Camping in the chilling fields Pup Tent Luna Elektra Records The title to Luna’s fourth album comes from a childhood game that girls were asked to play. They all said “no.” It’s the essence of frontman Dean Wareham’s worldview–life as a set of almost-sly tricks that never seem to work…

No other medium–save perhaps the chemical–can dislocate or transport with the potency of music. Sound, rhythm, and tone all combine to evoke moods that can transcend the limits of everyday life and experience. The effect of music of another culture–built on utterly foreign assumptions according to blueprints that assume an…

They’re not the most commercial of bands, but the Green Romance Orchestra has finally released an album into widespread circulation. The band is half longtime (but now defunct) local jazz-rock group Ten Hands (J. Paul Slavens on piano and keyboards and Gary Muller on the Chapman Stick), plus drummer Dave…

Time of the preacher Dangerous Spirits Ray Wylie Hubbard Philo/Rounder Records Much has been made of Ray Wylie Hubbard and how this, his first major-label album, marks his coming into his own. Actually, Hubbard established himself with Loco Gringo’s Lament, his 1994 album for Dejadisc and the first album he’d…

“I like the idea that before the Lilith Fair, there was Lilith,” says Amy Martin, a local percussion fixture known to most through her tireless work with drumming circles and the various Solstice celebrations here. “You know, originally, women were on equal footing with men in the various temples and…

Amid a flurry of rumors, it has finally been confirmed that the Sons of Hermann membership will be taking a more active role in the booking of their facility, the popular Sons of Hermann Hall. In a move bound to decrease longtime booker Mike Snider’s access to the venue, more…

Gaze into skies unseen Abandinallhope Mazinga Phaser Idol Records “All I can see in this beautiful dream/Is circles of light and they’re floating around on me,” sings Mazinga Phaser’s Jessica Nelson on “A Diamond in Shrink Wrap,” the opening song on the band’s new album Abandinallhope, and at first blush…

Not just an opening act A year or two ago, while freelancing for The Dallas Morning News, I reviewed a show that featured Maze and some hot diva-of-the-moment–I believe it was Whitney Houston–and I expressed a bit of irritation with the fact that the bill had been reversed from its…

Leave it to the man who wrote a song called “I’m Sorry I Killed You”–mainly “’cause now I am in jail,” although the protagonist (if that’s the right word) finds some solace at making goo-goo eyes at the victim’s underage sister–to pick up and get on with his life. The…

Although Athens-based Vigilantes of Love leader Bill Mallonee says that his musical goal is “Bible study that rocks,” don’t lump VOL in with the tepid majority of contemporary Christian rock. For one thing, Mallonee usually has his tongue slightly in cheek and a sly grin on his face when he…

It doesn’t look like much now–just another run-down building in a neighborhood gone to seed, where flat-black burglar bars seem to have spread across doors and windows like mildew, and by noon clots of the glassy-eyed have staked out the favorable corners, bag-wrapped brown bottles at their feet. Windows in…

Updating the mainstream Perhaps it’s just a sign of the times (impending millennium sows seeds of divisiveness everywhere, etc.), but reggae music is animated by a tension between old and new every bit as vital as the one Western pop is currently experiencing via the much-ballyhooed electronica wave. In the…

Local harpist Cindy Horstman–classically trained but possessing a yen for taking her instrument into the realm of jazz and blues–has just released a new album, Tutone, that’s primarily duets with her longtime bassist and producer, Mike Medina. “We play together so much, we thought we’d just release an album that…

Buck Jones would make a good subject for a rock ‘n’ roll fable as cast by O. Henry: Genie grants struggling young band a wish–say, a mention in some major publication–and a couple of months later, they’re still sitting around the garage. Nobody new seems to know about them, and…

Wade in the water Selections 1976-1988 Sweet Honey in the Rock Flying Fish/Rounder Records Gospel Oak Sinead O’Connor EMI and/or Capitol Records Nowadays it seems that all you need is a city or church name in front of the words “Mass Choir” in order to put out an album, but…

The Lilith Fair is the winner so far in what music wonks like to paint as the Battle of the Summer Mega-tours. Lollapalooza, on August 2, was no different than any other concert this year; it might have been even less inspiring than your typical show. The atmosphere reeked of…

The king of soca Calypso–laden as it is with intimations of day-o, the limbo, and un-cola nuts–is one of the few musical forms that can credit its genesis to fuel oil. With roots in the rhythmic patterns and music of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, calypso’s antecedents were forbidden…

Your first clue as to what to expect from Austin’s Therapy Sisters comes when you dial their number and get their answering machine: To leave a message for Lisa, press one; to leave a message for Maurine, press two. For the Therapy Sisters, it depends: If you’re obsessive-compulsive, press one…

Le grand Mac Rockabilly Uprising: The Best of Mac Curtis Mac Curtis Rollin’ Rock/HighTone Records With this disc, Bedford resident Mac Curtis joins Ronnie Dawson and the newly re-emergent Gene Summers as the third part of the North Texas rockabilly trinity–no offense meant to lesser-known lights like Groovy Joe Poovey…

Start talking about Spanish-language pop around the Dallas-Fort Worth area and most people will nod thoughtfully and say something like “oh, yes–Tejano.” While not to dis the phenomenal growth that Tejano music has enjoyed in the last five years, there’s much more to Latin pop: Witness the Rock en Espanol…

Numbers too big to ignore–they’re outselling ROAR! It has always seemed to me that the male human–apparently genetically predisposed to risk everything in the name of a little sweaty, sniggering fun–would be a natural for constantly pushing the boundaries of sex roles. Why, then, aren’t there more guys out there…

Area rockabilly hero Gene Summers and Sisyphus (star of Greek mythology) could probably kill a few hours together comparing notes. The latter, you may recall, was an ancient king of Corinth damned to an eternity of rolling a heavy stone up a hill, only to have it roll back down…