News surfaced early last night that Dallas R&B veteran Rev. Gean West, the leader of the Relatives, has passed away. West had battled heart health issues for several years, leading eventually to a GoFundMe campaign that bandmate Zach Ernst organized in the fall of 2014. He was able to return…
Well played, Homegrown Festival. On Monday night the festival’s organizers rolled out their 2015 lineup with an announcement party at Off the Record, and the decorum was merited: Spoon will be the headliner for this, the event’s sixth installment. The Austin indie rock kingpins are easily the biggest headliner that…
Homegirl done good. Born and raised not far from Dallas, country star Miranda Lambert led the way in this morning’s announcement of the 50th annual American Country Music Awards nominations as she snagged nods in no fewer than eight categories. That was more than any other artist, including Dierks Bentley…
And now the wait is over. After months of anticipation, this morning The Bomb Factory revealed the plans for its grand reopening party to be held this spring. Leading the way: Perhaps Dallas’ greatest living musical treasure, Erykah Badu, will play the historic Deep Ellum venue on Thursday, March 26…
Shit’s starting to get real now with The Bomb Factory. In just over 24 hours, the soon-to-be-reopened Deep Ellum music venue has announced two big shows: Yesterday it was British shoegaze legends Jesus and Mary Chain and this morning, courtesy of Transmission Events, it was young synth-pop duo Purity Ring…
Here we are, folks: No man’s land. That’s right, dead in the middle of that ghastly stretch of the year between New Year’s and Memorial Day where there are few, if any, work holidays to be had. Sure, there’s Valentine’s Day, but no one gets a day off for that,…
Remember way back when Sufjan Stevens claimed he was going to write an album each for all 50 states in the Union? Those were the days. He was the naive, fresh-faced folkie with the completely impractical, overly ambitious dream, and people loved him for it. Then he got weird, said…
We’re a few weeks into 2015 now and mostly settling into our post-New Years ruts. Er, grooves. We’ve either started following through on whatever resolutions we set for ourselves or already decided, “What the hell, I didn’t want to have to exert myself anyways.” Either way, good for us. But…
Comebacks are a bitch. More often than not, they’re a plain bad idea. But when we kept hearing, throughout the summer and fall of last year, that the organizers of 35 Denton were planning to bring back the festival after its one-year hiatus in 2014, we couldn’t help getting excited…
Okay, this one’s just kind of funny. Don’t get us wrong, we loved the ’90s. But in a strange way, we love ’90s reunion tours even more than we loved the real thing back in the day. Why’s that? Because with reunion tours you get something hilarious like a New…
Hey everyone, remember 2014? It wasn’t all the long ago. In fact, there were some really great records and songs that came out in 2014, and earlier this week New York’s The Village Voice put an exclamation point on matters with its annual music critics’ poll, Pazz + Jop. The…
As we trudge through the dregs of North Texas winter (it’s below 40 degrees!), it can be easy to lose sight of one simple fact: Festival season is already almost here. Funny how that works, huh? Almost exactly two months from now comes SXSW, and all the glorious spillover that…
It was an ambitious plan, and one that would’ve been exciting to see played out this spring: the first annual Deep Ellum Block Party, a sprawling mix of music, art and comedy in the heart of Dallas’ coolest neighborhood. But we’ll have to wait at least another year to see…
Every week, Free Man owner John Jay Myers and his band, the Free Loaders, play a gig at The Standard Pour, and every week he makes the same joke: “If you like what you hear, put $100 in the tip jar. If you don’t like what you hear, $20 will…
For all of the lovely folks in the Dallas music scene, Christmas came a little early this year. Or to put it another way, the Dallas Observer Music Awards showed up a little late. But it wound up working out perfectly: We kicked off December in the best way possible,…
Don’t call it a comeback, kids. After a year on the bench, Denton’s one-time premiere music festival NXNW — er, 35 Confederate — er, 35 Denton — is poised to jump back into the fray in 2015. It’ll be a slightly different landscape than when the festival last took place…
Fleetwood Mac American Airlines Center, Dallas Sunday, December 14, 2014 They say that as you get older, your passions get a little less intense. You gain perspective, and the emotions that make each of life’s ups and downs feel like the beginning or the end of the world smooth out…
We know what you’re thinking: “Stop writing about St. Vincent.” “She doesn’t live in Dallas.” She’s not even from here.” Well blah, blah, blah. Annie Clark cut her teeth as a musician here in North Texas, she identifies as being from here and even still splits her time between here…
How’s this for an album release party? A band records a concept album about an elephant that was killed by Thomas Edison, and releases an accompanying “wordless graphic novel” that helps fill out the poor creature’s story. The band then decides to celebrate the release not at, you know, a…
It’s that time of the season: Time to stop and stock of all the great things we’ve accomplished in the past year, all the fun we’ve had and all the great shows we’ve seen. You know, end-of-the-year listicle season. But enough with all the cuddly bullshit. The end of the…
There you have it, folks. Yet another Dallas Observer Music Awards has come and gone, and hopefully it was a memorable one. We laughed, we cried, we even had a prom. Between the crowning of our prom king and queen and the ambush performance of the End of the World…
Grammys, shmammys. If any of us were still looking to hold the much-maligned Grammys in high esteem, the case got considerably weakened earlier this year when Macklemore no fewer than four awards, including beating out Kendrick Lamar’s excellent good kid, M.a.a.d city for three of those. The whole thing is…
