SAN ANTONIO-AUSTIN RAIL REVIVAL? | THE FUTURE OF THE PHILHARMONIC | BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME |
San Antonio Current
Breaking down Between the Buried and Me’s complex work ahead of the band’s latest tour
Paul Wiley, soundtrack composer for the ultra-bloody Terrifier slasher flicks, proves that music can make a villain memorable
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HTexas set a new record for hate crimes in 2022, with the metric increasing for the sixth consecutive year. The Texas Department of Public Safety documented at least 549 hate crimes last year, with more than 56% targeting Black and LGBTQ+ people. As the Texas Legislature repeatedly introduced bills to curb the rights of transgender Texans, anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes occurred at 4.7 times the rate of all hate crimes in the state.
Looks like San Antonio Spur Victor Wembanyama’s bout with early-career drama will be short-lived. After pop singer Britney Spears last week alleged that a member of the No. 1 draft pick’s security detail smacked her in the face after she sought the player’s autograph, Las Vegas police said they’re not filing criminal charges.
HIn the midst of June’s record-breaking heatwave, oil and gas companies in West Texas released hundreds of tons of toxic gas into the air to keep their pipelines running, state environmental records show. One company alone, Houston-based Targa Resources, vented more than 500,000 pounds into the air during a single week as it cut back its operations due to the heat, according to the data. Wilma Subra, an environmental chemist, told Inside Climate News that the gases contain carcinogenic material.
Houston has sued the state of Texas to stop a newly passed law aimed at blocking the power of local governments. House Bill 2127, which Gov. Greg Abbo signed in June, blocks local governments from passing ordinances that go further than state laws — a means of stopping Democratic cities from enacting progressive policies. Houston officials argue in their suit that the law violates the state’s constitution and weakens their ability to govern. — Abe
AsherAssclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Tony Buzbee, lead a orney for suspended Texas A orney General Ken Paxton, has a way with words — as evidenced by his recent statement explaining his client’s decision not to testify in his upcoming Senate impeachment trial.
“We will not bow to their evil, illegal, and unprecedented weaponization of state power in the Senate chamber,” Buzbee said of the Texas House, which voted in May to impeach Paxton. Talk about laying it on thick.
Most of the 20 articles of impeachment considered by the House related to allegations from Paxton’s own former deputies that he abused his office to do favors to real estate developer Nate Paul, a pal and major campaign donor. The following month, federal prosecutors charged Paul with eight counts of making false statements to financial institutions.
As an aside, Paxton has also been under indictment for years for felony state securities fraud charges and is the subject of a federal investigation brought on by the whistleblowers from his office. Of course, both he and Paul have denied any wrongdoing.
Despite the fact that 60 members of Paxton’s own party in the House found the allegations of abuse of office compelling enough to vote against him, and despite the fact that Paxton and his defense have more than three months to prepare for the Senate trial, scheduled for Sept. 5, Buzbee still proclaimed the process a sham. Using the purplest of prose, naturally.
“The House has ignored precedent, denied him an opportunity to prepare his defense, and now wants to ambush him on the floor of the Senate,” Buzbee said. “They had the opportunity to have A orney General Paxton testify during their sham investigation but refused to do so.”
We’ll see after the Senate trial whether Buzbee’s pronouncement reads like the flashy prose of a savvy trial lawyer or the ramblings of an assclown. Our money’s on the la er. — Sanford
NowlinYOU SAID IT!
State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat who’s emerged as one of Texas’ most outspoken gun-reform advocates, this week confirmed he’s running to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Gutierrez’s district includes Uvalde, where the Robb Elementary School shooting took the lives of 19 students and two teachers. Gutierrez will first need to face off against Dallas Congressman Colin Allred in the Democratic primary.
Home prices are rising across San Antonio, but they’re increasing particularly quickly in one ZIP code: 78203. The average value of homes in that area, which includes the neighborhood near the Alamodome, jumped from $55,287 in 2016 to $185,505 in 2023. That 235% increase is the second-highest in the state, according to a study from Texas Real Estate Source
Ken Paxton, the Texas a orney general suspended from his job in the spring, won’t testify at his upcoming impeachment trial in the Texas Senate. Paxton, who’s under indictment for felony securities fraud and currently under federal investigation, was impeached by the House in May on allegations that he has repeatedly misused his office. — Abe Asher
“Im a proud gun owner and believer in the Second Amendment, but after 19 children and two teachers died, the Republicans wouldn’t even allow us an opportunity to talk about ways to protect our kids. It’s why we have to do something now.”
— Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, in a video announcing his run against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
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San Antonio and Austin, two of the fastest-growing U.S. cities, sit just 80 miles apart. That’s too close for regular flights and just far enough for a drive up Interstate 35 to be a real pain in the ass.
Among public transportation advocates, the distance between the two Texas cities is considered a sweet spot where reliable rail service isn’t just feasible but necessary.
With President Joe Biden’s signature “Build Back Be er” bill allocating nearly $20 billion for rail transit, grassroots organizations — including San Antonians for Rail Transit and RESTART Lone Star Rail District — are popping up, pumping out petitions and grabbing the a ention of local politicians.
“We are coalition-building right now, and our goal is to get different advocacy groups, nonprofits and even things like chambers of commerce to get on board and say, ‘Yes, we would benefit from a rail link between Austin and San Antonio,’” RESTART founder Clay Anderson said.
Indeed, a thesis published by one of Anderson’s former colleagues at Columbia University argues that a rail link connecting Austin and San Antonio would grab significant enough ridership to justify its expense.
However, the region has been down this road before. Business leaders spent decades talking about the idea, and the Lone Star Rail District, established to create such a line, crashed and burned in 2016 with li le to show for the millions pumped into the entity.
Anderson, a San Antonio native and recent Columbia grad with an urban planning degree, works in Austin as a transportation planner. When he’s off the clock, though, he’s working to garner signatures for a petition calling on elected officials to relaunch the Lone Star Rail District.
“I wanted to figure out a way to get involved in transportation advocacy, and I was talking with my friends about what would be the most impactful project that we could do,” he said. “My friends and I agreed that a rail between San Antonio and Austin would be so politically popular because so many people travel between them every day, every month, every year.”
Anderson and his group mapped out a rail line
stretching from Port San Antonio all the way to Round Rock, featuring 19 stops along the way.
Amtrak already runs a once-daily service between San Antonio and Austin for as li le as $15. However, Anderson argues that Amtrak’s Texas Eagle has too few regular departures, is unreliable and doesn’t make stops in growing towns along the I-35 corridor. As a result, it fails to serve the region’s nearly 5 million residents, he added.
Anderson and his group are calling on elected officials to establish “fast, frequent, and reliable rail service” along the corridor.
Some elected officials are starting to listen.
During a June meeting of Central and South Texas planning organizations, San Antonio Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda — also the new chair of the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization — advocated for a rail link between the two cities, the Express-News reports.
Havrda is meeting with RESTART Lone Lone Star Rail District later this month to discuss that possibility, Anderson said.
However, she’s not alone. Travis County Judge Andy Brown also appears to be taking the idea seriously.
“I’m looking at a passenger rail train, I see clear need for it and I look forward to discussing more when it gets a li le farther down the track,” Brown said in a statement to the daily.
When making his case, Anderson cites a master’s thesis by his Columbia colleague, Christian Budow. That analysis found that a San Antonio-Austin link would boast an annual ridership of 4 million people, rivaling the 9.3 million passengers served by Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor service last year.
Budow’s thesis also found that the commuter rail would reduce congestion on I-35, reducing traffic on the dreaded corridor by as much as 20%.
With rejuvenated support, is an Austin-San Antonio commuter rail inevitable?
Not really.
The first iteration of the Lone Star Rail District fizzled out in 2016 after Union Pacific, which owns the freight tracks between the Alamo City and Texas’ capital city, pulled out of the deal. With li le political will to build new tracks, the idea was dead in the water.
As Express-News columnist and former Current editor-in-chief Greg Jefferson put it at the time, the only thing the Lone Star Rail District was good at was “to keep a couple of people employed and consultants flush with billable hours.”
Despite $25 million being spent on the project between 2003 and 2016, not a single line went into service.
Even so, Anderson argues this time is different. Union Pacific pulled out the first time because the project was mismanaged, he maintains, and the company was tired of si ing around waiting for something to happen.
“I see a very valid reason for Union Pacific pulling out of the deal,” he said. “But just because they pulled out doesn’t mean that the project is doomed. They’ve invested billions of dollars in improving passenger rail service and having agreements with passenger rail operators.”
Still, it remains to be seen whether Union Pacific is ready to reenter talks with a region that left it in limbo just a few years ago.
All vehicles listed below were impounded by San Antonio Police Dept. and will be sold at public auction via Joyrideautos.com
AUGUST 16, 2023 at 3:00P
SAN ANTONIO VEHICLE IMPOUND FACILITY
Registered owners may pick up vehicles with proof of ownership, valid ID, and payment of all impound, towing, and storage fees & applicable taxes prior to Auction.
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ID#YEARMAKEMODELVINCHARGESID#YEARMAKEMODELVINCHARGESID#YEARMAKEMODELVINCHARGES
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FEE ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
Editor’s Note: Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.
In another sign of the climatepocalypse already upon us, sellers on Amazon and eBay are charging $100 for two 17-ounce bo les of Srirarcha, the beloved Huy Fong sauce made from chili peppers sourced in Mexico and California.
The company blames drought-related crop failures, and according to a study published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States just experienced the driest two decades in over a millennium.
“The turn-of-the-twenty-first-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory in terms of severity or duration without anthropogenic climate change,” the researchers wrote. “In fact, it would not even be classified as a single extended drought event.”
And then we might be able to afford Srirarcha again, the study authors should have added.
Of course, our rapidly warming planet also brings other more serious concerns. Last summer, San Antonio construction worker Gabriel Infante, just 24, collapsed of heat stroke on a non-union job while burying fiber optic cable during sweltering conditions. When he arrived at the hospital, his core body temperature was 110 degrees. He died the following day.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration slapped his employer, B Comm Constructors with a $13,000 fine, and last month, his mother sued the firm for gross negligence, seeking $1 million in damages.
Regardless of the outcome of that case, our system seems incapable of preventing similar tragedies.
During triple-digit heat waves in June, Gov. Greg Abbo signed a law that will nullify local ordinances that would mandate 10-minute water breaks for outdoor laborers. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, at least 42 outdoor Texas workers died between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure. That number likely represents an undercount since it doesn’t include heart a acks.
More than just workers, upward of 20,000 adult deaths in the U.S. from 2008 to 2017 were linked to extreme heat, and about half of those were due to heart disease, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Study leader Dr. Sameed
Khatana, a staff cardiologist at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, who led the study, told the Associated Press heat may amount to a silent killer.
“Hurricanes, flooding and wildfires are very dramatic,” Katana said. “Heat is harder to see and especially affects people who are socially isolated and living on the margins.”
This summer, 11 people around Laredo perished over a 10-day stretch of 115-degree heat, according to Webb County’s medical examiner. On July 4, according to the chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the world likely hit its ho est day in recorded human history.
Yet San Antonio’s District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte, a self-declared “common sense conservative,” parroted the corporate line of the National Federation of Independent Businesses and openly cheered Abbo ’s signing of HB 2127, the bill that banned municipally bestowed water breaks.
“It’s simply not the job of a local governmental entity to tell employers what kind of benefits must be offered or what an employee’s schedule should look like,” he wrote in the Express-News. “Unfortunately, some Texas municipalities are addicted to power … . There is a rich irony to elected officials around our state who oppose HB 2127 because they don’t want the Legislature telling them what they can and cannot do, yet they want to wield similar authority over businesses.”
If climatologists such as Columbia University Professor James Hansen who worry that climate change could result in a rapid doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide are right, mo led regulations will be the least of our concerns.
“A human body cannot survive in an environment
with a ‘wet-bulb temperature’ (the temperature with 100 percent humidity) at 95°F or above for more than a few hours without suffering from metabolic failure,” economist Minqi Li wrote in 2020, summarizing the available literature. “For people who have to do outside work exposed to the sun, the practical tolerance limit is likely to be significantly lower. Currently about 60% of the world population lives in areas where the annual maximum wet-bulb temperature is 79°F or above and the highest instantaneous wet-bulb temperature anywhere on earth is about 86°F. Global warming by more than 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit would turn a part of the earth surface literally unsuitable for human inhabitation and impose hitherto unknown heat stress on more than one half of the world population.”
Sounds like a compelling argument for holding carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. But the GOP-dominated Texas Legislature this session declared war on the “woke” renewables that are saving our grid from blackouts during summer heat waves. Even purported progressive San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg went back on his word and approved of CPS Energy operating one of its fossil-fuel plants for decades longer than his own climate advisory board recommended.
No one organized a march on behalf of dead San Antonio worker Gabriel Infante. His name made no national headlines. There was no summer of protest in his name.
The governor, the mayor and the business owner on whose watches he died will sleep as comfortably as such men usually do. Neither Davos billionaires nor oil tycoons flew in to pay their respects at his funeral.
Nevertheless, we’re all laboring under the same sun.
When he’s on target, Dave Chappelle is one of the funniest people alive. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that he’s chosen to double down on the transphobic jokes he inserted into recent comedy specials. In The Closer, he devoted a lengthy segment to mocking trans people, declaring himself a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, and making the proclamation that “gender is a fact.” As recently as this January, Chappelle painted himself as the victim when trans people protested one of his shows in Minneapolis. He even went so far as to claim they had the “intention of inciting violence against themselves for publicity.” Will Chappelle go on a transphobic diatribe when he appears in San Antonio? Who knows. But given the unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in Texas and other states this year, it should be clear that the community deserves dignity and respect, not jabs from comics looking for cheap laughs or to point fingers at overzealous social justice warriors. While Chappelle’s tour will draw fans, he’s damaged his rep as a comic once unafraid to painfully peel back the Band-Aid on legitimate social ills. Punching down instead of up is a cruel, lazy choice from a humorist who should be smart and sophisticated enough to know be er. $63.50 and up, 7:30 p.m., AT&T Center, 1 AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 444-5140, a center.com. — Sanford Nowlin
DRAG
Drag queen Valentina is bringing her impeccable Latina glamour directly to San Antonio fans. Despite a seventh-place finish on the ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Valentina’s style made her an all-time fan favorite, earning the Miss Congeniality winner a return slot on the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars. Her beloved performances also got her a role as Angel in 2019’s televised Rent: Live as well as a cameo in the 2021 film adaptation of the musical In the Heights Valentina — who named herself after the Mexican hot sauce — built her stylish outfits and makeup particularly around her Latina heritage. As a first-generation Mexican American, she uses her performances both to bring the style and allure of Latin American culture to drag — and to cultivate broader acceptance for drag in Latin American culture. As evidence of her dedication to the la er, she’s co-host of the forthcoming
Drag Race México along with Mexico-born Lolita Banana. $40-$50, 10:30 p.m and midnight, Bonham Exchange, 411 Bonham, table reservations by text only to (210) 386-4537, facebook.com/reylopezentertainment. — Dalia
THEATER
about. Teatro Audaz will perform the heartbreaking play at the Cellar Theater inside the Public Theater of San Antonio. Viewers should be aware that The Ghosts of Lote Bravo contains graphic sexual themes and depictions of violence. Friday performances will be pay-what-you-wish nights with tickets running $5-$50. Those who choose to pay $30 or up on Fridays will receive a VIP experience with early entry, a thank you card and a free water and concession-stand snack of their choice. $15-$35, 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, The Cellar Theater at The Public, 800 West Ashby Place, (361) 444-3931, teatroaudaz.com. —
Colin HoustonSPECIAL EVENT
Grease is the still word! In honor of the 45th anniversary of Grease (1978), stars from the award-winning rom-com musical film are flocking to the Wonderland of the Americas Mall for the Summer Lovin’ Celebration, hosted by Social Revolt. Free general admission tickets allow access to the ground floor vintage and collectors market featuring nearly 100 independent vendors and artists. Also expect DJs spinning oldies and hits from the film all weekend. Paid tickets and VIP passes — which start at the $10 “Garage” pass — are required to access the event’s celebrity area. Guests available for meet and greets and autographs include Grease director Randall Kleisser, Jamie Donnelly (Jan, Pink Ladies), Barry Pearl (Doody, T-Birds), Kelly Ward (“Putz” Roger, T-Birds), Michael Tucci (Sonny, T-Birds) and Lorenzo Lamas (Tom Chisum). Free, 11 a.m-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Wonderland of the Americas
The 2023 season of Teatro Audaz, a Latinx theater focused on both artistry and multiculturalism in entertainment, is in full swing, and its latest production is the Texas premiere of The Ghosts of Lote Bravo. Set in Juarez, Mexico, and directed by Charles Falcon, the play revolves around a young girl’s disappearance and her mother’s eventual understanding of the hopes and dreams her daughter never told her
Mall, 4522 Fredericksburg Road, socialrevoltstore.com. — Macks Cook
SAT | 07.15
SPECIAL EVENT
One of the oldest street festivals in the world returns to San Antonio for the fourth consecutive year as local group Bliss House Meditation Cen-
ter brings the Festival of Chariots — be er known across the globe as Ratha Yatra — back to Woodlawn Lake Park. Translated as “chariot journey” in Sanskrit, the Ratha Yatra began in the eastern Indian city of Puri as a midsummer tribute to three local deities, who are paraded through the streets on specially constructed wooden chariots before returning to their temple home. These days, devotees in more than 100 major cities celebrate the occasion with street festivals of their own. For San Antonio’s iteration, Bliss House has organized a bright-red cart procession complete with local vendors, traditional Bharatanatyam dance, henna, yoga, cultural presentations and live kirtan, or meditative music featuring spiritual chants. The celebration of Indian culture will kick off at 4 p.m., and the cart procession will begin at 6 p.m., allowing San Antonians to experience the festival 9,000 miles and 3,000 years from where it all began. Free, 4-9 p.m., Woodlawn Lake Park, 1103 Cincinnati Ave., (210) 995-
FILM
Texas Public Radio’s Cinema Tuesdays film series has returned this summer with an eclectic, highly curated collection of 14 classic, foreign and independent films, which range from ’30s Argentine classics to ’90s indie romantic dramas. Coming next to the silver screen at TPR’s partner theater Santikos Northwest is 2000’s Palme d’Or-nominated modern classic In the Mood for Love, written, produced and directed by Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai — a living legend who’s known for his atmospheric, colorful, highly stylized dramas as well as his trademark sunglasses. In the Mood for Love blends vivid cinematography, a potent commentary on love and desire and the astonishing beauty of stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. It follows a man (Leung) and a woman (Cheung), neighbors in 1960s Hong Kong, who discover a relationship between their respective spouses and begin to develop one of their own. Its swirling atmosphere of sensuality, haunting soundtrack and dazzlingly influential visual style led critics to proclaim it as the fifth greatest film of all time in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll. Those wishing to lay eyes on it for the first time — or second, or third — can reserve a ticket by making a donation on TPR’s website. $12-$17, 7:30 p.m., Santikos Entertainment Northwest, 7600 I-10 West, (210) 664-3348, tpr.org — DZ
7377, satxbliss.com/events.
— Dean ZachFILM
Two more films remain in the Briscoe Western Art Museum’s Summer Film Series. The annual tradition lives on as the Briscoe shows three Western movies on the third Sunday of June, July and August. This go-round, the theme is sci-fi Westerns. The second film of the series is 2011’s popcorn muncher Cowboys and Aliens, which features big names including Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig. Keeping with the series’ theme in a rather straightforward way, Cowboys and Aliens, set in 1873, is indeed about a showdown between the two sets of beings named in its title. An amnesiac outlaw (Craig) awakens in a frontier town ruled by Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Ford), who wants him dead. However, he soon finds out that he and everyone else must set their human concerns aside to address otherworldly threats. $8-$14, 1 p.m., Briscoe Western Art Museum, 210 W. Market St., (210) 299-4499, briscoemuseum.org. — CH
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.
San Antonio’s Classic Theatre is presenting 19 free performances of the Tony Award-winning musical Peter and the Starcatcher. Based on the successful early 2000s book series of the same name, Peter and the Starcatcher puts an unexpected spin on the well-known origin story of Peter Pan. Aboard the Victorian ship The Neverland, three rambunctious orphan boys, including one named Peter, become acquainted with the wise and wistful Molly Aster, the daughter of a British nobleman. As Molly’s liking for Peter grows — and with it, her trust — she reveals that she is a Starcatcher, a magical being capable of wielding starstuff. Molly also warns Peter that the powerful cosmic material must never fall into the wrong hands. When pirates invade and a empt to loot The Neverland, Peter is thrown overboard. In a spellbinding display of sword-fighting, swelling seas and shooting stars, Peter fights against the forces of nature to return to the ship and protect Molly and her powerful starstuff from danger. Free, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Radius Center, 106 Auditorium Circle, (210) 589-8450, classictheatre.org. — Caroline Wolff
SPECIAL EVENT
The City of San Antonio World Heritage Office and Slab Cinema are bringing yet another free outdoor film to Mission Marquee Plaza, this time the 1993 classic The Sandlot. The showing will celebrate the beloved coming-of-age film’s 30th anniversary. Set in 1962, the movie follows the shenanigans of a group of kids who play baseball at a sandlot in the San Fernando Valley as newcomer Sco ie Smalls (Tom
The Briscoe Western Art Museum is inviting folks to mosey down to the River Walk for a hoedown celebrating the 19th annual National Day of the Cowboy. Just a couple miles from Union Stock Yards, the Briscoe celebrates the holiday annually on the third Saturday of July, o ering up food, live music, Western art demonstrations and live lassoing demonstrations. Family-friendly activities will include cowpoke crafts and games such as stick pony-making, barrel racing and hat-and-spur crafting. The gathering’s Storytime at the Stagecoach will bring to life the stories of pioneering female Bu alo Soldier Cathay Williams and Mary Fields, the first African American woman stagecoach driver. Expect cowboy-appropriate vittles of both the chuck wagon and food truck variety as well. Free, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Briscoe Western Art Museum, 210 W. Market St., (210) 299-4499, briscoemuseum.org. — DZ
Guiry) struggles to earn their respect. The cinematic classic nails the details of its time period and evokes a warm and genuine sense of nostalgia. Guests are encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs and picnic blankets. Food trucks will be on hand to provide something to munch on. Free, 8:30 p.m., Mission Marquee Plaza, 3100 Roosevelt Ave., slabcinema.com. — CH
Virginia native Jay Pharoah first rose to prominence on Saturday Night Live, where he became known for his chameleonic impressions — ranging from Denzel Washington to Shaq to a scarily accurate President Barack Obama. During his tenure, he became one of the show’s surprise standouts in a rocky transition that followed the departure of classic cast members Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Seth Meyers. After his abrupt 2016 departure, Pharoah reinvented himself, playing both live-action and voice roles in films including Ride Along, Sing and even
last month’s horror comedy TheBlackening. In his standup, Pharoah utilizes his astonishing ability to summon his impression subjects’ souls, combining it with a trademark wit and dedication to the bit — not to mention his talent for songwriting and rapping. $60-$240, 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Friday, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 541-8805, improvtx. com/sanantonio. — DZ
As San Antonio embarks upon yet another reimagining of downtown’s Hemisfair, it’s worth remembering the origin of the downtown space that includes the Tower of the Americas and other landmarks.
The development arose out of the controversial and city-altering Hemisfair ’68, San Antonio’s World’s Fair and, in many ways, our introduction to the larger world. While Hemisfair was viewed as a win for the city’s business establishment, a now-forgo en pavilion operating under the World’s Fair banner that was anything but establishment — especially for the time.
Project Y, also known as the Youth Pavilion, became a forum for the most radical, entertaining and revolutionary ideas of the 1960s — from progressive pedagogy and public debate forums to psychedelic light shows and Fluxus-style happenings. Miraculously, the ideas came to fruition without the conservative city establishment swooping in to shut them down.
“Every once in a while, you do something and you don’t know how,” Philip Krumm, one of Project Y’s music producers, said of the pavilion. “That’s what that was.”
Inspired by Trinity University drama professor Paul Baker and led by a visionary team consisting of urban planner and author Sherry Wagner, progressive edu-
cator Jearnine Wagner and transplanted New Yorker David Bowen, Project Y tapped into the late ’60s’ revolutionary spirit.
After landing a U.S. Department of Education grant, Project Y took on a life of its own. Rather than a prescribed experience mandated by a hierarchical authority, it became something more akin to a “happening” or an experimental theater project.
“PROJECT Y at HemisFair ‘68 is not an exhibit, but an environment for activity,” read the original promotional materials. “The key ingredient is the creative energies of those who come to it.”
Project Y’s young staff, which included celebrated historian Lonn Taylor, multimedia composer George Cisneros and avant-garde composer Krumm, provided much of that creative energy. For those lucky enough to experience it, Project Y encapsulated the magic of the era — optimism, radical experimentation and youthful energy. All backed with an actual budget to realize the lofty ideas.
Sited on a 113,000-square-foot plot adjacent to the Institute of Texan Cultures, Project Y consisted of a theater-cinema, a cabaret, an outdoor discussion pit, areas for painting and a central plaza. Paraphernalia — the legendary NYC boutique that hosted Andy Warhol’s exhibitions and performances by the Velvet
Underground — even had a branch inside.
During Hemisfair’s six-month run, national politicians spoke in the open air forum and experimental films played in the cinema. Music blasted from the cabaret, which hosted acts ranging from psychedelic visionaries the Electric Prunes performing their Mass in F Minor concept album to groundbreaking composer Robert Ashley’s ONCE group.
Project Y also hosted the Genesis Fest, billed as the first pop-rock festival in the American South. Organizers fresh from the Monterey International Pop Festival produced the event, which reportedly featured a spectacular light show and performances from a broad range of Texas greats. Country-blues guitarist Mance Lipscomb and Alamo City street performer Bongo Joe played, and so did now-legendary psych acts including Bubble Puppy, Sweet Smoke and The Children.
Despite the pavilion’s breadth and ambition, there’s scant documentation of its freewheeling wonders.
“Unfortunately, there are few known photos of Project Y,” said Tom Shelton, photography curator for the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Special Collections library and home of the official Hemisfair archive. “This was an interesting and mostly forgotten area at Hemisfair. It’s a shame more photos aren’t available.”
The selection of the Hemisfair site, developed over the Germantown and St. Michael’s neighborhoods, was mired in controversy from the beginning. Under the dubious claim of “urban blight,” the city razed the neighborhoods for the fair, displacing 2,239 residences and 636 businesses, according to records. Workers demolished more than 1,300 structures and altered or erased some two dozen streets.
Just as the experimentation of Project Y represented one side of the ’60s, the remaking of Germantown and St. Michael’s represented a far less enlightened side of the decade. Cities across the country undertook similar projects under claims they were rejuvenating their city centers.
“Urban renewal ... means Negro removal,” author James Baldwin famously quipped.
“Hemisfair was a very controversial thing from the first,” said composer and Project Y participant Cisneros, who now runs urban dance group Urban-15. “It took two of the oldest and most important neighborhoods in town and, using eminent domain, ripped them apart.”
Famed architect O’Neil Ford, Hemisfair’s chief designer, sought to preserve the area’s most historic and architecturally significant homes, but in the end, only 22 of the 300 historic homes were spared, mostly due to the San Antonio Conservation Society and liberal Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough.
Ford resigned in protest, only to be replaced by Allison Peery, one of his disciples.
Ironically, it was Peery’s involvement in Hemisfair that helped usher in Project Y. During the planning stage, the architect wanted a youth area where parents could drop off their children.
“Somewhere between daycare and art camp,” Cisneros explained.
Taking the helm of this fledgling youth program was Sherry Kafka Wagner, later a founding editor of Texas Monthly and an urban planner who helped create the San Antonio River Corridor, the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park and major projects from Boston to Kuwait.
“I’d never been to San Antonio, never thought about San Antonio,” recalls Wagner, who at that time was divorcing her first husband, former Alamo City mayor Phil Hardberger.
She became the only woman to land an executive position at Hemisfair executive position after winning over fair bigwigs Bill Sinkin and Alison and Mimi Peery with a speech on childhood creativity.
“I had set up a program for children at the Methodist Children’s home in Waco, so I was very interested in inherent creativity as a
basic scaffolding of the mind,” Wagner said. “The basic way the mind works. All learning is sensory. The creative process is the basic learning process. It’s the cake, not the icing on the cake.”
Wagner’s revolutionary approach to learning had itself been learned from Paul Baker, an influential educator and theater director, whom the Texas Cultural Trust once called “the most important man in the history of Texas theater.”
Inspired by cubist painting and its simultaneous depiction of multiple perspectives, Baker built Studio One at Baylor University, one of the nation’s first truly experimental theater companies. Instead of a single proscenium stage, six stages surrounded members of the audience, who were seated in swivel chairs to rotate their view between stages.
Baker’s theater program became a media sensation, winning praise from Life Magazine and major TV networks. He later collaborated with Frank Lloyd Wright on the similarly designed Dallas Theater Center, which actor Charlton Heston labeled “the greatest theater in the world.”
A controversial production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night led to a protest campaign by a Baptist Sunday School teacher. Rather than be censored, Baker migrated the entire Baylor theater department to San Antonio, where he became head of Trinity University’s program and oversaw construction of the Ruth Taylor Theater, which also featured multiple stages and swivel seating — which have long since been torn out.
Among those who joined Baker in his move to Trinity was protege Jearnine Wagner, who’d started Trinity’s Ideas in Motion children’s program and wri en the workbook Our Theater: A Place for Ideas with Baker’s wife Ki y. Back at Baylor, Jearnine Wagner had helmed the children’s theater with Project Y head Sherry Kafka Wagner — no relation — and was thus a natural recruit for Hemisfair’s Youth Pavilion. Fueled by Dr. Pepper and Hershey’s bars, the pair applied for, and won, a $470,000 US Department of Education grant to expand the pavilion from the “daycare” Peery envisioned into something truly transformational.
Using the funds, the pair initiated Unlimited Potential, a San Antonio Independent School District program that emphasized learning through creativity, especially for low income students. In conjunction with Paul Kantz, a new SAISD assistant superintendent, Unlimited Potential — and its new homebase at Project Y — sought a fresh, inclusive approach in a broken, racist educational system.
“In those days, if a child was caught speaking Spanish on the playground, he was expelled for three days!” Sherry Wagner said of the backward learning system of the day.
Unlimited Potential arranged for students from the city’s poorest districts to experience World’s Fair and specifically Project Y. The pavilion was staffed largely from Baker’s Trinity theater department and with students and faculty from elite high schools. The mingling between the city’s richest and poorest schools provided a unique opportunity.
“Paul saw this as an opportunity to take his Trinity students in theater art and music and visual arts and put them in a community context where they could provide an enlightened experience. It was an eye-opening experience for everybody,” Cisneros said. “People from Alamo Heights and Trinity for the first time saw San Antonio in a different way, because they were downtown. And people from the rest of San Antonio got access to the rarefied Alamo Heights-Trinity world.”
With Project Y off the ground, Sherry Wagner hired Bowen, a bilingual children’s author and educator, to helm Project Y. For the duration of the fair, Sherry Wagner focused her energy on the Women’s Pavilion, the fair’s only self-funded pavilion and a refreshing feminist presence in the repressive patriarchy of mid-20th century Texas.
As Hemisfair unfolded, turmoil gripped the nation. The Vietnam War raged, the civil rights movement reached its height, college campuses emerged as hotbeds of dissent.
“So, we decided to have a Hall of Issues,” said Israel Anderson, who worked on Project Y as a recent college grad. “And inside that Hall of Issues, we imagined kids having small group discussions. A place where kids could talk about all the current issues of the day. Like a Roman forum.”
Painter and activist Phyllis Yampolsky conceived of such forums a few years prior while working for the New York Parks Department to coordinate “happenings,” a term coined by Fluxus artist Alan Kaprow. The concept dovetailed with the spirit of Baker’s revolutionary theatrical approach.
Project Y’s organizers brought in Yampolsky as a consultant to help recreate her own Hall of Issues, an open-call exhibition and program series held at New York’s Judson Church, now considered an iconic moment in that city’s revolutionary ’60s art scene.
“Project Y is really a series of constantly changing events that occur because people are present ... not an exhibit, but an environment for activity,” the pavilion’s promotional materials explained. “The key ingredient is the creative energies of those who come to it. It is a showcase for creative energies in industry and the professions, and for those taking shape in churches, neighborhood houses, universities and — like a flower in a rock — in the streets of our cities.”
Recent Trinity graduate Anderson, an African American, landed the job of overseeing the Hall of Issues. His deep commitment to social justice and civil rights led him to Trinity’s urban studies master’s program.
“I was a 21-year-old kid of the ’60s, grew up
in the segregated public school system in Waco,” said Anderson, who moved to San Antonio to take part in Trinity’s master’s program in urban studies. “To go from there to Trinity University was like walking on another planet.”
While the Alamo City was more open than Waco, it was still a different time — as Anderson learned when he walked from Trinity to Olmos Pharmacy for a haircut.
“Head barber asked me, ‘Can I help you?’ I said, ‘I came in to get a haircut.’ He said, ‘You’ll be the first Black guy to get a cut in here. All the Black folks go to the East Side.’” Anderson remembered. “So, I walked from Hildebrand [Avenue] to New Braunfels [Avenue] ... . Crossed over the bridge there and was immediately in Black town. All the barber shops, beauty shops, cafes — all Black.”
After his graduation, Jearnine Wagner recruited Anderson for Project Y and he seized the opportunity, writing hundreds of le ers to heads of state, thinkers, authors and diplomats urging them to speak at Project Y. Among his major catches: Robert C. Weaver, President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s secretary of housing and urban development and the first Black member of any White House cabinet.
“I also brought Boris Davydov, the Soviet ambassador from D.C., and that caused quite a stir,” Anderson said. “I know the FBI was following him everywhere.”
Cisneros credits his involvement in Project Y for helping him launch Urban-15, its Third Coast New Music Series and other ambitious creative and educational programs that have left a significant impact on the city.
“I can draw a line from so much of my life that started at Project Y,” he said.
His involvement at Hemisfair began as part of The Octet, a hootenanny folk group he described as a “thing for the tourists.”
“We’d wander around the fairgrounds performing, but in between sets, there was all this work to be done, and I went over to Project Y, where there were interesting things happening,” he said. “Before too long, they realized, ‘This guy knows how to do work.’ I ended up being their AV guy.”
Cisneros was hurled into the deep end, running multiple productions simultaneously. Aside from the hands-on technical knowledge he gained, Hemisfair exposed Cisneros to new technologies at the ITT and Bell Labs exhibits, where he saw his first video phone and modular synthesizer.
“Everything I’ve worked on my whole life, it all percolated up from that time,” he said.
Legendary San Antonio composer, bookstore owner and cultural provocateur Philip Krumm — recently profiled in the Current’s March 8 cover story — was among the other creatives drawn into Project Y’s orbit.
Having already gained local notoriety, he proposed an ambitious dome concert hall he termed the Total Experience Theater, an immersive environment reminiscent of designs by experimental music legend Iannis Xenakis. In the end, those controlling Hemis-
fair’s purse strings declined to pursue Krumm’s grant vision.
“We didn’t get that, but we did get a round building,” he said.
Krumm ended up as a music programmer for the pavilion, while also running its light show with his company Lighting Sound Development, or LSD. Founded with San Antonio visual artist Charles Winans, LSD had already provided visuals at shortlived music venue The Mind’s Eye, considered the South’s first psychedelic music club.
At Project Y, the pair delivered their trippy visuals via a custom-built turntable filled with mirrors, lenses and bits of colored glass — a technique gleaned from Milton Cohen’s Space Theater.
“The light show was fantastic,” Krumm said. “One of the best things I’ve ever done.”
Pop-rock festivals thrived in 1968, and Project Y had its own.
Legendary Houston venue Love Street Light Circus, Austin’s Vulcan Gas Co. and San Antonio’s Alamo Electronics joined forces to present Genesis Fest, an event billed as the South’s first pop-rock festival. The concert’s technical directors, led by Gregor
Gregg, arrived directly from the famed Monterey Pop Fest, where they’d achieved considerable success launching the careers of iconic performers including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding.
While Genesis Fest didn’t prove to be a launch pad for talent of that level, it still tallied 18,000 a endees, according to organizers. In addition to the aforementioned Bubble Puppy and Bongo Joe, the lineup included Shiva’s Headband and Augie Meyer’s Lord August and the Visions of Lite. Even Gov. John Connally’s son performed, with his questionably named group The Starvation Army.
Despite the tremendous turnout, Hemisfair management denied Project Y’s request to fund a second music fest.
Also denied was the Youth Pavilion’s request to bring in the un-Google-able United States of America, a dynamic LA group led by composer Joe Byrd, whose sole album for Columbia many critics consider a masterpiece of psychedelia. USA had been scheduled to perform at Project Y’s opening celebration but H-E-B, a corporate sponsor needed to fund the group’s fee
and expenses, deemed the group “just not something we are interested in,” Krumm recalled.
A significant Project Y performance — and one seemingly forgo en — was the ONCE group, led by groundbreaking composer Robert Ashley. Recruited by Krumm and theater coordinator Don Davlin, ONCE mounted a stunning three-day performance of That Morning Thing, Ashley’s revolutionary work of light, sound and theater.
On April 4, 1968, two days before Hemisfair’s opening, James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr., shocking the entire country. Recent Trinity grad Anderson took the death especially hard.
“For a while there, I was despondent as hell,” he said. “I took time off, went to D.C. — it looked like a bomb had gone off. The riots had occurred. Down on the Mall, Black Panthers and SDS, they’d created a poor people’s city. ‘Resurrection City’ it was called. People camped in their tents. I went there and stayed four or five days.”
After seeing a city in ta ers, Anderson returned to San Antonio, pouring his energy into Project Y. He helped provide a se ing for young people to process their emotions with theatrical demonstrations and a large wall to write their thoughts.
“After King’s assassination, we dressed all the kids up, dressed in black, as mimes,” he said. “They didn’t talk. Silence. For that and the RFK assassination ... there was a lot of silence that year.”
Music also played an integral role in the healing. For Hemisfair’s opening and the first Project Y show, the city commissioned composer Bill Russo to write Civil War: A Rock Cantata. Although ostensibly about the U.S. Civil War, the piece felt especially resonant in the tumult of 1968.
As arranger for Stan Kenton’s famed big band, a Duke Ellington collaborator and founder of the London Jazz Orchestra, among other things, Russo was already a major figure in music. His specially commissioned piece sought to blend the excitement of the rock scene with theater, classical arrangements and a modular score that allowed local musicians to perform with only one or two rehearsals.
Project Y’s opening celebration also featured a 100-foot long loaf of bread, baked to order, and an experimental film by Saul Bass, the Oscar winner known for his visually arresting title sequences for films including The Man With the Golden Arm and North by Northwest.
The opening performance garnered ecstatic reviews. San Antonio Light music critic Don Gardner described Civil War Rock Cantata as “the most exciting single musical event I’ve ever witnessed.”
were all crusty ... . And there is a picture of me in the paper, and we’re all baked, and I looked like a beatnik ... . It was so horrible. The singer forgot the words and sca ed through it. I kept my flute down... But everyone loved it. It was done with slides of Mathew Brady’s fabulous photographs of Civil War dead. It was a very beautiful visual and musical production. No one could tell I wasn’t doing anything.”
The band for Civil War Rock Cantata’s performance was San Antonio-born psychedelic group The Children, who later repurposed some of the compositions for their sole album on Atlantic Records, Rebirth, now considered a lost classic.
“They recorded those songs without asking [Russo],” said Krumm, who managed The Children for a while. “Probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but they were kids! And it didn’t hurt anybody and got his stuff in front of new people — in front of a whole new crowd.”
Another band Krumm managed, Rachel’s Children, also put on a stunning performance at Project Y, with Krumm and light-show partner Winans employing eight overhead projectors, four film projectors, a stereo slide projector and other gear to provide mind-melting visuals.
were all part of the
the band recorded an album, but the tapes ended up with Billy Brammer, best-selling author of The Gay Place, a fictionalized history of LBJ, and huge fan of the group.
“I’d met Bill Brammer while working at Hemisfair, where he was in some top-level position,” Krumm said. “He claimed he was the only person he knew of over 50 still shooting speed. Three weeks or so later he was dead, and the tapes disappeared with him.”
Clearly, Project Y’s ambition and progressive edge reflected a different time in San Antonio, when the city was a hub for the burgeoning ’60s youth culture. Folk venues such as The Ichthus gave voice to the anti-war movement, while teen clubs nurtured a vibrant garage rock scene. The neighborhoods were different too.
Krumm
“We sat up all night before the show, with a bo le of [widely abused upper] dexamyl,” Krumm said in a 2015 interview. “Smoking pot and drinking from the dexamyl bo le. It came time for the gig, and we were all pancake-brained. Everyone was burnt and our lips
“It became one of the most astonishing musical-techno-cultural alterations of collective reality where all the participants were, for a few minutes at least, totally united in a transformative experience,” Krumm recounted in a 2009 interview. “When it ended, my Youth Pavilion supervisor looked at me with a dazed expression and said, ‘That was the most amazing damn thing I’ve ever seen!’”
Sadly, no documentation of the show exists, and
“King William was the Hippieville of San Antonio,” Cisneros explained. “There’d be peace flags all in the windows of the big mansions. There’d be 20 people living in them. A lot of people whose families owned houses in King William. Amazing parties down there at that time.”
As a result of the thriving clubs and hippie scene, numerous bands stopped in San Antonio, often performing informally at Project Y.
“People would pass through town, and we could do
stuff just at Project Y, not through Hemisfair,” Cisneros added. “A lot of after-hours stuff went on.”
Among those acts was the 13th Floor Elevators, the Austin outfit considered the godfathers of Texas’ psychedelic scene. One of those Hemisfair-adjacent gigs proved to be the se ing for the group’s demise.
After ingesting untold amounts of acid, Elevators frontman Roky Erickson was teetering on the edge of sanity. Krumm bumped into Erickson and a friend outside Love Street Light Circus, where the singer asked to borrow Krumm’s 1966 Cadillac hearse. Not knowing the Elevators were scheduled to play Love Street that night, Krumm agreed.
“Only minutes later, [Elevators electric jug player] Tommy Hall showed up looking for Roky,” Krumm said. “They were scheduled to perform ... and the manager was already in a bad mood and now Roky was obliviously headed for Austin in my hearse.”
A row ensued, brought on by the abusive venue manager, according to Krumm. Shortly, the 13th Floor Elevators were no more.
“That was the end of their concert work together,” he said.
Hemisfair shut down in the fall of 1968 following its planned six-month run.
Texas historian and museum curator Lonn Taylor summed up the site’s sense of promise during a 2018 speech. He recalled being drawn to Hemisfair as a young grad-school dropout, hoping to land a writing job that promised a $10,000 annual salary.
“I joined ... and for the first time in my life worked with architects and exhibit designers, people who turned ideas into three-dimensional environments,” said Taylor who later went on to work for the Smithsonian Institution. “It was a transformative experience for me.”
However, in this same address, Taylor minced no words about Hemisfair’s aftermath. At one point, the site was slated to become the University of Texas at San Antonio campus, but the UT Board of Regents rejected the idea in favor of another location north of the city.
Taylor and others argue that the decision was guided by the fact that suburban site was adjacent to land owned by powerful interests including the La Ventura Corporation — owned by regent and San Antonio a orney John Peace, Gov. John Connally, San Antonio developer Charles Kuper and others.
“The most important planning decision in the history of San Antonio,” said Taylor, “A decision that led directly to the city’s suburban sprawl to the north and west rather than the development of a compact, mixed-use urban center around the river and the Hemisfair site, was made by a group of real estate developers motivated by private profit with absolutely no input from professional planners nor, indeed, anyone representing the interests of the city of San Antonio.”
Taylor aptly summed it up: “Thank you, Hemisfair, for showing me what my life’s work was intended to be, and shame on you, San Antonio, for allowing your future to be dictated by a group of land profiteers.”
Cisneros concurs.
“What happened after Hemisfair is the real tragedy. It went derelict,” he said. “It was frightening. The only ones loyal were the Mexican Cultural Institute and [Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico].”
Which brings us to the present day, where developers and the city are once again trying to breathe life into Hemisfair.
“The idea of it becoming a condominium-apartment-hotel environment is really a tragedy,” Cisneros said. “The people whose land was taken, they weren’t allowed to come back once it became domicile. That’s a really heavy political admission you have to go through.”
In spite of the pain surrounding Hemisfair’s origin and conclusion, Project Y remains a golden memory to Cisneros and others involved.
“I see guys now that are bankers, founded industri-
al companies, but we see each other [now], and we’re just, ‘Remember that time when we couldn’t walk home?” Cisneros said with a laugh.
In retrospect, Project Y’s light and sound extravaganza, its multiple stages, visionary staff and innovative programming was San Antonio’s own impressive version of the revolutionary “happenings” taking place in larger cities, even though it got considerably less a ention and has been long since forgo en.
“People talk about some collective experience at those shows ... but there’s no telling,” Krumm said. “There were many alternate realities floating around! But that was the right time for it — it was hot times.”
Last month, the San Antonio Philharmonic — the orchestra founded by musicians from the now-defunct San Antonio Symphony — named former city councilman Roberto Treviño as its first executive director.
Treviño served on the Philharmonic’s board during its inaugural season. What’s more, he chaired council’s Arts and Culture Commi ee and served on the city-county task force that worked to stabilize the Symphony during its 2018 financial crisis.
While Treviño, an architect by profession, comes into the role with an understanding of both the arts and the dynamics of working with city and county government, he acknowledges that the fledgling organization faces tough challenges.
The Philharmonic — currently performing at First Baptist Church rather than the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts — is operating on a limited budget as it works to build financial support. What’s more, it’s yet to land funding from the City of San Antonio.
Current city rules require arts organizations to be in existence for three years before they can obtain such grants.
Treviño said he’s looking to build support inside city government to alter that rule or make an exception for the Philharmonic.
We sat down with the executive director to talk about how he plans to address those issues while also building on the successes of the Philharmonic’s first season as a musician-run organization.
Is it daunting to lead an organization whose predecessor weathered years of financial struggle?
Yes, without a doubt. … You’d be a fool not to think those things. But maybe I’m just equally a fool to have the belief that we actually have what it takes, and that this is too important to not continue trying. Being an executive director for an organization like this is about the arts. And the Philharmonic should be the flagship arts organization of this community, [just as] the New York Philharmonic or the San Francisco Symphony are in their cities. These things are indicative of how cities cultivate the arts programs in their communities. When I was on the city council, this was a very important issue for me.
[A] good example of what I’m talking about is that a good friend of mine, Marisela Barrera —she’s a local artist … and does a lot of amazing things — approached me about the fact that other cities, and we’re talking about Texas cities like Dallas, provided meaningful support to individual artists through
individual artist grants. Why did the City of San Antonio not provide the same? Well, that’s a great question. … And out of that, and it wasn’t easy — I’ll tell you, there was really a lot of arm wrestling with the city — but we got it done.
Right now, you’ve got some money coming in from the county but nothing from the city. How sustainable is the current model if you can’t get another significant stream of financial support? Well, the short answer is we’re not going to stay in the current model, because that is not sustainable. We’re just not going to do it. … We have a vision for success, and we have a be er understanding for what’s going to get us there. … Right now, for the concerts, we have full houses. Now, you could say, “Well, if we sold out every seat in this space both Friday and Saturday night, that should be it, right?” Except that that’s not the case. That’s not how it works. This is our earned revenue. And that earned revenue — because we’re trying to keep ticket prices very affordable — that really only makes up one-third of our budget.
The second third is the contributions, the foundations, the folks that are willing to help support us, which includes county and city dollars. Of course, that’s what we want to continue having and building on. But what’s missing [in that segment] is corporate support. One of my biggest priorities is to go talk to our local corporations, and we’ve got many of them here in San Antonio. They could pitch in. That’s going
to make a huge, huge difference.
What about creating an endowment, something the musicians advocated for during the labor dispute?
The last third is what’s known as investment or endowment. We’ve never had it. … Part of it has been that from [the San Antonio Symphony’s inception], the orchestra members were almost the last to hear about everything. So the orchestra was not a stakeholder or a part of the major conversations when it came to planning. …
But another piece of this is that we are not going to be the kind of organization that waits for somebody else to save us. We’re going to create our own destiny. We are going to create revenue models that could fill that third. In other words, we are going to create opportunities that essentially are that investment for us. We believe we have some potential things coming. All I can say is stay tuned. I can’t really talk about those just yet.
You mentioned that there’s a financial cost of being at the Tobin Center. Is that ultimately where you’d like to see the Philharmonic playing?
It’s certainly not off the table. That’s an amazing hall. Again, for all intents and purposes, it was built for this orchestra, and we should play there. The bigger point is we’ve got to do things that are mutually beneficial. We can’t force a square peg into a round hole.
The City of San Antonio Outdoor Spaces Grant Program assists small business owners seeking to improve the outdoor amenities at their places of business. Applicants who meet program requirements may receive $2,000 to $10,000 in matched grant o sets for eligible project expenses.
To learn more about program details and eligibility please visit our website at: www.sananonio.gov/edd/outdoor
Program Applications Open: Jul 10 - Sept 1, 2023
Grant Awardees Announced: Oct 2023
Concerned moviegoers have been mourning the death of the R-rated studio comedy for far too long now. This lingering concern for the current state of raunchy Hollywood productions was no doubt borne from the phasing out of the Frat Pack: Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Owen and Luke Wilson, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and all the other guys who used to crack you up but now front Marvel projects or dramas for streaming services.
The thing is, the R-rated studio comedy never really went anywhere. Sure, your Judd Apatows, Todd Phillipses and Adam McKays aren’t nearly as prominent (or as prolific) as they once were, but the subgenre didn’t die. It simply changed hands. Producing team Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (in essence, protégés of the Frat Pack) and their latest co-production, Joy Ride, are proof enough that the R-rated Hollywood comedy is alive, even if not always well.
Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) have been best friends ever since they first met on the playground as kids. Audrey’s Caucasian adoptive parents walked up to Lolo’s Chinese parents and introduced the girls, and the rest was history. Growing up as the only two Asians in a primarily white suburb, Audrey and Lolo’s friendship was practically predestined.
Strong together all through their K-12 years, they now find themselves in their late 20s on wildly separate paths. Audrey’s a lawyer on partnership track, while Lolo is a starving artist living in Audrey’s garage making works not-so-subtly depicting genitalia. When an opportunity presents itself for Audrey to travel to China to seal a deal for her firm, she extends an invitation to Lolo. However, both are hiding a secret: Lolo’s cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey’s college roommate-turned-famous actress Kat (Stephanie Hsu) will also be tagging along.
The film arrives hot on the heels of No Hard Feelings, another dirty farce seemingly transported straight from the 2000s. But instead of following the sex comedy formula like the aforementioned Jennifer Lawrence comeback vehicle, Joy Ride sticks to a different tried-and-
true recipe: the trusty girls-trip-gone-wrong. Scribes Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, a frequent Seth MacFarlane collaborator, and Teresa Hsiao, co-creator of the oddly titled (and ongoing) Comedy Central show Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, throw every to-be-expected trope and story beat into the pot. There’s the spontaneous drug trip, the lost luggage meltdown, the run-in with the cops, the gross-out over local cuisine, and all those obligatory miscommunications that push long-gestating tensions to the surface.
If you’ve seen any previous road trip comedy, you’re likely to recognize quite a few of these setups throughout.
Joy Ride recycles more than just bits. Every one of its character arcs should feel familiar too. Audrey’s searching for the meaning of family. Lolo’s trying to balance her lofty dreams with the harsh reality of ge ing older. Deadeye’s a socially awkward introvert looking for true friendship. Kat’s struggling to have it all while remaining authentic to herself.
I could be describing the basic personalities of the characters from Girls Trip, Sex and the City, a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants film, or even Book Club: The Next Chapter. Looking past the unquestionably groundbreaking nature of a predominantly Asian cast and crew by Hollywood’s standards, Joy Ride is disappointingly risk-averse. For a movie rooted so strongly in identity, this is undoubtedly a serious problem.
Conventional plot and stock characters aside, does Joy Ride at least deliver laughs? Sure. For the most part. Even when a joke didn’t land for me personally, I understood why someone somewhere in the auditorium was laughing hysterically at the punchline. Chevapravatdumrong spent more than 15 years in the writer’s room on Family Guy. Hsiao devoted nearly a decade to an array of MacFarlane joints as well.
As these resumes suggest, Joy Ride’s sense of humor is the same brand of broadly accessible raunchiness that has kept MacFarlane’s animated sitcoms on the air for much of the 21st century. I might not have been laughing for 90 minutes straight, but I could recognize the cadence of a joke more often than not — an exceedingly rare thing in a time when topical references are passed off as finely crafted gags.
Though it might not sound like the kind of project Crazy Rich Asians co-writer Adele Lim would choose for her directorial debut, Joy Ride nevertheless fits squarely in line with her film career thus far. After lending her talents to the box office-breaking book adaptation, as well as Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon, Lim’s decidedly less family-friendly endeavor is still concerned with many of the same themes at the center of her previous credits. The nuances of Asian identity, embracing cultural heritage, navigating the complex web of class and race … all permeate Lim’s work, but are especially prevalent in Joy Ride Beyond its outrageous jokes or its female-focused talent in front and behind the camera, this unabashed embrace of Asian customs and culture is what’s most surprising — and welcome — to see from a mid-budget American production.
So, is the R-rated studio comedy dead? If yes, what comes next? If not, who are we supposed to believe is picking up the torch? Instead of hand-wringing over such questions, I’m choosing to look at Joy Ride as one of many potential paths forward.
As streaming services continue to falter and tentpoles struggle to stand against the weight of toxic fandoms and the impossible standards of nostalgia, could we see a return to the halcyon days of unabashedly silly, emphatically middling theatrical outputs such as Joy Ride? It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Ceviche, cebiche, seviche, sebiche. By whatever spelling one uses, the Peruvian iteration of the popular citrus-marinated seafood preparation is customarily more briefly doused in lime than might be common in, say, Mexico, which really emphasizes the freshness of the primary product.
Peru’s most common variation on this theme, bathed in a complex brew called leche de tigre, is often referred to as “Peruvian Viagra” for its obvious alleged effects. Go, tiger.
San Antonio restaurant Leche de Tigre Cebicheria Peruana makes no claims other than culinary, and we make none regarding its leche recipes — except to note that raw trimmings of the fish being used, along with lime, onion, cilantro and perhaps a hint of Peruvian aji, or chile, are usually blended into the marinade, thus giving the mix a milky look.
Of the five cebiches — as the restaurant spells it — listed on the menu, the Clasico is the most traditional. With striped bass as its foundation, the serving, cradled in a gourd, also includes the customary boiled sweet potato, along with tender choclo, Peru’s plump-kerneled corn, and canchitas, a popular unpopped “popcorn.”
Move down the list to the Nikkei version with yellowfin tuna, and the kitchen’s inventive bent begins to emerge. First, it’s apparent in the plate’s visual presentation, where it’s crowned with a tangle of finely shredded fried sweet potato. More than a pre y accessory, the sweet potato provides both a link back to the classic recipe and a textural contrast to the fish and its friends: red onion, slivered scallion, avocado and a leche made especially tart with tamarind. There’s also more than a touch — perhaps a tad too much — of soy sauce that may be the origin of the name. Nikkei, of course, refers to the widespread Japanese influence in Peruvian cooking.
The Tiraditos version invites the diner to think Japanese again — this time with sashimi. The Limeño with striped bass takes its stylistic cues from Peru’s capital city and includes a leche made with the country’s famed rocoto chile.
The Tataki is a direct Japanese reference to a style of cooking, in this case with tuna, that
requires a quick searing followed by a drizzle of an acidic sauce — here a leche with orange juice and feisty aji amarillo chiles. Sidekicks such as roasted peanuts, scallions and sesame oil, along with slivered and pickled daikon and carrots, complete the package, which is made even more appealing by a sca ering of black sesame seeds. I could eat this on regular repeat, perhaps also with a Club Esmeralda close at hand.
The Club Esmeralda comes from Leche’s inventive cocktail list, which is uniquely keyed to the food menu. Like many of the list’s options, the drink features Peru’s national libation, pisco, at its heart and features cilantro in a perfectly balanced starring role. Herbal and bi er Suze and lemon only amplify the cebiche connection.
Slightly less successful is the Mucha Pasion sour, a visually stunning drink pairing pisco with passion fruit and a Peruvian version of be er-known Angostura bi ers called chuncho. A li le more sweetness wouldn’t hurt here.
Continuing the pairing of drinks to dishes, I’d pick the Alma de la Tierra to go with Leche’s anticuchos. The cocktail uses Abasolo corn whiskey from Mexico but pulls it back into the Peruvian canon with a syrup spiked with rocoto chile. As for the anticuchos themselves, they’re a street food tradition in
318 E. Cevallos St., (210) 265-5933, lechedetigretx.com
Peru and usually made with marinated beef heart. Leche pulls some punches in substituting just-fa y-enough beef short ribs, but the restaurant punches them back up with both aji Amarillo and rocoto.
The meaty short ribs come with some tiny, fried Andean potatoes that are crunchy and irresistible. Papas also feature with equally habit-forming seared choclo on the plate that offers a single, grilled octopus tentacle bedded in a silky purée of black olives. It will easily be the tenderest and tastiest tentacle most diners ever experience. An icy glass of chicha morada, an unfermented drink made from purple corn cooked with apple, pineapple and warm spices, made for an unexpectedly good companion.
As you take time to peruse the short dessert menu, take a look at your surroundings. The modest co age that now houses Leche de Tigre has been creatively reimagined as a fine dining space, right down to the handsome light fixtures and the tropical tiger mural. In less punishing heat, the back patio will also be a delight and a good place in which to partake of the Tres Leches de Mango. The garnish of raspberries and blueberries that caps the cake, moistened with milks of a more conventional kind, may obliterate the layer of puréed mango beneath, but never mind. It’s all good.
Hours: 4-10 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 4-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday and noon-4 p.m. Sunday
Prices: $21-$35
Best Bets: Nikkei cebiche, anticuchos, pulpo anticuchero, tataki tiradito, tres leches de mango, Club Esmeralda cocktail
Lowdown: Leche de Tigre was established by three brothers and a cousin to celebrate a common Peruvian heritage, and it does so with flair and finesse. The cebiches look great and taste even be er. The Japanese influence that is Nikkei cuisine results in dishes such as a tiradito of yellowfin tuna in an orange inflected leche de tigre marinade. Skewers of saucy short ribs celebrate street-food favorites, and cocktails are uniquely tethered to the cuisine. Everything is presented in an especially handsome se ing, indoors and out.
BY NINA RANGEL
Hosting gatherings with friends and family is among the many exciting things about summertime in San Antonio.
However, the prep, followthrough and cleanup are often intimidating enough to make us think twice about opening our home for a summer soiree. To remove some of the stress, we corralled Alamo City culinary and entertaining experts to offer tips on how to stage a memorable gathering with a minimum of fuss.
Creating a memorable tablescape is a great way to start planning for a summer get-together, our entertaining pros suggested. Complement interesting dishes with fabric table linens and nice dinnerware. Not only are these be er for the environment than single-use materials, they show your guests how eager you are to celebrate your time together.
“Use the good china. Use the antique silverware. Use the nice stemware. Use the cloth napkins and fine tablecloths,” Food Chick Tours owner and cookbook author Julia Rosenfeld said. “Life is short, and you’ll be reducing waste.”
India Rhodes, creative director of event-planning firm Wilkinson Rhodes, noted that incorporating fresh flowers, elegant candleholders and personalized place cards add a touch of sophistication. She also suggests se ing the mood by decorating the outdoor space with string lights and lanterns to get everyone feeling festive before they even step through the door.
For a truly memorable gathering, focus on dishes that are special to you in a fun or unique way. Sari-Sari Supper Club owner Camille De Los Santos suggested se ing out a Kamayan feast on banana leaves with “literally any kind of food.”
“At an employee party one year, we laid out banana leaves on a table, and made the largest loaded chips and queso set up ever,” she said. “Save those plates. There’s no need for all the excess dishes.”
Chef Robert Cantu, head of the recently launched Nomad Chef, which offers customized omakase-style tastings in diners’ homes, recommended offering guests a signature batched cocktail upon arrival and pairing it with a variety of homemade frozen treats.
“With the intense San Antonio heat, always think of ways to cool off your guests,” Cantu said. “I suggest serving homemade paletas … with different fruit pulps. You can add whatever fresh fruit to these for an exciting combination, [and then] dip them in your batched cocktail so your guests can inspire their own unique take.”
One refreshing summer tipple Cantu suggested is an Improved Rum Cocktail, which uses aged rum, a dash of absinthe and two kinds of bi ers for an icy, boozy blast of cooling freshness.
Details such as printed menus and a curated playlist go the extra mile for your guests provide surefire ways to amp up a summer soiree.
“From personalized name tags, specialized ice cubes or even creating a signature cocktail for the event, the details will be what your guests talk about,” said Samantha Garcia of Picnic Envy, which specializes in customized picnics in variety of themes, color schemes and occasions. “The details bring your entire party together.”
Event planner Rhodes agrees. Offering small indulgences throughout the event can make your guests feel pampered, she noted. That could include something as simple as serving champagne upon arrival or as complex as recapturing childhood summer
nostalgia with a self-serve ice cream sundae bar.
Avid home entertainer Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi, author of Joseph’s Storehouse Baking Company: From my Heart to Yours, said showing gratitude to your guests doesn’t have to be limited to the end of the meal.
“Most of my friends and family know how much effort it takes to host a meal, large or small. And when we’re not the hostess, we want to help the one who is,” McCurdy-Buonacorsi said. “I always offer my helpers a glass of wine, and our own li le party starts while we pile side dishes onto pla ers and look for just the right serving utensil to go with them. … It’s so much more fun to prepare a meal with friends and family.”
Of course, there’s always an opportunity to thank your guests after the meal as well. Cookbook author Julia Rosenfeld recommends asking that guests bring containers for leftovers, extending the memories back to their homes while reducing leftovers in your fridge.
Further, she suggests sharing a recipe for a dish served at the party — or several — as part of a “thanks for coming” followup email.
“It’s a great reminder of the event for years to come,” Rosenfeld said.
The San Antonio-based Burger Boy chain is continuing its citywide expansion with a new store on the far West Side. It will be the company’s eighth location. 14541 Potranco Road, burgerboysa. com.
Il Forno has again landed accolades from Italian rating guide 50 Top Pizza, which ranked it among the 50 best U.S. pizzerias. This is the second year in a row Il Forno’s made the cut. 122 Nogalitos St., (210) 616-2198, ilfornosa.com.
Rooted Vegan Cuisine has added plant-based pizza to its lineup of frozen food items, which also includes animal product-free lasagna, mozzarella sticks and broccoli-and-cheese soup. The pizza is available on certain days at its airport-area shop. 8503 Broadway, #111, (855) 766-8338, rootedvegancuisine.com.
Popular nightspot The Squeezebox will close permanently at the end of July, citing losses from the city’s long-delayed construction along the St. Mary’s Strip as the cause. 2806 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 314-8845.
Jingu House at the Japanese Tea Garden will open a new kitchen and dining area later this summer. 3853 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 559-3148, jinguhousesatx.com.
The owner of El Camino and Bésame food truck parks will take over the space of shu ered LGBTQ+ mainstay Luther’s Cafe. The spot will reopen later this year as an LGBTQ+-friendly sports bar called Ay Que Chula
The Tarka Indian Kitchen chain is planning a second San Antonio location, this one near SeaWorld. Construction on the 2,500-square-foot eatery is expected to finish in October. 9710 State Highway 151, Suite 107, tarkaindiankitchen.com.
Phoenix-based Postino has opened its first all-day wine café at The Rim shopping complex, serving up more than 30 boutique wines along with craft beers and shareable “snacky things.” 17627 La Cantera Parkway, Suite 103, (210) 8994200, postinowinecafe.com.
BY MIKE MCMAHON
Between the Buried and Me makes for a challenging listen — and fans will tell you that’s exactly what draws them to the band’s lengthy compositions and heavy, intense sound.
The cult favorite group, which plays Vibes Event Center on Thursday, July 20, assembles a mix of metal from prog to extreme, then plucks liberally from disparate sounds ranging from folk to surf rock. Its epic pieces fit together like jigsaw puzzles.
The members of North Carolina-based BTBAM, as the fans call the band, know full well that its albums take a number of listens to absorb.
Maybe that’s part of the reason that periodic tours during which the act performs past LPs in full are such a treat: the audience has had time to truly absorb them — much
more so than when the release was new. For the current tour, the band is performing The Parallax II: Future Sequence, a groundbreaking 70-minute album released in 2012.
For the uninitiated, an obvious point of comparison for BTBAM would be to call it an American Opeth. The heavy riffs, the multipart compositions, the recurring motifs and ferocious vocals are marked similarities. But beneath the surface, BTBAM are the opposite. Opeth’s compositions drift by based on intricate segues designed to lull or seduce, while BTBAM revels in ripping the carpet out from under listeners.
Though BTBAM debuted in 2000, its breakthrough didn’t occur until 2007, with the release of the concept album Colors. That record saw the introduction of an architecture that’s remained intact since. The band’s LPs
MBetween the Buried and Me will play San Antonio’s Vibes Event Center on Thursday, July 20.
play like full pieces with recurring melodies and themes, pieced together into labyrinthine song structures.
At the center of the carefully controlled chaos is vocalist Tommy Rogers, a man with distinctive clean and harsh vocal sounds — a tough one-two punch to execute. His turns on keyboards add a unique element, and many of the band’s albums open with him singing a gorgeous melody over solo piano. After that, it gets heavy and overwhelming. Obviously.
The Current talked to Rogers about the challenges of touring post-COVID and as a cult band. We also caught up on the difficulties of pulling off complete albums live and talked about the music that got him to this point. He called in from Charleston, South Carolina, where the band was preparing to open its tour.
Do you get nervous before a tour starts, or
Juan Pardohave you been doing this so long that it’s more routine?
I still deal with a lot of stage anxiety in general. Even well into a tour. It just depends. I’ve never go en over that. [I think] I just want personal perfection. I’m not hard on myself after the fact, but there’s always a li le pre-show nervousness.
This tour is focused on older music, specifically a full performance of The ParallaxII:FutureSequence. What’s the hardest part about pulling off a full album? It’s 11 years old, so people are more familiar with the material. Yep. It’s something we’re used to. It’s just like any of our material: it’s a lot to rehearse, a lot to get together. Most of us, we kind of rehearse on our own. I normally give myself a month before the tour to start working on everything. Then we get up as a band. We had two days before this, so we ran the set twice, and everything’s cool. It’s a lot of work re-familiarizing yourself with the material. This album, it’s got a really good flow, but it’s physically taxing on my vocals.
There were only two full band rehearsals? That’s surprising for a band whose material is so complex. It’s because we work on it so much on our own. We probably could have played that show the first rehearsal. That’s how ready we are. It just makes it easier to show up ready to go, so you don’t have to work out kinks. You have to work out the production stuff and just get back to playing as a group, but it’s a lot of preparation.
The band always struck me as being organized. I suspect your tours are efficient. And you typically have diverse, challenging bills that pull from different metal and prog genres. How far in advance are albums and tour cycles planned out?
Right now, we’re planning this year plus next year a li le bit. But it always changes and it’s changed a lot since COVID. For instance, this Parallax tour, we’ve pushed it back. We’ve been working on this tour for a year and a half now. We were originally going to do this last year, but we got offered the Trivium tour [which played SA’s Aztec Theatre last November] and pushed this back. Good support tours are something that don’t fall in our lap a whole lot, so we were like, “We’ve go a do this.”
Sometimes it can be a struggle to describe the band. How do you handle that? Say it’s a family event, or an
event where people don’t know you or your music. How do you explain your music to people? What if they ask you, “What songs do you have on the radio?”
(Laughs.) Luckily, I’m never really in that position where I have to do that.
I think that’s more of a fan inconvenience. But as far as support tours, it is tough. I don’t consider us to be a band that fits in somewhere in particular. We can kinda work with a lot of bands, but sometimes bands’ crowds just don’t get us, through no fault of their own. You kind of have to look at music as a fan, and [think] of how you looked at live music. One thing for us is it’s a lot. If you’ve never heard BTBAM and you just get an onslaught of 45-plus minutes of material, I’m sure your reaction is, “What the fuck just happened?”
If you could support any band in arenas or stadiums, who would be your dream choice?
That’s tough, man. I don’t know. I’ll listen to bands and think “that would be cool,” but it makes no sense and their fans would hate us.
Is that bad? Challenging audiences is a hallmark of the best bands. I don’t know. For instance, that Mastodon and Gojira tour. Every metal band on the planet would love something like that. There’s a few top-tier bands that would totally make sense for us. Opeth is a band [that could work]. We’ve toured with Opeth and Mastodon before, but it’s just been so long it would be cool to dive down those roads again. It’s just tough to think of a band. Obviously, I’d love to tour with Nine Inch Nails, but a Nine Inch Nails fan wouldn’t like us.
Some of those concerns might have been in effect when you went out years ago with Coheed & Cambria. But the crowd seemed to enjoy BTBAM. We were worried about that one. I remember in particular that there were these D.C. shows that sold out instantly. And we’re like, “OK, these are die hard Coheed fans.” And it was very obvious the second we got on stage. Both nights the crowd was like, “Who the fuck is this?” But overall, the fans were awesome.
Wondering what Rogers thinks about bands using backing tracks live? Check out bit.ly/3pF4vpx for a longer version of this interview.
$27-$30, 7 p.m., Thursday, July 20, Vibes Event Center, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 255-3833, vibeseventcenter.com.
Roll over Freddy and tell Michael Myers the news: there’s a new slasher icon in town named Art the Clown.
Art became a horror villain A-lister last Halloween with the smash-hit killfest Terrifier 2, which also propelled the micro-budgeted original Terrifier — relegated to a streaming-only release — back into the public consciousness. The first film, originally released in 2018, will make its theatrical debut in a nationwide re-release starting July 19.
While there’s no shortage of nightmare-inducing horror baddies, the best are made all the more frightening with a soundtrack that highlights the ghastliness of their deeds. And the creepy, discordant themes that run through both Terrifier films make the misdeeds of Art that much harder to shake.
The Current cha ed on Zoom with film composer Paul Wiley, 50, who checked in from his home in LA. In between tours as a guitarist for Marilyn Manson, Wiley has scored other indie films, though the Terrifier series has been his most recognizable work.
The popularity of Terrifier could be seen as a reaction to the “elevated horror” of studios like A24. It isn’t an intellectual exercise or art film, but wall-towall blood and guts.
But there’s no question that Wiley’s music is a key component of the film. Need evidence? Watch the director’s commentary for either movie on the Blu-ray releases and you’ll see both are significantly less scary and intense without sound.
What makes the music so scary?
“There’s a lot of dissonance in it,” Wiley said. “Especially with some of the strings. I tried to put some things that were felt more than heard.”
Wiley also noted that because Art doesn’t speak, the music become his voice.
“I want the sounds and the soundscapes to evoke him,” he added.
But the music doesn’t just play well onscreen. It can set a certain mood divorced from the visuals, and which may explain why the vinyl editions of the two soundtracks have become hot commodities. Just don’t say it’s because of synthwave — the dark ’80s-evocative sound that’s emerged as a hot commodity thanks to its use in the Netflix smash Stranger Things.
“I tried to avoid the ‘80s synth sounds,” said Wiley, explaining what makes his score different from synthwave. “People link the original [Terrifier] score with [synthwave], but I don’t hear that much of it in what I did. That’s more [vintage equipment like] Rolands and JUNOs with a lot of melody. With my work, if it was ever a melodic or motif piece, it was usually the theme with stuff on top of it.”
Several years before composing the music for the Terrifier series, Wiley decided to devote himself to scoring films full-time with a move to LA. It proved to be a challenging environment full of failed musicians with the same aim.
Even so the move felt natural. Wiley said he was way more into horror films than rock bands as a youngster.
As such things go, it wasn’t long until an offer he couldn’t refuse materialized from shock rock legend Marilyn Manson, who needed a guitar player immediately.
“I got the call, a couple of rehearsals, then straight to Russia,” Wiley said.
Wiley stayed with the soundtrack work even while touring with Manson, focusing primarily on shorts. He carried a portable rig so he could compose on his
downtime.
Eventually, Wiley got the Terrifier call from director Damien Leone, and he began working on the first film’s soundtrack while on a South American tour with Manson.
“I said I’d do it. But when everyone else was having fun, I’d spend a couple days in a hotel room trying to hammer out a theme.”
During a two-week break from the road, he managed to put the finishing touches on the score.
Leone was happy with Wiley’s work — as were audiences — and he got the call back for the sequel.
Wiley may have picked up a thing or two about shocking audiences from Manson. And, in the end, it’s audiences that make films like Terrifier and its sequel work.
“I saw [Terrifier 2] with like 20 of my friends when it played,” he said. “You can participate with other people. It’s kind of like the Rocky Horror Picture Show of horror. People si ing in front of me were high-fiving on the kills. People go collectively. It was a lot of groups cheering and laughing.”
He added: “I don’t think people have had that in a while. The older generation that grew up with slasher films have missed that. I remember going to see Friday the 13th in 3D three times in the theater.”
Terrifier will be playing at multiple cinemas in the San Antonio area.
Thursday, July 13
Amy Lavere, Will Sexton
They may both be based in roots music, but the connection between Amy Lavere and Charlie Sexton goes deeper: they’re also married. Lavere is an acclaimed singer-songwriter, whose thoughtful lyrics have drawn praise from NPR and No Depression. Meanwhile, SA-born Sexton is a journeyman member of Arc Angels and once played in Bob Dylan’s band. His career kicked into high gear with the 1985 hit “Beat’s So Lonely,” released when he was just 17. $12-$50, 8 p.m., Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com. — Mike McMahan
Friday, July 14
División Minúscula
Formed in 1996 in Matamoros, Mexico, División Minúscula remains a favorite among alt-rockeros. The group’s 2001 debut Extrañado Casa was nominated for a couple of MTV Latin America Video Awards, and after a five-year hiatus, it released a trio of studio albums and toured with frontman Javier Blake and the rest of its original lineup intact. Fans await the release of a promised forthcoming album, which will be División Minúscula’s first since 2016. $45-$85, 7:30 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — Danny Cervantes
Saturday, July 15
Camp Rejectz Festival
This one-day music fest features 15 local rock acts, encompassing a laundry list of subgenres including Midwest-style emo, stoner metal, regular metal, math rock, pop-punk and more. Sleep Schedule, The Lease Agreement, Regalo de Dios, Closed Casket, Desolation and Steatorrhea are among the performers scheduled for what looks like a summer day-camp for musical misfits — hence the name. $20, 1 p.m., Brick at Blue Star, 108 Blue Star, brickatbluestar.com. —
Dalia GulcaShapes, Friend Operation, Voracious, Josh Glenn Experiment
While the four artists making up this Texas bill explore di erent genres, the wistful introspection in their lyrics and the emotional nature of their music are common bonds. From solo act the Josh Glenn Experiment’s folk leanings to the emo-adjacent work of Friend Operation to the shoegazey math rock of Shapes to the rock-soul of Voracious, this lineup is unafraid to use music to evoke feelings. $10, 8 p.m., The Starlighter, 1910 Fredericksburg Road, thestarlighter.com. — DG
Monday, July 17
Butcher Babies, Kissing Candace, Skum, Wrathtongue Carla Harvey, one of Butcher Babies’ two frontwomen, is a fixture of metal blogs. This is partly due to her status as half of a metal power couple with Anthrax’s Charlie Benante and partly due to the perception that her band is less than genuine. The latter seems hard to fathom, since Butcher Babies is, in fact, pretty heavy. Anyone expecting commercial hard rock is likely to be surprised by its harsh vocals and aggressive double-bass drumming. Sure, there’s clean singing on the choruses, but this ain’t Evanescence. $18-$20, 6:30 p.m., The Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St. (210) 772-1443., therockboxsa.com. — MM
Thursday, July 20
CupcakKe
Dirty rap starlet CupcakKe leaves little to the imagination with titles including “Deepthroat” and “Vagina” in her song library. Born Elizabeth Eden Harris in Chicago, she’s risen to prominence with a bawdy and bold brand of rap that channels Lil’ Kim and Da Brat. She’s also faced myriad traumas in her life and took a depression-induced hiatus in 2019. CupcakKe returned to music later in the year with a salvo of singles supported by a robust social media presence. $25-$100, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — DC
Friday, July 21
Souls of Mischief, DJ Notion
Thirty years is a helluva long time, especially in the world of entertainment. When hip-hop outfit Souls of Mischief released ’93 ’Til Infinity, Snoop Dogg had just dropped his own debut. Now? Best buds with Martha Stewart. For this tour, the Souls are looking back to those heady days when they scored their highest chart position, courtesy of that year’s LP, which was named one of the top 100 hip-hop albums of all time by The Source. The group members were also associated with the hip-hop collective Hieroglyphics. $20-$30, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — MM
Saturday, July 22
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
It’s hard to believe that one-time guitar wunderkind Kenny
Wayne Shepherd is now well into middle age. He burst onto the scene in the mid ’90s, then barely legal and inspired by the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn and other blues-rock icons. In addition to his solo work, Shepherd released a pair of albums with The Rides, his side project with Stephen Stills and Barry Goldberg. He re-recorded his sophomore album Trouble Is… 25 last year on its 25th anniversary. $35-$229.50, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — DC
Hail The Sun, Being As An Ocean, Kaonashi, Origami Button Hailing from Chico, California, Hail The Sun engages fans with a base of post hardcore elements and traces of progressive and math rock. January’s “Mind Rider,” the band’s latest single, holds moments of frenetic musicality — a signature of its sound. Among a trio of openers, melodic hardcore outfit Being As An Ocean is a standout worthy of a listen. $25-$27, 7 p.m., The Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 772-1443, therockboxsa. com. — DC
Sunday, July 23
Darkbird
Darkbird’s pulsing synths and singer Kelly Barnes’ breathy vocals promise a dance-driven good time, and the crisp sound of its electronic percussion adds another hint of familiarity. Last year’s uber-catchy single “Heartbeat” encompasses the band’s many strengths. $16, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — MM
Business Analyst (San Antonio, TX) Analyze business processes & functions as well as onboarding metrics, growth & patient satisfaction of dental industry competitors to create processes & procedures for dental practices; Reqs MBA or foreign eqv + exp. CV Attn: S. Malhotra, Soniva Dental, 7400 Blanco Rd, Ste 205, San Antonio, TX 78216.
Operations Research Analyst. Dvlp. & dsgn. bus. mthds., procedrs., plans & models. Collect & anlyz. data & spt. pricing activities. Conduct in-depth rsrch. & generate reprts. Req. Master’s in analytics, business, or rltd. fields & 6 mos. exp. in operations rsrch. analyst, pricing analyst, mktg. analyst, or othr. rltd. occups. Salary: $81,000/yr. Send resume to: Vocar Transportation Services LLC, 5855 Bicentennial St., San Antonio, TX 78219.
Business Analyst. Condct. ind. rsrch. & collect data & info; apply analytical approaches to quantify risks & anlyz. impacts; compile reprts. & metrics for mgmt.; & o er solutions to corp. probls. Master’s deg. in business or rltd. is req’d. Send resume to Pocketzworld Inc. at 21750 Hardy Oak Blvd. Ste 104, San Antonio, TX 78258.
Professional Services Sr. Delivery Architect – Rackspace US, Inc. - San Antonio, TX. Serves as subject matter expert for one or more products or technologies to orchestrate & lead pre- & post-sales & delivery e orts inclusive of holistic IT optimization, consolidation & transformation solutions for customers inclusive of discovery, analysis, solution design & migration. Req’d: Bach deg in IT or rel tech fld + min 7yrs design & implementation exp w/distributed applications + min 5yrs exp in networking, infrastructure, or database architectures. Substantial domestic travel required, up to 50%. Telecommuting an option for this position.
Send resume to: careers@rackspace.com, Ref. 13048
USAA Federal Savings Bank has multiple openings in San Antonio, TX for a Data Engineer Senior. Identify and manage existing and emerging risks that stem from business activities and the job role. Apply: https://tinyurl.com/5n6fxjas
FirstDay Foundation in San Antonio, TX needs a Workday System Administrator to collaborate with the Human Resources function and other stakeholders in order to maintain and mature the organization’s use of its HRIS, Workday. The Administrator will be responsible for day-to-day run support of the HRIS supporting daily operations. As part of a team composed of Human Resources, Information Technology, and other stakeholders this role will help lead, guide, and design system and business process enhancements. The HRIS System Administrator role will manage build e orts and deliver solutions through e ective use of project management and change management methodologies and a commitment to productive vendor-partner relationships.
Apply via email at dk4063@FirstDay.Foundation
