The Eli Young Band is, by now, a household name, at least in households across North Texas, where three of its four members still reside, and in other households whose speakers blare with country. With each single released by the four-piece, formed in Denton in 2000 and led by lead…
Perhaps more than any attribute making Madison King’s songs burst with cochlea-catching appeal is the unvarnished honesty that pops from them. It’s in her lyrics, and it’s in her retelling of significant events from the past few years of her life, especially since the release of her twangy 2011 debut,…
In recent years, the Top 40 Country Music charts have been littered with an increasing amount of songs that now fit easily into an even more specific, sickening realm of modern country music – “Bro-Country.” With frat-boy bravado and an even greater emphasis on sophmoric, ignorant cliches than usual, the…
In a surprising turn, JB Patterson, lead-singer for Tyler-based country band JB and the Moonshine Band, is wide awake and ready to chat when the phone rings at 9:30 a.m. on a recent weekday morning. Such early hours aren’t usually kept by rising music stars. But as with so many…
Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden are coming our way this summer. Make no mistake, this is big news, and not a mere nostalgia trip for for those of us who were in high school or entering college 20 years ago. The announcement of a tour featuring a co-headlining double bill…
The North Texas region has become a national hotbed of craft breweries and general good times that circle around sudsy concoctions. Aside from the growing numbers of top-notch brewers and hops-focused gastropubs of the Dallas area, the burst of can’t-miss beer festivals has been as enjoyable a benefit of the…
It’s Friday night, and after leaving work a bit later than you had hoped to, battling the traffic to get home, and finally making it out the door again for a night of steam-blowing revelry, mapping a night out is often more daunting a task than you’d prefer. It’s late…
Not too long ago, we at DC9 took a look at the value of supporting music with the local tag. It’s tempting to apply the tag to anyone with any ties to North Texas, but how often is it accurate? Two notable releases will be widely, and perhaps wrongly, deemed…
Last night in Oak Cliff, Chris Thile proffered far more than a solo acoustic concert. As it often is when a noted artist performs without an opening band, the show was presented as, “An Evening with Chris Thile.” What an evening it was. Part classical history lesson, part stand-up routine…
This past Saturday night, the Gas Monkey Bar ‘N Grill in Dallas lived up to the name of the television series that features its owner: car repair reality show Fast ‘N Loud. With full sets scheduled from Austin’s Hank Senior-recalling, honky-tonk hero Wayne “The Train” Hancock (on the venue’s indoor…
Perhaps it couldn’t be helped. With somewhat spring-like weather in the Denton air on Thursday afternoon, it was hard to not have festival fever. In years past around this time, when 35 Denton would be taking place, you couldn’t get past Dan’s Silverleaf near Hickory Street before the festival fun…
Yesterday was a really big day for local twang-rock fans. David Ponder of Somebody’s Darling announced the band will begin recording their new album this week, The Old 97’s released a song from their upcoming album. And Madison King let any who made it out to Deep Ellum’s Twilite Lounge…
In the late spring of 2011, Gilmer, Texas-raised Curtis Grimes competed in the first season of the NBC’s ratings-bonanza The Voice. While the show has remained a phenomenon, Grimes made his mark on that trail-blazing season by showing off his smooth, confident baritone vocals. He also showed his competitive-edge by…
The fact that Darkside’s Dave Harrington didn’t spend his life crafting beats or sampling music in his parent’s basement as a young child is a bit of a shocker, given the level of excellence he and Darkside’s leader, Nicolas (Nico) Jarr have achieved in only a couple of years. What’s…
There are myriad reasons The Ticket has dominated Dallas-Fort Worth airwaves for 20 years, all part of a formula that’s proven to be impossible to replicate. One ingredient that builds a sense of culture around the station is the so-called “Drops.” Small sound bites, usually taken out of context, inserted…
If you were to listen the intro to “The Ceiling,” the song that’s garnered some serious praise for Los Angeles-based The Wild Feathers, you might quickly – and prematurely – assume that the fresh-faced five-piece act is yet another entry into the Mumford-fueled folk-rock revival. Of course, after listening to…
There’s a case to be made that Alternative Country, or Alt-Country as it’s more often called, hasn’t ever really been a legit genre. One will be hard-pressed to get any of the artists lumped in with the moniker to claim it as their sonic home, and even the original journalistic…
It’s late in the morning, New Year’s Eve, and most of Dallas is still reeling from another of the Cowboys’ trademark December meltdowns, their team sent home early yet another year. For the city’s vast army of professional sports yappers, Christmas has come again. Inside the Central Expressway studios of…
In-store performances are tricky, unpredictable little miscreants. Unlike a standard club show, where one typically understands the general, unwritten crowd rules, a record store gig can be awkward or intimate. It’s doubtful that one can be both, and such a show rarely falls in a gray middle. It’s a fine…
Todd Gautreau of Crushed Stars wouldn’t be a natural choice to star in an indie-rock reimagining of the sentimental 1989 Kevin Costner hit film, Field of Dreams. As Ray Kinsella, a failing farmer with daddy issues, Costner’s character blindly followed a random, ghostly voice telling him that “If you build…
It’s less than an hour’s drive from Palestine, Texas to the World’s Rose Capital, Tyler, Texas. Both are considered to be the “Big City,” for the folks living outside of their borders. Though that Dogwood-scented pocket of East Texas isn’t a Metropolis by most standards, there’s a great deal of…
This past June, we provided a list of the 10 best Texas Country/Red Dirt/Whatever tunes in 2013 up to that point of the year. With 2014 looming, we’re still not sure what the nebulous terms slapped onto the songs and bands that made up that list really mean. With an…
