San Antonio Current — May 17, 2023

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in this issue

Issue 23-10 /// May 17 – 30, 2023

26 Feature

The Last Bandoleros’ Last Waltz

Despite being born into a Tejano royal family, Emilio and Diego Navaira are moving on and ready to rock

07 News

The Opener News in Brief

Bad Takes

Child labor laws are under attack from business interests. Time to push back

Serial Misinformation

Online speculation about an Austin serial killer sign of social media epidemic, experts say

12 Calendar Calendar Picks

16 Arts

Primo Premiere San Antonio author Shea Serrano brings comedy series based on his upbringing to Amazon Freevee

19 Screens

The Garden of Good and Evil

Paul Schrader brings cinema another agonized hero in Master Gardener — and shows he’s still in command

21 Food

Trompo Power

San Antonio’s El Pastor Es Mi Señor is worthy of its recent inclusion in Neflix’s Taco Chronicles

Low-Octane Summer

With temps heating up, we sampled four N/A beer options with Texas ties

Table Talk

Weathered Souls Brewing’s Marcus Baskerville discusses life beyond Black is Beautiful

Hot Dish

26 Music Still Stirring It Up

Fresh on the heels of its first Grammy nomination, Spoon is playing Whitewater Amphitheater

Annual Tejano Conjunto Festival celebrates South Texas musical form with shows, awards, photo exhibit Critics’ Picks

On the Cover: San Antonio-tied

The Last Bandoleros are on hiatus, but the Navaira brothers are moving ahead with rock outfit Ready Revolution. Design: Samantha Serna.

Mike McMahan

That Rocks/That Sucks

HThe Texas House last week refused to bring up a bill backed by families of Uvalde school shooting victims that would have raised the age requirement to buy a semi-automatic rifle in the state from 18 to 21 years. It was a death knell for the proposal even though it passed out of commi ee. State Sen. Roland Gutierrez blamed the legislature’s leading Republicans and Gov. Greg Abbo , calling them “too gutless to stand up to the gun lobby.”

The San Antonio Zoo has once again been recognized as the best in Texas, with the Texas Travel Awards giving it the honor for the second straight year and fourth time in five years. A national survey conducted last year by the a ractions company Blooloop named the zoo as the second-best in the country, trailing only Washington, D.C.’s.

HTeachers are skeptical that they will get any kind of substantial raise out of the Texas Legislature this session since the most ambitious teacher pay bills stalled in the House and Senate education commi ees. The failure to significantly boost teacher pay comes even as the state has a historic budget surplus. According to a National Education Association report, Texas currently pays its teachers more than $7,000 less per year than the national average.

The Texas House voted to expel a member for the first time since 1927, and they couldn’t have chosen a more deserving legislator. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, was expelled by a unanimous vote after an internal investigation found that he gave a 19-year-old intern booze then had sex with her. Slaton — a lawmaker who’s couched his anti-LGBTQ+ views as an effort to protect “family values” — submi ed his resignation a day before the expulsion vote, but the House opted to remove him anyway. — Abe Asher

Letting the bigots win with Texas

House Speaker Dade Phelan

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

Many political observers remember the 2017 session when former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, stood up to extremists in his own party and prevented floor debate on toxic legislation that would have banned transgender people from public restrooms.

For a brief moment, many thought current House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, might have shown a similar level of intestinal fortitude. After all, this is the guy who told the Texas Tribune in 2019 that he was “kind of done talking about bashing on the gay community,” adding that such behavior was “completely unacceptable.”

Yet Phelan allowed the floor debate and this week’s final House passage of Senate Bill 14, a proposal that would ban transgender minors from obtaining gender-affirming care such as hormone therapy and puberty blockers.

LGBTQ+ advocates and major medical organizations have condemned the bill, arguing that transition-related medical care improves the mental health of trans youth and pointing out that, despite the bill sponsors’ claims, plenty of data supports use of these therapies.

Despite his pledge to stop “bashing on” LGBTQ+ Texans, Phelan didn’t just allow passage of SB 14, he issued a statement praising its approval by the GOP-controlled House. The

measure now heads back to the Texas Senate, which already granted approval. It’s almost certain to be signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbo , who’s made transphobia a key part of his political brand.

“In Texas, we will not tolerate bad actors taking advantage of our most vulnerable population, and we will not stand for minors being influenced to make life-altering decisions until they are of legal adult age,” Phelan said.

Never mind that the families who make the decision to allow their minor children to obtain gender-affirming care do so in consultation with doctors and therapists. Never mind that the bill bans trans youth from ge ing treatments that are still available to other Texas kids. Never mind that the proposal will likely force some families to leave the state. Never mind that it comes as trans people face rising levels of hostility and discrimination.

“Seeing all the energy, all the hate directed against children breaks my heart,” Danielle Skidmore, a trans woman from Austin who protested against the bill, told the Texas Tribune after its passage.

There’s no shortage of assclowns channeling that hate into legislation just as loathsome as the bathroom bill. However, Phelan deserves a special hotseat in Assclown Hell for failing as gatekeeper and allowing SB 14 to be voted into reality.

—

Sanford Nowlin

Despite Republican claims that the end of Title 42 would bring waves of asylum seekers that would overwhelm border cities, the Biden administration said the number of encounters between U.S. agents and migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped by half compared with the days leading up to the expiration of the emergency health order. Since last Friday, the number of daily encounters has fallen to 5,000, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The Alamo Trust, the Texas General Land Office and the City of San Antonio last week filed paperwork to condemn Moses Rose’s Hideout, the bar in the path of the planned Alamo Visitors Center. The move comes after weeks of negotiations about a potential buyout for the property broke down when the sides couldn’t agree on a price. The Alamo Trust said it will continue negotiating with the bar’s owner despite the condemnation filing.

VIA Metropolitan Transit got good news last week when federal environmental regulators ruled that the agency’s plans for a rapid transit corridor won’t violate pollution standards. VIA will use an all-electric fleet of buses to bring passengers in designated center lanes from the airport to Mission Concepcion, including stops at 27 new transit stations along the way. VIA hopes to open the project, San Antonio’s first rapid transit corridor, by 2027. —  Abe

Asher

YOU SAID IT!

“I look forward to spending more time with my young family, and will continue to find ways to serve my community and all citizens across our great state”

— State Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, in his resignation letter.

Courtesy Photo / Texas House

Courtesy Photo / VIA Metropolitan Transit

Child labor laws are under attack from business interests. Time to push back.

BY KEVIN SANCHEZ

Editor’s Note: Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.

Earlier this year, San Antonio’s newly elected and proudly middle-of-the-road Mayor Ron Nirenberg dedicated a street to a card-carrying communist.

Comrade Emma Tenayuca led San Antonio’s pecan shellers strike in 1938, when some 10,000 workers left dozens of plants idle for nearly three months to protest starvation wages. She was promptly imprisoned.

“The Tenayuca woman is a paid agitator sent here to stir up trouble,” Police Chief Owen Kilday testified at her trial.

Still, thanks to a January vote by city council, Cevallos Street from Interstate 35 to Probandt Street is now designated Emma Tenayuca Memorial Way. This for a blacklisted radical who ran on the Communist Party ticket for the U.S. House and won 76 votes of the 56,000 cast.

Ironic how we name holidays and thoroughfares after those whose example we would rather not follow. As if we memorialize to forget.

In contrast to her run for office, Tenayuca’s strike was a success, and a year later, it proved instrumental in Congress’ passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which, at long last, banned child labor in the United States. That came exactly 90 years after another radical labor organizer demanded the worldwide “abolition of children’s factory labor” in plank 10 of a political pamphlet known as the Communist Manifesto.

Sadly, we have yet to turn the page on the bestworst times of Marx and Dickens. Last week, 60 Minutes investigated a slaughterhouse company that employed more than 100 minors across eight states.

“These weren’t close calls,” Shannon Rebolledo, a career Labor Department compliance officer, told CBS News. “In some cases, these were 13-year-olds working and they were identified by Packers Sanitation Services Inc. as being in their 30s.”

Over the past two years, more than 250,000 migrant children have arrived on our country’s doorstep unaccompanied and, as the New York Times recently exposed, thousands have been exploited in grueling jobs, from working overnight cleaning animal guts off the floors of aba oirs to replacing roofs under the sweltering sun to operating heavy machinery. All in flagrant violation of the child labor laws we thought se led.

“In the 1790s, factory owners liked kids because they’re extraordinarily cheap, extraordinarily intimidatible, and in many cases, coerced to be there,” historian Joshua Freeman, author of Behemoth: A History of the Factoryand the Making of the Modern World, told Book TV in 2018. “What the factories don’t want is craftworkers who have a sense of their own autonomy. They want someone who has no knowledge that they can simply control.”

Fast forward two centuries and change, and in the flagship capitalist economy, we’re recommi ing the same crimes, this time compelled by a labor shortage.

“We have decided to let Central American kids enter our country, work illegally at brutal jobs, then send remi ances home if — and only if — they embark on a roughly 2,000-mile journey to the US border without a parent or guardian,” NY Mag Intelligencer columnist Eric Levitz wrote in February.

It’s indentured servitude without the courtesy of a free boat ride. And confronted with a civilization predicated on child abuse, the GOP has offered an ingenious solution: rather than scale up the capacity to adequately process asylum seekers, politicians including U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, propose detaining and deporting even more migrant kids so foreign-born children won’t take jobs from native-born children.

You read that right. So far, 10 states have rolled back child labor laws, Texas Public Radio reported this month, noting that those changes extend the working hours for kids and lower the minimum age required to work in risky places.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders kicked off the race to the bo om in March by voiding requirements to verify the ages of workers under 16.

“These are kids who are in meatpacking plants, working nearly full-time hours at fast food places, on assembly lines,” Washington Post reporter Jacob Bogage recently told PBS. “It’s not the kid in the suburbs who’s picking up a job so he can take his date to the movies.”

All while the Labor Department documented a 70%

MSan Antonio labor leader Emma Tenayuca’s efforts helped usher in U.S. child labor rules. We should honor her by fighting to keep them in place.

increase in child labor violations over the past half decade. For instance, this May, understaffed federal investigators discovered some 300 minors — including 10-year-olds — working illegally at McDonald’s franchises in Kentucky, some without pay.

And do we have to ask what’s behind this? “Big donations by big corporations,” to cite pro-worker nonprofit a More Perfect Union. Surprise, surprise.

Considering the culture war clickbait that floods our social media timelines, which do you believe might hurt a 15-year-old kid more — reading a library book about growing up transgender or suffering cooking oil burns from manning the deep fryer?

The la er isn’t hypothetical, and a McDonald’s in Tennessee where just such an injury occurred paid a civil penalty of $3,258. Yet the vast majority of voters in San Antonio apparently believe that that same 15-year-old, caught graffitiing an underpass or smoking a joint, deserves instantaneous arrest and a permanent criminal record.

We dine on the fruits of child labor daily. We connect to the world thanks to cobalt in our smartphones mined by children in the Congo, to choose another horrendous detail of modern life.

The so-called conservatives who feign concern for protecting childhood innocence while legalizing their exploitation and neglect, the so-called liberals who stand by while idealistic young activists get red-baited and vilified for struggling to build a more humane society, are two sides of the same gilded coin.

Politicians like Nirenberg may win the popularity contests, but if “honoring Emma Tenayuca’s legacy” isn’t to remain empty rhetoric, we must take on the right-wing lobbyists and reactionary political action commi ees and remember who our allies are.

Anne Lewis

Serial Misinformation

Online speculation about an Austin serial killer sign of social media epidemic, experts say

BY MICHAEL KARLIS

On April 1, award-winning Austin-American statesman reporter Tony Plohetski tweeted that the body of a young man had been pulled from the depths of Lady Bird Lake. It was the second such incident in the past two months.

Plohetski’s tweet has since garnered over 1,000 likes, arguably giving root to the online speculation that a serial killer is stalking Texas’ capital city.

Since then, social media users have dubbed the theoretical slayer the Austin Serial Killer and the Rainey Street Ripper, and the media has also weighed in. The Houston Chronicle wondered aloud in a headline “Is a serial killer stalking men in Austin, Texas,” and Fox News shared the breathlessly titled piece “Bodies stack up in Texas city.”

Amid the rampant speculation, a dedicated Facebook group called Lady Bird Lake Serial Killer/Rainey St Killer has exploded, growing from 20,000 members in April to its current tally of nearly 100,000. That growth has come even as authorities a ribute the string of Austin deaths to accidents and downplayed the notion that a killer is stalking the streets.

Described as a “place to discuss the possible serial killer in Austin Texas” and a safe space to “advocate for the family and friends” of alleged victims, the group is run by administrators with no experience in criminal investigations. Some don’t even reside in Austin.

Experts said the assertions aired in the online forum are evidence of the U.S. epidemic of misinformation. Among the claims fostered in the group are that the Austin Police Department is involved in a conspiracy to cover up the murders.

“Back before the dawn of the internet, it was harder for people to persist in denial of truth,” said Althea Delwiche, a Trinity University communication professor who researches fake news and online disinformation. “But now, there’s a loss of faith in media outlets, in police departments, and there’s a real sense that the facts are what you make of them.”

The Facebook group’s administrators didn’t respond to the Current’s requests for comment on this story. Instead, an administrator from Arkansas named Carissa Morgan said she would put the publication in touch with family members of the dead with whom group members are “in regular communication.” So far, that hasn’t happened.

Just the facts

What police and online speculators can agree on is that four men between the ages of 30 and 40 have been discovered in Austin’s Lady Bird Lake since the beginning of the year.

Jason John, 30, was last seen walking the urban lake after a night out with friends on Rainey Street. His body was recovered more than a week later on Feb. 13, and the corpse of Clifton Axtell, 40, was discovered less than month after. On April 1, authorities confirmed they’d found the body of 33-year-old Jonathan Honey. He was last seen grabbing a bite to eat at a Taco Truck on Rainey Street. The body of John Christopher Hays-Clark, 30, was discovered on April 15.

Austin Police said they don’t expect foul play in any of the four cases, saying all appear to be accidental drownings.

“One common theme of the drownings in Austin this year is the combination of alcohol and easy access to the lake, which has numerous access points,” Austin PD wrote in a statement. “Many of these access points can be challenging to see at night.”

During a press conference following the discovery of Hays-Clark’s body, Austin PD spokesman Michael Bullock assured reporters there was no reason to believe a killer was stalking young men.

“We definitely understand people that have concerns, and if we did have any information that there was something specific that was concerning or suspicious related to criminal activity, those are things that we try to convey to the public as soon as we possibly can,” he said.

Conspiracies are hard work

Those explanations apparently didn’t satisfy some members of the Lady Bird Lake Serial Killer Facebook group. Many posted comments accusing the police of a conspiracy to cover up the evidence of a killer, potentially to save the state capital millions in lost tourism revenue.

Indeed, the group appears to be sticking by that claim.

When Texas Monthly published an article earlier this month debunking the conspiracy theories floated in the online group, the administrators cleaned house. Posters who agreed that the theories had no basis found themselves kicked out in a mass dismissal.

Some in the group even accused Peter Holley, the article’s author, of being “bought off” by Austin PD. Others said they had sent him direct messages on Facebook to voice concerns about alleged “inaccuracies” in his reporting.

St. Mary University’s Law Professor Gerald Reamey, a former legal advisor to the Irving Police Department, said he has no reason to believe Austin police could cover up the presence of a serial killer, even if they tried.

“There’s a lot of information that leaks from police departments,” Reamey said. “If you want to find out what’s going on, go talk to some police officers. A lot of them will say they have no comment. But you’ll find somebody eventually who will feel like whatever is happening isn’t right, and they’ll say, ‘Well, don’t quote me on this, but here’s what’s going on...’”

‘Doing their research’

The online cha er about an Austin serial killer is likely a symptom of the longing of Americans for a sense of community coupled with the democratization of media, Trinity University’s Delwiche said.

“The problem is that people are ‘doing their research,’ but they’re only finding the parts that they want to agree with that confirm their biases,” she said of the mindset behind online conspiracy theories. “They’re not doing the research that would question their biases.”

Indeed, in the Lady Bird Lake Serial Killer Facebook group, much of what’s posted is touted as “evidence” or a “clue” that could bring true-crime enthusiasts a step closer to cracking the case.

Graffiti of smiley faces found near Lady Bird Lake? Obviously, a sign left behind by the serial killer, posters in the group argue. Police cars responding to a call near the lake? Evidence another body was found — and that authorities soon will be covering up the discovery.

It doesn’t help that podcasters, TikTokers and other members of the nation’s “true crime industrial complex” are looking to cash in on conspiracy theories, validating outlandish online claims, Delwiche said.

“What I’m really worried about in the age of AI is that we’re going to become so cynical that we will emerge from this moment where people seem so gullible,” she added. “And we’ll find ourselves in a moment where people won’t believe anything you say, no ma er how much you prove it or how much the facts and documented evidence seem to support it.”

Samantha Serna

THU | 05.18SUN | 05.28

THEATER

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure walks the line between comedy and tragedy, mixing emotional elements in with its humorous puns and hijinks. Directed by Liz Fisher, a newcomer to the Classic Theatre of San Antonio, the play explores themes of bodily autonomy, justice and authoritarianism. It follows the story of Duke Vincentio (Mark McCarver), who hands over power to the strict Lord Angelo (Michael Roberts) in a bid to clean up the city’s vices. Angelo is a harsh enforcer of the law, sentencing a young man named Claudio (Guy Martin) to death for improper behavior with his fiancée. Claudio’s sister Isabella (Randee Nelson), a young nun, is forced to plead for her brother’s life. As the lives of these characters intertwine and knot together, the play brings up surprisingly relatable questions about the dangers of autocracy. This production of the iconic play will also feature an audiovisual installation by local artist Mark Anthony Martinez, inspired by themes explored in Measure for Measure $24-$39, 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Radius Center, 106 Auditorium Circle, (210) 589-8450, classictheatre.org. — Macks Cook

FRI | 05.19

COMEDY

MATTEO LANE: THE AL DENTE TOUR

New York-based comedian Ma eo Lane’s stand-up hinges on two primary facets of his personality: being gay and being Italian. Throw into the mix his classical training in opera, his Mexican heritage and his fluency in what he describes as four-and-a-half languages, and you get a recipe for some naturally off-the-wall impersonations and anecdotes. One of Variety’s Top Ten Comics to Watch for 2022, Lane has appeared on Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup as well as the streaming service’s queer comedy special Stand Out. He’s also made the rounds on talk shows including Late Night with Seth Meyers and series such as The Comedy

Jam and Adam Devine’sHouse Party. Along the way, he’s also shared stages with Chelsea Handler, Aziz Ansari, Hasan Minhaj and Bob the Drag Queen. $33-$99, 8 p.m., H-E-B Performance Hall, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. —

Dalia Gulca

SAT | 05.20

EVENT

SPECIAL

THERESA CAPUTO LIVE! THE EXPERIENCE

Sure, naming a touring show in which the star claims to reach the dead “Live! The Experience” is a just a li le bit contradictory. But chances are Theresa Caputo, the self-proclaimed “Long Island Medium,” doesn’t give a shit what we have to say about it. The big-haired reality TV personality has made a name — and a fortune — by charging people for

her mystical services, and she’s frequently been accused of exploiting people’s grief for personal gain. But, hey, those are just minor details. Caputo will bring her traveling circus of pseudoscience and cheesy theatrics to the Alamo City on Saturday, May 20. If you’re in the mood for smoke, mirrors and potentially paranormal entertainment, go ahead and enjoy. $49.50 and up, 7:30 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 226 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. —

Nina Rangel

SAT | 05.20

FILM

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER

The City of San Antonio World Heritage Office and Slab Cinema are bringing a free moviegoing experience to the Mission Marquee Plaza with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). The film is the sequel to Marvel Studios’ runaway hit Black Panther (2018), which starred Chadwick Boseman as the titular hero also known as King T’Challa. Boseman died from colon cancer in 2021, yet the makers of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever moved forward, keeping both the actor and the character alive in memory. The movie focuses on T’Challa’s younger sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), as she takes up the Black Panther role to protect Wakanda from new conflicts that arise following her brother’s death. Audiences are invited to bring blankets, lawn chairs and snacks to enjoy as they watch the film. Food trucks also will be available. Free, 8:30 p.m., Mission Marquee Plaza, 3100 Roosevelt Ave., (210) 212-9373, slabcinema.com — Christianna Davies

TUE | 05.23 + THU | 05.25

FILM

INLAND EMPIRE

Lingering on the precipice of being considered lost media, David Lynch’s first digitally shot film, Inland Empire (2006), has been remastered as a part of the Criterion Collection for a Blu-ray and 4k release. This three-hour dream sequence of a movie was initially shot in disparate scenes on a low-resolution Sony handheld camera, meaning that

Courtesy Photo / Classic Theatre of San Antonio

Michael Jones

Daniel Seung Lee

Marvel Studios

even viewers who could find it online were in for a visual experience not unlike watching an early 2000s home video. Now that it’s been remastered under the careful supervision of Lynch himself, Inland Empire can be experienced with full clarity, projected on the big screen. The experimental psychological thriller film loosely follows the experiences of promising actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) after she’s given a once-in-a-lifetime acting role. Her prospects slowly unravel as it becomes clear that the film’s production is cursed. $10, 7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, Arthouse at Blue Star, 134 Blue Star, (210) 212-9373, slabcinemaarthouse.com. — Macks

Cook

THU | 05.25

SPECIAL EVENT

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SERIAL KILLERS

Here’s something for avid true crime fans. Criminology expert Sco Bonn, who’s provided expert analysis for a number of renowned true crime TV shows and documentaries on networks including A&E, Oxygen and Discovery, will present a talk throwing back the curtain on true crime, and explaining why fans are so drawn to it. During his presentation, Bonn will discuss the myths and misrepresentations that surround serial killers: why some get press and why some do not, why we largely only know the names of white serial killers and the mistaken beliefs around killers that power the true crime engine. He also promises to answer a question that dives deep into viewers’ psyches: why am I so interested in serial killers? $25-$35, 7:30 p.m., H-E-B Performance Hall, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — DG

THU | 05.25 -

SUN | 02.25

ART

‘BIG LITTLE STAGE’

The McNay Art Museum’s “Big Little Stage” o ers a peek into the set design process for live theater productions. The new exhibition showcases a striking variety of maquettes — or scale models — of stage setups through the ages, which range in medium from simple cardboard, newspaper and watercolor to robust wood, plexiglass and stainless steel. Some works date back to the 19th century, such as Hanging Gardens of Babylon (1860) by Victor St. Leon, but 21st century renderings, such as Joel Steinberg’s La Périchole (2013), also will be on display. In this atmospheric exhibition, visitors can even step inside and move around inside an enchanting full-sized set inspired by Steinberg’s La Périchole maquette. “Big Little Stage” will be on view through February 2024 and is included with museum admission. $10-$20, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday, McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., (210) 824-5638, mcnayart.org. — Caroline Wolff

Reminder:

Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

© William Dudley, courtesy of McNay Art Museum

The Criterion Collection Shutterstock / Prath

FRI | 05.26 -

MON | 05.29

SPECIAL EVENT

MEMORIAL DAY RIVER WALK ARTISAN SHOW

Memorial Day weekend may present a San Antonians with a perfect excuse to leisurely stroll the River Walk and playing tourist in their own city. The weather isn’t unbearably hot (yet), and the Memorial Day Artisan Show will bring more than 40 booths from San Antonio artisans to the downtown a raction, The booths will include po ery, jewelry, woodwork, paintings, textiles and other arts and crafts showing off the ingenuity and skill of the city’s makers. Free, 11 a.m-11 p.m. Friday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday, San Antonio River Walk, 602 E. Commerce St., thesanantonioriverwalk.com. — DG

FRI | 05.26 -

SAT | 05.27

SPECIAL EVENT

HISTORY THAT DOESN’T SUCK

Even for those of us who remember high school, history class was quite often a snooze fest. However, learning about important milestones

SAT | 05.27

SPECIAL EVENT

UTSA ASIAN FESTIVAL SAN ANTONIO

In observance of May as Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, the University of Texas at San Antonio is hosting its annual UTSA Asian Festival for the first time since the onset of the pandemic. Formerly held at the Institute of Texan Cultures, the festival has moved to UTSA’s Downtown Campus this year. This family-friendly event celebrates the diverse Asian diaspora throughout San Antonio and South Texas with food, hands-on activities and performances from featured artists including headliners Korean soloist BettySoo and Indian band Red Baraat. Other performers include Echo E ect K-Pop, Kalalaya Indian Performing Arts, the SACA Dragon Dance Team and the San Antonio Lion Dance Association. The festival will also showcase vendors such as DASHI Sichuan Kitchen + Bar, Pasha Mediterranean Grill, Suck It: The Restaurant and others serving beloved AAPI eats. $5-$15, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., UTSA Downtown Campus, 501 W. César E. Chávez Blvd., asianfestivalsa.org. — CD

from our nation’s past doesn’t have to be, according to Professor Greg Jackson. Host of the popular podcast History That Doesn’t Suck, Jackson is on a mission to teach U.S. history in a fun, humorous and apolitical way. Although it’s unclear what eras of history Jackson will discuss during his two San Antonio shows, his more than 100 podcast episodes cover anything from the Boston Tea Party and the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Civil War and World War I. $39-$45, 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — Michael Karlis

FRI | 05.26MON | 09.04

ART

‘SOUTHWEST RISING: CONTEMPORARY ART AND THE LEGACY OF ELAINE HORWITCH’

Elaine Horwitch was known for her influence on the Southwestern art scene as a gallery director and art dealer starting in the 1970s. She brought contemporary national and international art into a space previously dominated by historic and Western traditional creations. What’s more, her appreciation for innovative art styles fueled the careers of hundreds of Southwestern artists and made her a leader in fostering “Southwest pop” art. She backed Indigenous, Latino, folk and craft art by placing it alongside widely known international pieces, making way for the regional form’s expansion from its traditional

norms. “Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Elaine Horwitch” features 45 works drawn from the Tucson Museum of Art and private loans from New Mexico, Oklahoma and San Antonio. It includes works by Bob Wade, Anne Coe, Georgia O’Keeffe and Billy Schenck, among others. $8-$14, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Monday May 26-Sep. 4, Briscoe Western Art Museum, 210 W. Market St., (210) 299-4499, briscoemuseum.org. — Dana Nichols

Courtesy Photo / Visit San Antonio 4

Courtesy Photo / UTSA Asian Festival

Courtesy Photo / Tobin Center for the Performing Arts Anne Coe, courtesy of Briscoe Western Art Museum

Primo Premiere

San Antonio author Shea Serrano brings comedy series based on his upbringing to Amazon Freevee

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

It wasn’t until Shea Serrano was in Los Angeles casting for Primo, the new coming-of-age comedy series he created, that he realized his dream was finally coming to fruition.

“I remember there was a sign that said, ‘Primo Casting,’” Serrano, 41, told the Current during a recent interview. “When the first person walked into audition, I thought I was gonna start crying.”

Inspired by Serrano’s upbringing in San Antonio, Primo follows Rafa (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio), a teenager maneuvering his way through high school and a home life that he shares with his single mother and five uncles.

While Serrano is the bestselling author of the books The Rap Year Book, Basketball (and Other Things) and Movies (And Other Things), the series marks his

jump into an altogether different art form — and one with a potentially massive audience. Primo premieres May 19 on Amazon Freevee.

During our interview, Serrano, a graduate of Southwest High School, talked about the kind of series he wanted to make for the streamer and how much of it is based on his real life. We also went off script to chat about other Latino shows and one of his favorite movie franchises, The Fast and the Furious.

What’s going through your mind now that the premiere of Primo is finally here?

I’m super nervous. But also, I feel really good about how the show turned out. That’s the thing I worried about the most when we were making it — that it was going to get turned into a thing that I didn’t want it

Primo follows the character Rafa (second from left) as he navigates high school and a complicated home life.

to be, which is a story you hear happens in Hollywood sometimes. But we had [producer] Mike [Schur] and [Amazon executive] Lauren Anderson who worked together on Parks and Recreation. They protected [Primo] the whole time. I’m really proud of it.

Why did you decide to create this story with Parks and Rec-style dry humor?

I think those are my favorite shows — the ones that tell a joke without trying to sell a joke. A person might say … the most innocuous statement ever, and it could be the funniest thing in the world if the context makes it. Those to me are the shows I enjoy watching the most — Parks and Rec, The Office, Abbo Elementary. It’s about trusting the writing and trusting the delivery. That was the only kind of show I wanted to make.

No laugh track.

No laugh track. No sassy, Latina mom with a chancla I didn’t want to do that. I wanted it to feel like there was a camera inside somebody’s house, and that’s all.

What percentage would you say Primo mirrors your life in San Antonio?

It’s probably like 30% or 40%. It’s not an insignificant amount. All the characters are based on real people. The Drea character is based on my mom. The five uncles are based on my real-life uncles. The Maya character is based on my wife, Larami. We didn’t meet in high school like on the series. I met her during my first year of college, but we’ve been together for 23 years. You take li le pieces and put them in [the script] and you do it in service of the story. I didn’t want to recreate [my life] moment for moment. It’s more fun to imagine stuff and create characters.

Can your real uncles tell which character is supposed to represent them in the series?

Yeah, we did a screening for the family a couple of weeks ago. It’s the first time that they got to see it. Immediately, they were like, “OK, that’s my character. Cool.” They loved it. They were really into it. They were super excited about how handsome all of the actors [portraying them] were.

Did it help that you had your real uncles around as references?

Yeah, it was super helpful. You don’t realize that when you start pitching stuff. If you and I were talking, we’d be like, “We have a bunch of uncles and aunts.” Birthday parties on Saturdays probably look the same at both of our houses. But then you walk into Hollywood, and you realize that other people didn’t grow up like that. Mike will tell you his family was the opposite. They were not involved in each other’s lives. Everybody is very reserved. They don’t offer their unsolicited opinion. At our house, you have to lock the door and put a chair up against it to keep somebody from telling you what they think you should do.

Do you think we’re past the point in Hollywood where a studio would make a series like Primo

Amazon Studios

a

without Latinos in the writers’ room?

I don’t know about other writers’ rooms, but I know we [had Latinos] in ours. We were like, “We have to have Latinos and Blacks and Asians in there.” Mike was the only white person in the room, which is always really funny because those are the only writers’ rooms that I’ve ever been in. You talk to people and they’re like, “I’ve never been in a room that looked like this before.”

Were you at all disappointed that the show wasn’t shot in San Antonio, I’m assuming because of incentives?

Yeah, you get tax breaks [in Albuquerque, where Primo was shot]. At this particular moment, there’s no infrastructure in San Antonio. We needed stages to shoot on. We needed to bring all the crew down and put them all up. I was hoping that it would happen, but it just wasn’t feasible.

What do you think is going on with so many Latino-centric series getting canceled these days after one or two seasons? In my opinion, shows like Freeridge, On My Block, Gentified and Gordita Chronicles weren’t given enough time to build an audience. The list goes on and on.

If I had to guess, I think when we get more [Latinos] in positions of power, then that will become less of a thing. I hope that’s a trend that is headed in the opposite direction. I loved Gentified. I thought it was so good. I’m like, “We need six seasons of that!” I thought Keyla [Monterroso Mejia] was great in Freeridge. She’s the fucking funniest person. When you watch that show, it’s like, “This person is obviously a star.”

I know you’re a big fan of The Fast and the Furious franchise. How did you feel when it was revealed in the last movie, F9, that Vin

MRafa’s five uncles play a significant role in the comedy series.

Diesel’s character, Dominic Toretto, has been Latino for the last 20 years? (Laughs.) Oh, yeah, that was a fun twist. But at that point, they were bringing people back from the dead already. It was like, “Alright, whatever you say, I’m in! Let’s do it!”

As a diehard Spurs fan, where are you going to be on May 16 when the 2023 NBA Lotto happens, and are you lighting a candle for us to land the No. 1 pick, so we can get Victor Wembanyama? (Note: This interview was conducted before the draft.) Oh, my God. I’m so excited. We’ve got a 14% chance [to get the No. 1 pick]. Like, please, if we get Victor, I’m gonna lose my goddang mind. I miss the playoffs so much.

Find more arts coverage every day at sacurrent.com

Amazon Studios

The Garden of Good and Evil

Paul Schrader brings cinema another agonized hero in Master Gardener — and shows he’s still in command

BY CLIFF FROEHLICH

Master Gardener, wri en and directed by Paul Schrader, opens May 19.

Although one of the world’s most accomplished filmmakers, with a remarkably deep and surprisingly diverse body of work stretching back 50 years, Paul Schrader has seldom received the adulation lavished on such contemporaries (and past collaborators) as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, or even the more critically divisive Brian De Palma.

Certainly, he’s respected — especially for his screenwriting on such now-canonical films as Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull — but Schrader never quite managed a major commercial breakthrough, with American Gigolo (1980) the long-ago exception, and for most of the past two decades, he’s struggled mightily to find viewers, toiling on an uneven mix of under-seen work-for-hire films and more personal projects that were either mishandled by distributors or mangled by producers.

Schrader’s admirably uncompromising artistic vision no doubt accounts for much of his difficulty winning a mass audience. Although occasionally enlivened by an ironic black humor, his works feature a self-conscious seriousness and a grim, relentlessly bleak worldview. As I wrote nearly 30 years ago about Witch Hunt — one of his undeniable misfires — “even when working within popular genres, Schrader brings an art-house sensibility to bear and always remains at a critical remove. Chilly and abstract, his movies — especially those he both writes and directs — are weirdly calm intellectual meditations on agitated emotional states: Schrader wants to cut loose — he’s drawn to violence, fascinated by dark forces and underground men — but he’s too smart, too cautious, too restrained to forfeit control.”

That description of Schrader’s films remains entirely accurate today, and his new Master Gardener features another of his exquisitely agonized heroes. Like Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle — and the thematic variations found in American Gigolo, Light Sleeper, First Reformed and Card Counter — Narvel Roth (Joel Edgerton) qualifies as one of “God’s lonely men,” largely isolated from “normal”

society and desperately questing after purpose and redemption.

The chief horticulturist at Gracewood Gardens, a sprawling estate presided over by the imperious Norma Haverhill (a superb Sigourney Weaver), Narvel presents a placid surface — he’s unfailingly calm, measured, precise — but he’s roiling underneath. A former enforcer for a cadre of neo-Nazis — his torso still bristling with ta oos of swastikas and white-power sigils — Narvel turned state’s evidence and found refuge at Gracewood as part of the federal Witness Protection Program.

The careful order of the garden he now tends contrasts starkly with the chaos of his previous life, which is purposely communicated with telegraphic brevity: memories that erupt in periodic flashes that never fully illuminate Narvel’s backstory. Despite voiceovers that share excerpts from his journal — a device nicked from French filmmaker Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest but now Schrader’s unmistakable signature — Narvel keeps his true feelings hidden, and we’re never quite confident that he’s expunged his racism. Given the film’s Southern se ing, William Faulkner’s famed quote seems particularly apt: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Having progressed from untutored apprentice to master gardener, Narvel appears to have found a measure of contentment in his circumscribed existence, but the arrival of Maya (Quintessa Swindell), Mrs. Haverhill’s great-niece, upsets the delicate balance at Gracewood. Norma describes the biracial Maya as adrift and troubled (“lifestyle choices, I believe they call them”). Because the young woman’s mother has died — from “tit cancer,” in Norma’s oddly blunt, unse ling words — Norma has decided to offer some impersonal noblesse oblige: She will pay Maya minimum wage while Narvel shepherds the wayward lamb by teaching her the gardening profession.

What Norma fails to anticipate, however, is a slowly blossoming a raction between

MMutual attraction proves a major complication for Maya (Quintessa Swindell) and Narvel (Joel Edgerton)

Maya and Narvel, who serves not only as his employer’s gardener but also her on-demand lover. When Narvel tenderly comforts Maya after she’s beaten by her mother’s drug-dealing boyfriend, a jealous Norma impulsively expels the odd couple from Eden.

At this point, the simmering tensions present from the film’s start rise slowly to a boil, and Master Gardener begins to deliberately echo elements of Taxi Driver: Just as Travis eventually “rescues” Iris from her pimp in an apocalyptic gun ba le, Narvel seems inevitably headed to a similar conflagration as he a empts to free Maya from the depredations of the dealer R.G. (Jared Bankens). But Schrader for once opts for hope over despair, blessedly pulling back from the abyss and allowing Narvel to find redemption through mutual love rather than expiation through blood sacrifice.

Concluding an unofficial trilogy with the well-received First Reformed and Card Counter, Master Gardener on many levels seems a grand summation, a capstone to an enviable career. But the 76-year-old Schrader already has multiple scripts at the ready and firm plans to shoot an adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel Foregone with his American Gigolo star Richard Gere.

Age hasn’t diminished Schrader’s skills, and there are sequences in Master Gardener that rival those in his masterpiece Mishima. In particular, I was transported by an eruption of Lynchian surreality after Narvel and Maya finally make love: Driving headlong down a darkened highway, the couple finds flowers efflorescing in absurd, delirious abundance on either side, and they lean out their windows and howl with ecstatic delight.

Master Gardener caps an exhilarating run of recent triumphs, and if Schrader wants to climb back behind the wheel for another film, I’ll happily take that ride again.

Magnolia Pictures

Trompo Power

San Antonio’s El Pastor Es

Mi Señor

of

recent inclusion in Neflix’s Taco Chronicles

BY RON BECHTOL

As a deep exploration of food, unabashed travelogue and sneaky seminar in language and culture, Netflix’s Taco Chronicles series makes you want to immediately board a plane for Mexico. Yet inevitably, the show had to take us where the taco has also gone: the United States.

The latest iteration of the series takes viewers to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and, of course, San Antonio. One of the regular expert commentators obligingly observes that San Antonio is “the cradle of Mexican food in the U.S.”

So, no need to hop a plane. According to Taco Chronicles, all we need to do is slide over to the Alamo City’s El Pastor Es Mi Señor and sample its “pinches tacos chingones” if we want to experience cuisine at its finest. The other restaurants featured in the SA segment are Con Huevos, 2M Smokehouse and Naco 210 Restaurant and Food Truck — all also worthy of a ention.

But let’s stick with El Pastor Es Mi Señor. The taco al pastor is the bedrock — the spiritual foundation — of the operation, and it’s a solid footing indeed.

It’s pre y much accepted history that the al pastor originated in Puebla, then quickly jumped to Mexico City, as a variation of the shawarma, or tacos árabes, brought by Lebanese immigrants. As Chronicles relates, the original lamb eventually became pork marinated in chiles and other spices, and the result, if not on every street corner, is still immensely popular. On a recent visit to Mexico City, we had to drive around for an hour one early evening to find a taqueria whose trompo, or vertical spit, hadn’t already stopped spinning for the day.

Similarly, there’s an “or until sold out” asterisk on the closing time for El Pastor, so you’re warned. Al pastor tacos aren’t the only item on its menu, but Taco Chronicles featured its signature dish for a reason: the tacos are spectacularly good.

Presented on doubled, tiny tortillas, the marinated pork — sliced directly from the trompo where it’s been meticulously layered, sports a crispy, achiote-colored crust played against a succulent interior. A sca ering of chopped onion and cilantro offer contrast, along with welcome shavings of pineapple, the origins of its use being much debated. Add cheese and this becomes Volcan al

Pastor.

Though the tacos are so flavorful that you could easily eat them without sauce, the management and I both encourage you to douse them liberally in the almost-polite salsa verde. The combination is killer, and if you order five, you save $1. Go ahead. You know you want to. I know I do.

The Taco Chronicles episode shows El Pastor’s staff thinly slicing and marinating sirloin then spi ing it onto a trompo along with sheets of trimmed fat for lubrication, creating a variation of the el pastor. The campechano taco’s combination of al pastor and sirloin pits the two against one another in larger corn tortillas — an excuse to add both the green and the smoky-yet-acidic red salsas. Figuring that the sirloin deserved a chance to shine solo, I also ordered a torta de sirloin to take out.

So much for good intentions. When I got home, the torta filling turned out instead to be finely chopped chuleta, or porkchop. It was a perfectly fine sandwich but nothing I’d drive across town for again. Whatever the meat, you’ll get a soft bun, a smear of refried beans, a modest amount of mayo and white cheese, slices of avocado, possibly some pine-

EL PASTOR ES MI SEÑOR

8727 Wurzbach Road | (210) 479-3474 | elpastoresmisenor.com

4-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and 3-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Prices: $2-$18

Best Bets: Tacos al pastor, campechano tacos, chuleta alambre

apple and a container of salsa cremosa. The la er proved lethally hot, but it supplied the soul that bound everything together.

The minced porkchop, which I had also ordered in alambre form, doesn’t get the trompo treatment. Chuleta alambre arrives looking like a hot mess of mini corn tortillas on and under a well-oiled mound that includes pork and bacon, grilled onion, cheese, blistered poblanos and tomatoes and is served with lime wedges.

Although the restaurant thoughtfully threw in a plastic spork, you’re still advised to grab a handful of napkins on your way to a table outdoors. DIY taco assembly is required. Here, too, use both red and green salsas with abandon. They helped turn a chaotic pile into a sybaritic feast, messy but frankly fun. The charred poblanos almost outshone the starring protein.

“Sharing a taco is the most Mexican thing you can do,” Taco Chronicles notes as it sums up its San Antonio segment — a worthy sentiment for all of us. I’d be willing to share anything I tried on the menu at El Pastor Es Mi Señor, except for the al pastor tacos. Those I want all to myself.

The skinny: El Pastor Es Mi Señor offers San Antonio its take on the popular tacos al pastor that can be found on nearly every other street corner in the Mexican capital. And its take is spectacularly good. The trompo-sliced pork is crusty, succulent and robustly flavored. You also may want to check out the campechano taco — a mix of both al pastor and sirloin — and the chuleta alambre, but you’re excused if you want to stick to the spot’s masterfully delivered specialty. Beer is available as a classic accompaniment.

is worthy

its

Ron Bechtol

Weathered Souls Brewing’s Marcus Baskerville discusses life beyond Black is Beautiful

BY NINA RANGEL

Name:  Marcus Baskerville

Title:  Co-Founder, Head Brewer of Weathered Souls Brewing Co.

Birthplace: Rancho Cordova, California

Industry Experience: The former Citibank fraud manager took to home brewing nearly a decade ago. The hobby became a passion and led to him opening of Weathered Souls in 2016. Baskerville has since launched a second location in Charlo e, North Carolina.

San Antonio’s Weathered Souls Brewing Co. launched its Black is Beautiful campaign in 2020,

raising money for social justice groups by encouraging other craft brewers to augment a special imperial stout recipe and donate some of the proceeds. Some 1,200 breweries got on board, raising $2.2 million during its first year.

Though the campaign charges on, company co-founder Marcus Baskerville has expanded his reach to include work on the Harriet Baskerville Incubation Program, an incubator aimed at helping underrepresented groups get a leg up in the craftbeer industry. In January, the brewery also picked up a James Beard Award nomination for Outstanding Bar.

We caught up with Baskerville for an update.

Let’s do a post-Black is Beautiful check-in. Can you give me an update? How many breweries and how much money, ballpark?

I’ll be completely honest, as far as Black is Beautiful goes, I stopped keeping count probably mid-2021. I would say we’re in the 1,500-brewery range, because we don’t get too many people that reach out to say, “Hey, we’re brewing now.” We do still get a lot of people that reach out to say, “We’re brewing it again,” or that they contributed again. At some point, I need to log into the website and see where the actual amount is. Because, again, that’s something that I don’t think I’ve looked at since the beginning of 2022, at the very latest. I’ve just been so focused on trying to grow the [Weathered Souls] brand, and not specifically Black is Beautiful.

So, in terms of growing the brand, that includes the program named for your grandmother. Can you catch me up with what’s happening there?

The Harriet Baskerville Incubation Program. We actually just had the ribbon cu ing back in February and hired a full time employee to start guiding the program and start working on writing grants and all of that fun stuff. And then we also just hired an educational program staff member because I don’t have the capacity to go between locations. So, we thought it was important that we actually had somebody that was going to have dedicated time and space for that. So, we’re working on the education plan now. And then we’re hoping to have our first core service program by the end of May, so the application process is open currently.

What dreams do you have for the next five years?

I want people to realize the beers that we create are an experience, right? The experiences that we try to create within our beer, it’s not about just throwing brownie ba er in a batch. We also toast coconut and walnuts in-house, we hand-select vanilla beans for their particular flavor notes — Mexican, which is going to be more floral, versus Indonesian, which is going to have a completely different character. All of those things go into the beers that we make, and I think a lot of people don’t realize that. So, one of the things that I’ve been doing is trying to speak more, engage more about that. Sometimes that looks like doing sensory panels and dinners at the brewery and a empting to build the culinary experience part of it, because beer is a beverage, but it’s still within the culinary world. It doesn’t have to be one dimensional, just because that’s been the history of what beer is.

Elaborate on that a bit: what you’re trying to build around the culinary aspects of beer.

With the recent [James Beard Foundation] nomination, I’ve been wanting to focus on highlighting the local culinary community, so you’re gonna see more beer dinners here. You’re gonna see more focus on bringing in pastry chefs and different people that are at the top of their culinary crafts making food that pairs specifically with our beers. I can’t give you names yet, but we’re going to have some pre y popu-

Christopher Hernandez

lar, James Beard-nominated chefs coming in soon to start having some fun with our kitchen. Because our kitchen is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, I also want to start hosting pop-ups with people that don’t have commercial kitchens that are still trying to grow their brand. As far as Charlo e goes, we hired four-time James Beard nominee Gregory Cole [as Executive Chef], and it’s the same experience, generally, but we’re also including cocktails out there. We have a world-renowned mixologist there that is curating cocktails along with the food experience — you know, trying to bring that synergy of food, beer and liquor together. And that’s something that hopefully within the next year or two, I’ll be able to figure out in San Antonio.

Is there anything about plans that are already in motion?

We’re also working on some additional locations in San Antonio over the next couple of years, at least taproom-wise, and also more potential

locations for taprooms in Charlo e within the next couple of years as well.

San Antonio seems to be an already saturated market in terms of craft beer. Thoughts?

San Antonio is [one of the largest cities] in the United States, and I feel like people have this mentality that you have to choose, right? You can’t support everybody, and you have to choose one brewery and that’s your favorite brewery, and that’s it. It’s just crazy to me that there hasn’t been more community around craft beer here. But I also look at the cultural effects of San Antonio, a Hispanic city. The preferences of minorities are definitely reflected in the culture of craft beer. So, if your dad drank Coors Light and Modelo your entire life, that’s ... what you are going to gravitate towards, typically. Plus, we’re more of a liquor city, so having to grasp the a ention of craft beer drinkers here has always been an uphill ba le, because there’s not many of them.

NEWS

The San Antonio restaurateur behind last year’s Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Passport has revived the initiate, offering discounts on eats from The Magpie, Curry Boys BBQ and Best Quality Daughter saaapirestaurantmonth.com.

Grady’s Bar-B-Q has closed all three of its San Antonio-area locations after more than 70 years in business. Company officials didn’t provide a reason for the closure but said they’re trying to find work for as many employees as possible.

Alamo Beer Co. has signed a production deal with Wyoming-based THC beverage maker HighBridge. The craft brewer will dedicate roughly a third of its production line to cranking out HighBridge drinks.

OPENINGS

New coffeehouse Flower in Flour now serving premium coffees and drinks infused with CBD or Delta-8 THC. 6915 Bandera Road, Suite 104, (210) 251-4324, flowerinflour.com.

The owner of Schertz drinkery Bar House will open a new location near downtown San Antonio, a stone’s throw from Lucky Duck, Bentley’s Beer Garden and Roadmap Brewing. Construction will wrap up in January 2024. 820 N. Alamo

St., barhouseschertz.com.

Box St. All Day will launch a second location near La Cantera later this year, serving up the same brunch favorites featured at the flagship brick-and-mortar restaurant at Hemisfair. 17038 Fiesta Texas Drive, Suite 112., boxstallday.com.

High-end Mexican restaurant Mixtli has opened a specialty wine and food store, The Cellar, adjacent to its Southtown dining room. The new spot offers more than 1,200 wines. 812 S. Alamo St., Suite 103, (210) 338-0746, restaurantmixtli.com/ thecellar.

Rosario’s new Southtown San Antonio restaurant has opened its 5,000-square-foot rooftop bar, offering guests 25 years and older one more nightspot with downtown skyline views. 722 S. Saint Mary’s St., (210) 223-1806, rosariossa.com.

Hybrid bar-cafe-hair salon Head Space now open in San Antonio’s Lavaca neighborhood, offering coffee, eats and salon services. 109 Playmoor St., headspacesatx.com.

Lucy Cooper’s Texas Ice House will expand its SA footprint with a new location on the far West Side. The opening will take place “any day now,” chef-owner Braunda Smith said. 8403 TX-151, Suite 101, lucycoopers.com.

Courtesy of Rosarios

Jaime Monzon

Rosario’s

Low-Octane Summer

With temps heating up, we sampled four N/A beer options with Texas ties

BY BRANDON RODRIGUEZ AND NINA RANGEL

It’s almost summer in San Antonio, meaning cold beer will be ubiquitous.

It fills ice chests at backyard barbecues, it’s the beverage of choice at outdoor events and we pop one when finish mowing the lawn. All well and good, unless you’re trying to watch your alcohol intake or avoid it altogether.

Fortunately, the quality and quantity of zero-proof beers have increased as more consumers demand high-quality products when they’re looking for a break from high octane suds. That’s also created a problem: the sheer quantity of N/A options can leave novices scratching their heads.

To help the N/A curious find the right match, we sampled a handful of Texas-produced or Texas-beloved varieties, which varied greatly in flavor profile — from standard American lagers to robust craft IPAs.

Free & Easy IPA

Karbach Brewing Co. — Houston

Made with a selection of floral and delightfully funky hops — citra, mosaic, herkules, simcoe and jester — this nonalcoholic sipper certainly doesn’t taste like it’s booze-free. Many craft beer fans crave the stinkiest, hoppiest, dankest IPA on offer, and when it comes

to low-octane options, this could well be the go-to. Free & Easy may not be as slap-you-in-the-face hoppy as some prefer, but it also doesn’t include a cloying — almost cereal-like — maltiness many N/A beers have. So, chalk it up as a win. Thanks to its varied hop profile, this one offers notes of orange zest, grapefruit and citrus, which mingle nicely amid a light carbonation and a ractive color. No, it’s not hazy, but for the $11-per-six-pack price point, it’s a solid choice.

Texas Select

Texas Select Beverage Co. — Fort Worth

This reliable and long-running N/A lager contains recognizable barley notes — if not much else. For a booze-free beer that refuses to claim a style on its packaging, it offers well balanced, smooth and refreshing flavors that put it neatly in the American lager category. Those looking for a more assertive flavor profile may want to try it with a squeeze of lime to wake up any sleeping notes. Find six-packs at grocery and liquor stores for around $9.

Rick’s Hazy IPA

Rick’s Near Beer — Austin

Rick’s Near Beer launched its lineup of non-alcohol-

ic beer, including Rick’s Original Pilsner and Rick’s Hazy IPA, in December 2022. Although it may not be the easiest to find in San Antonio, it may be worth a stop next time you’re in Austin to sample some. The easy-drinking Rick’s Hazy is bursting with citrus and tropical fruit flavors, and it’s brewed with premium malted barley, flaked wheat and loads of Pacific Northwest hops. Even though it’s technically produced in Colorado, the Austin-based mind behind the brew is doing what he can to make quality N/A brews more accessible to Texans, which is worthy of support. Fans can order six-packs of Rick’s Hazy for around $12 online, but keep an eye out for Rick’s Near Beer on closer beer aisles once the company kicks in a statewide expansion sometime later this year.

Dos Equis Lime & Salt ZERO

Grupo Modelo — Mexico

OK, it’s not made in Texas, but Dos Equis is so widely consumed in the Lone Star State, we’d be remiss not to include it. This non-alcoholic version of the company’s popular Lime & Salt canned beverage offers pale yellow color, heavy carbonation and a light body. There’s always a concern that lime flavoring added to a beer will prove overbearing, but this zero-proof option gets the balance right. The flavor reflects that of a beer dressed with a wedge of lime and a salted rim, rather than a beer that endured a dunk in uber-sour fake-lime essence. Even so, this brew still has a certain emptiness of flavor shared with many N/A products. But for those looking for a straightforward take on a dressed Mexican lager, Lime & Salt ZERO may be an option. It’s crushable, light at only 73 calories and won’t leave you with a crippling hangover the next day. A six-pack runs around $10.

Instagram / @drink_ricks

The Last Bandoleros’ Last Waltz

Despite being born into a Tejano royal family, Emilio and Diego

Navaira are moving on and ready to rock

BY MIKE MCMAHAN

The Last Bandoleros had a hell of a run. After touring with Sting, collaborating with Shaggy, landing a deal with Warner Music, gigging extensively in Europe and appearing twice on Good Morning America, the critically acclaimed band is on hiatus.

Known for a signature blend of country, rock, Tejano and pop, the Nashville-based group has strong San Antonio ties thanks to brothers Emilio Navaira IV and Diego Navaira, sons of the late Tejano legend Emilio Navaira III. After nearly a decade in The Last Bandoleros, the pair are stepping aside to focus on another musical project, the more rock-focused Ready Revolution.

“I may want to come back in two years, but right now, in my heart, I have no interest in making a Bandos record or going out on the road with the Bandos,” said Diego, 31. “That’s not to say it’s not gonna happen again. But I’m not even thinking about it right now.”

Emilio, 33, agreed. “Right now, I’m doing Ready Rev.”

Even so, the switch will require a complete reboot for the Navaira brothers, whose record deal with Warner won’t carry over. Even though they already have a track record in the music industry, they face the daunting challenge of jumping genres and will need to build interest in Ready Revolution nearly from the

ground up.

Born out of 2014 writing session with Emilio on drums, Diego on bass, and Jerry Fuentes and Derek James handling guitar duties, The Last Bandoleros brought together an array of influences, and all four members shared vocal duties.

Though signed to Warner’s Nashville operation and marketed as a country act with a Tex-Mex flair, the members loved the Beatles and what they stood for — tight songwriting and a unique collection of personalities.

The Bandos released three full-length albums, including 2020’s outstanding Live from Texas. Last year’s fraternal twins, Tex Flex and Tex Flex Folkórico, both showcased the band as a trio after James’ departure and shone a light on the members’ deep South Texas roots.

Understandable, considering the Navaira brothers started their careers in their dad’s band — something that provided a formative deep dive into both the Tejano scene and the music biz. Guitarist Fuentes was a studio intern in his youth, present for sessions with Tex-Mex legends Augie Meyers and Doug Sahm.

“On our last two records, the Bandos really embraced the culture,” Emilio said. “I wanted to see if we could make a Tejano record, but in our own way. I think it’s our best work.” Even so, the brothers agree it’s time to get back to their true love: rock ’n’ roll.

Secret plans

The Last Bandoleros’ hiatus has been pending for a while, though kept under wraps, the brothers said.

“That was all a band decision,” Diego explained. “I approached our team a couple of months ago, asking, ‘How should we announce our hiatus?’ The Bandoleros work like a democracy, you know? Out of respect and love, me and Emilio didn’t say anything. I

personally wish we would have.”

The group appeared in Los Angeles for a Cinco de Mayo event earlier this month. To the outside world, it was just another gig for the road warriors. But for the members, it was a milestone: their last gig for the foreseeable future. Maybe ever.

“I want to preserve how special the Bandos is, you know?” Emilio said. “When there’s a time to get back and do it, we’ll get back and do it.”

During several lengthy conversations with the Current, the brothers reflected on their time in the group, their late father and the resurrection of Ready Revolution, an outfit they put on the back burner while they focused on The Last Bandoleros. Our discussions took place across multiple locations, from gigs and hangouts to Zoom meetings.

Even though the Navaira brothers are turning over a new musical chapter, their commitment to each other seems as strong as ever.

“My aunt showed me some home movies,” Emilio said. “They had the moment we met. I crawled into the crib with [Diego] and started playing.”

He paused. “I don’t know a life without Diego.”

Rocking reunion

The Ready Revolution reunion show at San Antonio’s 502 Bar on March 25 probably should have been a sign that things were winding down for The Last Bandoleros. The gig played out like band reunions often do, offering a chance to revisit triumphs of the past and for old friends to get reacquainted.

The Northside music venue was packed, se ing a club record for both a endance and bar receipts. The full house was evidence that despite their Nashville base, San Antonio remains the brothers’ second home and a primary market for their music.

Before showtime, Emilio went over basslines backstage, making sure he knew the material of the opening band, Pasenger, with whom he’d agreed to fill in a couple weeks prior.

“I want to make sure I remember everything,” he said, no hint of nerves showing.

During Pasenger’s set, Emilio’s presence highlighted the melodies of its strongest material. Just as in The Last Bandoleros and Ready Rev, his vocals ended up being the band’s secret weapon. He’s heard the “secret weapon” stuff before from his mom — a very mom comment.

By the time Ready Revolution took the stage with opener “Love Disaster,” the place was so packed that a endees on the side of the stage couldn’t squeeze their way to the bar. Diego owned the frontman role, his gaze, his movements, his hand gestures all making the band seem larger than life, as if it could pull off the same commanding show from a coliseum stage.

In contrast to the rootsy Bandos, Ready Rev plays driving alt-rock in the vein of Foo Fighters or Paramore. It’s an arena-sized sound with big guitars and bigger hooks.

With only a brief pause, the band ripped into the anthemic “Good Love Yeah!” capably nailing the song’s harmonies. The chorus evoked the hard-edged but hooky sound of vintage Cheap Trick.

In Ready Rev, both brothers play guitar while Diego holds down lead vocals. Bassist Shane Gamboa, drummer Kevin Diaz de Leon and third guitarist — yes, the three-guitar a ack sounds huge — Ma Zavala round out the band. Zavala, a longtime family friend, also played in Emilio III’s band as a youngster and even lived with the family when he was 19.

Near the end of the blistering set, Diego reminded the crowd of the value of family by dedicating a cover of Hillary Duff’s “Come Clean” to his younger sister, Emely, whose birthday was the next day. The band set the date of the gig so Diego could be in town for the family celebration.

Ready Rev shut things down with the appropriately titled original “We All Got Fucked Up,” the epic rock finale. The crowd whooped it up as the sweat-drenched band took a collective bow.

Looming challenge

Grammy-winning producer Mack Damon, who’s done studio work for Ready Rev, praises the brothers’ musical ability as “supernatural.”

“They can hear something one time, then pick up a guitar, sing it in three-part harmony and play it with each other,” the San Antonio-based producer said. “No one decides who’s going to play what instrument.”

Despite that raw talent — not to mention Ready Rev’s deftly wri en material and ability to move a crowd — the brothers know the challenges ahead as they relaunch the band. They’re looking to capture lightning twice. They’re also doing it in an era where pop and hip-hop have relegated guitar rock to the fringes.

Sure, Ready Rev has catchy songs, but so do plenty of other rock outfits in an already crowded market. And the resurrected act will need to secure a foothold without Warner’s backing.

The Navaira brothers are the first to admit that taking Ready Rev to the Bandos’ level — or, be er yet, surpassing it — will be an uphill ba le.

They’ve surrounded themselves with supportive friends and family, but nothing will take the place of hard work in front of audiences. Diego and Emilio also agree that a major label deal isn’t the obvious path it once was.

“We want to get out there and build a following on the road,” Diego said. “The old-fashioned way.”

Reminder:

Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

Scott Enright

MThe Last Bandoleros play the Stagecoach Festival, one of the band’s final gigs before its hiatus.

music

Even though they grew up surrounded by Tejano, it’s clear that rock ’n’ roll is in their blood. To be sure, their reunited band isn’t just some new fixation. Ready Rev was their first serious musical project after leaving their dad’s band, and it put in five years’ worth of serious gigging.

Although Ready Rev self-issued its LP Let It Out in February, the recording was completed in 2016. The brothers decided not to release it then so they could focus on The Last Bandoleros.

During its original run, Ready Rev also racked up high-profile gigs including an opening slot with Cheap Trick at the Majestic Theatre. The headliners were so impressed by the young band that they invited Diego to join them for a performance of their 1979 hit “Dream Police.”

“I cried when I got off stage,” Diego said, the emotion still apparent on his face as he recalls the show.

“I saw [Cheap Trick guitarist] Rick Nielsen later, when the Bandos opened for Sting,” he continues. “He recognized me from Ready Rev, but I don’t think he liked the Bandos as much.”

Big boots to fill

On Saturday, April 15, the Navaira brothers were back in San Antonio for a performance at the Poteet Strawberry Festival. Ahead of the gig — one where they and other musicians would take the stage as the Official Emilio Tribute — they were at a family barbecue at the home of their uncle Joe Casias, the gig’s organizer.

The house was thick with relatives. Street tacos with homemade salsa and guacamole were arrayed on the kitchen’s island. Multiple ice chests brimmed with beer. The brothers had just returned from the load-in and soundcheck.

“It was cool,” Diego said. “People started to gather around and get excited because we played a couple of songs.”

Emilio, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with his late father’s image, was excited about the kit he was using for the gig. “It’s the size of, like, Alex Van Halen’s,” he said, laughing. “Even though I only need to hit, like, three of the drums.”

As the party went on, the brothers and the other band members changed into matching bu on-up shirts patterned with Southwestern-style stripes — a signature of Emilio III’s old group. Diego slipped on cowboy boots that belonged to his dad.

Despite the jovial atmosphere and the jokes between band members, it was apparent that both brothers took the show seriously. Voluminous gigging experience aside, the apprehension wasn’t hard to read on their faces.

It was evident the two want to balance their own identities as musicians with honoring their father’s legacy. Keeping the memories alive for his fans ma ers.

“My dad always took time for people,” Emilio said, citing an important lesson he learned from his dad. “He loved his fans.”

Eventually, the time arrived for both the band and family members to pile into the small flotilla of vans that would transport them to the nearby festival.

The brothers and a few others climbed into the van driven by Ready Rev’s ever-present roadie Arnst. His Gregg Allman haircut and yellow-lensed aviator glasses exuded the vibe of a ‘70s rock star. For this occasion, he’d dressed in a cowboy hat and the same Tejano-style shirt the other guys were wearing.

“He just likes to be called Arnst,” Emilio said, when asked about his friend’s full name.

Ever the pro, Arnst ignored the backseat drivers as he maneuvered the van into the fenced-in area behind the

festival’s main stage. The band piled out and joined the family members, ice chests in tow.

Fi ing since family remains at the forefront for the Navaira brothers.

“They went out of their way to do whatever they could for me,” sister Emely Navaira said, citing the Hillary Duff cover the brothers played for her at the Ready Rev reunion.

“There’s a video of me and Emilio at Christmas. I must be like 2 years old,” she added. “No one’s caring [that] it’s taking me forever to open my presents. He’s just si ing right there, trying to show off to everybody what I’m getting.”

As the band waited to go on, a Ferris wheel turned lazily in the background. The carnival’s lights and sounds only added to the jovial atmosphere.

Even so, Diego stood alone, pensive. The gravity of the performance, of his father’s legacy, still weighed on him.

“I’m afraid I’ll start crying,” he said, voicing his biggest fear for the gig.

Larger than life

To Diego’s point, the brothers’ largerthan-life father has loomed over their entire musical careers. Emilio Navaira III rose to fame as lead vocalist for David Lee Garza y Los Musicales before venturing out on his own, backed by

MThe Navairas’ Ready Revolution brings the rock during the band’s reunion show at 502 Bar.

the band Grupo Rio.

By the ’90s, Navaira’s fame had eclipsed that of Garza, and he’d become one of the genre’s iconic performers — famous enough that if you u ered his first name to a Tejano fan, they knew exactly who you were talking about.

The elder Navaira even turned to Nashville and made a successful breakthrough as a country artist. His tunes appeared on commercials for the likes of Coca-Cola and Wrangler, and he landed an endorsement from Miller Lite.

Emilio III would have turned 60 last August. He died suddenly in 2016 of a massive heart a ack.

“The last words we said to each other were ‘I love you and I’ll see you later,” Diego said of his final phone call with his father. “I will see you later. That’s the positive I took from it. Later my phone rang, and Emilio told me. I remember just falling to my knees.”

By the time of his passing, Emilio III had made such a mark on Tejano that his legend is arguably second only to that of Selena. Indeed, he was billed

Mike McMahan

music

as co-headliner for Selena’s lauded 1995 Astrodome show, which drew 67,000 fans and yielded her album Selena LIVE! The Last Concert.

While the Tejano family legacy likely will always hang over the Navaira brothers, they also credit their dad with fostering their love of rock ’n’ roll.

After all, when the pair were junior-high age, he would wake them up in the middle of the night to play Beatles covers for his friends. He also took the pair to Arizona to see the 2004 Van Halen reunion.

“We bought the tickets because there weren’t any San Antonio dates [announced yet],” Emilio said. “We begged him, of course.”

To be sure, their love of classic rock makes them chips off the old block. When he was feeling it, their dad was known to perform Van Halen’s “Jump” in front of Tejano crowds.

“If you watch videos of Emilio and Grupo Rio in the early ’90s, he wanted to be David Lee Roth,” Diego said. “They had pyro onstage, and he was doing the splits. No one was doing that in Tejano at the time.”

Emilio the son thinks of Emilio the father frequently. Ultimately, it was the elder Navaira’s encouragement that sent the brothers down their life path of performing music.

“I was 15 the first time I got on stage [officially] with my dad,” Emilio said. “We were playing in Chicago, and there were like 10,000 people. It was nerve-wracking. My uncle and my dad may have given me a li le liquid encouragement.”

Once Emilio III knew his sons were eager to stake out their own legacy, he even went so far as to fire them from his band, the brothers recall. Their termination was a joke, but the inference was easy to read: It’s time for you to chase your own dream.

Given their dedication and musicianship, Diego and Emilio are more than capable of picking up their father’s mantle. But, despite their deep affection for their father and his music, their path lies elsewhere.

‘I always pray for my boys’

At the Strawberry Festival grounds, the band huddled then gave Diego a moment of quiet reflection before they clambered onstage. The crowd was ready after a warmup set from David Lee Garza, the same Tejano heavyweight who gave Emilio III his start.

Perhaps as a reminder to that crowd of the Navaira brothers’ rock ’n’ roll credentials, ZZ Top’s “Tush” blasted from the PA as they and the rest of the band strode onstage. Diego sang along at full volume as he paced just out of view. In true frontman fashion, he joined the others last.

Their mother, Cynthia Navaira-Escobar, was there too, cheering her sons on from backstage.

“I forgot to tell you earlier. I always pray for my boys,” she said loud enough to be heard over the music.

The band opened with “Naciste Para Mi” and “Que Bonita Fuera” back-to-back, a one-two punch demonstrating a skill in jumping from song to song that would make the Ramones proud.

Around the set’s mid-point, Diego joked to the crowd that his dad once told him, “Mijo, you need to dress Tejano.”

ANNUAL TEJANO CONJUNTO FESTIVAL CELEBRATES SOUTH TEXAS MUSICAL FORM

The nation’s first and longest running conjunto festival is back for its 41st year.

The annual Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio will take place May 17-21 at the Guadalupe Theater and Rosedale Park, celebrating the music born in South Texas during the 19th century when Mexican American musicians embellished Tejano and Norteño compositions by adding the bu on accordion.

Among the performers scheduled for the Friday-through-Sunday shows at Rosedale Park are Joe Zimmerle y Su Conjunto, Los Tellez, Conjunto Cats, Isaac De Los Santos y La Sangre Chicana, Cindy Ramos y su Conjunto, Grupo Azido and Los Texmaniacs featuring special guest Flaco Jimenez.

“I told him we’re rock ’n’ rollers. But we did it tonight. What do you think?” he asked, showing off his threads.

The audience roared its approval.

Diego’s fears came true during “It’s Not the End of the World,” as he choked up on the first verse. He turned it around, though, and Emilio gave him an encouraging shoutout. They continued the performance without losing a beat.

By the time the brothers and the rest of their capable band closed things down with encore “La Rama del Mesquite,” they dripped with sweat.

After post-show beers, well wishes from family members and autographs, the band piled back into the van. It was late, and everyone was ready to hit the party house. Menudo and more cold beer awaited.

Arnst cranked the key, but the motor wouldn’t start. He jumped out and popped the hood. Never a good sign, especially not at 2 a.m. Groans spread through the van.

Diego laughed, not even remotely ra led. “Arnst will probably jump start it himself,” he said. “I’d trust that guy with my punk rock life.”

Sure enough, Arnst pulled a portable jump box from the back of the van and connected it to the battery. Moments later, the engine cranked.

The van turned onto the darkened country road leading back to the their uncle’s home. Metallica blasted over the sound system. In that moment, it was apparent that the Navairas don’t quit easily — nor do the family and friends that make up their support system.

If Ready Revolution is the brothers’ next challenge, they’re ready to meet it head-on. Li le surprise that Diego chalks up that courage to another life lesson from his dad.

“We were part of the band and had to be on our A-game,” he said. “He didn’t treat us like we were his kids and just there to fuck around.”

“This year is shaping up to be an incredible Tejano Conjunto Festival with a great lineup and more enthusiasm than ever from conjunto fans,” said Cristina Ballí, executive director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. “The festival highlights and celebrates the best in Conjunto music and the Texas Mexican cultural traditions of music, dancing, food and community connectedness.”

As per usual, the Guadalupe will host a free seniors dance on Wednesday, May 17 with music from Conjunto legends Eddie Lalo Torres y Su Conjunto and Santiago Jimenez Jr. y Su Conjunto. The Conjunto Music Hall of Fame reunion and induction ceremony will take place Thursday, May 18 at the Guadalupe.

As part of the festival, the Guadalupe also is hosting the photographic exhibition “The Instruments and Artistry of the Acosta Family of San Antonio,” which will display rare and never-before-seen images of the family’s legendary Westside luthiery shop and its prized instruments. Festival tickets are available online and at the Guadalupe Latino Bookstore, 1300 Guadalupe St. The Conjunto Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony requires a separate ticket, which is available online.

$45, Wednesday-Sunday, May 17-21, locations vary, guadalupeculturalarts.org/tejano-conjunto-festival.

— Sanford Nowlin

Mike McMahan

Jaime Monzon

MThe Navaira brothers pose with their mother, Cynthia Navaira-Escobar, before their Poteet Strawberry Festival show.

music Still Stirring It Up

Fresh on the heels of its first Grammy nomination, Spoon is playing Whitewater Amphitheater

BY DANNY CERVANTES

Time finally may have gone “Inside Out” for Spoon.

Thirty years after the Austin-based indie-rock mainstay’s founding by lead vocalist Bri Daniel and drummer Jim Eno, it earned its first Grammy nomination — a Best Rock Album nod for the 2022 release Lucifer on the Sofa

Ahead of Spoon’s Saturday, May 27, performance at New Braunfels’ Whitewater Amphitheater, the Current talked to keyboardist-guitarist Alex Fischel via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles about that pivotal recognition, his time in the band and the state of the music business.

Fischel joined Spoon in 2014, having previously played with frontman Daniel in the Divine Fits. He jumped at the opportunity to join up, even learning guitar so he could pull double duty.

The following interview is edited for length and clarity.

You’re kind of the man of mystery in Spoon. Can you tell us more about how you joined the band?

I met Bri when I was 21. About 11 or 12 years ago. He was in Los Angeles starting Divine Fits with Dan Boeckner. Dan asked me to come to this rehearsal, I showed up, and Bri was there, and I thought, “What the fuck?” I figured that would be the end of it, but they kept calling me back. Fast forward and Divine Fits was winding down. Bri asked if I would want to come make the next Spoon record, and I said, “Definitely.”

Britt and Jim formed Spoon 20 years before you joined. What was it like joining such an established band and finding your role within it?

At first, I didn’t want to overstep, but I also wanted to contribute. I had spoken to Bri a li le beforehand to make sure he wanted me to contribute and not be a computer. (Laughs.) He was like, “Totally.” At that time, there was another keyboard-guitar guy, Eric [Harvey], and I had to navigate that as well. I wanted to be respectful of his relationship with Bri and Jim. But it kind of naturally figured itself out. I remember the

spring before we were going to start touring They Want My Soul, I got this massive list of songs. I asked Bri what do you want me to do with these? I told him I don’t know what you want me to play. Bri responded that he wanted me to play a lot of guitar. I didn’t have a guitar.

Wow, so you didn’t have a guitar, and were being asked to play it for Spoon?

I always wanted to play guitar, but growing up, I always knew people who were actually good at guitar. Bri let me do that. So, I sold a keyboard, I got a guitar and learned Spoon songs. And now I play an equal amount of guitar to keyboard.

That’s an amazing initiation into the band. Learning to play guitar for Spoon?

At the time I was thinking, “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” for example — you’ll do the guitar solos. (Laughs.) It was like trial by fire a li le bit, but I’ve got to do this.

There’s always been this debate whether Spoon’s an indie band or alternative band. So, does your nomination for Best Rock Album settle it by establishing that Spoon is a rock band?

Those definitions are confusing. What’s an indie band anymore? It’s so arbitrary. It was very satisfying to be put in the rock category as opposed to the alternative category. It’s really confusing for me turning on the radio to these alternative stations and I can’t tell the difference between the alternative station, the pop station and the rock station. It’s pre y much the same. So, it was nice to be in the rock category and “officially” a rock band.

Spoon was nominated with Ozzy Osborne and Elvis Costello. Seems like that would be an incredible honor. When the nomination came through, we thought, “Whatever happens after this, the feeling of this recognition is so great, that’s enough.” The idea of losing to a legend like Elvis

Costello or Ozzy is totally fine. They’re legends for a reason.

Lucifer on the Sofa feels timeless. In the streaming age, do you feel we’re seeing fewer bands thinking of an album as a whole?

I think you’re seeing less of it for sure. It’s bizarre, but it’s the nature of streaming. The CEO of Spotify said artists need to be releasing music in insanely small intervals to be relevant. I thought, “You motherfucker, you make it. You go do something.” It was so patronizing. Being who we are, we listen to albums and were excited when they came out. I think the door hasn’t closed yet.

Your synthesizer flute solo on “Do You” is the cherry on top of the song. Can you tell us where it came from?

I remember very vividly recording that part. I had just go en into town, and they had been working most of the day. Bri tells me, “I want a ’70s New York

-style solo over the end. A li le Lou Reed saxophone vibe or something? That came out in the first or second take. I really like that moment. It sets you down nicely.

The upcoming show at Whitewater Amphitheater is Memorial Day weekend. It’s tucked into the Guadalupe River. People will be tubing during the day, and sunburnt and well-lubricated for the show. Does the audience or venue change the setlist at all?

That sounds like it will be a good vibe. It’s hard to know without being there. You pick up on something while you’re there. I think [Whitewater] will be conducive to a good show. I like the idea of having people tube while we’re playing.

$35-$69, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 27, Whitewater Amphitheater, 11860 FM 306, New Braunfels, (830) 964-3800, whitewaterrocks.com.

critics’ picks

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Wednesday, May 17

Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Strokes, Thundercat

A trio of musical heavyweights will have the Alamodome rocking. Although the headlining Red Hot Chili Peppers have increasingly added radio-friendly pop to their bag of tricks, their funk-tinged rock remains a showcase for the genius of guitarist John Frusciante, who’s often overshadowed by famous bandmates Anthony Kiedis and Flea. Alt-rockers The Strokes are another act whose tight musicality can sometimes be eclipsed by a high-profile frontman — in this case, Julian Casablancas. Opener Thundercat transitioned from a one-time Suicidal Tendencies bassist to an R&B luminary who’s collaborated with Kendrick Lamar and Gorillaz. $29.50 and up*, 6:30 p.m., Alamodome, 100 Montana St., (210) 207-3663, alamodome.com. — Danny Cervantes

Bright Eyes, Good Looks

The bittersweet Americana stylings of Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes continue to deliver silver linings amidst the melancholy. In 2020 the group recorded its first album after a nine-year hiatus with new label Dead Oceans. Over the years, Oberst has collaborated with a cavalcade of artists including Phoebe Bridgers and Spoon’s Britt Daniel. All the while, his music is anchored to the Midwest sensibilities of his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. $25-$95.50, 7:30 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — DC

Saturday, May 20

Rodrigo y Gabriela

Successful and long-running Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela is making its return with a visit to new venue The Espee. The pair’s core sound is flamenco guitar, but the members cite metal acts such as Testament as a prime influence. To wit, they burst onto the radar some two decades ago with a cover of Metallica’s epic instrumental “Orion.” Since then, Rodrigo y Gabriela have released numerous albums alongside appearances on TV and soundtracks. Their most recent LP, In Between Thoughts… A New World, dropped in late April. $39.50-$600, 8 p.m., The Espee, 1174 E. Commerce St., (210) 226-5700, majesticempire. com — Mike McMahan

White Dog, Smokey Mirror, Rover, Mystere

Here’s a bill that leans on bonafide rock ’n’ roll while integrating elements of psychedelia, Americana and blues. Austin-based White Dog combines classic rock with folk vocals and storytelling and even manages to sprinkle in a little funk. Smokey Mirror, from Dallas, is harder, speedier, psych-blues with gritty vocals. Meanwhile San Antonio’s Rover and Mystere deal in heavy rock and grungy blues, respectively. $10, 8 p.m., 502 Bar, 502 Embassy Oaks, 502bar.com. — Dalia Gulca

Sunday, May 21

HA*ASH

The sisters of Latina pop duo HA*ASH spent their formative years between Mexico City, Houston and Louisiana. That contrasting geography was influential, as reflected on their most recent release, the cheekily titled Haashtag. Their early exposure to gospel music left a big imprint, though they decided as adolescents that they wanted to perform country music in Spanish. Since then, HA*ASH has landed 12 songs on the top of the Mexican Billboard charts. Expect to do some singing along at this concert. $79.75-$600, 8 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — MM

Wednesday, May 24

Komrads, I Ya Toyah, The Russian White, Zen Hander

This lineup of solo acts in the post-industrial and darkwave genres proves that it doesn’t take a whole entourage to create trancey, apocalyptic tunes. Headlining act Komrads from Rochester, N.Y., emphasizes the ominous and eerie aspects of synthwave, while the dark electronica of Chicago’s I Ya Toyah feels almost operatic in its intensity. Reading, Pennsylvania’s The Russian White leans more danceability, and San Antonio-based opener Zen Hander, has carved out a unique niche with a minimalist approach to synthwave. $8, 9 p.m., Hi-Tones, 621 E. Dewey Place, instagram.com/hitones_sa. — DG

Wednesday, May 24

Rochelle & The Sidewinders

The self-described “Texas Songbird” Rochelle Creone fronts the

award winning Austin blues rock outfit Rochelle & The Sidewinders, and true to her nickname, she entices the audience with velvety vocals while the Sidewinders lay down rhythmic ri s. The group recently celebrated the release of 3rd Times a Charm with new label MoMojo Records. $10-$45, 8 p.m., Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint. com. — DC

Saturday, May 27

Pearl & The Oysters, Tele Novella

The duo Juliet Pearl Davis and Joachim Polack — The Oysters — delivers eclectic low key synth-pop that evokes both Stereolab and ’70s soft jazz. A friendship that began in high school in Paris has blossomed into a creative and personal pairing that followed the pair to Los Angeles via Gainesville, Florida. The Oysters’ latest release, Coast 2 Coast, drips with a decidedly West Coast vibe. $15, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com — DC

Tuesday, May 30

Acid Mothers Temple

Unless a band is comprised of chemistry profs, there’s a certain expectation when the word “acid” appears in its name. And yeah, this legendary crew from Japan is trippy as fuck. At an Acid Mothers Temple show, audiences can expect a brain-melting menagerie of sounds that includes heavy psych, krautrock, dissonant freakouts and shimmering soundscapes. Many of the group’s songs stretch past the 10-minute mark. $16, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — MM

Currents, Like Moths to Flames, Unity TX, Foreign Hands

Put your thinking caps on, because here come the mind-bendingly complex rhythms of the Meshuggah-inspired djent subgenre. Headliner Currents also pulls from the closely related metalcore genre. The Fairfield, Connecticut-based act has weathered numerous lineup changes since forming in 2013 and dropped its new album The Death We Seek on May 5. Hit this one up if you’re craving breakdowns. $19.50-$22, 6:30 p.m., The Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 772-1443, therockboxsa. com — MM

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EMPLOYMENT

Design Ops Print Quality Specialist, 3M, San Antonio, TX. Inspect printers’ proofs for correct content, print quality, color mgmt, & eng’g specs. Approve NPTC Design Ops Labeling drawing specs (incl. Inks, Substrates, Adhesives, Bindery & Design) & artwork to ensure alignment, continuity, & adherence to best practices. Provide artwork to suppliers. Manage updates & imprvmnts. Bach in Eng’g or a Print-rel. field incl. Print Media req. Must also have 6 months of work or internship exp. in print production reviewing orders & managing artwork content w/ Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, or InDesignfor Artwork Approval Process. Exp. may be gained concurrently. May be eligible for telecommuting one to two days per week from home work location w/in commuting distance of San Antonio, TX o ce. Apply at: 3m.com/3M/en_US/careers-us/.

VP-Business Development & Sales (San Antonio, TX) - F/T. Plan, direct, or coord the actual distribution/sale of our IT service to clients. Coord sales & set sales goals. Analyze sales statistics to determine sales potential. Perform post-sale quality & operation assurance for projects w/ clients. Gather, analyze & doc business processes as they pertain to sale of services. Perform sales reqmt analysis, task delivery, propose solutions to client, identify risks, & provide status updates as needed. Bach’s deg in Sales, or Sales Mgmt, Finance, Business Administration or closely related field + 24 months of exp in job o ered or as Sales Manager, Sales & Operations Director or closely related reqd. Email resume to Towa Software Inc., Attn: Alejandro Tolentino, Administration Manager at: alejandro.tolentino@towasoftware.com

Lead Automation and SCADA Engineer (Multiple Openings)

- Saber Power Services, LLC, 9006 Western View, Helotes, TX 78023. Provide engineering design, field svc inspections, installations, commissioning, maintenance & consulting svcs. Travel domestic & intl (primarily TX & SW US) approx 50% of time. Requirements include: Bach degree or equiv in electrical engineering or related field. 3 yrs exp: programming w/ Remote terminal units or data concentrators; working w/ elec pwr systems protection & control, elec substation automation, indstrl automation & integration, & communications applications; and programming & testing protective relay devices. 1 yr exp: performing pwr system simulations. Willingness & ability to: work reg overtime and pass a pre-employment drug test. To apply, send resume to: recruiting.pete@saberpower.com.

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