Sitting in a bar on Lower Greenville, Frankie Campagna, leader of local retro-punkers Spector 45, is charming, dogmatic, exceedingly forthright and never at a loss for words. “I hate people who talk about moving to Austin because Dallas sucks or that Deep Ellum is dead,” says Campagna, who many around…
This event is actually a benefit for The Orphanage, a Saturday morning radio show hosted by Danny Balis and Dave Lane on KTCK-1310 AM The Ticket. Both Balis (who played in Sorta and is now in The King Bucks) and Lane were both real orphans who organize this concert each…
A relatively recent entry onto the local scene, Nicholas Altobelli is a solid, alt-country/folk songwriter with a penchant for mid-tempo melodies and (overly) poetic lyrics that would make fans of Leonard Cohen proud. And Waiting for the Flowers to Bloom, the young man’s debut full-length effort, moves well beyond the…
What’s impressive about Eastwood’s sophomore release is the band’s total lack of interest in following any alt-country trend whatsoever. Not comfortable playing some punk/country hybrid (a la genre godfathers Uncle Tupelo) nor going hard-core Americana like so many folks who are content picking and grinning their way to marketplace irrelevance,…
Speaking from a tour stop in the remote town of Poema, Colorado, Shara Worden, leader of the neoclassical pop ensemble My Brightest Diamond, comes across like the cool big sister who’s seen it all. The daughter of a National Accordion Champion father and a classical organist mother, Shara Worden is…
Hard to believe that it has been nearly 30 years since Duran Duran created such a stylish, erotic buzz with the single “Hungry Like the Wolf” and its accompanying video. As a horny youngster, I relished fantasizing about nubile, young island girls stalking me as they did the dude in…
At a table in a Borders in Lewisville, Matthew Gray looks like the kind of guy who would be leading a Dungeons and Dragons workshop instead of one of the most talked-about local bands of the year. Sporting a scraggly beard, the founder of Matthew and the Arrogant Sea comes…
Cold War Kids bass guitarist Matt Maust seems like just another mild-mannered bass guitarist in a long line of mild-mannered bass guitarists. Speaking over his cell phone while walking around a parking garage in Minneapolis, Maust is just about to talk about the band’s latest effort, Loyalty to Loyalty, when…
Lights Out in Suicide City, the full-length debut by this spunky local quartet, has been garnering kudos ever since it came out late last year. The band is giving the disc a fresh pressing, making this show a relaunching of sorts. Lights Out is a brash set of glam punk,…
The half-studio/half-live format of this vigorous EP serves as the perfect jumping-off point for a discussion concerning the dichotomy of the band’s name. Are these guys mad as in angry? Or mad as in loco? Are they a Latin band simply because the six members are all Hispanic? After all,…
Being named Best Jazz Act at this year’s Dallas Observer Music Awards was just another addition to Snarky Puppy’s already impressive résumé. Led by bassist/composer Michael League, this eclectic collective has successfully transcended the highbrow, elitist tag that dogs some jazz combos. And the act manages to do so without…
Somber, dark, sinister and gloomy are just a few of the adjectives most commonly used to describe the music of The Walkmen, one of New York City’s most interesting indie rock bands. Problem is, the group’s frontman, Hamilton Leithauser, can’t stand the gothic trappings that seem to pop up in…
Of all of the major figures in rock ‘n’ roll (with the still unexplained exclusion of Van Morrison), Roy Orbison is one of the last to finally be anthologized via box set. That omission has been thankfully rectified with The Soul of Rock and Roll, a four-disc collection that spells…
One would be extremely hard-pressed to find a better grouping of authentic roots and Americana than what will be on display in Deep Ellum this Friday. Lloyd Maines (father of Dixie Chick Natalie Maines) has been a producer and musician on some of the most seminal recordings of Texas music…
Ever since the regrettable breakup of Slobberbone, the area alt-country scene has consisted of a lot of bands (however talented) that spend a bit too much time on their wardrobes, and not enough time on their music. Someone needs to tell these folks that those big hats and bolero ties…
Fans of Amos Lee’s mix of folk, pop, soul and jazz are quite pleased that the singer-songwriter decided to quit his job as an elementary school teacher early this decade. Since deciding to be a full-time musician, Lee has toured with the likes of Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello,…
Promise of Summer is the first studio effort from Jackopierce in a dozen years, and it would appear little has changed in the collective muse of Jack O’Neill and Cary Pierce, those precocious Dallas wunderkinds who started the band way back in 1988. Still adept at creating hummable melodies with…
Mr. & Mrs. Alexander Stone is Exit 380’s fourth full-length effort, and it’s by far the Denton band’s most intricate and innovative piece of work. Seems frontman and main songwriter Dustin Blocker wanted to move past the band’s obvious debt to Stone Temple Pilots, so the young man decided to…
Benjamin Power, half of the U.K. experimental duo Fuck Buttons, doesn’t really seem concerned by the fact that his band’s name could cause consternation among radio programmers—and, surely, others both inside and outside of the music industry. “I suppose some people are put off by the name,” Power says, speaking…
The old adage is that folks who excel at playing the blues are the ones who have lived the blues. Coming from Los Angeles (by way of Detroit), Janiva Magness is a blues/R&B diva that has more than paid her dues over three decades of recording and performing. And, perhaps…
You’d think that, after 20 years of hearing his band described as the quintessential grunge group, Mudhoney frontman Mark Arm might have succumbed to the inherent weight and common associations of the term. Yet Arm (real name McLaughlin) disputes the word “grunge” as applied to his band, and he doesn’t…
Smartass geek rock will never go out of fashion. That’s good news to St. Louis’ Ludo, whose quirky pop spills all over its major-label debut, You’re Awful, I Love You—a set of catchy gems played with spunk and sprinkled with cheese. “We look forward to making whatever crazy records pop…
