SA leaders say the public's not on the hook for a new baseball park. Let's do the math.
Publisher Michael Wagner
Editor in Chief Sanford Nowlin
General Manager Chelsea Bourque
Editorial
Digital Content Editor Stephanie Koithan
Contributing Arts Editor Bryan Rindfuss
Staff Writer Michael Karlis
Contributors Abe Asher, Bill Baird, Ron Bechtol, Danny Cervantes, Macks Cook, Amber Esparza, Brianna Espinoza, Dalia Gulca, Anjali Gupta, Colin Houston, Kiko Martinez, Mike McMahan, Kevin Sanchez, M. Solis, Caroline Wolff, Dean Zach
Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon chavagroup.com
National Advertising: Voice Media Group
1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com
San Antonio Current sacurrent.com
Editorial: editor@sacurrent.com
Display Advertising: marketing@sacurrent.com
The San Antonio Current is published by Chava Communications Group
San Antonio Distribution The Current is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader.
Get listed
1. Visit sacurrent.com
2. Click “Calendar” and then “Submit an Event”
3. Follow the steps to submit your event details
Please allow 48 hours for review and approval. Event submissions are not accepted by phone.
Copyright notice: The entire contents of the San Antonio Current are copyright 2023 by Chava Group LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be emailed to the addresses listed above.
Subscriptions: Additional copies or back issues may be purchased at the Current offices for $1. Six-month domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $75; one-year subscriptions for $125.
in this issue
Issue 24-18 /// September 4 - 17, 2024
10 Feature Foul Ball?
Economists skeptical about San Antonio’s new baseball stadium financing
09 News The Opener News in Brief
Cityscrapes
San Antonio’s insider ballpark deal deserves public scrutiny and a public vote
Bad Takes
Price controls aren’t communism, no matter how much the GOP insists otherwise
15 Calendar
Our picks of things to do
19 Arts
Honky Tonk Man
The new memoir by Sam Kindrick, San Antonio’s chronicler of ‘outlaw country,’ is one wild ride
25 Screens
Lady Killer
British actor Himesh Patel on starring in Coen-esque dark comedy GreedyPeople
27 Food Bar Takeover
The group behind Francis Bogside and other SA nightspots has new leaders, big plans
Double Dog Dare
South Presa Street neighbors El Chunky and Barrio Dogg both excel at Mexican-style hotdogs
31 Music Critics’ Picks
On the Cover: Proponents of the San Antonio Missions’ downtown ballpark development say it won’t raise taxes. However, the funding mechanism has its problems, experts warn. Design: David Loyola.
Michael Karlis
That Rocks/That Sucks
HThe League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) has asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate a series of raids ordered by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in San Antonio and South Texas last month as part of a probe into “election integrity.” LULAC wants to know whether the raids, which it’s called an attempt to suppress Latino participation in the coming election, violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965
The city of San Antonio has reached an agreement on a new, three-year contract with its firefighters union. Under the terms of the agreement, which still must be approved by City Council and the union’s membership, firefighters and paramedics will get a 20% pay increase and expanded parental leave policy. It’s the first time the city and the union have agreed on a new contract without arbitration since 2009.
Texas’ new ban on people changing the gender listed on their driver’s license could make it more difficult for people to vote this November. National voting rights organization VoteRiders warned the rule may cause confusion at voting sites if people present an ID with what appears to be an inaccurate gender marker. The group also cautioned that the change could cause some people whose gender presentation doesn’t correspond to that on their ID to stay home and not vote at all.
HTexas A&M-San Antonio’s fall enrollment is the highest in its history, with more than 8,000 students starting the new academic year and 1,250
Twisting the truth on election integrity with Gov. Greg Abbott
During his time in office, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made two things apparent: his fondness for performative politics and his unabashed eagerness to grovel before former President Donald Trump.
YOU SAID IT!
“To halt a process for which Texas has not been able to provide an iota of evidence that it would harm the state is baffling. This is heartbreaking for our clients and the thousands of couples who hope to benefit from this process and be able to live without fear that their family will be separated.”
The Republican governor highlighted both tendencies last week in an announcement that Texas had booted a million people off its voter rolls in an effort to stamp out “illegal” election tampering. In a press release full of tough talk and light on details, Abbott bragged that the purge was a direct result of an election law overhaul he signed in 2021.
“Illegal voting in Texas will never be tolerated,” Abbott said. “We will continue to actively safeguard Texans’ sacred right to vote while also aggressively protecting our elections from illegal voting.”
Abbott’s framing of the cleanup of Texas’ voter rolls couldn’t be more dishonest.
In response to the governor’s claim, election experts told the Texas Tribune that both federal and state law already require routine maintenance of voter rolls. What’s more, the majority of people removed by the state had simply died, failed to respond to notices from election officials or moved out of state, the news organization reports.
To be clear, what Abbott bragged about in his announcement is routine maintenance, not a sweeping purge of lawbreakers.
officials had been identified as “noncitizens.” In actuality, data reviews showed many of those people were naturalized citizens.
Secretary of State David Whitley, who led the botched effort, ended up resigning amid a flurry of lawsuits and embarrassing testimony in front of the Texas Legislature. (Don’t worry, though, Abbott immediately found a $205,000-a-year job for Whitley in the governor’s office, and Whitley’s since gone on to run his own political consulting group.)
“It’s difficult to tell what these numbers actually mean, and the state hasn’t pointed to anyone who actually voted as a noncitizen, and they’ve provided data without context,” ACLU of Texas attorney Ashley Harris told the Tribune of Abbott’s new claim that noncitizens were kicked off the rolls.
Here’s the bottom line: by twisting the facts about a routine cleanup of the voter rolls, Abbott is once again sowing distrust in the election system by falsely suggesting voter fraud
as DPS has been mired in recent controversies including its botched response to the Uvalde school shooting two years ago and its role in Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. McCraw said he has full confidence in Abbott to pick his replacement.
There’s another new entrant into the race for mayor: former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos formally announced last week, becoming the fifth high-profile candidate running to replace outgoing Mayor Ron Nirenberg. Pablos, who served under Gov. Greg Abbott, has been a fixture in state politics for years dating back to his appointment to the Texas Public Utility Commission by Gov. Rick Perry.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw is retiring at the end of the year, bringing to a close a 15-year run as the state’s top law enforcement official. McCraw’s departure comes
A San Antonio couple whose pit bulls killed an 81-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran last year accepted a plea deal to avoid a trial, but the pair still face jail time. Christian Alexander Moreno and Abilene Schnieder pleaded guilty last Tuesday to the charge of dangerous dog attack causing death, a second-degree felony that carries a sentence of two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. They will be sentenced in September.
Shutterstock / Leena Robinson
Foul Ball?
BY MICHAEL KARLIS
As public debate over a new ballpark for San Antonio’s minor-league baseball team heads into the home stretch, proponents’ frequent refrain is that it won’t cost taxpayers a thing.
However, leading experts on publicly financed stadium construction tell the Current that the claim is misleading at best. Further, it doesn’t paint an accurate picture of the risks posed by the funding mechanism proposed to back the project.
The San Antonio Missions’ ownership and backers of the project at City Hall maintain that a tax increment reinvestment zones, or TIRZ, which includes the area around the stadium will generate a steady new stream of tax revenue to pay for a considerable share of the $160 million project, planned for the site of Fox Tech’s old baseball field.
However, Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Massachusetts’ Smith College, said that funding route is likely to hurt the city’s bottom line.
“All that’s happening is the existing tax revenue is moving into the special district, and now the city is going to use that revenue to finance the ballpark,” said Zimbalist, who’s made a career of studying such publicly funded projects. “It means the city loses revenue from places outside the district, and it’s going to hurt the city budget. It means less money for schools, roads and police and so on.”
Meanwhile, Jake Wegmann, an associate professor of community and regional planning at the University of Texas at Austin, is skeptical of claims the 7,500-capacity ballpark will generate an economic boom in the area around the San Pedro Creek Culture Park.
While such arguments are common among stadium backers across the country, the professor dismissed them as “dubious.”
When a TIRZ is used to fund a project, such as a stadium, a municipality typically issues bonds to pay for the facility. Those bonds are then paid back over time using property tax revenue collected in the special district.
Officials with San Antonio-based developer Weston Urban, which owns much of
Economists skeptical about San Antonio’s new baseball stadium financing
the land around the proposed ballpark, said they plan to build new retail and entertainment venues near the site, along with a residential tower. The property tax es from those projects would hypotheti cally allow the city to pay off its bonds.
Wealth redistribution
Both Zimbalist and Wegmann said their primary concern is how the use of TIRZ funding affects local development. More often than not, the zones don’t create economic growth but rather reallocate existing revenue from one neighborhood to another, they caution.
A local restaurant or hotel owner could be enticed to relocate to the area around the new stadium to attract more customers. However, the property tax revenue generated by that business now exclusively goes toward paying off the stadium, sapping a source of revenue that had been funding public schools, roads and other needs.
“It’s a phony financing mechanism that makes it look like new money is falling from heaven and it’s not going to hurt anything, but that’s a very improbable outcome,” Zimbalist said. “It’s not really new tax revenue — you’re just redistributing existing revenue.”
What’s more, with restaurants closing almost daily, nearly half of San Antonio apartment complexes offering concessions to attract tenants and with the city boasting at least three luxury hotels, it’s unclear how much room the Alamo City has to grow in the current economic climate.
“Most economists think it’s a pretty dubious claim that by building a sports stadium, you’re growing the overall economy, as opposed to just sort of shuffling spending from one part of downtown to another,” Wegmann said.
Uncertain economic factors
Another problem with TIRZ funding is that it’s dependent on investment in that zone picking up steam, Zimbalist said. Economic ups and downs make hard to predict.
Last month, Weston Urban officials told City Council their development plans around the stadium are all but guaranteed. Even so, the project faces uncertain economic headwinds.
J.P Morgan Chase analysts last month reported that the probability of a U.S. recession had risen to 35% – up 10% from the midyear outlook. What’s more, commercial foreclosures in the Lone Star State increased 129% year-over-year in March, according to the Texas A&M University’s Texas Real Estate Research Center.
“One would hope the risks of a recession are being taken into account by the bond rating agencies as they rate these bonds in preparation to sell to investors,” Wegmann said. “But if those bonds default, then that is a risk to the public entity issuing the bond.”
Of course, Weston Urban may forge ahead with the developments around the stadium in event of an economic downturn, but if it can’t find tenants, then the city — and therefore the taxpayer — are still on the hook, Zimbalist added.
Even so, during an Aug. 29 special council meeting on the ballpark, city Chief Financial Officer Ben Gorzell told Mayor Ron Nirenberg that a measure exists to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill. If revenue from the TIRZ doesn’t produce the projected revenue, the development team will foot the bill for the outstanding bonds – not the city, Gorzell explained.
In other words, Weston Urban and the team are betting the house on the idea that the project will fly. Or, at least, that’s what ownership is telling council.
What about the Spurs?
Not only would the Missions’ new ballpark have to attract investment from other parts of town, it would have to do so while competing with a separate sports district on the other
MReid Ryan of the San Antonio Missions’ board of directors addresses City Council.
side of downtown.
The details of the new San Antonio Spurs arena remain murky as city officials hash out a plan behind closed doors. However, media reports suggest a proposal for a $1 billion arena and sports district on the former site of the Texan Institute of Cultures is forthcoming.
While city leaders haven’t revealed a funding mechanism for that project, it’s possible they’ll once again look to a downtown TIRZ.
Wegmann is skeptical a market the size of San Antonio — one of the nation’s poorest big cities — could finance two separate sports districts simultaneously with a TIRZ.
“Other cities might have an entertainment district, but often there’s more than one sport that synergizes the other ones, so that when it’s the off-season of one sport, it’s the season of the other,” he said. “This sounds like two different developments on opposite sides of downtown with two different seasons. So, this sounds a bit haphazard and uncoordinated.”
What’s more, with the Missions only playing at home roughly 70 times a year, bars and restaurants may struggle to attract customers during out-of-town games and the off-season. That factor may deter many from relocating into the TIRZ, Zimbalist warned.
“I’m sure they’ll say, we’ll have a concert here, and they’ll let a local school team play there, and maybe they’ll have a tournament,” he said. “But it leaves the stadium vacant for most of the year.”
Michael Karlis
CITYSCRAPES
San Antonio’s insider ballpark deal deserves public scrutiny and a public vote
BY HEYWOOD SANDERS
Editor’s Note: Cityscrapes is a column of opinion and analysis.
City officials are giving us a new ballpark to house the beloved San Antonio Missions team. And it’s quite a deal, or so they tell us.
For one, it won’t cost taxpayers a dime, they assure us. And city officials fought hard to make sure the welloff owners of the Missions actually have to pay something — a whole $36 million, or about 20% of the stadium cost — while the rest is to come from other public sources. And did they mention there will be no direct use of our property taxes?
All of this sounds great. Except that
it’s not entirely the case.
Most of the ballpark’s approximately $126 million in public cost would come from incremental property tax revenues generated by the promised development surrounding the stadium and from the far larger Houston Street Tax Increment Revitalization Zone (TIRZ). The wonder of using the TIRZ to pay for stadium bonds is that it neatly avoids the requirement for a public vote that would be necessary if the city used its regular, general obligation bonds to foot the cost. There’s also reason for concern because the tax increment dollars pro-
posed for funding the stadium aren’t really a deal for the public, nor are they free. They simply redirect the new tax revenue from the area in a fashion that keeps it locked up for years. That money won’t be contributing to the overall city and county property tax base, meaning it’s not able to potentially reducing our — yours and mine — property tax burden.
For those who haven’t been in San Antonio all that long, the Houston Street TIRZ began in 1999 as a way of aiding developer Federal Realty in revitalizing Houston Street. The stated goal was to reshape the area into a new office and retail district in the heart of downtown.
Federal promised major new national retailers — Barnes & Noble and Bath & Body Works, for example — would line Houston Street. We just had to pay for new access from the River Walk to the street level, building façade improvements and other upgrades.
But even after Federal’s plan failed to deliver on those promises, we kept on paying with TIRZ dollars as the district was expanded from 20 blocks
to 180 acres stretching from San Pedro Creek to Cesar Chavez.
That growth added new tax reve nues for more public spending: for parking subsidies for office tenants, for improvements to the Alameda Theater, for part of the cost of San Pedro Creek improvements, for subsi dizing the new Hilton Canopy hotel, for Legacy Park — all without a public vote by those using property tax dol lars locked up by the TIRZ.
So, the proposed funding mecha nism for the new Missions ballpark isn’t just a matter of keeping the po tential property taxes from new down town development locked away from other uses for years. It also keeps the new public spending commitments largely invisible, free from a public vote or much of any public discussion and debate.
That doesn’t sound like the new sports facility is “paying for itself.” It also sounds pretty far from the “score” the Express-News’ editorial board described the deal as.
But there’s yet another, larger issue with the ballpark deal neatly negotiated without a broader plan for the future of the west side of downtown. That deal, of course, was done behind closed doors with no community input.
The public investment in the improvement of San Pedro Creek greatly increased the potential for private profit from new development adjacent and near the Culture Park. Developer Graham Weston and his firm Weston Urban stand to profit from that, even without a single public dollar for a new Missions stadium.
We, the public, have already aided those properties with public spending. The property owners should be paying us back, not pressing the city and county to pour even more public dollars and benefits into their landholdings. That’s all the more reason why we can and should expect the Missions’ ownership to foot the majority of the cost for their new stadium, not the other way around.
Let’s have a full public conversation over the realities of the deal, and let’s allow San Antonio voters to make the final decision rather than have a rushed deal pushed through City Council. San Antonio’s been down that path too many times before, and by now, we know where it gets us. Heywood Sanders is a professor emeritus of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
San Antonio Current Staff
Are you a Latina living with infertility? If you are over 18 years of age, this study may be for you.
Study on The Experience of Living with Infertility Among Latinas from LowIncome Backgrounds I am conducting a research study to explore the unique lived experiences of Latinas who are facing infertility challenges. Your participation will help us better understand the emotional, social, and cultural aspects of this journey.
Participants will be asked to participate in:
Participation involves a confidential face-to-face interview with the researcher in person or via Zoom. The interview will last approximately 60 minutes.
Participants will receive a $25 gift card to a store of your choice as a thank you for your participation. Participation if completely VOLUNTARY and CONFIDENTIAL. You may withdraw at any time (without any negative impact as a result).
Are you eligible? 18 Years or older
Experienced Infertility
Latina Female
Considered Low income
Se habla Espanol.
no matter how much
BY KEVIN SANCHEZ
“QPrice controls aren’t communism,
the GOP insists otherwise
Editor’s Note: Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.
uite frankly, people are scared,” U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, R-Galveston, told Fox News this month. “Does Kamala Harris indeed get in there and become the communist dictator that she seems to be.”
Weber’s backing for the claim that Harris may be the next Joseph Stalin? Her talk of “price controls.”
However, Weber was less terrified of overweening statism this July when he co-signed a letter requesting federal assistance in the wake of Hurricane Beryl.
“We would be remiss not to express our appreciation for your major disaster declaration earlier this week,” then-acting-governor Dan Patrick wrote to “The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.” at the time.
On paper, “communism” means the public ownership of industrial production — factories, offices, you name it — either by government or by worker cooperatives. The Tennessee Valley Authority, for example, is a 90-year-old state-owned enterprise that played a crucial role in the electrification and infrastructure development of rural Appalachia. The leaders we elect could take a vote tomorrow to abolish it, raise or lower its prices, privatize it, or expand it — whichever we choose.
The same can’t be said for Exxon or Amazon or Facebook or Monsanto, because those are private corporations, beholden to the votes of boards of directors and shareholders, not “we the people.”
Communism, on the flip side, would mean straight-up expropriating all major businesses and giving direct control over to deliberative bodies to run. Historically, just like abrupt mass privatizations, this has had decidedly mixed results — not least because plutocrats seldom take expropriation lying down, and only the most ruthless and morally flexible revolutionaries tend to survive.
Price controls aren’t the same thing as communism. President Richard
Nixon, a fervent anti-communist, instituted price — and wage — controls in August 1971 in response to an inflation crisis. And candidate Harris has proposed nothing so bold. In a milquetoast speech Aug. 16 speech on creating an “opportunity economy,” she suggested fining grocery store chains for gratuitous price hikes.
“We will support smaller food businesses that are trying to play by the rules and get ahead,” Harris said. “We will help the food industry become more competitive, because I believe competition is the lifeblood of our economy; more competition means lower prices for you and your families.”
That sounds a lot like an unplanned economy — the type to which Soviets applied the slur “anarchic production.”
As Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout pointed out last month in The Atlantic, there’s a well-established four-pronged legal definition of price-gouging, and the majority of U.S. states already have laws on the books forbidding it during emergencies. That includes Texas. Our state’s Business & Commerce Code §17.46 outlaws “taking advantage of a disaster” by “selling or leasing fuel, food, medicine, lodging, building materials, construction tools, or another necessity at an exorbitant or excessive price.”
So either you sincerely believe, as many Trump supporters conveniently doomsay, that inflation is a national emergency, or you don’t. But if you do, you can’t call Kamala Harris a “communist’ without also calling the one-party state of Texas “communist” as well.
Having never graduated from the Wharton School of Business, the economic phenomena of inflation is well above my pay grade. Some contend it’s mostly the result of corporate greed, others that it’s mostly the Fed printing money. The strangest paper I read on the topic claimed that much of the price inflation we’ve experienced over the past four years was due to Repub-
licans freaking out over Joe Biden’s election.
I remember telling a pop-up cigar salesman once, “I have $20 to spend.” Wouldn’t you know, he had the perfect $25 cigar just for me.
Point being, under an unregulated market, if you’re expecting to pay more, you’ll get charged more. And wouldn’t you know, places where “Republicans live indeed have had significantly higher inflation than Democratic enclaves,” according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. Evidently, right-wing media outlets “de-anchored” conservatives from the reality of consumer prices, and profit-maximizing corporations were only too happy to accommodate them.
By whatever rosy name, polling data from the lefty think tank Data For Progress found that a majority of likely voters in battleground states favor caps on rent increases and cutting the cost of prescription drugs in half. Red-baiting notwithstanding, those are, technically speaking, price controls.
Unlike some big-brained neoliberals though, we should resist the urge to cite esoteric economic indicators to dismiss the misery of everyday people, especially those on fixed incomes.
“Prices are coming down, but the things that seniors are spending on are going up,” Mary Johnson, a Social Security and Medicare policy analyst, told Yahoo Finance this summer. Even though overall inflation is now under
3%, the standard of living for many older households is declining rather than improving, she added.
Isabella Weber is one of the good ones — meaning economists.
“I happen to come from a family where we were living on a budget,” she confided when accepting the Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize this May. “I remember how my mom would watch the [bargain] advertisements from supermarkets. If you tell a family like that, ‘[Inflation] is transitory, in two or three years, the storm will be gone,’ it’s hypocritical, it’s an unbearable message to send from someone who is sitting in front of a full fridge, probably in a fancy apartment in New York, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and going to the grocery store without even noticing how much they are paying.”
Similarly, hearing rich a-holes like Gov. Greg Abbott and washed-up talking head Bill O’Reilly complain about rising prices on behalf of us poors generally gives me resting cringe face. I will never live to witness the Star Trek communism of a planet Earth, united in peace, without money or a ruling class.
Until then, I’d wager it’s more rational to worry about the domino-spread of “surge pricing” a la Uber than the notion that municipally owned grocery stores might usher in a Soviet-style dictatorship. Are you a communist too?
THU | 09.05SUN | 02.09
DINING WITH ROLANDO BRISEÑO: A 50-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE
San Antonio’s Department of Arts & Culture is presenting Dining with Rolando Briseño: A 50-Year Retrospective in honor of the extraordinary life and career of Alamo City-born artist, activist, “cultural adjustor” and culinary historian Rolando Briseño. Perhaps as a carryover as the youngest member of the San Antonio-based Chicano collective Con Safo in the 1970s, Briseño conflates the role of the artist with that of a cultural adjuster — one whose work is both politically and philosophically charged and intentionally seeks sociopolitical change and growth. Much of his work since the early 1990s deals with the idea of interpersonal exchange, gatherings and, ultimately, food. In his work, food is treated as a both a metaphorical and a literal cultural signifier — as well as both content and medium — and it forms the conceptual basis of this exhibition. Free, opening reception: 6-9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 5, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Centro de Artes Gallery, 101 S. Santa Rosa Ave., (210) 207-6960, sa.gov/arts. — Anjali Gupta
WED | 09.04SUN | 09.15
THEATER
THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT
San Antonio theater group 100A Productions will launch its 2024-25 season this month with The Lifespan of a Fact comedic commentary on the state of modern media and the impact of generational divides in the workplace. Based on the 2012 book of the same name, The Lifespan of a Fact centers around a multi-year feud between seasoned writer John D’Agata (Andy Thornton) and fledgling fact-checker Jim Fingal (Michael Roberts). When John crafts a moving essay about a teenage boy’s suicide, he believes it’s just the
Joan Frederick
Courtesy Photo / The Tobin Center
FRI | 09.06
VISUAL ART
THE WOMAN UNDER THE WATER
Mixed-media artist Sarah Fox combines whimsy and surrealism with a dash of outre explicitness in her solo exhibition for a potent, absinthe-like concoction — it tastes strong, and it goes to your head. You can see a bit of Cindy Sherman in her work, a bit of the Brothers Quay, a bit of Sally Potter and Derek Jarman — unsettling, highly symbolic dreamworlds that are as imaginative as they are serious. The Woman Under the Water, her latest show at South Side space Mercury Project, takes inspiration from her daily walks along the San Antonio River and seeks to find a spiritual and resonant current from an often abused and neglected waterway more often used for discarding trash than reflection. Free, opening reception: 6-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, otherwise by appointment, Mercury Project, 538 Roosevelt Ave., (832) 259-3530, mercuryproject.net. — Neil Fauerso
TUES | 09.10WED | 09.11
THEATER ALL THINGS EQUAL: THE LIFE AND TRIALS OF RUTH BADER GINSBURG
As the calendar approaches four years since the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, San Antonio’s Charline McCombs Empire Theatre sets its stage for a two-night run of All Things Equal, a one-woman play honoring her life, legacy and cultural impact. Stage and screen actress Michelle Azar portrays Ginsburg through several decades, tracing her path from high school valedictorian to judiciary trailblazer. Rupert Holmes, Tony Award-winning playwright of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, along with director Laley Lippard, are the creative duo behind the show’s conception. In addition to Ginsburg’s historic victories for women’s rights and reproductive justice, All Things Equal makes space for the more private battles of her life: losing her mother as a teenager, supporting her husband through cancer treatments and raising a daughter while attending male-dominated Harvard Law School. Despite the dire underpinnings of Ginsburg’s hard-fought legacy, the production isn’t without its moments of humor, kinship and joy. Balancing celebration and reverence, it’s a complete and nuanced portrait of a life lived fully and faithfully. $35-$103, 7:30 p.m., Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 226-5700, majesticempire.com. — CW
Courtesy Photo / Sarah Fox
Courtesy Photo / Bay Street Theater
THU | 09.12
FILM
A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN: 20TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING AT SLAB CINEMA ARTHOUSE
Twenty years ago, in the spirit of Mexican Cineastas, Sergio Arau progressed Latinx cinema with a provocative narrative that challenges as much as it entertains, makes us laugh as it deeply disturbs the status quo of our culture within the American landscape and challenges our acceptance of our image in the greater human story — or the lack thereof. Ultimately that’s the genius of A Day Without a Mexican, which is being presented for this showing by the Mexican American Civil Rights Institute. Only in America could the invisibility of the fruits of our labor decimate so clearly, so literally. In this film, you are asked to imagine the unthinkable as the quite possible, while Arau makes us fall in love with the montage of it all. Much like his musical genius, as director and filmmaker Arau delights and makes us dance to his tune. Lo maximo! Free, 7 p.m., Slab Cinema Arthouse, 134 Blue Star, (210) 2129373, slabcinemaarthouse.com. — Jesse Borrego
FRI | 09.13 FILM
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE
Although it feels a bit forgotten to the sands of time now, it’s hard to state what a phenomenon Napoleon Dynamite was upon its release 20 years ago. Deeply strange yet endearingly gentle, the low-budget film by Jared and Jerusha Hess became an instant cult classic. Following the hijinks of Napoleon (Jon Heder), his best friend Pedro (Efren Ramirez) and dastardly Uncle Rico (Jon Gries, recently seen as Jennifer Coolidge’s loutish, treacherous husband on The White Lotus), the film has a similarly shaggy jaunt as Dazed and Confused, Repo Man, Rushmore and The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai. This is a special event at the charming, historic Arcadia Live Theatre in Kerrville, and stars Heder, Ramirez and Gries will all be in attendance for a discussion following the film. Dynamite heads won’t want to miss it, and if you’ve never seen the offbeat comedy, this is the perfect opportunity to experience its cracked charm. $46-$107, 7 p.m., Arcadia Theater, 717 Water St., Kerrville, (830) 315-LIVE (5483), thearcadialive.org. — NF
Courtesy Image / Sergio Arau
Honky Tonk Man
The new memoir by Sam Kindrick, San Antonio’s chronicler of ‘outlaw country,’ is one wild ride
BY BILL BAIRD
For more than five decades, Sam Kindrick carved a niche as San Antonio’s resident gonzo journalist, documenting the area’s outcasts, dreamers, oddballs, pimps, prostitutes, druggies — and its musicians.
As a close friend to legendary performers such as Augie Meyers, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Leon Russell, David Alan Coe and countless others, Kindrick documented the rise of “outlaw country,” the movement that crossed the paths of shit-kicking rednecks and pot-smoking hippies. In documenting it, Kindrick became an outlaw himself.
“I love the guy,” said Meyers, the San Antonio legend known as a founding member of both the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados. “He’s a wild man. Always great vibes. But wild.”
Kindrick’s legacy is getting new attention thanks to the release of Outlaw Country Re-
porter: Misfits, Madams, and Hangin’ with Wil lie, a memoir recently released by Texas A&M University Press. A special event is planned for Nov. 3 at Texas State University’s Wittliff Collections which will include a reading by Kindrick, performances by Augie Meyers and the Krayolas, among other surprises.
discussing his memoir. “People like to read
“Sam is a Hunter S. Thompson-type figure,” said Hector Saldana, head of the Wittliff Ar chives, which recently purchased Kindrick’s papers. “But he was gonzo before Hunter! They’re on the same path, though. Sam was a chronicler of such an important time. That’s why his was one of the first collection I sought for the Wittliff Archives.”
Kindrick started his journalism career in San Angelo before moving to the Express, where his “Offbeat” column doc umented the city’s unique characters and anti-heroes. That early work even earned a Pulitzer nomination.
ting swallowed by his addictions, Kindrick
“He is a connection to not only a time but
Sam Kindrick Collection, The Wittliff Collections
as a benefit for the Alpine Future Farm
“San Antonio has always been an af
ately outlaw manner — he was busted penning papers for other students at $10 apiece. The professor who popped Kindrick spared him spared the punishment but told Kindrick he was wasting his time at Sul Ross and encouraged him to enroll in Southwest Texas — now Texas State — as a journalism major.
Kindrick’s first story writing for his new university’s school paper involved interviewing a “half-naked female with
erate after hours,” Kindrick remembers. “Gatemouth Brown was the fucking house musician out there then! That son of a bitch ... you talk about a guitar player. Miss Wiggles was out there too. She danced standing on her head in a chair and could absolutely make every muscle in her body move at the same time.”
During those years, Kindrick also spent time in Crystal City, an impoverished South Texas town experiencing
fired him a few years later.
It was the era of smoky newsrooms filled with clacking typewriters, where writers would sneak sips of whiskey before filing stories. But that era was coming to an end, especially as Rupert Murdoch of Newscorp and Fox News notoriety, bought the Express in 1973, merging it with the Evening News to create the Express-News.
“Murdoch bought the paper and I was fired within eight hours,” Kindrick
Kindrick later became a DJ at newly launched KEXL-FM, where he was known as the “long-haired redneck.” While on air, he frequently ridiculed Charlie Kirkpatrick and “his little tin-soldier Texas Cavaliers suit,” as ongoing retribution for his firing.
Back in Action
Undaunted by his firing and unwilling to give up writing, Kindrick started
and around San Antonio. Kindrick
him with nightly prayers and religious
somebody’s fucking talent? I don’t give
As the freewheeling ’70s skidded
had a lot of good things happen, I’ve
Willie lived in Bandera.
“The Bandera rednecks started giving Willie’s kids a hard time,” Kindrick said. “That’s why he hoofed it to Austin. Too bad, too. He could have done a lot for the San Antonio scene.”
Among the bars Nelson enjoyed was the Foxy Lady on Perrin-Beitel Road.
“He had the hots for one of the waitresses over there,” Kindrick said. “That’s when he put together the monster platinum album Red Headed Stranger, and hot dogs.
always reminded me of Gabby Hayes, the old Western movie star who was in movies with John Wayne and Roy Rogers.”
The Wittliff’s Saldana said that persona allowed him to move in a variety of circles.
“He had fun with it. Who has the courage to do that?” Saldana asked.
“I’m gonna go, you know, hang out with these guys, the bikers and the hardcore people. He had guts. He’s
to document the proceedings. After his second arrest a year later, Kindrick faced a quandary — either rat out his drug dealer or go to jail. Fearing the wrath of his criminal associates and remembering the advice of Paul English, Willie Nelson’s drummer, Kindrick chose jail. He’d hit rock bottom.
“I was looking at pure death when I went in [jail],” Kindrick said. “I’d lost everything. I’d lost my family, I’d lost my wife, I’d lost my job, I had no self-
“There was always a humanity to Sam. He’s gone through a lot of pain, like we all do in life, but he’s still going ... and he’s inspirational. There is redemption there.”
And Kindrick himself remains inspired.
“I’ve never been happier than I am now,” he said. “And being able to share my life, whether it’s in a book or whatever, if it can help anybody, that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Sam Kindrick Collection, The Wittliff Collections
Lady Killer
British
actor Himesh Patel on starring in Coen-esque dark
comedy GreedyPeople
BY KIKO MARTINEZ
In the dark crime comedy Greedy People, British actor Himesh Patel stars as Will Shelley, a rookie police officer in Providence, Rhode Island, who finds trouble when he accidentally kills the wife (Traci Lords) of a local seafood tycoon (Tim Blake Nelson).
Things get more complicated when Will and his eccentric partner, Terry Brogan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), find stacks of cash in the woman’s home and decide to make her death look like foul play so they can keep the money. Along for the ride is Will’s pregnant wife Paige (Lily James), who’s trying to keep everyone from fucking things up.
During a recent interview with the Current, Patel, 33, who’s best known for the films Yesterday and Tenet and the miniseries Station Eleven, talked about the dark comedy genre and how Greedy People reminded him of the cinematic work of the Coen Brothers (Fargo, The Ladykillers).
Greedy People is currently streaming on digital platforms and playing at limited theaters.
Is a dark comedy like GreedyPeople your type of humor?
It is, yeah. I like dark comedies. I like stuff that finds the absurd humor in dark moments. [Greedy People] was just a great script. I was drawn to the character [and] to the story.
So, when you laugh at something in a dark comedy that no one else laughs at, how does that make you feel? (Laughs.) Like maybe I’m a bit messed up or something. I haven’t watched [Greedy People]
with an audience, sadly. Maybe at some point I will get a chance. It’ll be interesting to see what people laugh at. I think what’s fun about this genre is the sort of nervous laughter of people. Everyone is like, “That is tickling me, but I don’t know if it should.”
Some people are comparing it to a Coen Brothers movie. Is that a fair comparison, or would you rather the film stand on its own?
Yeah, it did. It’s always lovely seeing Lily and working with her again, especially because it was something completely different to Yesterday. It helped us get going with it, because we knew each other. We were comfortable with each other. The day-to-day on set was just easy. We’re not trying to figure each other out this time.
You always want a film to stand on its own two feet, but I think it’s a pretty apt comparison. We’ve got Tim Blake Nelson in the movie, who’s always worked with the Coens. I can see the elements of it. There are bits of Fargo [and] No Country [for Old Men]. The thing about filmmakers like the Coens is that they’re era-defining filmmakers. Their influence is so steeped into generations of filmmakers now. Their fingerprints are on a lot of things.
When are you most greedy in real life? Do you take two slices of birthday cake before everyone gets a piece?
(Laughs.) I’m actually trying to be less greedy. When I go to get a coffee or something, I’m usually like, “I’ll have a pastry.” But I’m into my 30s now, so I can’t get away with it as much.
Yeah, those cheese danishes can add up. It’s the raisin danishes for me.
How did you and Joseph work out the chemistry between your characters? We really hit the ground running. I got to know him really well as a person. It was exciting to be around him playing that character. [His character] Terry is a bit of a wrecking ball. And Joe was, I think, really enjoying playing [him] and doing something that I hadn’t seen him do before.
Speaking of chemistry, you reunite in this film with Lily James, whom you starred with in Yesterday. Did it feel natural to get back together?
Now that we’re a couple of years removed from the height of the pandemic, have you been able to explore your role in Station Eleven a bit more and think about how the series spoke to audiences during that time?
The response to that show really swept me off my feet. I thought people were going to be reticent because of the coincidence. We never could have imagined that it would come out at the same time as an actual pandemic. So, the way that it spoke to people, and the way that people took it into their hearts, it always meant so much to me. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever done.
How many times did you have to watch Tenet before you fully understood it?
(Laughs.) I’ve only seen it twice! I had the advantage of having read [the script] and then had the advantage of asking [writer-director] Chris [Nolan] to unpack it a bit for me. So, by the time I watched it, I knew what I was following. So, yeah, I got a pretty good grasp of it. But it’s not an easy [film] to explain.
Courtesy Photo / Lionsgate
Bar Takeover
The group behind Francis Bogside and other SA nightspots has new leaders, big plans
BY SANFORD NOWLIN
SA Bar Management, the owner of some of San Antonio’s best-known nightspots, has new leadership.
The family of the late Robert Darilek — SA Bar Management’s majority partner — has taken over management of the company that owns and operates local staples Francis Bogside, George’s Keep, Hanzo and Lilly’s Greenville, Darilek’s son, Trey Darilek, told the Current
Darilek said his family relieved the company’s previous managing partner of his duties earlier this summer over growing concerns that out-of-control spending was jeopardizing the business co-created by his dad, who died in 2021.
“Things came to a head about a month ago,” said Darilek, 43, who relocated to San Antonio from North Texas to directly oversee the ownership group. “My brothers and I had a discussion about what to do to keep our dad’s legacy alive.”
Darilek declined to name the previous managing partner, whom he said still retains an ownership stake. However, Steve Mahoney served as SA Bar Management’s longtime managing partner and public face.
Mahoney was unavailable for comment at press time.
The leadership change comes after the late-July announcement that another of the group’sproperties, Blue Box Bar — a 12-yearold fixture at the Pearl — was closing down.
Darilek said he and his brothers are working to rein in SA Bar Management’s expenses and revamp the image of its flagship property, Francis Bogside, the Irish pub that’s an anchor of east-of-downtown nightlife center St. Paul Square.
He doesn’t expect to lay off any of the 100 workers employed by SA Bar Management.
“I’m pretty sure we’re to the point where things have stabilized,” said Darilek, a former trucking company owner and one-time NFL guard and center, who played for Dallas, Philadelphia and Miami. “The taxes were a big one, and the closure of Blue Box was something unfortunate but unavoidable.”
Tax issues
When the family took control of the management group, it was months behind on tax payments to the Texas Comptroller’s Office, according to Darilek. Since then, the group
has paid all the back taxes it owes, he added.
Even so, state tax officials came to Francis Bogside on Thursday, Aug. 22, with a police escort to collect on payments the company hadn’t yet caught up with, Darilek confirmed to the Current. He declined to say how much the business owed at the time but said it had covered roughly 80% of the outstanding debt.
The Texas Comptroller’s Office didn’t respond to multiple attempts from the Current to provide comment for this story. However, a San Antonio Police Department spokesman confirmed that officers accompanied Comptroller’s Office personnel on a visit to the bar on Aug. 22.
The new country-bar concept, named for Darilek’s grandfather, is scheduled for a Sept. 12 reopening. Anne’s also will get a minor revamp and undergo a name change.
Also as part of the planned upgrades, SA Bar Management plans to retool a pair of basement bars connected to Bogside, according to Darilek. One of those, which had previously hosted comedy shows, will be transformed into a speakeasy-type lounge, while the other — which served as a VIP room for prior building tenant Smoke: The Restaurant — will be reserved for private gatherings.
Changes at Bogside
To get the business on a new path, Darilek said his family is preparing to rebrand Francis Bogside. Since the bar’s historic three-level building houses additional concepts, including adjacent wine bar Anne’s and upstairs music venue Blayne’s, the complex itself will be rechristened as a multi-concept destination.
Darilek said it’s too early to reveal the name of the bar hall. He added that Francis Bogside itself will also get a new name and an expanded food menu that better emphasizes its Irish roots and the scratch-made quality of the dishes coming out of its kitchen.
Darilek said he expects to reveal the name changes in coming weeks. The revamped basement spaces will likely make their debut at a later date.
“We’re trying to keep what’s good here and improve what’s not,” he said.
Meanwhile, Blayne’s will be renamed Frankie’s Roundup and reopen as a country and western venue that will feature barbecue served from Bogside’s kitchen. Darilek said the booking policy for the upstairs bar, which often included metal and harder-edged live music, was a poor fit for more upscale ambiance the group is trying to create.
Business background
The Darilek family doesn’t plan any immediate changes at George’s Keep, a La Cantera-area craft-cocktail bastion; Hanzo, a Japanese-style gastropub in Alamo Heights; or Lilly’s Greenville, a neighborhood watering hole also located in St. Paul Square.
Even though the management change involved tightening belts across SA Bar Management’s empire, Darilek said workers have been receptive to the new direction and the stability it brought.
“I think the staff welcomed the change,” he said. “We’ve given some consistency to theemployees, which they were ready for.”
Running a bar group is new step for all the members of the family — Darilek’s other brothers are in accounting and IT — however, he said they understand good business practices and sustainable spending are the keys to keeping the group’s holdings in operation.
“Business is business,” he said.
Sanford Nowlin
MDressed-up dogs and cornin-a-cup from El Chunky (left) and Barrio Dogg (right).
South Presa Street neighbors El Chunky and Barrio
Accessories for the Nachonky start with green onion and jalapeños, to which you can add a choice from the unholy trinity of Cheese Ruffles, Doritos or Flamin’ Hot
EL CHUNKY
But I think I’ll stay with the Classics. El Chunky’s space is bright and clean. The take-out service also is friendly and truly as fast as the promised five minutes.
2060 S. Presa St., (972) 646-0831, instagram.com/el.chunky.sa Noon to midnight Sunday, 4 p.m.-10 p.m. Monday, 4 p.m.-midnight Thursday, 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday and noon-2 a.m. Saturday
ketchup and mustard, the dog comes with grilled onion, cheddar, tomato, red onion, chopped jalapeño, sour cream and sriracha aioli. The addition of crunchy
BARRIO DOGG
Frankly, between the two hot dog spots, it’s a tossup in all other ways but decor. Size or style, the only solution is to try both.
620 S. Presa St., (210) 236-9808, barriodoggsatx.com 4 p.m.-midnight Tuesday-Thursday, noon-midnight Friday-Saturday and noon-9 p.m. Sunday
Ron Bechtol
Ron Bechtol
Slicing It Up
John McCrea of Cake talks about the legacy of his palate cleanser
of a band
BY DANNY CERVANTES
Musing on his place in music history, Cake founder and frontman John McCrea said he reluctantly, or perhaps unintentionally, emerged from the post-grunge rubble to move rock forward.
By the mid-’90s, grunge had “sort of crumbled a bit, or just fell under its own weight,” McCrea explained. That left the door open for his four-piece band’s quieter, quirkier and more irreverent alt-rock approach.
Cake grabbed a surprising amount of airplay with a distinctive sound punctuated by McCrea’s straight and staccato vocals. The group regularly mashed up divergent musical styles and reveled in oddball snark. Along the way it scored a runaway hit with “The Distance” and also got plenty of attention thanks to a polarizing cover of Gloria
Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” both from 1995’s Fashion Nugget.
McCrea has lived all over the West Coast.
Growing up in Sacramento helped shape his musical influences before he relocated to Los Angeles. Eventually, he made his way back to Sacramento and formed Cake in 1991.
Cake’s latest tour takes the band to St. Paul Square venue The Espee on Thursday, Sept. 12.
I got older, I discovered some of their Bob
We caught up with McCrea via Zoom from his home in Portland, Oregon. This conversa tion was edited for length and clarity.
Let’s begin with the beginning, what are your first musical memories? Was there a song, an album or your parents’ music? My first memories of music are my parents playing music and keeping me awake when I was starting to fall asleep. My dad would play
they put me in charge of the country music
Find more music coverage every day at
Courtesy Photo Cake
music
It’s funny you say that, because a couple things stand out to me. One is there was never a time where I felt like we actually went mainstream. We fell short of that several times, with several songs that almost started going mainstream but didn’t quite. I felt like we were in the wrong place at the wrong time because grunge was king. Grunge was this white male sort of viking music, that was too powerful to be credible. Our thing was sort of aggressive smallness.
I think initially they played us on the radio as sort of a palate cleanser between the real muscular American wide-load rock. Cake playing this dinky-sounding whatever was, like bringing in the court jester.
Eventually, we’re at all these radio festivals with our little dinky beats, with these bands that are way more towering in importance. We’d come back to the same festival three years later and none of those bands were there with us.
I think about the legacy of Cake and see you as a staple post-grunge band, along with Weezer and Radiohead. Do you think about how you’re the connective tissue to bands like Death Cab for Cutie or the Killers? Yeah, I can see some connective strands. Clearly, the one thing is those bands have melodic elements that make their music listenable. And I think ours does too, just in slightly different ways. There is the scale of expression in our music which is more on a human scale, not giant.
But it’s funny, in that same transition period, you have Creed and Nickelback maintaining the white, male viking energy. Grunge was this big, muscular American rock, but like, “I hate myself.” As the bigness transformed in the early 2000s, you didn’t have to hate yourself, you just had to have earnest struggles. It was still very masculine.
Do you think it would be possible to make a band like Cake go in 2024?
It would be pretty rough. The thing is you can get a million or a billion streams. Who can get a billion streams? Like five people in the world. And then you get a check that’s not enough to pay your rent. Music is being monetized, but not very efficiently for the artists that make it.
It’s a weird time. If artists had created some sort of collective identity it might be different. But artists are not supposed to be adults, to collaborate
or cooperate. We’re supposed to be stridently individualistic. I think that’s our Achilles heel. I know really important songwriters that are trying to figure out what they’re going to do for a living.
Pop [music] is definitely walking tall right now, because in times of scarcity, you go for the low-hanging fruit. This economy will only pay for super-, immediately satisfying music product.
You have a unique connection to your fans. The band gives away a tree to a fan at every show. It’s become a genuine expression of love between the band and the fans. How does it make you feel that it’s become such a touchstone?
I think it’s great. Anytime you can trick people into interacting with the
natural world, I’m for it. It’s not necessarily an environmental statement, but everyone should plant at least one tree during the course of their life. It’s mindblowing to come back to see a tree you planted and 10 years later, it’s a 25-foot-tall life form.
On Cake’s Instagram and website, you have quotes from FDR and Thomas Jefferson, which you don’t see from many bands. Cake registers people to vote and stands up for democracy. How do you view the significance of your activism?
Initially, I was really set on not being overt about our politics and let whatever people could see in the music be the extent of it. That started changing as this extreme rightward shift began happening in this country, that,
frankly, is super unsettling. I don’t have the luxury of staying quiet. I’ve got kids and feel like it’s normal to care about the trajectory of your fellow human beings.
Under the circumstances, I think it’s weird that artists are as quiet as they are about politics. I’m not on a pedestal or extra-qualified to communicate. I’m communicating because that’s sort of my duty.
The way I look at it, we’re alive right now. As terrifying and as much of a freak show as this is, we are uniquely able to do more than any other people, because we are the ones who are here right now. And it’s not completely hopeless.
$63, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, The Espee, 1174 E. Commerce St., (210) 2265700, majesticempire.com.
music New Era
San Antonio band Girl in a Coma is (officially) out of its coma
BY STEPHANIE KOITHAN
Girl in a Coma is back. For real this time. And the storied San Antonio alt-rock trio has plans for new shows and music to prove it.
After two sold-out “farewell” shows at Paper Tiger last December, along with performances that same week in Austin and Houston, it was clear that there was still a nexus of energy around the band. Though the members might have thought they were done, the successful shows suggest that San Antonio isn’t done with them.
“It feels like it’s time,” GIAC bassist Jenn Alva told the Current. “When we did the final shows, it was just pure fun.” She added that “hearing and seeing the fans that have stuck around” caused her to think “we need to get back together.”
Now, GIAC is officially reunited, and it’s planning Texas shows for October and November, followed by a West Coast tour in January. The group is still finalizing dates in the Lone Star State, but it plans to include stops in McAllen, Corpus Christi, Houston, Dallas “and of course San Antonio,” drummer Phanie Diaz said.
Diaz also revealed that a new album is in the works, which GIAC hopes to release next year. The band will incorporate a pair of previously unrecorded songs — “Here is Now” and “Invisible” — into its upcoming live shows.
“Before our hiatus, we had a few songs that we were working on, and a couple that we were playing live,” Alva told the Current. “So we will bring two of them back into the set.”
Named after the song “Girlfriend in a Coma” by The Smiths, GIAC remains one of the best-known rock acts to come out of San Antonio in recent decades. During its dozen-year original run, the trio even had the chance to open for Smiths frontman Morrissey himself on a string of dates. It also shared stages with Tegan and Sara, Social Distortion, Frank Black, the Go-Go’s, the Pogues and others.
As perhaps the biggest stamp of approval possible for an all-female rock band, Joan Jett signed GIAC to Blackheart Records after seeing a performance at New York’s Knitting Factory. The band released four studio albums for the label, starting with 2007’s Both Before I’m Gone. The music video for the track “Road to Home” starred camp icon, cartoonishly augmented model and LGBTQ+ activist Amanda Lepore. GIAC itself serves as a bastion of LGBTQ+ advocacy and representation. Both Alva and drummer Phanie Diaz are openly lesbian, and Alva is married.
The Chicana band has also used its platform to speak out about immigration in songs including “Hope,” from its 2011 album Exits & All the Rest album.
The trio played what its members thought was its final concert at San Antonio’s Taco Fest in 2018, announcing a month later that they were officially disbanding. Frontwoman Nina Diaz pursued a solo career and relocated to Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Alva and Phanie Diaz, Nina’s sister, stayed in San Antonio and formed Chicana punk band Fea. Both
Nina’s solo project and Fea will remain active during GIAC’s triumphant return.
Between the upcoming GIAC tours, Fea plans to record its fourth album, according to Alva. Nina Diaz, who has since relocated back to San Antonio, will continue to focusing on her solo work as well, Alva added.
Though the band has been plagued with personal issues at times, Alva said this new era feels different.
“The girls and I are in a really good headspace, so there’s no time like the present,” she said.
Courtesy Photo Girl in a Coma
Wednesday, Sept. 4
Bush, Jerry Cantrell, Candlebox, Bones UK Bush released its multiplatinum debut Sixteen Stone nearly 30 years ago amid the grunge explosion. Even though critics compared the band to what was going on in the Pacific Northwest, frontman Gavin Rossdale cited bands such as Jane’s Addiction and My Bloody Valentine as influences. However the band is best categorized, it’s swinging through town as part of a package tour that includes 1990s contemporaries Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains and Candlebox. $39.50-$99.50, 6:30 p.m., Freeman Coliseum, 3201 E. Houston St., (210) 226-1177, freemantx.com. — Danny Cervantes
Thursday, Sept. 5
Jim Ward, Donella Drive, The Scripts
critics’ picks
As a founding member of the seminal El Paso post-hardcore band At The Drive In, Jim Ward and company took the world by storm, only to disband at the height of their hype. Two members went on to form the experimental rock act Mars Volta, while Ward started Sparta, which followed a more song-based path. He’s since explored Americana with his Sleepercar project and also is performing under his own name, plying the same melodic post-hardcore which made him famous. His most recent album is Daggers. $20, 7 p.m., Vibes Underground, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 255-3833, vibeseventcenter.com. — Bill Baird
Friday, Sept. 6
Vincent Neal Emerson, Croy and the Boys San Antonio-based Vincent Neal Emerson is one of country music’s new breed, meaning he creates classic, no-bullshit songs with great musicianship and creates a true sense of kinship with the audience. It’s gritty music that does away with the artifice of modern pop-country. Austin’s Croy and the Boys mine a similar vein. Like many modern Americana greats, they began as punk rockers before rediscovering their Texas roots — an origin story that gives their music an edge lacking in most modern country. $15-$20, 8:30 p.m., Floore’s Country Store, 14492 Old Bandera Road, liveatfloores. com. — BB
Friday, Sept. 6
Ramona, Twin Seas
By infusing ’60s- and’70s-style American rock with Latin American ballads, Mexican outfit Ramona has built a style all its own. The band emerged from Tijuana, playing what it dubbed “romantic psychedelic rock.” Since then, it’s shared stages with indie bands such as Blonde Redhead and Hello Seahorse as it expanded its audience across the U.S. and South America. $20, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — DC
Saturday, Sept. 7
Possessed by Paul James, McMercy Family
Band
Kerrville-based Conrad Wert — aka Possessed by Paul James — is a legendary one-man-band who performs his distinct country-blues-punk hybrid on fiddle, banjo and guitar. He’s currently in the middle of a breakthrough moment, having reached No. 12 on Billboard’s bluegrass charts. Austin’s McMercy Family Band specializes in an infectious and joyous kind of roots music that filters old-time string bands through the subculture of a long-gone Austin. $10, 9:30 p.m., The Lonesome Rose, 2114 N. St Mary’s St., thelonesomerose.com. — BB
Saturday, Sept. 7
Glenn Hughes
Thanks to his stints in mid-’70s Deep Purple and mid-’80s Black Sabbath, singer-bassist Glenn Hughes has been called “the voice of rock.” This concert at the Carver Community Cultural Center is an intriguingly unlikely pairing. Expect soulful vocals as Hughes celebrates the 50th anniversary of Purple’s scorching Burn album. $65, 7 p.m., Carver Community Cultural Center, 226 N. Hackberry St., thecarver.org. — BB
Sunday, Sept. 8
Alex Dupree
Alex Dupree is a Texas original who fuses poetry and songwriting. But don’t expect yet another Townes Van Zandt clone. Dupree also incorporates more left-field influences including Arthur Russell and John Cale. The singer-songwriter has released several albums on the venerable Keeled Scales label that show off his
unique approach. This show kicks off the fall season at Echo Bridge, the acoustically fantastic outdoor performance spot Texas Highways magazine called “the coolest venue in Texas.” $15, 6:45 p.m., Echo Bridge, 2617 Texas 536 Spur, instagram.com/echobridgeappreciationsociety. — BB
Wednesday, Sept. 11
Jelly Roll, Warren Zeiders, Alexandra Kay Jelly Roll had an unlikely rise from a crime-riddled youth in Tennessee to become an award-winning artist fusing hip-hop and country. He jumped from dealing drugs and doing jail time to selling out arenas and collaborating with Eminem. The singer-rapper-songwriter is touring in anticipation of his forthcoming album Beautifully Broken, which is set for an October release. $39.50 and up, 7 p.m., Frost Bank Center, One Frost Bank Center Drive, (210) 4445140, frostbankcenter.com. — DC
Saturday, Sept. 14
Music For Listeners 25th Anniversary: Voxtrot, Buttercup, Blushing Music For Listeners — the indie-rock program on Trinity University’s KTRU-FM that fuses impassioned enthusiasm with an intelligent, cultured sensibility — is celebrating 25 years on the air with this special concert. The free show features Austin indie-poppers Voxtrot, quirky San Antonio MVPs Buttercup, and Austin dream-pop outfit Blushing and will take place in the hallowed halls of Trinity’s Laurie Auditorium. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting way to celebrate the passion
project of San Antonio’s own Michael Thomas and Orlando Torres. Free, 7 p.m. Laurie Auditorium, One Trinity Place, musicforlisteners.com. — BB
Tuesday, Sept. 17
Evan Honer, Wells Ferrari Evan Honer is part of a new breed of folk musicians drawing inspiration from Americana stalwarts Jason Isbell, Tyler Childers and Colter Wall while employing modern social-media tools to break through to a younger audience. As evidence of his ability to expand his online reach, the 22-year old Honer has racked up a mind-boggling 50 million listens across platforms. Show opener Wells Ferrari is an upstart folk outfit that specializes in rebooting classic ’60s and ’70s songwriter vibes for the modern era. $22, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — BB
Tuesday, Sept. 17
Cigarettes After Sex
The hazy and delicate sound of dream-pop act Cigarettes After Sex is influenced by ’60s French singer-songwriter Françoise Hardy but also evokes the more contemporary sound of Mazzy Star and Beach House. The androgynous-sounding voice and tender lyrics of frontman Greg Gonzalez are buoyed by gauzy soundscapes that are at once dark and romantic. The band is touring behind its third studio album, the recently released X’s. $34.50 and up, 8 p.m., Frost Bank Center, One Frost Bank Center Drive, (210) 444-5140, frostbankcenter.com. — DC
Courtesy Photo Voxtrot Voxtrot
“En-Games” — finishing the same way. by Matt Jones
16. Xenomorph leader of sci-fi filmdom, for instance
18. Depilatory brand with “short shorts” ads
19. Offer temporarily
20. Coffeehouse dispenser
21. ___ Online (long-running MMORPG)
23. “Black-ish” dad
24. She’s portrayed both Queens Elizabeth (I on TV and II on film)
26. Rakish cads
28. Listen to
29. Work in a haunted house, say
31. Lot purchase
32. Do some sums
35. Type of incandescent headlamp bulb
40. Up to now
41. Stimpy’s costar
42. “Norma,” for instance
43. ___ dire (court examination)
45. Fortnite dance or action
47. Greeting in Gelsenkirchen
51. Director Jean-___ Godard
54. “The Death of Slim Shady
(Coup de Grâce)” rapper
55. Title for a judge, for short
56. AZ city
57. 1949 mil. alliance
58. All tied up
61. Certain prayer leader
62. Rodent in a maze
63. Twelve-book Trojan tale
64. “Ich bin ___ Berliner” (JFK quote that’s a misquote on his part)
65. Pull up a chair
66. Family nickname
Down
1. Burn
2. Bathroom floor worker
3. Wandering
4. Vanmate of Daphne and Velma
5. Good times
6. Play segment
7. Pub purchase
8. Shadow effect from a partial eclipse
9. Flight unit?
10. Crunchyroll offering
11. Clear plastic wrap
13. “So excited!” noise
15. Bookkeeping record
17. Addresses in a browser
22. Bend the truth
24. Color subtleties
25. Trevor who video-interviewed Kamala Harris in October 2020
27. Part of OPEC, for short
29. Barnyard pen
30. Kind of stick or ball
31. Network getting a U.S. remake of U.K. panel show “Have
I Got News For You”
32. When most children begin sixth grade
33. James Van ___ Beek
34. Coded strands
36. Nose hair tools
37. Architect Saarinen
38. Minnesota state bird
39. Choose
43. Snake’s secretion
44. Number of one-syllable U.S. state names
45. “Ghostbusters” character Dr. ___ Spengler
46. High-IQ group, supposedly
47. Bottled-up type?
48. Taste found in mushrooms
49. Mythical giant like Atlas
50. Half of “Good Mythical Morning”
52. Start of a gym motto
53. Drug store aisle
56. Dish list
59. Grammy-winning guitarist Steve
60. Mid-afternoon drink
Answers on page 36
WHAT MAKES LOCAL CULTURE
We weave your unique local flavor into every social media campaign. We don’t just navigate the social media landscape; we own it! Your success is our success, and we believe in the power of community. Ready to embark on a social media journey that celebrates your local culture and propels your brand to the forefront? Let’s create, connect, and conquer together.
