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Fighting Fire With Fire
Does an unproven treatment that combats drug addiction with drugs promise more than it can deliver?
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The Ozz-Man Cometh
After years of touring the nation, Ozzfest 2008 finds a home in Dallas' suburbs
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César Chávez, Texas
Forget about renaming Industrial Boulevard or Ross Avenue or the Dallas North Tollway. The city should go all the way.
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Eat My Dirt
A builder's guide to skirting the zoning laws and making the city look goofy
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Low-Bid to No-Bid
Don't have a clue how DART could bust its budget by a billion bucks? Here's one.
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Stand and Deliver
WIth No Deliverance, The Toadies revert to the bare bones of their past
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Morning Wood
My Morning Jacket is the best live band in the world
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They Shall Be Comforted
Friends and faith buoy the family of a slain Christian music producer
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Line 'Em Up
The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club vrooms into Deep Ellum, sparking hope in a new venue's owners
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Selfishly, But Willingly
Lately, Sarah Jaffe's outdrawn the headliners she's shared bills with, and that can mean only one thing
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Recent Articles by Mikael Wood
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The Weakerthans and the Constantines
September 24
Published on September 18, 2003
Canada's been getting loads of attention this year from stateside indie-rockers jazzed over ornate ensemble productions from "gay church folk music" practitioners the Hidden Cameras and extravagantly spaced-out guitar-popsters Broken Social Scene. Here's two more acts worth your overvalued American dollar: Winnipeg's Weakerthans and Toronto's Constantines, passionate rock believers possessed of fairly different agendas. On Reconstruction Site, smarty-pants Weakerthans front man John Samson (known to some from his days with goofy activist-punks Propaghandi) wants to make a big difference in a small way, telling bare-naked crash-test-dummy stories about "tape hiss and the modern man, the Cold War and card catalogs" over likable folk-rock that isn't afraid of the occasional fist-pumping chorus (provided you can still make out the words). He's good when quoting Martin Amis, but he's better when admitting, "I'm so glad that you exist"; your mom would agree. She probably wouldn't like Constantines singer-guitarist Bry Webb--he spends the entirety of Shine a Light sounding either totally unhinged or royally sloshed. But the band does such a strangely good job of connecting the dots between burly roots-rock and first-gen emo--check the layering of salty guitar and sweet organ in the title track--that you'll want to forgive his vocal excesses and dig into the noise. Yo, Canada: Got anyone else?