Eric July’s life changed forever when his friend was murdered in front of him. He’d found a ticket out of a life of gang banging in Oak Cliff with a track and field scholarship to the University of Memphis, but whenever he came home he’d fall right back in with the…
Something important happened last night that had everyone in Dallas crowded around their TVs. Was it the Miss America pageant, maybe? Hmm. Probably nothing to do with sports, right? Well, either way, you’ll probably be hard pressed to find anyone at home the rest of the week given the ridiculous…
Problem Dogg are not to be trusted. Besides their red flag of a name with its suspicious-ass backwards letter “R,” the Denton noise band are the musical equivalent of a train wreck waiting to happen. Last year they put out a 49-song album, because why the hell not? Basically every…
She may have been born in Oklahoma and be based out of Brooklyn these days, but Annie Clark still calls Dallas home. So it’s fascinating to see the singer and master shredder, who recently got her own Ernie Ball guitar and popped up onstage at a Taylor Swift concert, come…
Another holiday has come and gone, and what do we have to show for it? If you did Labor Day right, probably some sunburn, a hangover and a healthy dose of guilt over some unhealthy overeating. Fortunately, you can do something feel a little better about yourself (although probably not…
When Heather Lowe came to Dallas a little over a year ago to work at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, she realized she was sitting on a gold mine. While the Dallas Public Library system had taken on a series of budget cuts over the years, one thing had…
It has been a rotten — and downright scary — week for Motörhead front man Lemmy Kilmister and his fans around the world. The English speed-metal ace, whose band was due to visit Dallas on Friday night for a show at The Bomb Factory, in the midst of a worrisome…
Alpine Valley is tucked away off the interstate in southeast Wisconsin. Most of the state, flattened out by glaciers during the last ice age, is plains and farm fields, but around East Troy — near where Alpine Valley is, at the edge of Kettle Moraine region — are green, rolling…
The last time Spector 45 took to the stage to play music, it was under the most tragic of circumstances. Shortly after the turn of the new year in 2011, the beloved Dallas punk band played their last show at Club Dada — as a tribute to their fallen leader,…
Breathe easy, folks: A three-day weekend is just around the corner. So too is the end of the summer, which means it’s about time to make the most of the hot weather. Dallas has been hopping with shows the past few weeks and this next one — the first of…
Taylor Swift has been sharing the stage with a lot of her BFFs recently on her 1989 World Tour. Everyone from Alanis Morissette to Nick Jon es to Fetty Wap and Ellen DeGeneres have popped up at her shows so far, and last night she added another name to that…
It’s that time of year again, folks: No, not time for school and no, not time for football season. (Well, both of those, too.) It’s time for the Dallas Observer’s annual Best Of Dallas issue, which rolls out this year on September 24. This year’s issue celebrates the 20th anniversary…
Remember when the weather got comfortable for a minute last week? Yeah, that was kinda cool (no pun intended — although, probably). Last week featured a plethora of outdoor shows that, over the weekend, left all to roast in 100-degree heat — because oh right, Texas. Fortunately, there are just…
Where do you go after Skrillex? That would seem to be the big, soul-searching question for EDM these days, amidst all the talk that the genre is already on the decline. It’s also a question that a festival like the Mad Decent Block Party is soon to be asking itself,…
When Dezman Lehman was a teenager, his grandmother decided to stage an intervention for him. Lehman, at the time a 15-year-old freshman at Lincoln High School in Oak Cliff, is gay, and his grandmother, a religious woman, called in God to fix him. She brought her pastor, her deacon and…
There are some things you just don’t do in Deep Ellum. You don’t mess with Keyboard Bob, you don’t harass the bar staffs and you sure as hell don’t fuck up any of the artwork. Those are the sorts of things that were supposed to have been confined to the…
What’s it take to get music fans out to concerts in the dead of Texas summer? Based on the lineup of bands hitting the Dallas area this week, the resounding answer would appear to be “throwbacks.” Those throwbacks come in all shapes and sizes, too: They could have a retro…
As we close in on the weekend, Dallas may be in for a bit of a break from the heat — as in, the highs may only hit 100 rather than 105. Okay, so that’s not much of a relief, but hey, it’s August in Texas so you can’t expect…
When’s the last time you left your house? Was it for a beer run? (If so, c’mon, you can get that shit delivered.) Or maybe it was for a concert (because, nope, you still can’t do that from home). If the latter, we may have just the thing to get…
Been wondering when Index Festival is going to announce its 2015 lineup? For last year’s festival, which took place in September, organizers Spune held a big to-do at Trees in the springtime to reveal the first round of bands. Here we are in August but still there’s been no word…
If you’ve been waiting for the Elm St. Music & Tattoo Festival to come around to get that (next) Friday the 13th tattoo, then you’re getting a pretty good exercise in patience. Now in its third year, the annual music, tattoo and burlesque marathon has made it a habit of…
For the past four years, Girls Rock Dallas has been doing something that no one else in North Texas offers: giving young girls a chance to form their own bands and write their own music during a week-long summer camp. It’s one of the feel-good stories in the local music…
