Thursday night’s show at RBC was supposed to be a memorable one. Dertroit rapper Denmark Vessey flew in specifically to headline the show, and Callie Dee, the Fort Worth promoter who organized it, had DJ Sober design special posters to mark the occasion. But as the police shootings took place…
When Leon Bridges walked into Niles City Sound in Fort Worth during summer, 2014, Niles City Sound didn’t exist — nor, really, did Leon Bridges. Bridges was still a dishwasher who played unpolished sets during open mic nights and Niles was an empty warehouse in the process of becoming a…
It’s been a charmed year for Grapevine native Post Malone. He’s gone from an unknown kid posting his own recordings on Soundcloud to touring the world with Justin Bieber. Now Malone has hit another milestone, and The Biebs himself helped him celebrate. Malone turned 21 on Monday, sharing a birthday…
What the hell is going on with Ticketmaster right now? Earlier this month, the ticket vending behemoth announced an offer for free concert ticket vouchers, which sounded pretty great. Free shows, right? The motivation for the vouchers was less great, as it stemmed from a 2015 settlement over a class…
Darcy Neal had her musical awakening the first time she disassembled a piece of electronics. After reading an article about circuit bending, Neal and a friend decided to experiment on an old Speak & Spell handheld computer. After dismantling it and tinkering for a while, the Speak & Spell stopped…
Ariel Saldivar was planning her birthday party last year when she hit on an idea. At the time, friend and record producer John Congleton was recording an album with Montreal band SUUNS at his Elmwood Recording studio. Saldivar asked them to play at Texas Theatre for the party, and when…
Miles Davis is enjoying a renaissance in 2016. The jazz titan, easily one of the most pivotal music figures of the 20th century, would’ve been 90 years old this year, and he’s already received a fitting tribute in Don Cheadle’s labor of love film, Miles Ahead. Then a few weeks…
Steely Dan With Steve Winwood American Airlines Center, Dallas Wednesday, June 22, 2016 Can a Dan really know too much? If you’re a Steely Dan fan, it’s a joke you should already be in on. It’s the name of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers current tour, after all. On…
Steely Dan have no shortage of songs to their name. Across their nine studio albums, they’ve released more than 80 songs, 10 of which were Top 40 hits, including such FM radio staples as “Reelin’ in the Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and “Hey Nineteen.” But there’s at least…
2016 has been a year of blockbuster shows in Dallas. More than any time in recent memory, the past six months have seen North Texas arenas host a seemingly endless series of bucket list shows — artists like AC/DC, the Cure and Duran Duran among them. But the great music…
To the outside world, Richard Haskins exists only on video. Pay $10 and you can see him for a half-hour, broadcast live in his orange jumpsuit from the confines of Denton County Jail. The closest you can get is a video call from a building across the street from the…
When it comes to working venue security, there isn’t much Bryan Meckelborg hasn’t done. He’s coordinated crowd safety at Super Bowls, the Grammys, the Oscars and some of the country’s largest music festivals. But as the devastating shooting that took place in Orlando over the weekend demonstrated — when a…
It’s been a bit of a weird year for Kanye West. Like, weird even for Yeezy. There was the whole bankruptcy thing, plus, of course, the album that we’re still not quite sure he’s done with, even though it’s been out for four months. So, hey, sounds like it’s about to…
Tensions were high in Oak Lawn on Sunday night. Afternoon thunderstorms had left the skies overcast and bleak, and all along the streets and in the doorways of the clubs there was a hard-to-miss police presence. Only hours before, a shooter had opened fire inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando,…
When Oaktopia first got its start in Denton back in 2013, it was built on a genre that hadn’t exactly been the backbone of previous festivals in the area: hip-hop. Booking headliners like Del the Funky Homosapien and Aesop Rock in its first two years, the young festival strayed off…
EDM’s not dead. Not in Texas, anyway, and certainly not in Dallas. For all of last year’s talk about the genre’s supposedly waning popularity and predictions of a bubble that’s about to burst, Lights All Night — Dallas’ biggest EDM festival — is still in rude health. In fact, this…
Red alert, Dallas: the pug petting zoo isn’t happening this weekend. Blame Mother Nature, or blame the inscrutable ambivalence of the cosmos, but the dream of dressing up pugs with wings (thereby creating a “pugasus,” apparently) is dead. That’s because the first-ever Bulladora Music Experience has been canceled. The Experience…
Three-day weekend are great and all, but you’d better hope you didn’t go too hard the past few days because you’ll need all the energy you can get for this week’s concert schedule. Monday night kicks things off with a memorial for Mercury Rocket bassist Krissy Arnold and Sunday night…
Summer is just around the corner, in case you haven’t noticed the creeping temperatures and already too-much-to-bear humidity. While the weather should have everyone in Dallas hating themselves in, oh, about a week or so, the tradeoff is that it’s also almost summer concert season. That means plenty of blockbusters…
Did someone say three-day weekend? It’s been months since we’ve had one of those, but thanks to Memorial Day Weekend we’re about to get an extra day of grilling, swimming and drinking at the end of this week. That also means an extra day to stay out late taking in…
Last year’s Lone Star Texas Heritage Fest was a concert promoter’s nightmare. The free first-year fest, taking place in the paved parking lot behind Gilley’s on one of the hottest days of August, struggled to pull a crowd. Those who did show up took refuge in the little bit of…
The future of one of Texas’ most popular music festivals has been thrown into turmoil this week. Graham Williams, the man who founded Austin’s Fun Fun Fun Fest 10 years ago, as well as Transmission Events, the company that books the festival, announced Monday that he was leaving to form…
