Van wilder
It was never a slow news day for Chicken-Fried News when self-proclaimed “Video Vigilante” Brian Bates drove his “Vote Out DA Wes Lane” van around the OklahomaCounty courthouse. Alas, those days are gone. The Master says he’s retiring his van, according to recent news coverage. “I’ve given myself a 24-hour gloating period,” Bates…
Body Heat
1981/2006 Film noir is easy enough to imitate; just toss in a femme fatale, a rain-swept street and a few fedoras, and you’re set. It’s considerably more challenging to actually capture the essence of film noir, but writer/director Lawrence Kasdan got it right in his 1981 directorial debut, “Body Heat.” Echoing such noir classics…
The Meat Purveyors-Someday Soon Things Will Be Much Worse!
Bloodshot Records If Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver were mean drunks, they would be The Meat Purveyors. When last I saw them six years ago in Dallas, Jo Stanli Walston was ripping through roots songs about pain and resentment as if she was confronting the audience for doing her wrong. Though the band has tempered that…
Skerik’s Syncopated Taint Septet-Husky
Hyena Records “Husky,” the new studio album from sax man Skerik and his Syncopated Taint Septet, takes a few listens for the traditional jazz fan to adjust to it, but quickly becomes compelling. Skerik is becoming a mainstay on the modern jazz scene, having worked with the likes of Charlie Hunter, Ivan Neville, Stanton…
Long Distance Runner-The Fire of Cumulative Hours
Existential Sounds Perhaps the best argument for the melding of man and machine since Steve Austin went bionic is “The Fire of Cumulative Hours” EP from Long Distance Runner. Essentially a one-man show starring Portland-based K. Briggs, “Cumulative” marks a masterful DIY debut of breakbeat electronica, both imaginative and playful, like the best of DJ…
Seinfeld: Season 7
1995/2006 Yadda, yadda, yadda “? what more could be said about “Seinfeld” that hasn’t been said so many times already? This acclaimed “show about nothing” certainly puts the current slate of network comedies in perspective; with its rapid-fire wit and zeitgeisty catchphrases (“No soup for you!”), it makes you think: When’s the last time you…
Catastrophe and the crutch
Well, it could have been a lot worse. But for the petulance of Sen. Nancy Riley, Republicans would have the first majority in Oklahoma’s state Senate in history. In the House, the GOP lost one net seat and Rep. Lance Cargill is measuring the drapes in the speaker’s office. Mary Fallin has solidified District 5…
The Omen
2006 Horror remakes aren’t necessarily bad; witness John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” and Zack Synder’s “Dawn of the Dead.” But if you have nothing new to bring to it, why bother? This summer’s redo of the 1976 classic “The Omen” deserves such questioning. Although aping the original’s story of a…
