Spencer’s Gift Rock

The history of pop-punk is long and illustrious. Starting in the late 1970s with the Buzzcocks, it ran aground with Green Day, blink-182 and all those other suburban California tunesmiths who peppered the charts over the last decade like ants on a wedding cake. I’m sure that by 1999, every…

Plexus Loom

There was a time in the Dallas music scene when it seemed like bands weren’t afraid to take chances and break the tried-and-true tradition of tight jeans, loud amps and drunk-rock swagger. A time when experimentation was spreading from band to band like a case of herpes. A time when…

Third Wave

Do you remember a time way back in the early 1990s when ska was “invented” by bands such as Voodoo Glow Skulls, No Doubt and Rancid? Well, actually it was invented in the early 1980s by bands such as the Specials, Madness and Selecter. Oh, wait a minute, it was…

Inside Out

Veins, arteries, muscles and all sorts of other mysterious and squishy elements are constantly squirming around beneath your skin every day. Most of us never stop to think how they function or how the subdermal landscape might look without our pretty skin to keep it all nice and safe inside…

Let Me Be There

Olivia Newton-John is magic. I’m not talking about the David Copperfield/Doug Henning type of magic, but more of a general feeling of indescribable power that emanates from her like the glow from a wizard’s talisman. Her career has spanned decades. Starting off in the early ’70s with a soft rock…

Skid Marks

There was once a glorious golden age. An age of spandex-clad heroes wielding axes, banging gongs and waging wars amidst wisps of fog and blinding lights. That golden age was called the 1980s, the war was called “Hair Metal” and two of the leading armies were Ratt and Skid Row…

Fagen It

The subculture of tribute bands is a dark and mysterious one. It seems that lurking beneath the surface of every local music scene is an undercover army of musicians who, for whatever reason, spend their time honing their craft, toiling away for hours upon end to become living extensions of…

Get Lost

You can say what you want about the French, but one thing is for sure: They can make the hell out of a movie. Almost every modern trend in film has its roots in the groundbreaking French cinema of the ’50s and ’60s. Landmark’s Inwood Theatre, 5458 W. Lovers Lane,…

Washed Up

With the nightmarishly blistering heat of this cruel Dallas summer seemingly behind us, the last thing on your mind is surfing, right? Well, Saturday you’d better wax down your board and shine up your spurs because the kings of the feel-good summer hit, The Beach Boys, are coming to Billy…

Adaptation

On the eve of its 10-year anniversary, the Angstrom Gallery (3609 Parry Ave.) re-opens with Ab Ova, a show so conceptually bizarre it’s worthy of a Charlie Kaufman screenplay. Fifty-seven artists (including Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw and Paul Noble) were involved in this project, where one group was given the…

Beyoncé

There are a lot of secret Destiny’s Child fans out there. Even your most jaded hipster can’t help but shake their white-belted rump a little bit when “Bootylicious” pops up on the radio. Beyoncé Knowles’ 2003 solo debut Dangerously in Love continued the winning streak, selling millions and spawning an…

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Corn Mo

Lingering hangovers usually make for little motivation to leave the house on a Monday night, but local one-man arena-accordion-rock phenomenon turned New York sensation Corn Mo returns to Dallas to kick your Monday night’s ass. Since leaving for the big city in 2001, Corn Mo has been weaving his mystical…