The Big Sleep has a great band name and a great new album to boot. Instrumental prog-rockers The Big Sleep release their new record, Sleep Forever, today. If you're looking for a calming musical sedative to fall asleep to, you won't find that here. The choice jam sessions on this album mostly make us want to turn up the volume. Really loud. -Download the album's first single, "Pinkies," at French Kiss Records -The Village Voice......

Some of today's brightest new acts are releasing albums today. MGMT’s major label debut, Oracular Spectacular, is out in stores today after being available on iTunes since last year. The title of this album kind of speaks for itself; the young duo concocts some of the dreamiest, glammiest rock sounds your ears will ever come across. -Read an album review in Pitchfork -Watch the interactive music video for the song, “Electric Feel” -The Wall Street......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • A bicyclist was killed early Friday evening after being struck by a van on Old Katy Road. • A new three million dollar ad campaign to enhance the city's image is set to launch in February. The ad campaign will feature celebrities such as Beyonce and heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley. Expect to see these ads in The Wall Street Journal, USA......

Good morning, Houston. Looks like our freewheeling land-use policies have gotten some national attention: The Wall Street Journal has a story focusing on the proposed residential tower at Bissonnet and Ashby. "The condo-tower dustup is just the latest in a string of odd situations allowed by Houston's lenient land-use rules," the article explains. "Rowdy cantinas, rock-crushing operations and commercial dumps sometimes pop up in residential neighborhoods. Condo towers sprout next to schools. A pay-by-the-hour......

One of this week's most popular blogging topics was Senator Dan Patrick's trip to Hooter's. Miya Shay broke the story on her Houston Political Blog. It was re-blogged by Burnt Orange Report and several other Texas political blogs. Lone Star Times responded to the slight uproar that had been created in good humor, referring to the incident as "Fried Pickle-Gate," because Senator Patrick was at Hooter's with his son and his girlfriend, who likes the......

It's no secret that in certain circles, the city of Houston just doesn't get as much respect as other, “elite” cities like New York and Boston. But according to a recent opinion piece by Joel Kotkin in the Wall Street Journal, Houston, and other “newcomer” cities like Phoenix and Charlotte, may have the last laugh. He argues that "superstar" cities have become too expensive and overrated for their own good, driving immigrants and the......

If you like musicals of questionable quality and Enron, you're so in luck: Enron — the Musical, a locally produced stage version of the infamous corporate high jinks, is now on stage in the Heights. Seriously. Mark Fraser, a manufacturers' representative, wrote, produced and directed the show, which is based around parody lyrics set to popular show tunes. (There are 28 songs, some of which were unperformed pieces Fraser wrote for the Houston Press Club's......

In a strange turn of events, the University of North Texas announced it will rename its new athletic practice facility after the football coach the school just fired. Why? Because Mattress Mack said to. The backstory is this: After nine years as head coach of the UNT Mean Green, Dickey was fired last week because officials weren't happy with the team's recent performance (2-9 last year and 3-7 so far in 2006); coincidentally, he learned......

In today's Wall Street Journal, Thaddeus Herrick reports on the continued concern about the fate of several landmarks in Houston. This time, though, there is a solid statement about the developments:David Deason, vice president for development at Barnes & Noble, said the New York-based company intends to close the Bookstop in favor of a "state of the art" facility. But Mr. Deason said the fate of the landmarks is in the hands of Weingarten. The......

The Bellaire nursing home whose residents were killed when their bus caught fire during last year's Rita evacuation assumed the bus was safe, a representative told federal officials today Opponents of HPD's policy on illegal immigrants say a deadline is unfair requiring them to turn in the signatures of 20,000 Houston voters by Aug. 28 to get a city charter amendment on the November ballot Recent leadership problems at TSU have led Wall Street analysts......

If you didn't see Jeff Skilling's interview with The Wall Street Journal on Saturday, here's what you missed: He thought about killing himself, became resolved to live when federal prosecutors went after him, thinks he helped convict himself and maintains he's not guilty. "I've come to the conclusion that life is better than the alternative, which was not a conclusion that was real clear to me for a period of time," Skilling told the Journal.......

By now, we've all heard a lot (and a lot of the same) about yesterday's Enron verdict — and all this, of course, is only the beginning as we enter four months of speculation about Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling's sentencing and the appeals the ex-execs are certain to file. But in the meantime, there's still some wrapping up to do from yesterday, beginning with Lay and Skilling's reaction to their convictions on charges of......

Prosecutor John Hueston pressed ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay yesterday on his allegation that short sellers and financial journalists brought about Enron's collapse, pointing out that Lay's son Mark was one of the people short-selling Enron stock in 2001. Hueston said Mark Lay made more than $166,000 by betting Enron's stock prices would fall. "I didn't know that," Lay said. "He wasn't a vulture was he?" Hueston asked Lay of his son. "I don't think he's......

Former Enron Chairman Ken Lay continued spinning his story of innocence at his trial yesterday, maintaining that Enron's collapse was the fault of ex-CFO Andy Fastow, short sellers and the financial journalists at The Wall Street Journal. Lay stressed that be believed Enron was doing just fine, which means he couldn't possibly have been lying to people when he told them things were OK at the company even as it was sliding toward corporate doom......

As expected, former Enron Chairman Ken Lay blamed others for his company's downfall on Monday, his first day of testimony in his and ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's trial. Lay said theft by former CFO Andy Fastow, a conspiracy of short sellers and The Wall Street Journal combined to create a "run on the bank" that ruined what was the country's seventh-largest company in 2001 — and then he pulled a classic "I'm responsible, but not......

Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling continued testifying in his and ex-Chairman Ken Lay's trial yesterday, maintaining his innocence and saying he didn't remember doing some of things he's been accused of. Skilling's lawyer Daniel Petrocelli read through the 28 charges against Skilling paragraph by paragraph, and Skilling said the accusations were "false," "absurd" and "inconceivable." "You're a smart guy, aren't you?" Petrocelli asked his client. "Yes," replied Skilling, 52, known as a bright and volatile......

Everyone expected former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow to deliver some dirt on the company during his first day of testimony in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial — and he did just that, describing a culture of greed and corruption that he says led Enron to pull all kinds of shady financial deals. Fastow said he thought of himself as a "hero" and indicated he thought his LJM side deals were keeping the company afloat, and......

Yesterday in the Lay/Skilling trial, defense lawyers hit witness Kevin Hannon right where it hurt: in the funny bone. Hannon, the former CEO of Enron Broadband Services, testified Thursday that ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling told executives during a May 2001 meeting, "They're on to us," referring to a Wall Street investment firm questioning Enron's earnings. On Monday, Skilling lawyer Mark Holscher asked Hannon whether Skilling might not have made the statement sarcastically: "Anything's possible," Hannon......

The latest witness in the Lay/Skilling trial testified that ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling told a group of top Enron executives, "They're on to us," referring to Wall Street analysts who asked questions about the company's earnings, the value of its Internet division and the stability of its trading arm. The comment came during a May 2001 meeting that former Enron Broadband Services CEO Kevin Hannon told jurors about Thursday: He said Skilling, [ex-Enron Chairman] Ken......

During his second day on the witness stand, former Enron Broadband Services head Ken Rice said his company might have had potential to perhaps succeed, maybe, sometime in the future if it had survived Enron's 2001 collapse. On his first day on the stand, prosecutors focused Rice largely on what was wrong at the company. On Tuesday, Rice said he and Skilling misrepresented the financial health of the failing broadband business to help a stock......

The second day of testimony in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial didn't go any better for ex-CEO Skilling than the first one did, as former investor relations head Mark Koenig continued his story of adjusted profits and inflated corporate health. Specifically, Koenig said company officials — including Skilling — didn't tell investors about $230 million in quarterly retail division losses during an April 2001 conference call, and in July 2001 he also neglected to mention......

As the so-called "trial of the century" (at least by Houston standards) gets rolling today, the techno-crazy Houston Chronicle keeps us up to the second with two new blogs: Legal Commentary, in which attorneys give insight into the legal wranglings of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, and TrialWatch, which gives Chron staffers the chance to tell us what's going on at the courthouse, right now. From TrialWatch, we learn that reporters from Bloomberg were the......

Ah, Christmas: The season of giving, of joy, of vaguely unsettling corporate cute. Today's dose comes from Amegy Bank, which calculates the return on Santa's fake portfolio of stocks. The bank's analysts assemble a group of stocks from companies in the consumer discretionary market, which Santa would theoretically have the most interest in, and they review the stocks' performance year to year. Things are looking good for Santa in 2005: His portfolio is up 23......

In one of those news stories that makes us wonder whether people do any thinking ahead of time, KHOU reported yesterday that residential electric customers' rates have really gone up since the Texas electric market was deregulated in 2002. Yeah, choice is great, but Houstonist clearly remembers hearing people predict that deregulation would mean price breaks for businesses and industries and higher rates for average citizens. Apparently, no one else heard the same thing. A......