CultureMap at 5

5 best CultureMap celebrity spottings: Gaga in the pool, Beyoncé at Target, Manziel on the runway

Face it, we love to read about celebrities. So when CultureMap spots a notable doing regular things in Houston, readers clamour for details. To celebrate CultureMap's fifth birthday, we look back at some of our best celeb spottings:

Lady Gaga

At the height of her popularity, Lady Gaga came to Houston for two concerts in the summer of 2010. But she didn't spend all her time in the Toyota Center, as we discovered.

Lady Gaga dines late at Spanish Flowers and goes unnoticed (published July 26, 2010)

"While Lady Gaga ignited plenty of excitement at Toyota Center on Sunday, she caused barely a ripple at Spanish Flowers after her show when she and her stage crew showed up for margaritas, nachos and platters of Tex-Mex," Shelby Hodge wrote.

Tracking Lady Gaga's Houston adventure: From the St. Regis pool to Dirt Bar (published July 27, 2010)

"The pop sensation stayed at the St. Regis (OK that's not such an eye-opener, there are only so many five-star hotels to go around). But Gaga's Monday afternoon fun in St. Regis' pool certainly was — with photos of it acquired by TMZ," Chris Baldwin wrote.

"Even after Lady Gaga finished her second high-energy, sold-out show at the Toyota Center Monday night, she still wasn't done with Houston. Post concert, Gaga hit Dirt Bar in the Heights, her second trip to the area in as many nights."

Anna Wintour

Vogue editor Anna Wintour regularly spends the Christmas holidays in Houston with her main squeez, Shelby Bryan, and his family. But we didn't expect to see her in the vitamin aisle at Central Market.

Celebrity on Aisle 9: Vogue's Anna Wintour spotted at Central Market — but not in the magazine section (published Dec. 24, 2012)

"In Christmases past, Anna Wintour has been spotted at the Avalon Diner, Tiny Boxwoods and the River Oaks Theatre. But who would have guessed that the icy Vogue magazine editor is a supermarket shopper? Our CultureMap spies snapped this grainy shot of Wintour in a print dress (at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week she often wears such short-sleeved dresses) and gold chain necklace, carrying her trademark Chanel sunglasses, as she perused the vitamin aisle virtually unnoticed," Clifford Pugh wrote.

Beyoncé

Houston's favorite celebrity continually swoops into Houston, often without notice, to see family. But when she was in town two times for concerts, she was a little more high-profile.

Surprise! Beyoncé pops up all over Houston — the Target shopping trip is just the beginning (published July 15, 2013)

"Beyonce is hardly hiding out in her luxury hotel room on her visit home to Houston," Chris Baldwin wrote. "The music superstar is being spotted all over town in advance of Monday night's much-anticipated, sold-out show at Toyota Center. She hit the Galleria-area Target on San Felipe on Sunday, with incredulous fans snapping Twitpics of Beyonce browsing in the hats section as a bodyguard in a polo shirt and jeans looked on. Hey, one can never have too many reasonably-priced accessories.

Even if your net worth is an estimated $350 million."

Beyoncé and Jay Z's H-Town weekend: After-concert antics, art tour and brunch with Blue Ivy (published July 23, 2014)

Surprise! Beyoncé, Solange & Tina Knowles take a tour through The Menil, talk of new album (published July 3, 2012)

Johnny Manziel

Johnny Manziel's surprise Houston visit is full of meaning: Potential No. 1 pick wouldn't miss this night (published Feb. 4, 2014)

"It was a surreal evening with the A&M quarterback and a posse of rangers milling around a high-end women's department store," Shelby Hodge wrote.

Michelle Obama

Surprise! Michelle Obama and a friend enjoy a low-key meal at a trendy Houston restaurant (published April 10, 2014)

"As Triniti chef/owner Ryan Hildebrand understands the process for deciding which restaurant to visit, Obama's team selects six possible candidates, and then the First Lady chooses the one that's most appealing to her. Hildebrand found out she'd selected his restaurant around 5:30 p.m.," Eric Sandler wrote.

Honorable mention:

Justin Bieber's strip club visit
Keri Russell's stop at the Children's Museum of Houston
Sandra Bullock's dinner at Eddie V's

Lady Gaga frolics in the St. Regis Hotel swimming pool.

Photo by Sandy Pictorica/NPG

Lady Gaga frolics in the St. Regis Hotel swimming pool.

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it echoes

Montrose bar sounds off with two stories of nightly DJs and live music

Photo by Rebekah Flores

Music is the main priority at Echoes.

From Tuesdays through Sundays, Montrose cafe Echoes prides itself on being a spot that offers live music on a nightly basis. But the music always differs.

Nights have saluted a wide array of artists: soul legends, pop stars, jazz pioneers, on-the-fringe performers, and more. On Thursday, August 27, they’ll pay tribute to jazz great Alice Coltrane with mixed-genre group Aurum Son playing Coltrane tunes. The following night, several DJs will be part of “Pan-Afrikan Discotheque,” an evening of Afro-Caribbean tunes in memory of Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey’s 139th birthday.

“We do that with all types: Greek music, Turkish music, Mexican music, jazz, funk, Japanese city pop-type stuff,” owner Georgeos Kazilas tells CultureMap. “We did a Radiohead night the other night. We do trip-hop nights, Italo disco kind of nights. Yeah, I'm just someone that just loves all types of music.”

Since opening up on June 7, 2022 — Prince’s birthday, BTW — Echoes has been a place where music is the main priority. The spot didn’t even start serving food until a year later, when Kazilas snapped up husband-and-wife chefs Armando Ramirez and Ana Stanciu to oversee the Greek-Mexican kitchen.

“I guess I always wanted to have a space dedicated to exploring all types of music,” he says. “And, primarily, the idea was this was gonna be a music-concentrated space. And having a bar was kind of a means to an end, a way to make a musical space financially viable, or self-sustaining.“

It started when Kazilas invited rhythm-and-blues band Curley Cormier and the Gladiators, a staple of historic Fifth Ward lounge The Silver Slipper (where Kazilas saw them perform), for a regular residency. He then reached out to more local musicians about doing themed nights.

“As you start to meet more musicians, you kind of see what they want to do and, also, what they're capable of doing,” he says. “And I would push them outside their comfort zones a little bit and speak to them and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think about doing this type of music?’ And they would listen to it and be like, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’”

While Echoes has live music at its upstairs location, customers can also get dance tunes playing below, courtesy of Ice House Radio. Originally a mobile pop-up, the online radio station now broadcasts from a space that was formerly a car wash tunnel, with various local DJs spinning tunes live.

Ice House co-founder Jackson Allers is grateful to Kazilas for giving his radio station a home. “Georgeos understood our vision when we were still in our van in the spring of 2024 and, as a result, when we moved into that old car wash space down below Echoes, we were allowed to push the musical boundaries like no other space in Houston,” says Allers. “And, our Ice House Radio community has really been allowed to flourish with Echoes. The owners and the entire staff have been diehard supporters of our little experiment.”

Kazilas continues to schedule evenings where people can sample great food as well as music they may or may not have known about.

“Again, I started this place as a music space, dedicated to exploring all types of music, and I think the mission kind of remains the same,” he says. "What I'd like people to take away is that, almost every night, you can experience quality music, as well as quality food and drinks. You know, you might get exposed to a new type of music or new songs — whatever it is.”

echoes live music ice house radio houston