Undeniably one of the most influential rock bands of the last thirty years, The Melvins roll through Dallas again this weekend, bringing their skull-crushing double drummer sludgey rock with them. Seeing them at Trees this Saturday night is a must. Before they made it to town, I managed to grab…
Just as the doors opened at Dada last night, True Widow bass player Nicole Estill pulled up in a pick-up truck with the band’s drum kit in the back. This was a night for Texas music. The band, Dallas’ latest band to hit it big after serious publicity from NPR…
The clumsily titled Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival swept into the Gexa for the last date on its cross-country metal bandwagon, and once more metal was ordained by the corporate gods on a day that didn’t so much swelter as annihilate. The sun beat down like a double-pedal to the head…
B L A C K I E | Zorch Good Records August 1, 2013 “Giant surprise/we are lizards disguised/and we’re controlling your lives/with trilateral spies.” It would almost come as no surprise if Zorch were indeed our alien overlords, as they catchily reveal at the end of new track “Zut…
Dillinger Escape Plan House of Blues July 26, 2013 The Dillinger Escape Plan are the best live band around right now. I’m putting that right out there straight away, because I believe it to be true. There is nothing to match their intensity, their musicianship, the sheer magnetism they create…
One question you’ll always be asked, forever, is about the band at the first concert you ever saw. The first ever concert I attended, at 13, was Texas (I know, right?). Texas is a frankly awful indie pop band from Scotland, and for this one tour they were inexplicably popular…
Austin City Limits shattered dreams this morning, as every festival eventually must, when it released its schedule for the two-weekend bash. Whereas before excited festival-goers could look at the line-up and think “I’d love to see that one! And that one! Wow, and them!,” now they must look at the…
Video games are meant to make you feel like you’re somewhere else, so while playing them you might not consider their development process. However, if you’re even a casual gamer you’ve likely played a game made right here in Dallas, whose thriving game development industry has flown somewhat under the…
Local bookers Spune have announced the Canned Festival for the first Saturday in October, an extension of their Untapped series of festivals. These festivals aim to combine high quality music and alcohol into one intoxicating day out. After the success of the Fort Worth event, there’s also been a Dallas…
It’s Monday, so it’s as good a time as any for you to peruse this quick grab-bag of local music news hastily cobbled together with no agenda or real thought. Do you have a few minutes to care about your local music scene? Good, because it just so happens that…
Consider this your advance warning, Dallas. Amplified rock and roll is coming, and it’s not only coming hard, it’s coming at times that are mainly not weeknights, meaning you can combine two pursuits, metal concerts and binge drinking, that go hand in hand like butter on toast or rabbits and…
The latest sign of local “stonegaze” (their word, not mine) band True Widow breaking through into the big time is the fact that their forthcoming album, Circumambulation, appeared this morning on Pitchfork Advance, the all-encompassing music website’s album preview listening section. It’s slated for release on July 23, but you…
When wife Richard and I learned we were moving to Dallas, we decided to watch some TV shows to bring us up to speed with the place. A European ideal of Texas is one of deserts, cowboys and mild racism. American TV is, of course, all-pervasive wherever you are in…
Fort Worth’s music scene has many things, but until recently it did not have a solid mid-size venue — the role occupied by such Dallas venues as The Granada. But now it may have found its answer in Queen City Music Hall. The venue, which opened last month, is already…
Just off one of the finest little town squares in North Texas, a recurring series of free gigs is starting to draw a real following. At 5:30 p.m. on every other Tuesday, an insanely early time for a gig in Denton, some unlikely heroes take to the stage in the…
How respectable is it to get overexcited about a trailer for a new video game? I suspect the answer is “grow up, you mess,” but that has not stopped me from getting extraordinarily worked up about the gameplay trailer that was released this morning featuring footage from the latest installation…
Sunday night’s episode of Futurama, “Forty Percent Leadbelly,” documented the struggles of everyone’s favorite bending machine, Bender Bending Rodriguez, to become the folk singer he’d always wanted to be. Now, while this may not be the blues singer that Dallas native Leadbelly, referenced in the episode’s title and by a…
June 24th saw the entirely unheralded ten-year anniversary of modern prog-rock landmark De-Loused In The Comatorium, the debut album of recently defunct The Mars Volta. Given that the critical response to its appearance back in 2003 was so incredibly varied (although it currently holds a Metacritic score of 82/100, Pitchfork…
Overseas, we don’t get so many Texas legends shipped out. Therefore, although something in the back of my mind was aware of the existence of Willie Nelson, I couldn’t have named you a song, what he looks like, or even explicitly associated him with Texas. Before you petition for my…
Plano’s Dr Pepper Snapple Group sent us a press release today because they had nothing to say. No, really. This is their new marketing push. Celebrate nothing, because nothing is better than Snapple. Philosophically, this is a confusing proposition at best. While the press release steers clear of Descartian existentialism,…
Arcades, guys. They ain’t what they used to be. Now that every young whippersnapper has one of them newfangled game consoles in their bedroom, why would they ever leave the room and venture into a poorly lit room full of bleeping noises, armed only with every quarter they could find…
You might remember how much some of our writers, myself included, enjoyed the wrestling which was a feature of this year’s 35 Denton. Taking place in proximity to the main stage, Friday and Sunday saw local wrestling promotion XCW setting up a ring just outside Dan’s and trading blows for…
