Fort Worth’s Collin Herring is temporarily residing in Austin, trying to keep his life in order. After releasing his brilliant sophomore effort, 2005’s The Other Side of Kindness, Herring’s fortunes took a dark turn for the worse. Rumors of alcoholism were rampant over the past couple of years, but Herring…
Indianapolis-based Christian metalcore band Haste the Day is the headliner for this show, but it’s the Australia-native Sick Puppies who are the real attraction on this bill. Dressed Up as Life, the Sick Puppies’ debut, features “All the Same,” a song made famous via YouTube as the soundtrack for a…
Colin Meloy, the Anglophile frontman for indie rock darlings The Decemberists, hardly tops the list of the people you’d expect to hear singing Sam Cooke. After all, the wordy, bespectacled and talented songwriter is known more for his affected accent and stylistic wardrobe than for his soulfulness. Basically, you can…
Talking with Roger Clyne is a lot like playing a slot machine. Boisterous and colorful, Clyde speaks so rapidly that you never know what you are going to get out of him—but sometimes you manage to get lucky. The forthcoming and likable former leader of The Refreshments discusses the upcoming…
With all four original members of legendary punk/roots band X back together and touring, it’s almost like the band is going through a mid-life resurgence. And even after 30 years, John Doe, singer, guitarist and founding member, thinks the band still has something positive to contribute. “The bottom line is…
Ira Kaplan, leader of the indie rock institution Yo La Tengo, isn’t afraid to mix things up. Just look at his band’s upcoming venue booking: Yo La Tengo’s Dallas gig this week will be an all-acoustic effort housed within the Dallas Museum of Art. That’s a far cry from the…
Invigorating avant-metal is how these boys from Fort Worth label themselves, and despite the pretense inherent in all things metallic, Urizen easily lives up to such a high and mighty description. Wisely straying from the typical metal onslaught of incomprehensible, Beelzebub-inspired vocals and double bass drum tedium, brothers Thomas and…
The ramifications of a band name can never be overstated. Just ask Hymns. The New York by way of North Carolina band has had its share of misunderstandings because of the religious implications of its name. Adding to the confusion is the fact that two members are from, of all…
Even though Dan Dyer was born in East Texas and now resides in Austin, his musical roots are firmly set in his former residence of Missouri, reflecting the rhythm and blues tradition commonly associated with St. Louis. Vibrant, loose and engaging, his vocals recall the likes of W.C. Handy, Stevie…
One can’t help but wonder how much a rock band can rock without a guitar player, but Washington D.C.’s Apes are out to disprove the common assumption that rock bands without guitar players are nothing more than shtick. The band’s singer/organ/bass/drums lineup is capable of creating quite a racket, actually,…
For an unemployed father of twin 7-year-old girls, Todd Gautreau seems relatively cheerful and calm. Maybe that’s because his band, Crushed Stars, has just released its third CD, the lovely Gossamer Days, and the Internet buzz is almost universally positive. Still, his demeanor is a bit surprising. “My wife is…
Born and raised in Cleburne, Sonny Burgess was always surrounded by the customs commonly associated with traditional country music: growing up poor in a rural setting and being constantly exposed to the music of Hank Williams Sr., Glen Campbell and Roy Clark. Being a high school baseball star provided Burgess…
There’s always been something comforting about the music of Nada Surf. Hipper than Coldplay and less distant than Death Cab, band members Matthew Caws, Ira Elliot and Daniel Lorca are capable of creating perfectly crafted three- to five-minute odes to the elusiveness of love. Perfectly content to wallow in melancholy…
Born and raised in Austin, country/folk singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt parlays an aggressive acoustic guitar style and a yearning, yowling vocal delivery into a unique charisma that’s both evocative and oddly comforting. Little Grey Sheep, Schmidt’s fifth effort, is a collection of orphaned songs, some deemed too askew to fit in…
Speaking from his tour bus just outside Seattle, Mark Olson sounds revitalized and downright giddy. Things are good at the moment for the former leader of the influential alt-country act The Jayhawks. “I have a real interesting band,” Olson says of the group of musicians backing him on his current…
A few years ago, I was in Mexico and saw Molotov perform in a cockfighting ring in Juarez. The crowd was 90 percent male, a wild combination of metal heads and goths. Loads of leather, makeup and alienation filled the rest of crowd. Molotov, basically a Spanish-language version of Korn…
The recluse with mental illness has always had a bizarre place in the annals of popular music. Every decade or so a few tortured souls fade in and out of view, retreating to apartments or studios to piece together their peculiar visions, recording their neurosis for others to deconstruct. Clutchy…
Seattle-based musician Barton Carroll has toured as a member of and also served as an accompanist with Azure Ray, Delorean and Micah P. Hinson. So his bluegrass/alt-country credentials are fairly strong. As a solo singer-songwriter, however, Carroll evokes ’70s archetypes James Taylor, Jim Croce and Cat Stevens, presenting sensitive tales…
Drew Glackin was an obscure bass player for an obscure alt-country band from New York. A few weeks back, though, he passed away suddenly due to complications from an overactive thyroid. He was 45. The fact that Dan’s Silverleaf is throwing this memorial show should tell you a lot about…
UNT’s chapter of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance hosts this benefit show (with proceeds going to V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls) featuring a quartet of acts from around the metroplex. Oddly, only Grassfight includes a female member, so it will be left up to…
Dusty Springfield’s continued influence on country/soul is as warranted as it is overused. Dusty in Memphis, Springfield’s acknowledged magnum opus from 1969, is another one of those records that, despite commercial disappointment, remains a critical favorite. Ironically, the biggest hit from that record, “Son of a Preacher Man,” was thought…
Brothers Raul and Rene Espinosa have been involved in the Dallas music scene since the mid-’90s, first as key members of the post-punk band Swivel, then running an indie label (111 Records) and now leading Mahteo, a group unashamed of championing all that was/is new wave. From the first notes…
