster Bake prompted several parents to ask Morales how they learned to play, prompting Morales’s wife to encourage him to teach a few Castle Hills kids.

Now the school, barely open a year, is booked with more than 60 students who meet once a week for an organized band rehearsal. Morales assigns his students, some of whom have never held an instrument, songs tailored to their skill levels. The students practice with hired pros, including Emilio and Diego Navaira of San Antonio’s own Von Army. Then they book a gig and play it.

The students learn everything from Dio’s “Holy Diver” to Flyleaf’s “Fully Alive.” Morales’s abundant muscles and direct demeanor hint that he’d be icy with kids, but he’s the cool uncle during class. The mood is loud and loose as he passes out earplugs and sets reasonable goals.

“We’re just gonna get the first two minutes,” he tells his students as they attempt Metallica’s epic mosh-maker “Whiplash.”

There is no sheet music, mode booklets, or even tablature in sight — just wires, amps, and rugs. Morales teaches the kids from memory or someone pulls a tune up on an iPhone. In the case of “Fully Alive,” Morales learns the song from one student then begins working on it with another. The Academy is all about stripped-down playing and performing, and the pursuit of collaborative art.

“If you don’t get the students involved with one another, or with school or church … I find that they don’t do much with [their musical talent],” Morales said. “We’re teaching them how to be part of something bigger than themselves, musically. Every day, it’s like watching a bird take flight.”

Morales isn’t the only adult having life-affirming experiences here. Jim Valdez and wife Beverly used to watch Morales perform with his band the Max in the ’80s. Elora is their daughter, and her brother Nicholas, 9, joined his sister at RA last June. Elora is the natural talent, having performed pop and rock tunes since age 5. But Nicholas, quieter and shyer, had never picked up an instrument. Now, the siblings play in the same band (Gasoline Alley) and their parents couldn’t be more proud. The Academy is a wonderful tool for personal growth and even a nice parental trump card, they said. But when Elora takes the stage this Friday, Jim revealed that his role as parent will shift a little.

“I look up to her,” he said. “She’s my hero. 

Would you say I have a plethora?

From the 4/14 issue of The Current. Printed without asking.

John Huskin

Warming up on stage, San Antonio “punk, rock y roll” band Piñata Protest seemed completely unaware they’d been sandwiched on the bill between Engaged in Mutilating and HOD, two of San Antonio’s heaviest grind-core bands. It was just a typical spring night in San Antonio: Crock-pot humid, with a metal soundtrack coming from somewhere. But after the gig, the band admitted they weren’t feeling as comfortable as they looked.

“This is fucking metal-heads and shit,” exclaimed singer and accordionist Álvaro del Norte. He and his band mates erupted into laughter. “Not to say there’s anything wrong with that!” More laughs.

“But [the audience] are expecting a fucking brutal show. It’s fucking Brujeria [headlining], so they’re expecting some hard-ass motherfucking shit. And here we are like …”

He proceeded to mime playing his accordion like a hyper Steve Urkel, complete with rapid, syncopated “deet-deet-deet” sounds.

So PP threw their heaviest songs on the set and hoped for the best. If they felt out of place, they didn’t show it. Del Norte just squeezed a riff to check the sound and drew cheers. He looked to the crowd, narrowed his eyes, and nodded the way a hip tio might to his young sobrinos: “Lone Stars on me as soon as your mom leaves,” he could have said. Then he and bassist Omar Nambo, drummer J.J. Martinez, and guitarist Manny Garcia burst into some of the tightest punk rock coming out of San Antonio. Good thing we’ll have their debut record Plethora, out on April 20, to blast while the band is on the road.

“We’re not limited to any one style,” del Norte said after the show. “The main influence is going to be punk rock and accordion music from Mexico or South Texas, but we all love everything.”

The band revealed this diversity mid-set, when they slid into “Scene Unseen,” one of Plethora’s milder tunes. With its swinging baseline and reggae-tinged guitar lead, the track recalls the convergent alt-rock crossover hits of SoCal circa 1996. It’s as if Piñata Protest traded in Sublime’s trombone for del Norte’s accordion. The change of pace was daring, and not just because the band spent half the set as SA’s best answer to Reverend Horton Heat.

“We’ve made up lies to make you happy,” sang del Norte, describing how the song’s subject became a musician for all the wrong reasons.

But after hearing Plethora you’ll think the band deserves to get rich. After five years and several line-up changes (del Norte is the only founding member left), Piñata Protest has paid dues aplenty, making Plethora’s fast, heavy, campy fun all the more welcome. It’s San Antonio’s drinking music. But as the band’s name implies (drawn out of a sombrero, no less!), there’s politicized diatribe in del Norte’s screaming verses.

“When all the world involves a price, you can be a winner at the game of life,” he sings on “Suckcess.”

Elsewhere, a bullfighter serves as a metaphor for anyone who thrives at the expense of enlightenment (“Matador”), and the band professes their dedication for drunken stupidity on “Cantina.” Then there are the “love” songs. The sarcastic sound of “Jackeee” seems at odds with its message of looking within for answers. And “Love Taco” is a romantic waltz, complete with Del Norte’s accordion set to “panty-melt.” Too bad it’s a song about refusing to change for a lover.

The band can subvert the punk formula, but then they bend their sets to their audiences. Del Norte has the drive and vision, but he battled line-up changes for half a decade. The band has sick chops and chemistry, but their music can be dismissed as novelty. It’s no wonder that, in a Spinner interview, Del Norte admitted to a love of a certain pop-punk band (rhymes with Spleen Ray), before he asked the website to censor his statement. It’s fitting that del Norte mentioned finding solace in the most non-judgmental of fans.

“One of the things … that I find humbling or gratifying, is actually a lot of youngsters, middle-schoolers, and high-schoolers, really digging our stuff,” he said. “Of course, we want to continue this as long as we can.”

Not continuing didn’t seem like an option when our interview was interrupted by a promoter asking PP what they would charge to play a string of dates in El Valle. This, after the band was scolded by management for playing too long (the crowd kept demanding more songs). The same crowd that seemed bigger than it was when HOD took the stage. The crowd that sang every word to several songs PP has yet to release. Plethora, indeed. •



Gentleman Gamer

I've recently taken on blog privileges at my night gig: The San Antonio Current. Please check out The Gentleman Gamer, distilling civility from the hobby.

Meanwhile, it seems I've taken to neglecting this blog since March. That's hilarious because I'm writing several thousand words a month (I'm thinking 6k-ish), which is the most I've ever written. Stay tuned for links to work, previous and current. Love and respect.

ROT2000: Donuts

"We should all be so lucky to produce something this moving in the face of our own mortality."

-Nate Patrin [L&R]

To say something that hasn't been said about Donuts by J Dilla, aka Jay Dee aka James Dewitt Yancey, is impossible at this point. Tributes to the man abound and, as someone who discovered him after his death, I'm quite late to the party.

But those facts don't negate the emotional impact of Donuts, Jay Dilla's death-bed opus. He made the album in a hospital, subsisting primarily on brownie sundaes, 15 different medications, and his mother's love. The album is lean, a mere 44 minutes divided amongst 32 tracks, many of which weigh in around 60-90 seconds. Donuts fires at a bewildering clip. Each bullet is an amalgum of soul samples, mid-tempo breaks, that ubiquitous hip-hop siren, and too many head scratch-inducing death references to be ignored. Some times Dillas warps his source material beyond recognition. Other times he drops samples with nary a scatch. The result is a naked piece of art that feels equally complete and a total mess.

On the haunting and confronting "Stop," which lifts Dione Warwick's "You're Gonna Need Me," Dilla pulls some studio tricks, adding a stoccato rest here, some Jadakiss vocal riffs there. But before the goose pimples melt, the slow congas of "People" drop and gain intensity for 60 seconds until the coda "Hold on, my people" takes over. But only for a moment. Then the congas quit as the horn lead-in of "The Diff'rence" barges in and relief is provided by the over-looped piano melody. This is the sound of Donuts. It's the montaged moments of a genius' life culled from hip-hop and r&b vinyls. In turn, these montages are layered with the surreal sounds of beautiful nightmares and poignant dreams.

None of the songs reach the end of their respective evolutions. With so many sketches coming in such rapid succession, it's understandable for a listener to be overwhelmed or even bored by Donuts. But the bite-sized character of the songs--with the way they drop in and cut out--imply a music producer's stream of conscious, the way he/she might envision one melody in their brain before immediately envisioning another. It's as if Donuts is meant to be a time capsule of Dilla's creative process. Fitting that it would be released just three days before he left this earth.

Roots drummer/producer ?uestlove compares J Dilla's work in hip-hop to that of Charlie Parker's in jazz. That is to say, J Dilla is a raw, relentless genius who couldn't help but innovate. But as an individual work, Donuts recalls the iconic chess scene of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Dilla closes the album with Motherlode singing "Be" over and over again. It's hard not to hear as a command. Be. Exist. Do. Live. Even as your body disintegrates in a hospital. Especially as your body disintegrates in a hospital.  Donuts is not just the surreal vision of a hip-hop producer's life flashing before his eyes, it's the sound of an artist courting death on his own terms. Rest in peace, Jay Dee. You didn't go out like no punk.

The Brute's Damn Good Videos

G4 Get It Better than Esquire

This short blurb is actually about how Olivia Munn is competing to become the sexiest woman alive, but G4 [L&R] actually hit some home runs on the changing-media front also.

Game Reviews - E3 2010 - AOTS Exclusive