Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The GritzProphet BarSeptember 7, 2011Better than: an after-school special. Because here’s an undeniable truth about after-parties: Sometimes they can be as good as, if not better than, the real thing.That, at least, was the hope held by those who turned up last night at…
Go here to vote online. Grab a paper ballot in the print edition out today if you prefer. You can vote over text-messaging, too. Those details are in the paper as well. Point is: Vote early, vote often. We’ll be accepting votes right up until and during our October 15…
A little over a week ago, Robert posted something of a gem to Unfair Park: Seems an all-girl punk band from Grand Rapids, Michigan, 30 years after the fact have released a response song to the great “She’s In Love With The Rolling Stones,” a fine, fine single released by…
Technically — technically — last week was supposed to be it for Rio Room’s somewhat over-the-top, but nonetheless impressive summer-long offerings of DJ sets from bold-faced names. Diplo’s performance was to be the cap in the summer’s feather, and the weekly Sunday night residency from Grammy-winning Dallas production duo Play-N-Skillz…
Back in July, when we caught up with Centro-matic frontman Will Johnson to talk about his band’s latest release, the excellent Candidate Waltz, much of our conversation centered around the small dusty city of Bastrop, Texas, located about 30 miles south of Austin, where Johnson wrote essentially all of the…
Speaking of interesting show announcements, New Year’s Eve just got even more exciting: Almost two weeks after the folks behind Lights All Night announced the beyond-insane bill for their sure-to-be-extravagant two-night affair at the Dallas Convention Center on December 30 and December 31, the Denton-based talent buying upstart Denton County…
Some pertinent St. Vincent news to pass along to end the day today, exactly one week before Dallas product Annie Clark releases her third solo record, Strange Mercy, the most pressing of which is this: In case you haven’t yet noticed, the new, made-in-Oak-Cliff, John Congleton-produced album is streaming over…
Two weeks back, you may recall, we passed along a free download of local rapper Jay Fresh’s take on the unavoidable Jay-Z and Kanye West song “Otis,” for which Fresh had a little help courtesy of a production update from electronic artist and new Pretty Lights Music signee, SuperVision.A few…
Earlier this week, Denton musician Jessie Frye accomplished quite the feat. She, like so many other area artists before her, had taken to Kickstarter to raise funds for her art — in this case, money to help produce her first-ever music video. She figured she needed $1,000. So she asked…
About a year ago, before tragedy twice struck the much-adored area greaser-punk three-piece Spector 45, first with frontman Frankie Campagna on New Year’s Day and then again in March with bassist Adam Carter, the band had been approached about having their music used in an upcoming TV ad promoting the…
The hits just keep on coming this week and the fall concert calender keeps getting beefier and beefier: Wilco, the inspiration for countless terrible area bands and a handful of decent ones, has announced today that it will be returning to North Texas on November 29 for a gig at the Fair…
DiploRio RoomSeptember 1, 2011Better than: watching the movie Rio, I assume. Still, it was a price many were willing to pay nonetheless to catch a two-hour DJ set from one Thomas Pentz, who performs and produces under the name of Diplo. In the electronic world, he’s a bona fide superstar, regular…
Illustrator and former musician Wes Freed has a pretty good gig these days: He’s the exclusive artist for the Drive-By Truckers, which explains why he’s the guy behind the above poster promoting the band’s Austin and Dallas performances with North Texas’ Own Centro-matic this week. He does their posters, their…
Got a couple of interesting and pertinent show announcement notes to pass along today, outside of our usual Wednesday sharing.The biggest of them is, indeed, quite big: Two years after playing Dallas’ Palladium Ballroom, Morrissey is returning to town for a gig at Southern Methodist University’s much-smaller McFarlin Auditorium on…
The young brats in Sealion certainly have a good thing going at the moment. On the one hand, they’ve a solid buzz surrounding their live show on the chit-chat circuit. On the other hand, an even bigger batch of good news — a devoted early fan base, one that filled…
Right around the same time that DMX was performing and blowing minds on the other side of downtown at the House of Blues, and just as Leagues was impressing a captivated crowd at Prophet Bar, iconic psychobilly act Nekromantix rocking out last night at La Grange. From the looks of…
This weekend out in Arlington at Cowboys Stadium, the Louisiana State University Tigers and the University of Oregon Ducks will “geaux” head-to-head in a feats-of-football competition, effectively kicking off the college football season. If nothing else, the game is giving an advantageous promotions company called Destination Entertainment an excuse to…
Four of the biggest names in Dallas music over the past 20 years? All on one stage? Gotta say, you guys, we’re pretty freakin’ stoked about this one.No, we’re not knocking last year’s deal at all — our first Dallas Observer Music Awards showcase in Deep Ellum and our first…
DMX, Charlene Renee, IcebergHouse of BluesAugust 31, 2011Better than: another stint in jail, among other things. Earlier this year, DMX wrapped up an eight-month stint in prison for violating his probation (he refused a drug test). He was released back in June. Then, just this past weekend, he got arrested again…
Pardon us if we’ve been pushing the new Burning Hotels release a little too much. Consider it, if nothing else, a feeble attempt to get the band’s oh-so-catchy, recently new wave-influence material out of our heads. Really: “Beard,” the lead single off of the band’s new, self-titled, out-today affair just…
Hope you’re not sick of St. Vincent yet. Seems, as we approach the September 13 release of her third LP, the John Congleton-produced Strange Mercy, the one-time Dallas resident born Annie Clark is only going to be more and more visible. Already, she’s been on the cover of Spin. Under…
Back at the beginning of the month we passed along this fairly exciting, if also a little bizarre, news: Neon Indian helped create a synthesizer called the PAL 198X, and, if you buy the deluxe version of their new album, Era Extraña, you’ll get it as part of the package…
