Chicago poster artist Jay Ryan has honed his quirky hand-drawn style for more than a decade, making crudely elegant album art and posters for a diverse roster of clients including Andrew Bird, Built to Spill and the Decemberists. His imaginative drawings feature such scenes as turtles raising a flag Iwo…
Chicago poster artist Jay Ryan has honed his quirky hand-drawn style for more than a decade, making crudely elegant album art and posters for a diverse roster of clients including Andrew Bird, Built to Spill and the Decemberists. His imaginative drawings feature such scenes as turtles raising a flag Iwo…
Becoming a bride in Plano may seem like a good idea, but then it’s 20 years later, your kids are on drugs and you’re stumbling home drunk from TGI Friday’s with a belly full of Ultimate Strawberry Daiquiris, looking for your townhome on a street where they all look exactly…
On January 25, 2006, former Creed lead singer Scott Stapp spoke to the Dallas Observer, among other publications, in a conference call to promote his new solo album, The Great Divide, and an accompanying spring tour. In that chat, Stapp dismissed rumors and allegations about improper behavior reported in Rolling…
The conservative New York magazine City Journal recently published an article by Hunter Husock claiming that Hollywood’s bias against conservatism would prevent it from ever giving Merle Haggard the same star treatment it gave Johnny Cash in last year’s Walk the Line (“Why Hollywood Loves Johnny Cash–and Not Merle Haggard,”…
There’s something undeniably charming about the streetcars on McKinney Avenue. Even if you’re stuck behind one in traffic, it’s still a refreshing reminder of a time when Dallas marched to a much slower beat—one better suited to the easy cadence of our collective Southern drawl. Since 1989, the streetcars have…
The late, great Townes Van Zandt was born in Fort Worth in 1944. He died on January 1, 1997—44 years to the day after his hero, Hank Williams. It’s been said he even predicted his own demise, telling friends he would die of a heart attack at age 52. Like…
Old 97’s front man Rhett Miller may believe his second solo album sounds like “George Gershwin does T. Rex’s The Slider,” but unfortunately for us, The Believer comes off more like Semisonic meets whoever wrote Rent, with the former hometown boy abandoning his twangy Texas roots on nearly every track…
Many young parents weren’t even born when Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day came out, but its domination in the children’s genre has continued well into the present day. Judith Viorst’s classic Alexander trilogy can often be found rubbing spines on bookshelves with Where the Wild…
I’m gonna go out on a very short, safe limb here and say that the Ten Tenors are the lamest Australian export since garage-rock poseurs the Vines. The type of group that makes soccer moms giggle like school girls, the Tenors fit nicely in any housewife’s “music” collection somewhere after…
Women of the future, prepare to shake your hips. There’s a blast of fresh air coming from the Windy City, and it’s coming straight from the roaring amps and tightly wound voices of Chicago band the M’s. Future Women, the group’s second album, is chock-full of reasons to do the…
Dallas artist Jennifer Morgan paints more than her share of women, all fairly attractive despite their freakishly exaggerated features. However, while I can certainly handle some big eyes and bee-stung lips, these ladies’ noses are out of hand, each bearing a squiggly line that’s meant to demarcate the boundary between…
Austin, Texas band the Gourds are the quintessential Lone Star ensemble, the type of group tailor-made for Gruene Hall and every outdoor festival from Fredericksburg to Nacogdoches. Their seventh proper album, Heavy Ornamentals, may be their most dance-hall friendly yet, a hip-shaking mix of funky backwoods stompers and country tear-jerkers…
The Nile perch was first introduced to Africa’s Lake Victoria in the 1960s, and it has since decimated the native fish population and spawned a large-scale fishing industry that earns millions annually. The Oscar-nominated documentary Darwin’s Nightmare (coincidentally the title of my unreleased documentary on intelligent design) tells the story…
With a title like Dances at a Gathering, Daydreaming in Dallas, one might assume that the Chamberlain Ballet’s latest production would actually take place in its namesake city. However, you would be wrong—although you have to admit one might daydream of Dallas while sitting in the chilly confines of a…
Some people have a mind for physics. Others have the stomach for the study of human anatomy and all the blood and unpleasantness that entails. I, however, have a heart for history, which is why the Dallas Historical Society’s Have a Heart for History Day sounds right up my alley…
Comedian Rob Little must love television. Before he became a regular on The Best Damn Sports Show Period and Fire Me…Please, he apparently sat in the live studio audience of as many shows as possible. On his Web site’s video page, alongside the expected stand-up routines and comedy skits, Little…
When one thinks of MIT, I think it’s safe to say that the terms “theatre and dance” do not immediately spring to mind. In fact, I would think they rank in the low thousands on the list of MIT word associations, somewhere far behind robots, the CIA, artificial intelligence, mathematics,…
I can still remember the way the cheese enchiladas at Fonda San Miguel felt on my tongue. Covered in a sweaty salsa verde, the delectable queso torpedos sunk my palate into a state of culinary ecstasy. It was my first visit to the Austin institution, which opened in 1975, and…
Having trouble sleeping? Then head on over to Bass Performance Hall Tuesday, where George Winston will lull the crowd into a New Age slumber with the soothing sounds of compositions like “Colors/Dance,” “Longing/Love,” “Blossom/Meadow” and “Boring/Narcolepsy.” (OK, so we made that last one up.) Largely known for his series of…
Howard Greynolds, owner of Overcoat Recordings, is an indie rock dream weaver. Last year he brought us the Iron and Wine/Calexico collaboration In the Reins, and now he’s decided to gift us with an entire record of covers by Bonnie “Prince” Billy (aka Will Oldham, he of the beard-folk and…
After three decades, modern western swing kings Asleep at the Wheel have firmly established themselves as a genuine Texas institution, despite the fact that founding member and bandleader Ray Benson originally hails from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sat., Oct. 6, 2007…
