A few months ago, I was strolling through my Facebook feed. Unlike the past couple of weeks where my feed has been overrun with mentions of coffee cups, Trump jokes and Adele think pieces — you know, the usual — I came across a posted link to a profile covering a…
With the 27th annual Dallas Observer Music Awards just around the corner — in fact, voting is open right now at 2015musicawardspoll.dallasobserver.com — we will spend the next several weeks highlighting some of the nominees for this year’s awards. And when we say these artists are the “Best,” don’t just…
John Pedigo and Taylor Young make up the O’s, perhaps Dallas’ best — and best-known — roots group. Both of them are veterans of the North Texas music scene, as they’ve both been in a number of bands over the years and continue to be active with non-O’s projects. And for…
Last Wednesday night, the uber-talented and mightily bearded Chris Stapleton sent shockwaves through the country music world when he collected three CMA Awards. By taking home the trophies for Best New Artist, Album of the Year and, perhaps most surprisingly, Male Vocalist of the Year — an award dominated in…
Untapped Festival With Flaming Lips, Dr. Dog, Pharcyde and more Fair Park, Dallas Saturday, November 7, 2015 As the Flaming Lips began its headlining set during Saturday night’s Untapped Festival in front of several thousand beer and/or music lovers at Fair Park, it seemed as though the most ambitious annual…
Pretty much any festival of note in North Texas has undergone serious changes in the past couple years. Some have returned after being gone for a bit (35 Denton), while some are taking a break this year (Index Festival), and others have simply gone away (Suburbia). As for Untapped Festival and…
The Foxymorons are barely a local band. Only one of the two members live in North Texas. In fact, what Fort Worth’s Jerry James and San Diego’s (by way of Nashville and Dallas) David Dewese have together may not even be an actual band. Depending on how one defines a…
My Morning Jacket Verizon Theatre, Grand Prairie Saturday, October 24, 2015 On Saturday night in Grand Prairie, Kentucky’s My Morning Jacket served up a show designed for the most hardcore of their famously loyal fan base. If there were any in the barely half-full Verizon Theatre who arrived as either…
Once he starts singing, it doesn’t take long for Dallas-based country singer-songwriter Troy Cartwright to sink his artistic simplicity into the listener’s consciousness. In his excellently galloping country noir tune “Next Flight Home,” the Berklee College of Music grad offers a simple, heartfelt image of longing. When Cartwright sings “I’ll…
It was 25 years ago, almost exactly to this week, that Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard country charts. With it, the Oklahoma native shot into a realm of popularity and success that country music hadn’t seen before — or since, for…
Jake Paleschic doesn’t go anywhere without his bike. He rides it to and from work, to band practice, even to the shows he plays on the odd occasion that he has the luxury. So when it came time to release his new EP, Cowboys Songs, last month he had a…
There’s simply no argument to be made: When it comes to Texas country and Americana radio, North Texas has it better than anywhere else in the state. The Range (KHYI 95.3 FM) is primarily heard to the eastern end of our region, while The Ranch (KFWR 95.9) mainly airs for those…
The title of the new record from the Hundred Inevitables, Decade of Downtime, is beyond misleading. Even if My Bloody Valentine’s brain-crushingly loud Loveless had been named Super Quiet, it wouldn’t have been has as misleading a title as Downtime. Over the course of the past decade plus, in fact,…
After an absence of over six years, a proper new record from Texas country kingpin Pat Green hit the streets this past Friday. Called simply Home, it marks a return to form from the last we of heard Green, but it’s not the rootsy, “Screw Nashville,” prodigal son-style record many have…
When Chris Johnson and his band Telegraph Canyon wrapped up their last album, he decided to hit the road — but his real travels didn’t have anything to do with touring. Johnson hit the road simply to see the world. That last record came out in 2009, and little could…
Within the first 45 seconds of his brand new album, over a greasy blues lick, Jonathan Tyler roars, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, I’ve been saved.” That simple but revelatory line represents where Tyler’s head is these days in a number of ways as he nears the release date of Holy Smokes. The Tyler of 2015…
Ambition is the most important quality in a band. In an age of DIY music promotion, a band is unlikely to break out without massive record label support or an above average imagination. The minimum will never do. These Machines Are Winning, the brainchild of Dylan Silvers that’s equal parts…
The football teams at TCU and SMU battle over an Iron Skillet. The Texas Rangers contend with the Houston Astros for a silver boot. Clearly, sports rivalries are a big deal in these parts, but probably only in Texas would two teams duke it out over possession of a really…
Last Friday, many woke up to the devastating news that beloved local singer-songwriter Jay Johnson died on Thursday night. A Facebook post from Rebecca Scott, Johnson’s constant companion and biggest fan shared the sad — and to many, shocking — news that Johnson had taken his own life. As Friday morning…
Before there was any so-called Texas Country craze, dating back to the mid-1980s, Robert Earl Keen was packing honky-tonks and bars around the state with his brand of blended folk, rock and country. There’s little doubt that many Keen classics, primarily, the epic “Road Goes on Forever,” and the drunkenly…
The suits of the Music Row machine have been putting their shiny boots in their less-than-polished mouths in recent months. The most recent example occurred last week when, in an interview with Country Aircheck magazine, prominent radio consultant Keith Hill stated, “Trust me, I play great female records, and we’ve got…
As 1974 rolled into 1975, Autumn Sound was in serious need of business. The recording studio, operated out of an otherwise ordinary shopping center in Garland, featured a 24-track studio console — reportedly the first of its kind in Texas — and it had a secret weapon in the form…
