Standard packing list for a midnight run on a deserted train yard: Water bottle Flashlight Sandwich bag full of custom paint-can nozzles Cigarettes Rolled spliff Flash camera, for documentation Sixteen cans of Krylon paint On a moonless Thursday night, somewhere just north of Dallas, two young men jump out of…
The phenomenon of suburban spread has, despite its tendency to homogenize everything in its steamroller path, sparked at least one enriching trend. Buried deep in the hearts of some of the pseudo-cities–Plano, Arlington, even North Richland Hills–are unexpected slices of *real art, almost as though the urban core of the…
thursday october 8 Even people who haven’t been to the State Fair of Texas know what Big Tex looks like, standing tall and proud and jug-eared at the gates of the fair, greeting visitors with a booming “Howdy folks!” Some would say that he is cornier than the corn dogs…
Most often, the difference between photography and painting is in terms of realism and clarity, though artists gleefully shatter such obvious expectations. From Patrick Faulhaber’s photo-realistic paintings of East Dallas neighborhoods to Marcos Rosales’ ultra-morphed photos of infant heads, skilled and bratty locals have certainly blurred the lines between the…
Intercourse without love. That’s how local KDGE-FM (94.5) disc jockey Josh Venable plans to introduce a certain band on his Sunday-night show, The Adventure Club, when he spins a song from the group’s new record, Conduct. That, or a word scramble: “It has an F, a C, a K, and…
The artist doesn’t want to sell his smooth wooden sculptures. He wants to give them away, as toys. Last time that sort of anti-commerce, Santa Claus attitude about art graced this city was…hell, probably never. Those are the smaller pieces, the ones artist Arthur Koch whittles during SMU staff meetings…
I don’t know…sometimes you just don’t feel like spending your whole weekend lost in a drunken haze, propping yourself up against the bar while a really crappy band blows your eardrums out through the back of your brain. Sometimes sitting in a late-night, chi-chi restaurant, making fleeting eye contact with…
Since it moved its digs to shiny North Dallas, the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church has lost its dingy historic authenticity. When it haunted the old, sprawling, stained-glass church building on Swiss Avenue, half-buried under decades’ worth of dense flora and fauna and sitting smack in the middle of a…
If 500X were a person, right now he’d be running around stark naked, whooping joyously, and setting things on fire. He never guessed he’d make it to 20. In this town, most would-be artists lose sight of their own creative flame well before they reach legal age, squelched as it…
So he’s had a bit part in a movie and starred in Lipton Tea and Gap commercials. Are we losing our beloved Junior to the big time? When Junior Brown first found his regional spotlight earlier this decade with the likes of “Broke Down South of Dallas” and “My Baby…
Among those who gather outside the red-brick mission on Harwood Street are day workers, drug addicts, shelter people, the mentally ill. Sitting on the curb, queuing up restlessly, they wait for some indication that their hot lunch is ready. Once inside, they become part of the 200 people who daily…
The horror. It’s like a Ray Bradbury short story–little kids know way more about technology than you do, and God only knows where that could lead. Face it, buddy, the world of computers and the Internet has left you eating dust, but you’re too scared to log on. “But I’m…
Leave it to a 26-year-old eccentric to make it snow in Dallas in August. Yet filling an art space in Exposition Park with cheerfully whirling snow is the least of Erick Swenson’s magic show. Visions of those sad, creepy animals he’s got traipsing around in the dramatic white stuff are…
For the cultural stragglers who still think “Japanimation” means the childhood nostalgia of Speed Racer and Battle of the Planets, here’s the news: You’re waaayy behind. Called anime by the coterie, the genre has made quantum leaps in aesthetics, subject matter, and–across the Pacific as well as stateside–popularity. The AnimeFest…
Of all the electronica acts bent over sequencers, scratching up vinyl, and looking to steal the perfect hook, the Crystal Method has certainly shown great promise in a realm of empty promises. And in the face of a U.K.- and New York-driven scene, Method’s Los Angeles identity kicks off its…
The dog days of August are national gallery blackout time. From the alternative spaces scattered throughout Los Angeles to the polished venues of Manhattan’s Chelsea district, it seems everyone’s closed up shop to take a breather before the big fall openings. But while art dealers–a self-serving lot if there ever…
The point of any collection is, presumably, twofold: build it, and show it off. The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth does just that on occasion with its ever-growing permanent collection; they’ve recently lassoed enough new additions to launch an exhibition, Recent Acquisitions and Selections From the Permanent Collection. In-your-face…
In this attention-deficit culture, a songwriter can’t afford to throw his audience too many challenging bones without scaring them away. Ask Neil Finn. He knows, because he is one of the great singer-songwriters of our time. He knows, because his rich, roiling songs–brimming with some of the sharpest hooks, the…
Fulvio descends on the casino oasis to impress his business colleagues and wakes up the next morning beside a blonde named Darla. Like an Italian-bred millionaire getting drunk in Vegas and marrying a Brooklyn-bred showgirl, there are matches made in irony heaven–not built to last, but a hell of a…
Lunch at Luby’s Byzantium Deep Blue Something Interscope/RainMaker (import) The most clever thing Aden Holt–of Caulk and One Ton notoriety–has ever produced is a silk-screened T-shirt that read “Deep Blow Someone.” The towering lad wore it around Dallas a few years back when the pablum hit “Breakfast At Tiffany’s,” that…
It’s almost as though a brand-new band has sprung straight from the ashes of the Orbit Room. On June 23, the last night of its existence, the rock club’s sooty, Kozik-covered walls shook with 4/4 throttle; but as the punk-rock haven was shutting its doors, a remarkable three-piece took the…
They’re what makes living in Dallas tolerable for those of us who’d rather shove shards of broken Shiner bottles up our noses than go see another trite alterna-band play at another rock-club-cum-hell-hole. The Sons of Hermann Hall is a historic, wood-floored oasis in a land of concrete and noise (some…
