Percussionist Mickey Hart has devoted his life to rhythm. Whether performing as the drummer for the legendary Grateful Dead during two different stints totaling 15 years, or as the author of multiple books which discuss the origins of sound, rhythm and ultimately, music, Hart has kept busy. Mysterium Tremendum, Hart’s…
The largest accomplishment for Modern Family, the best sitcom to emerge on network television over the past few years, isn’t the fact that it’s racked up trophy after trophy for its genius. The most notable achievement is how the mock-doc style show has become the most consistently enjoyable half-hour on…
The Dallas international Film Festival has earned a respectable spot among American film fests. Recent years have seen stars old and new walk the red carpet to their premieres while the residents of the eastern section of the city have packed the theaters that host new documentaries, foreign features, shorts…
Brooklyn via Southern California band Delta Spirit have certainly spread their wings over the course of three studio albums. Managing to go from the lo-fi, alt-country stylings of their 2008 debut, Ode to Sunshine, to their new, shimmering, self-titled offering while still sounding very much like the band that banged…
So many got to know former Dallas Cowboys assistant coach Joe Avezzano as a hard-nosed, foul-mouthed, award-winning special-teams coach during his days roaming football sidelines, which began in 1968 and ended yesterday, after Avezzano died of an apparent heart attack while in Italy coaching the Seamen Milano of the Italian…
Wit and intelligence are a couple of characteristics that many claim to have, or at least wish they possessed. Novelist Christopher Moore seems to have been granted the shares of both prized traits that boorish dolts lack. Moore is promoting his latest work, Sacre Bleu, in which the death of…
Hah! Food trucks. Those’ll never take off. They’re just a fad that will be forgotten in a few weeks. C’mon, it’s not like any new ones are sprouting up or people have been lobbying the city to make laws more conducive for trucks selling high-quality food. If food trucks were…
Sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar, daughter of legendary sitar master Ravi Shankar and half-sister to North Texas’ Norah Jones, is an extraordinary talent who lets her inventive work introduce her vision. Shankar sees a wide, blank canvas from which to work, using regional and sonic traditions as mere suggested guidelines. Whether…
Carrie Rodriguez has lived in Austin and New York City over the past several years, but thanks to her many performances in the metroplex, we like to think of her as one of our own. Heaven must also claim her as one of its own, due to how many times…
Country icon George Jones famously asked “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” back in 1985. For the most part, modern Top 40 country isn’t terribly interested in the footwear of elder greats, given the way radio playlists have tossed aside so many aging legends over the past 20 years or so…
While comedian and “Funny or Die” vet Sebastian Maniscalco’s question “What’s Wrong With People?” (also the name of his recent Showtime special and DVD release), is a bit generic, the way in which he seeks the answers are not only hilarious, but insightful and spot-on. On Leno, he lampooned dudes…
Pop culture has a way of overdoing it when it comes to ridiculing various temporary touchstones that helped define a certain point in time (where’s your Girbaud jeans these days?). Even more to the point, comedians often fall prey to this gantlet of hipster-ness. For a while, they are laughed…
Phil Hamilton’s latest Red Dirt, Southern rock record, Renegade Rock n Roll, runs the gamut from heartsick love songs to working-man rock anthems. The local’s played stages from South Texas to Kansas in recent weeks, celebrating the release of his second album. The video for “You Can Have Me” has…
Since the 2005 release of his modern outlaw coming-out party, Put the “O” Back In Country, Shooter Jennings has proudly waved the banner his mother and father, Jesse Colter and Waylon Jennings, had helped design decades ago. After the surprising release of his 2010 concept album, Black Ribbons, Jennings collected…
While The Office or the film Office Space provide laughs through the everyday happenings inside of generically stale workplaces, they’re far more entertaining than the real thing most of us cubicle warriors encounter between clocking in and out. Dallas-based playwright and filmmaker Eric Steele, however, knows that life for the…
When a recreational runner tackles a 5K “fun run,” it’s the overly cheery providers of false encouragement wielding cups of water that the runners end up wanting to physically tackle. If runners didn’t need the water, those fake-happy hand-clappers would get leveled. If they want everyone to do so great…
Former Cross Canadian Ragweed singer Cody Canada’s current band, The Departed, is a properly named one. In May of 2010, Ragweed, or CCR as many fans still refer to them, were arguably the most beloved of all Red Dirt acts. It was then the band made national news by announcing…
For those fortunate enough to have witnessed a Cadillac Sky performance before the genre-blurring bluegrass outfit’s January 2011 break-up, many things were apparent after the show. The group’s expert craftsmanship would likely be the main memory, but not too far behind would be the energetic showmanship of a band that…
Wake up early, stretch, run three miles or so, drink to impressive excess, wave and holler at the fellow inebriated revelers atop parade floats, vomit, pump fists and thrust pelvises to whatever band happens to be playing in Energy Square, then — and only then — hop the DART Rail…
Philadelphia’s folk-pop trio Good Old War just released their third album, Come Back as Rain, and stop in Dallas tonight before heading off to Austin. Guitarist Dan Schwartz took a few minutes to chat with us about sing-alongs, SXSW and other bands from Philly. Given how many shows you’ve played…
While Austin will have a more concentrated amount of bands over the course of the next several days, we’ll see just as many in the Metroplex. One of the bands that rarely trek through Texas but will be hitting ATX for a few shows later this week is Portland sludge…
Heartless Bastards Lola’s Friday, March 9 Before a sold-out Lola’s in Ft. Worth on Friday night, Austin’s Heartless Bastards simply dazzled, playing almost every song from their excellent new release, Arrow, as well as a few standouts from 2009 breakthrough The Mountain. While Wennerstrom was understandably the star, the band’s…
