At some point during last week’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, everybody did the zombie walk. After days of drug-amplified dehydration and exhaustion, the zombie walker shuffles forward, eyes and mouth half-open, often leaning to one side and stumbling a few steps while allowing the weight of…

Sybris’ powerful two-guitar, drum-pounding pop makes it clear that the band is a band, even if Angela Mullenhour sometimes receives enough focus to sound like a singer-songwriter with backing musicians. Mullenhour at times sounds like she’s croaking her words through tightened throat muscles and around a swollen tongue, a technique…

It takes a rare performer to overcome the drawbacks of playing Grand Prairie’s Nokia Theatre. The jumbo cineplex seating removes the audience from the performers like med-school freshmen from a surgery demonstration, and the fact that few can afford a legal buzz on $8 beers after shelling out $12 for…

At Mwanza Dover’s final Mazinga Phaser II performance, it’s unfortunate–but somehow appropriate–that a former Dover bandmate stole the show. Headliner the Great Tyrant, fronted by Daron Beck (formerly of the Pointy Shoe Factory and Dover’s keyboardist in Falkon), erased any memory of Mazinga’s faltering set with a bizarre half-hour of…

Though many avoid the number 666 like a leaking condom full of AIDS, some heathen entertainers see June 6, 2006 (6-6-06) as a once-in-a-century marketing opportunity. The remake of The Omen will be released, and speed-metal pioneers/pentagram enthusiasts Slayer long planned to release their follow-up to God Hates Us All…

Don’t dillydally on the way to Dada, because Voot Cha Index’s early set will be the highlight of the night. Singer Neil Sanzgiri has some grating vocal quirks–his voice couldn’t have dropped more than a few months ago–but with such pretty melodies and creative arrangements of piano, accordion, banjo and…

The perfect setting for the Theater Fire’s blend of rustic Americana and Southwestern music would be under a full moon on some sweltering backwoods back porch, where listeners slap mosquitoes on their sweat-slicked skin, pass around XXX-embossed jugs of hooch and laugh when the hounds howl along with the performance…

Don’t dismiss Sunset Rubdown as a side project to Wolf Parade and Frog Eyes. Lead singer Spencer Krug’s other two bands are better-known among the indie-rock cognoscenti, but if this album’s any indication, Krug thinks it should be the other way around. While Shut Up has a basement-recording ambience to…

A few songs before the cautionary tale about a man who loses everything to booze, Blueprint laughingly de-scribes his own drunken forays into club-land. He vows, “No calling women ‘bitches’ just to prove that I’m a man,” then later jokes about slapping a broad’s ass hoping to get laid. Immediately…

Endure a few run-throughs of Pomp and Circumstance, make sure your tassel is on the correct side of your cap and ready your flask for the after-party at the rich kids lake house. Its a graduation, baby. Most years, the theme of the Dallas Observer Music Awards is an afterthought,…

Dallas’ The Chemistry Set can finally put their recent past to rest on Blue Monsters, their most ambitious record yet. While the band has worked on its sophomore record, the only recent Chem news that has come forth has been about bassist Cory Helms’ fight with cancer, so this album,…

Great storytellers know the details sell the tale. A botched robbery might be interesting on its own, but little touches–a .45’s recoil breaking a woman’s wrist–wipe away the clichés. Wu-Tang legend Ghostface Killah hasn’t let up after so many solo and Wu albums, charging into stories on Fishscale just as…

Houston’s Blue October has sold out a spacious venue just weeks after the spectacular 80-some-odd band Wall of Sound Festival did not, proving that the metroplex is confused about which bands suck and which bands don’t. In our ever-vigilant effort to get your heads straight, here are five signs that…

At Good Records’ most recent birthday bash concert, Astronautalis’ set came right when I was hungry for the party’s free hot dogs. I figured I’d listen to one song and grab some lunch, but his riveting performance ensured that didn’t happen. What first grabbed me was his backing music, which…

Smile Smile’s sad sad guy/gal duets about failure, break-ups and betrayal are like a journal detailing a quarter-life crisis, but the pretty pretty multilayered harmonies and piano are the antidepressants that keep you from crying about it. The first three song titles–“Waving the White Flag,” “Now It’s Over” and “Sad…

Bruce Robison’s new album has a few good songs about those old country staples of heartbreak and regret. Unfortunately, the production (all done by Robison) is about as exciting as recent Claritin-D commercials starring him and wife Kelly Willis. Though the Austin musician loads Eleven Stories with considerable filler, Robison…

[UPDATE, 04-01-06: The link to the song in question has now been added to the end of the article.] At first glance, Dirk Nowitzki’s iPod doesn’t seem particularly special in an age when everybody owns one. It’s the newest Nano version, 4 GB of memory, in a leather case. Stock…

True to the album title, the songs on the latest from Chicago’s Low Skies all address love, but don’t play it to set the mood for a romantic evening. All the Love I Could Find chronicles the bleakest consequences of love, confronting painful loneliness and juvenile obsession at a snail’s…

If you ever see a high school chemistry teacher kidnapped by a burly, drug-crazed sociopath and a conflicted seductress, and then you recognize the haunting guitars and echoing keyboards that complement the action, don’t panic. You’re not flipping out, though watching the movie Good Chemistry wouldn’t be considered “normal” behavior,…

The only thing the three Dallas acts on last Wednesday’s Callithump Productions bill at the Darkside Lounge had in common was an invite to SXSW. Nothing musically linked the sleepy-time guitarwork of Crushed Stars, the manic, confessional rap of Pikahsso and the Strange Boys’ whiny-voiced garage punk, and the pre-fest…

Texas guitarists must have a general reputation for greatness. How else can you explain two Lone Star six-stringers in a punk band that otherwise embodies Beantown pride? Created when former Dropkick Murphys singer Mike McColgan returned to music following a brief firefighting career, Street Dogs get back to the basics…

Even after playing two Canadian concerts to kick off his band’s 16-date tour with Supergrass, Pilotdrift’s Kelly Carr is still hesitant to impose on the headliners backstage. Though the Britpop-punk stars personally selected the Texarkana five-piece as their opening act, 23-year-old songwriter Carr can’t get over the fact that he’s…