Audra Schroeder

Blowfly

Saturday, February 9, at Club Dada

The Five Best Concerts In Dallas This Weekend, February 7-10

The xx Wednesday, February 13, and Thursday, February 14, at The Granada Theater Achingly hip Londoners the xx have a two-night stay at The Granada this week, meaning twice as many Dallasites will be swept away by songs from their now-ubiquitous debut album and the recently released Coexist. We're k ... More >>

The Gritz Sunday

Sunday, January 13, at Sandaga 813

The Six Best Concerts In Dallas This Weekend, January 10-13

B.B. King Saturday, January 12, at House of Blues, $65-$125 Blues legend B.B. King is on tour after celebrating the 50th anniversary of signing to ABC-Paramount Records. Fans and blues-lovers alike should not miss out on the rare opportunity to see the now 87-year-old mastermind musician live. He'll ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts In Dallas This Weekend, January 3-6

Night Game Cult, Shiny Around the Edges Saturday, January 5, at New Media Recordings House, $5 Shiny Around the Edges and Night Game Cult soundtrack this night dedicated to the legend of Bozo Texino. Texas filmmaker Bill Daniel's 2005 documentary on the rail-car graffiti, which has appeared on train ... More >>

A Dozen of Our Favorite Posts and Stories of 2012

As the sands in the hourglass run out here at DC9 HQ, and making year-end lists feels more like penance than pleasurable mental exercise, we thought we'd take a break from quantifying albums and concerts, and instead qualify some of our favorite posts from the last year with an, "Oh man, that was a ... More >>

Looking Back on 15 of Our Favorite 2012 North Texas Releases

Ten Concerts We Can't Forget in 2012

The Six Best Concerts In DFW This Weekend, December 27-30

The Marked Men Thursday, December 27, at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, $5 One of Denton's all-time best punk bands, the Marked Men, are playing at Rubber Gloves with the equally formidable Bad Sports, who are in the process of recording a new album. Since their conception in the early aughts, the ... More >>

Gift Rap

Sunday, December 23, at WAAS Gallery

The 15 Best North Texas Releases of 2012

In a year when Kickstarter efforts have ballooned from humble requests to egocentric slaps in the face, the recording, funding and distribution of albums has taken on a different hue, as the chasm between what you can do "yourself" and what labels are offering gets wider and deeper. A few of the art ... More >>

Indie-Verse's Eric Landrum: "I Would Put on My Grandfather's Loafers and Moonwalk on Their Stoop"

Eric Landrum has sacrificed a lot as a music fan working in radio promotions, but what's really kept him on the clock is his passion. No matter what kind of laminate or credentials Landrum has scored over the years working live broadcasts at concerts or meet-and-greets with national touring artists, ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts In DFW This Week, December 17-20

Libertine's 13th Annual Toy Drive Monday, December 17, at Libertine Bar/Single Wide, Donations accepted More than a dozen acts are slated to play this annual benefit show, now taking place at Libertine and Single Wide. The O's, Ryan Thomas Becker, Grant Jones & the Pistol Grip Lassos, Cutter, J. Cha ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts In DFW This Weekend, December 13-16

The Babies Saturday, December 15, at Bryan Street Tavern, $8/$10 Formed in 2009, when Woods bassist Kevin Morby and Vivian Girls guitarist Cassie Ramone met at a party in Brooklyn, The Babies started making noise in 2010 with "Meet Me in the City," a gloriously energetic trip that features some of t ... More >>

Ten of the Best Concerts of 2012

There were too many great performances this year, in venues big and small, by acts local and national, to thoroughly cover within the confines of a blog post. This year's DOMA showcase (self-indulgence alert!) provided some transcendent local sets, we had a wealth of great festival acts to consider, ... More >>

The Observer Has a New Music Editor. You Should Say Hello.

We were, for reasons obvious to readers of this blog, a bit depressed when music editor Audra Schroeder announced recently that she would retire as a music journalist and pursue writing about Things That Aren't Music. Today, though, a little shot of human-resources Prozac: We have a new music editor ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts In DFW This Weekend, Dec. 6-9

Mark Kozelek Thursday, December 6, at Granada Theater, $29-$39 I've been hard on Kozelek's past band, Red House Painters, mainly because in college they radiated an air of preciousness I couldn't accept. As I've gotten older and softer, though, Kozelek's music, namely Sun Kil Moon, has grown on me. ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts In DFW This Weekend, Nov. 29-Dec. 2

Bettye LaVette, Bobby Patterson Thursday, November 29, at The Kessler Theater, $25-$35 Bettye LaVette's 1965 single "Let Me Down Easy" was the song that should have put the Detroit singer in the ranks of the Supremes and Marvin Gaye. LaVette's fame came later in life, however, namely as she's re-eme ... More >>

Here are the Winners of the 2012 Dallas Observer Music Awards

10 Awesome Photos From Saturday's Dallas Observer Music Awards Showcase

What a night it was. Saturday's music awards showcase on Elm Street left our web editor Nick Rallo voiceless, a man at Reno's toothless, and accounted for some epic hangovers the next day. It was a glorious night filled with memorable sets, and those little moments of bodily chaos, as we all hurried ... More >>

This Is Not a Love Song: Thoughts on Fun Fun Fun Fest 7

Fun Fun Fun Fest Auditorium Shores Friday, November 2-Sunday, November 4 In its seventh year, Fun Fun Fun Fest has settled into a very curious meta place. Standing in a crowd at any one of the four stages, you were often watching a show via someone's iPhone or iPad. That Terrence Malick has been f ... More >>

10 Acts to Catch at Fun Fun Fun Fest

I've been to every Fun Fun Fun Fest since its inception in 2006, back when it was a one-night event and Spoon played to a small crowd of very cold attendees. Since then, the fest has grown in scope and size, seen legends and up-and-comers grace its stages, and matured out of its original Austin loca ... More >>

Terminator 2, Big Fiction, Eccotone

Sunday, November 4, at 1919 Hemphill

Carnival of Souls with Pinkish Black and Mind Spiders

Friday, November 2, at Texas Theatre

Samuel Adams' 2012 Utopias Is Great or Awful, Depending on Whom You Ask

The Boston Beer Co. has released its 10th anniversary batch of Samuel Adams Utopias, and it's starting to turn up on shelves around town. I spotted some in the cooler at Goody Goody on Oak Lawn Avenue and had a private little beer-nerd laugh -- clearly, the staff there is uninitiated. Utopias is an ... More >>

The Five Best Concerts In Dallas This Weekend

Madonna Saturday, October 20 and Sunday, October 21, at American Airlines Center, $48.50-$358.50 Get your outfits ready, Madonna is upon us. When she kicked off her world tour back in May, thus began her gigantic seven-month, 89-date trek through Europe before hitting North America, and she'll event ... More >>

The Six Best Concerts In Dallas This Weekend

Check out more of this weekend's shows via our shiny new concert calendar Afghan Whigs, Centro-matic Sunday, October 14, at the Granada Theater Within the bowels of the '90s reunion machine, Ohio's Afghan Whigs are one of those bands you never really expected to be spat out again. Their 1993 LP, Ge ... More >>

Vanessa Peters

Thursday, October 4, at AT&T Performing Arts Center

Index Festival

Friday, October 5, and Saturday, October 6, at Trees

The Six Best Concerts In Dallas This Weekend

Astronautalis, Friday, October 5, at Granada Theater This time last year, former North Texas rapper Astronautalis had just released his 11-track gem, This Is Our Science. This Friday, he opens for Flobots, a Denver-based prog hip-hop group signed to Motown Records. On his website, Astronautalis enco ... More >>

The Six Best Concerts of the Summer

See also: Ten of August's best music photos This summer's musical choices have been made. Our thighs have been chafed from festivals, our livers raked over the fiery coals, our eardrums gently caressed. And now, as we drift into the last quarter of the year, we're taking one look back at some of o ... More >>

Hot Wet Mess

Saturday, September 1 at North Texas Fairgrounds

Stalley at Trees

Saturday, August 18 at Trees

Smile Smile Album Release

Saturday, August 11, at the Granada Theater

Waltz Around Our 100 Best Texas Songs

The 100 Best Texas Songs: The Complete List

100. Tripping Daisy, "Sonic Bloom" Before this album, the band had a grunge-pop affectation, but this song, from 1998's Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb, was more heartfelt than anything they'd done before. - Daniel Hopkins 99. Pleasant Grove, "The Plaque at 16ft" Bret Egner wrote "The Plaque at 16ft, ... More >>

Best Texas Songs of All Time: #19-1

Songs #100-80 Songs #79-60 Songs #59-40 Songs #39-20 The Spotify playlist for songs #19-1 19. Billy Preston, "Nothing From Nothing" Houston pianist Billy Preston got to hang around some decent talent (The Beatles, The Stones), but his solo material went in another direction altogether. This is ... More >>

The Best Texas Songs of All Time: #39-20

Best Texas songs, #100-80 Best Texas songs, #79-60 Best Texas songs, #59-40 The Spotify playlist for songs #39-20 39. Billy Joe Shaver, "Live Forever" "Live Forever" is an emotional experience. The line, "Don't let the darkness take them" is tear-inducing, given that his own son, Eddy, was take ... More >>

The Best Texas Songs of All Time: #59-40

Best Texas songs, #100-80 Best Texas songs, #79-60 The Spotify playlist for songs #59-40 59. Tum Tum, "Caprice Music" For years, the Dallas hip-hop community's had a love affair with the Chevy Caprice Classic. Tum Tum's "Caprice Music" was an ode to that car culture, illustrating the unique trend ... More >>

The Best Texas Songs of All Time: #79-60

Best Texas songs, #100-80 The Spotify playlist for songs #79-60 79. Lift to Experience, "Falling From Cloud 9" From one of the best albums of any North Texas act in recent history, "Falling From Cloud 9" is one of the more accessible songs on 2001's The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads. It's probably t ... More >>

The Best Texas Songs of All Time: #100-80

"Between the Hank Williams pain songs And Jerry Jeff's train songs And blue eyes cryin' in the rain Out in Luckenbach, Texas Ain't nobody feeling no pain" - Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, "Luckenbach, Texas" With that introduction, welcome to the first in a five-part series, in which we attempt ... More >>

DC9 at Night's Favorite Summer Songs

The summer I bought The Breeders' Last Splash on cassette at the mall was the summer I dyed my hair with Kool-Aid, and woke up with ants on my pillow. It was the summer I lost my grandfather, though my mother swears that was him making our lights flicker every once in a while. It was the summer I sp ... More >>

Beneath The Dead Eyes: Two Writers Correspond Via Letters About Boy Bands

Welcome to Dear Audra/Dear Hunter, where Audra Schroeder and Hunter Hauk correspond through a series of dramatic letters about pop culture that flummoxes us, like we're Marlene Dietrich and Noël Coward. Dear Audra, I don't know if I can handle it again. I've been seeing headlines to the effect o ... More >>

The Worst Moments from SXSW 2012

The last few days, our indefatigable music critic staff has been regaling you with stories of the best from SXSW 2012. In the midst of these discoveries, we've been culling another list: the worst shit. The acts that ranged from huge bore-fests, to down-right lame. Below, you'll find their submissio ... More >>

The Best of SXSW Music: Thursday 3/15/2012

If you're familiar with chaos theory, which in its basic form is the attempt to find patterns in the random acts of shit on Earth, then you may understand the difficulty that comes with describing a full day at SXSW. To break down the bright, scintillating chaos, Village Voice Media's roving music e ... More >>

Friday's 35 Denton Review: The Return of The Baptist Generals, Peopleodian's Primal Scream

After catching Danny Rush & the DDs at Dan's last night, I happened to walk past 35 Denton's headquarters right next door. The scene inside looked a bit tense, as word had come just a few hours earlier that the fest's Sunday night headliner, The Jesus and Mary Chain, had to reschedule their gig to W ... More >>

These Girls Have Axes To Grind

Guilty Pleasures of 2011: Rihanna's "We Found Love"

Often, usually after a long night out, in the wee hours of the morning, I find myself fixated on my computer, repeatedly blaring whatever music video strikes my fancy at the time. While there are certain videos I frequently resort to -- I'm a sucker for anything by Thieves Like Us, just about everyt ... More >>

The Lights All Night DJ Spin Off at Artopia In Moving Pictures

Samantha GuzmanStill from Samantha's video, after the jump​A few hours before the Lights All Night DJ finalists spun at Zouk (for the Artopia after party), DJs Skrause, DJ-O, and The Latin House Krew, took turns firing off sparky sounds at the Dallas Contemporary. Our own Audra Schroeder, Clin ... More >>

Audra Schroeder, Alt-Weekly Vet and Jock Jams Enthusiast, Named Dallas Observer Music Editor

Earlier today, when she formally accepted our offer to become the Observer's next music editor, Audra Schroeder included in her email the above video, along with this message: "Feel free to blast this in the office to get people ready. I'll work on somersaults/tear-away pants." I wish that was al ... More >>