While it’s been a great year for concerts in the ‘hood, it’d be too easy to simply list my favorite concerts of 2011 (Bon Iver/Kathleen Edwards at the Winspear Opera House in September edges out the Carolina Chocolate Drops at the Granada that same month). Instead, let’s focus on the…
Local alt-country maestro Ronnie Fauss hasn’t been a stranger to area coffeehouses since the release of his excellent 2009 Brent Best-produced LP, New Songs For the Old Frontier. Since then, he’s released two more EPs, with each one not only improving in overall quality, but also in general range. The…
Ask most musicians to describe their sound, and a generic answer is likely to be proffered quickly. Such a response is fair: An artist works hard to create a product that can’t be lumped into the bargain bin of buzzwords. When Erik Berry of Trampled by Turtles is asked what…
Certain images not only have a lasting power, but remain relevant for generations to come. Few images in the world can boast such credentials like the Virgin of Guadalupe icon can. Of course, it stands to reason that one of history’s most prominent works of art would go on to…
The yearly docket of holiday outings can be relatively predictable — that’s why some call it tradition. Many families and holiday arts revelers flock to yet another production of the appropriately titled The Nutcracker, or to drown their credit card sorrows in peppermint mocha at Starbucks. For a young family…
Never fear, oh young, hipster parents: The Polyphonic Spree’s Holiday Extravaganza has returned. After keeping a relatively low profile in 2010, Spree leader Tim DeLaughter has burst back into the region’s consciousness in multiple ways. A buzzed-about band (Preteen Zenith) and a revamped record label (Good Records Recordings) are just…
Wicked Ways, the new album from Justin Moore-led Dallas rock vets Max Cady, is a solid album. There’s not much anyone will likely find objectionable, but there’s not much to make one who isn’t already into Max Cady get more excited about the current incarnation of the band. Perhaps blame…
Sometimes, introductions simply aren’t necessary. That may be due to the enormity of the subject’s status as a legend, or perhaps it can be credited to the fact that the artist doesn’t need anyone to handle the talking for him. Both scenarios apply to the one and only Charlie Daniels…
Few bands have risen from the stale, beer-stained stages of America’s dingiest dives only to entertain majestic crowds at some of the world’s largest festivals more naturally than My Morning Jacket. Formed in Louisville in 1998, the Jim James-fronted group has undergone a series of personnel changes that have accompanied…
If there were ever a time for a skyrocketing band that’s recently tasted the fruits of newfound stardom to take a breather and not provide a full-force performance, it might have been during a short, windswept midday festival set. After The Joy Formidable proffered an empowered, aggressive show at early…
In 1992, metal fans’ heads exploded all over North America as the epic double bill of Metallica and Guns N’ Roses caused riots and sold millions of dollars worth of tickets. This winter, there has been a similar, can’t-believe-this-is-finally-happening vibe surrounding Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne Tour. When…
Bob the Builder, The South Central Llama Association, Jordin Sparks, high school marching bands and Captain America would make for a swinging soiree inside Andy Warhol’s Factory. As it turns out, the Children’s Medical Center Holiday Parade also values the merriment that a wide range of guests can bring to…
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED. If a cubicle warrior out there had “The Guy Who Played Wanda in In Living Color” to not only become an Academy Award nominated actor, but also a Grammy winning singer in the office pool, then that person surely quit the office gig after raking…
It’s not inconceivable to figure that curious folks of the next few decades will look into the music and movements that surged just beneath the surface of the glossy mainstream in this millennium’s first decade. Those would-be students of music history won’t have to dig through too many virtual copies…
In 2008, a bar stool in Lewisville’s Old Town Flying Pig was as prime a place as any from which to witness two examples of North Texas’ country greatness. Back then, on Tuesday nights, honky-tonk vets Mo Robson and Nate Kipp shared a residency in the downtown Lewisville bar where…
The Turnpike Troubadours have arrived just in time. The so-called Red Dirt scene has been besieged by young guitar slingers acting as REO Speedwagon revivalists, veterans who rely on overly hokey hooks and acts that have, perhaps understandably, headed for the schlocky, sing-by-numbers gold of Nashville. Lately, the tops of…
Shortly after the late 2010 release of Junky Star, then newly minted Oscar winner Ryan Bingham was vocal about his confusion over what he saw as fans’ need to label his work as country. He went so far as to suggest that it was merely his ragged cowboy hat that…
Dirty River Boys – “Carnival Lights” from Compound Productions, LLC on Vimeo.Texas Music is a term so broad it barely means anything outside of basic geographical terms. And Texas Country is almost as uselessly generic, given the wide swath of acts and sounds that fit under the million-gallon hat that…
In this week’s paper edition of DC9 at Night, Chris Parker effectively details the sonic evolution of Brooklyn’s Pterodactyl. In fact, when describing the splendid craziness that is the band’s recently released third album, Spills Out, as “still somewhat woolly with subtle spiky slashes of guitar lingering beneath the surface,…
It’s the usual, mundane stuff of young musicians’ grown-up dreams: While becoming one of the most sought-after session guitar players in the world of country, folk and Americana, you manage to make a million or two from getting some of country music’s biggest stars to cut a handful of tunes…
Psychedelia has roared back into the lexicon of the musical masses in the last couple of years. Whether it’s the stoner sounds of The Black Angels or Tame Impala, the more pop and electro-friendly version of MGMT, or the foreboding echoes that emanate from the local True Widow, being chilled…
It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, that’s crap. Ripping someone off is merely the easiest way to tip the cap to an influential artist. In the spirit of inventively paying tribute to one of the great acts in pop history, Dallas dream-pop act Little Black…
