weekend event planner

Here are the top 10 things to do in Houston this weekend

Have a trill ol' time at Axelrad's holiday party this Sunday.

Photo by Jamaal Vince Photography

Need a good laugh this holiday season?

There will be two holiday-themed comedy shows going on this Friday night. At Cafe Brasil, we have Unpopular Opinions: Holiday Edition, with comedians Peru Flores and Paul Shinneman performing alongside the 2018 National Champions of Earwolf's Improv4humans contest, Houston's very own Can't Tell Us Nothing.

At Station Theater, The ’80s Kids will present Gen-X-Mas: A Holiday Sketch Comedy & Variety Show, a holiday comedy extravaganza where people face their Christmas present. Both shows are at 9:30 pm.

As always, here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, December 19

Russian Winter Bazaar at Russian Cultural Center
The Russian Cultural Center is once again offering unique ethnic souvenirs and gifts that are hard to find anywhere else. Each and every one of them is hand-made in accordance with centuries-old, Russian traditions. Their collection of traditional blue-and-white porcelain — Gzhel — has been expanded recently, and includes many vintage items. They also have several beautiful, Russian tea sets by the famous porcelain factories, such as Lomonosov (Imperial) Porcelain Factory, Dulevo porcelain factory and others. Runs through Thursday, January 9. 9 am.

The Blue Angel at MATCH
If you've never heard of Marlene Dietrich, the androgynous star of the silver screen, a good place to start is this 1930 flick. Directed by Josef von Sternberg (Dietrich's longtime collaborator), the movie is about a sexually repressed instructor at a boys' school who learns of his pupils' infatuation with a local nightclub songstress. He decides to personally investigate the Blue Angel nightclub, but after stealing a glimpse of the smoldering Lola Lola (played by Dietrich), he finds himself consumed by desire and tormented by his rigid propriety. 7 pm.

Friday, December 20

Weekend Cake Shop Pop-Up at Jusgo Supermarket
Lady M New York will be back in town for another weekend pop-up. This time around, the world-renowned bakery will offer Houstonians the chance to take home one of their Mille Crêpe Cakes for holiday entertaining or gift-giving. Each cake is made by hand with quality ingredients and features no fewer than 20 lacy crêpes, delicately layered with airy pastry cream. So, expect a lot of fancy desserts to be sampled at this three-day gathering. 3 pm (noon Saturday-Sunday).

Die Hard at Landmark River Oaks
Let's settle this once and for all: Die Hard is a Christmas movie! The movie is set on Christmas Eve, after all. It's the movie that proved that Bruce Willis (the then-smart-ass co-star of the TV show Moonlighting) could be an action star, as his barefoot, New York cop takes out a bunch of terrorists (led by the late, great Alan Rickman) who take over a LA skyscraper. 11:59 pm.

Saturday, December 21

Best Friends Animal Society presents Holiday Wishes for Shelter Pets
Presented in collaboration with BARC, Montgomery County Animal Shelter Texas, Harris County Animal Shelter and Fort Bend County Pets — Fort Bend County Animal Services, this two-day event will be placing as many animals as possible in homes for the holidays. Adoption fees for dogs have been reduced to $20 and for cats to $10 and include spay/neuter, age-appropriate vaccinations and microchips. Visitors will also be invited to enjoy hot chocolate, cookies, make commemorative pawprint ornaments and cards.

A Drag Queen Christmas at House of Blues Houston
Those who missed the Ho! Ho! Holiday! Drag Bunch that happened at House of Blues last Saturday may want to check out this extravagant, yuletide experience. Hosted by Nina West, this show will have a bounty of cross-dressing divas pulling out the outrageous, over-the-top stops for your amusement. Even though this is an all-ages, seated floor show, there will be adult, ribald humor coming every which-a-way. So, please take this into consideration when you purchase tickets. 7 pm.

Sunday, December 22

Black Slacks Christmas Party at Cactus Music
Let's commend Cactus Music for continuing to sell records and CDs in these heavily streamed times. They continue to stay afloat by having live, in-store performances and getting all genres of musicians to pop in and do some meet-and-greets. For those who've stuck with the spot all this time, come down and celebrate the season with a Christmas party, complete with food, beverages, free CDs and a DJ set from longtime regular Black Slacks. (Just by his name, you can tell he's gonna spin some cool stuff). 1-4 pm.

Trills the Season Holiday Party and Toy Drive at Axelrad
Axelrad will be getting into the Christmas sprit with its holiday party/toy drive. Now in its fifteenth year, this event has raised and handed out over $20,000 in toys for kids all over this city. Bring a new toy to donate and, on Christmas Day, they'll work to bring supplies to the immigrant and refugee population at the Texas border. Nosaprise, Tony Badd, Thread Atlas, and Free Radicals will be performing, with OG Bobby Trill, Joey Flaco, and Ichikara IV Valdez serving as DJs. 4-9 pm.

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super duper

Quirky Houston DJ drops genre-blending mix CD inspired by video games

Photo by Dustee Torres

DJ Squincy Jones

If you’re the type of person who has dubstep, Southern hip-hop, and Koji Kondo’s iconic “Ground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. in your streaming-music library, then Squincy Jones has created the perfect playlist for you..

Photo by Dustee Torres

DJ Squincy Jones

Super Nintendub is the name of the mix where the Houston-born-and-bred DJ mashes up all those aforementioned music genres. A capella bars from Houston heavyweights (Megan Thee Stallion, Paul Wall) and other Dirty South MCs (Three 6 Mafia, 8Ball & MJG) gets laid over grooves from underground dubstep artists (Numa Crew, Blay Vision, Hamdi). But we also get music from various Nintendo (Castlevania III, Ninja Gaiden) and Super Nintendo (Super Mario World, Final Fantasy VI) games. Jones also throws in audio samples from commercials and gaming-heavy movies like WarGames, The Wizard, and the Adam Sandler-produced Grandma’s Boy.

Needless to say, Jones has always been a gamer. He’s had his run of game systems: NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, even the old-school Atari 2600. He recalls his days blowing the dust out of such cartridges as Contra, Double Dragon, and Duck Hunt. In the past, Jones has released a series of mashup mixes – titled Blend Pack – with cover art that resembles/salutes classic video games.

“I'm a huge fan of all the eight-bit and 16-bit stuff,” says Jones (government name: Shane Rector), 41. “I play a lot of the new games, or I have played a lot of the new games, but not as much anymore. You know, being a parent and having a full-time job – you don't really have time for video games anymore.”

Super Nintendub is a sequel to Nintendub, a dubstep mix he played during a party way back in 2008. “I added some a capellas, [like] a Bun B a capella,” he recalls. “I had some other Dirty South tunes from the time. I layered them because they're at the same tempo as dubstep. Another friend that does music gave me a folder of Nintendo songs. So, I just randomly layered it on top and kinda slowed down the Nintendo music, and it sounded cool as hell to me.”

The mix picked up fans overseas when he dropped it online. “I've always wanted to make a follow-up to it because I got so much good feedback,” he remembers. “People from all over were writing about it."

Jones decided to release Super on compact disc, sold in rectangular keep cases – packaging that’s very familiar to gamers – with double-sided artwork also by Jones. (A digital link is available upon request to those who buy the CD.) While the limited-edition disc is available for purchase on Jones’s Bandcamp page, the CD mix shouldn’t be confused with the Super mix that’s currently playing on the page.

“I wanted to have them in the mix as well,” he says. “But I'm not entirely, you know, confident with my production skills. So, I just kinda had it on the side to go along with the release of this mix.”

Since releasing Super in September, Jones says he’s gotten good feedback from those who’ve bought a copy. “Because it looks like a video game,” he says, “a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, cool! Is it an actual game or an actual DVD or whatnot?’ But it's always hit or miss because some people are like, ‘Oh, man, I don't have a CD player’ or "Wow, you actually printed a CD,’ because everything's, you know, digital.”

He’s looking into playing a big-screen version of Super, where videos of the rap songs are spliced in with video-game footage and other retro clips, somewhere around here. “I was thinking like either a movie theater or somebody mentioned Aurora Picture Show, or maybe Wonky Power, to do like a viewing or showing or whatever – kind of have a party for it.”

Even though Jones enjoys merging gaming and music – his dual obsessions – he still prefers to be known as more than a video-game DJ. A veteran of the Houston DJ scene for a quarter of a century, he continues to do gigs like his upcoming monthly residency at Eight Row Flint.

“I do open-format DJing,” he says. “I've done raves and dubstep parties. I've played on the radio. I've played at Mid Main, where it’s a mainstream crowd. In this day and age, everybody has their branding or whatnot. I just love video games, so I just kind of take that as my branding, I guess.”

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super duper

Quirky Houston DJ drops genre-blending mix CD inspired by video games