On Saturday, I was supposed to attend the Dallas Observer’s 25th Anniversary/Best of Dallas extravaganza. It was one of those invite-only, chic-attire things with martinis, hors d’oeuvres, fancy outfits and so on. Not my bag, really–I’m still not sure how to even pronounce the word chic–but I heard there would…

These are the Earlies: A band that began with four men tinkering with samples and strange compositions in bedrooms, studios and e-mail songwriting swaps has become a British sensation. More than 20,000 copies of These Were The Earlies, their 679 Records debut, have sold overseas. The group has nabbed rave…

To the uninitiated, Lower Greenville’s The Cavern would have looked like a comic book convention or a World of Warcraft guild meeting early Sunday evening. About two dozen men (and a few girlfriends) were milling around dressed in slacker attire (jeans and nerdy T-shirts, some covered with videogame logos, others…

You already know plenty about the headliners, and those bands’ energy-packed live shows live up to their chart-topping reputations. But don’t be a simp and show up late, because Toronto duo Death From Above 1979 delivers a bigger blast with only a bass guitar and drum kit than most full…

When fans and critics alike prepare their year-end best-of lists, they often overlook the music that made ears swoon earlier in the year. Good thing South San Gabriel is putting on a show to remind us how good April’s The Carlton Chronicles was. The cast of Centro-matic, boosted with additional…

Is there a hidden swampland in Denton from which country-loving musicians sprout out of the murky water with banjo already in hand to rock out under the moonlight? Doubtful, but Spitfire Tumbleweeds make a case for such a Weekly World News-worthy scenario with their impressive debut record, King James Version…

You’re a winner: The best local concert this week, without question, is Saturday’s Rock Lottery 7 at Dan’s Silverleaf. You may as well put this newspaper down right now and head to Denton to get in line, because this concert will undoubtedly sell out. The Lottery, a relic from Denton’s…

LAN party: If you attend Laptop Deathmatch at The Cavern on Sunday, October 9, don’t be misled by the title. Anyone who brings joysticks or copies of Counter-Strike to the monthly musical competition will be sorely disappointed. So what exactly is it? Organizer, judge and Mazinga Phaser II member Mwanza…

Compared with the well-publicized debacle of the pay-to-play Dallas Music Festival earlier this year, the North Texas New Music Festival is a far superior source of live local tunes. Its intentions certainly are much nobler, as ticket prices are low (free for early birds, even), bands don’t pay to participate…

Last week, I predicted a mob at the Cavern when Chicago’s Fruit Bats played the small venue, but the crowd wound up being small and quaint, and singer Eric Johnson jokingly scolded me–onstage, no less–for publicizing the show as something too difficult to get into. My bad. So here, only…

In 2002, Broken Social Scene didn’t have much to prove. Most members of the Toronto collective were already playing in other Canadian indie bands (Stars, Metric, Do Make Say Think), and because they were a ragtag group of relative musical unknowns, their second album was likely to be as forgotten…

Why the Fruit Bats are playing the Cavern is beyond me. Yes, the Cavern has become an amazing local music destination ever since the booking and sound were revamped a few weeks ago, but Chicago’s Fruit Bats will surely sell out the undersized venue. Touring on the strength of their…

If you missed the most recent MTV Video Music Awards, consider yourself fortunate. Thanks to Sean Combs, My Chemical Romance and Mariah Carey, the show was a complete and utter bomb. Well, with one exception (or two, if you actually credit a surprise appearance by the crusty MC Hammer)–Grandmaster Flash…

While the rest of the paper looks to the past for its 25th anniversary, the music section looks to the future by presenting picks for this weekend’s North Texas New Music Festival. I’ll level with you: This isn’t my dream local fest. The schedule has a smattering of genres, but…

This year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival proved to be the year of the bandit. By the end of Sunday night, so many concertgoers had covered their faces with bandannas and handkerchiefs that you had to wonder when the world’s largest stick-’em-up would begin. But these people weren’t trying to…

No more celibacy: We try not to promote canceled shows, but it happens. Take, for starters, last week’s Dirty Projectors concert in Denton–we talked about how zany it was going to be, and then the one-man-band wound up canceling his Texas tour dates. Perhaps we have the power to reverse…

In March, I drove to an abandoned church to be saved. More specifically, the place was Austin’s Church of the Friendly Ghost, an unofficial concert venue during the SXSW music festival, and the preacher was Micah P. Hinson, a songwriter from Abilene. I’d seen accolades from mags like Uncut and…

It’s hard to fault a hastily organized benefit for a good cause, and really, no cause was better (and no concert more slapped together) than Sunday’s Deep Relief. Though Dallas has already seen its fair share of Katrina benefit concerts, DR was easily the most ambitious local one to date,…

Shut the gate: For years, Dallas resident and former 89.3 KNON DJ Kelly Cutler acted as tour manager for Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown without knowing the story behind the nickname. In his decades as a premier guitarist in a genre he refused to call “blues” and a favorite of Jimi Hendrix…

I have to watch my words in public. If I’m asked about my job and I answer with anything less than “it’s perfect,” someone always perks up and butts in: “Yeah, real tough. Must be a pain in the ass to get all those free CDs, you big baby.” Always…

Like many reclusive artists in the past decade, Yale dropout Dave Longstreth has adopted a band name for his one-man musical project. But unlike most band-but-not-a-band artists, once he’s on the stage, he’s anything but reclusive–in fact, his solo presence is alarming. Longstreth, with a projector playing drugged-out videos full…

In the past decade, positive, old-school hip-hop collectives have bridged the gap between rap devotees and newcomers, and The Roots have reigned supreme in that effort thanks to hot albums, collabs with Cody Chestnutt and Jay-Z and a richer, full-band sound. But in concert, The Roots can lose their hip-hop…