The area’s full list of New Year’s Eve concerts starts on page 3 of our New Year’s Eve Guide; my top pick is the Barley House’s Drams and Sorta bill, as Brent Best has eons of New Year’s concert experience from his years in Slobberbone. Thing is, I’ll arrive at…

On Wednesday, December 21, a longtime Deep Ellum music venue was officially closed to the public. The biggest surprise, though, was that the club in question wasn’t Trees. Multiple signs posted on Club Dada’s windows at 2720 Elm St. on Wednesday read as follows: “This property has been seized for…

Unfortunately, Dallas music was better known for its losses than its gains this year. A few great bands faltered in 2005–Day of the Double Agent’s decline was public and ugly. Denton’s Skin Trade fell victim to an unexpected hiatus only a month after their first-ever write-up in the Dallas Observer…

Sure, it’s easy for us at AAT headquarters to sit in our bedrooms, rifle through hundreds of albums and pick our favorites for the year. But what about the musicians in town who are much braver than us and actually get on stages? What albums moved them this year? Here…

Sad to say but 2005’s biggest stories in local music were hardly local. Tyler’s Eisley finally took off on a mainstream jet with the release of the ultra-gorgeous Room Sounds, but the teens were overshadowed by a mainstream year of makeup-coated emo boys. Texarkana’s Pilotdrift, with the support of Tim…

Will 2005 be remembered as the year music giant Sony BMG began to fall? New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer got ’em in a July exposé on illegal radio payola practices, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott handed them a lawsuit in November over the company’s computer-damaging copy protection on…

I must have a reputation in the local radio community. This week, I wanted to have a talk–a simple, harmless, non-accusatory chat–with the program directors at 97.9 The Beat and K104.5 FM, Dallas’ highest-rated hip-hop radio stations. Unfortunately, neither Jon Candeleria nor Skip Cheatham, respectively, returned my numerous calls, which…

For whatever reason, the Polyphonic Spree is among the most despised bands from Dallas. Maybe it’s the fame, the robes or the super-happy lyrics, but something about the enormity and oddity of the Spree just doesn’t do it for hipsters and jocks alike. Well, Scrooges, it’s Christmastime, which is the…

The biggest debates in rock music are about the great mimics. The Strokes outlasted comparisons to the Velvets, Coldplay somehow became bigger than Radiohead and you can’t even speak the word Nirvana without thinking the word Pixies. So it’s understandable that one of the most refreshing groups to surface this…

Oven Lovin’: After a meteoric rise in publicity and a few big-name opening tour gigs (you know, that whole Coldplay thing) in previous years, Tyler’s Eisley had all its pop-rock ducks in a row in 2005. Everything seemed set for the February release of their first major-label full-length, Room Noises…

Another year, another rich haul of Christmas CDs. But instead of coming up with another essay about the latest in holiday music, we decided to help out the ailing economy–not to mention frazzled holiday shoppers–and do a Christmas CD buying guide. Don’t waste your time at the local listening station…

Dallas Observer in-jokes usually don’t warrant mentioning in print, but this week, I’ll make an exception for our office’s Hot Dudes Wall. The music section receives a lot of goofy press photos, but we don’t just make fun of them–we stick the dumbest, campiest ones on a huge wall and…

Since doo-wop masters the Platters and the Drifters are shimmying through Irving Arts Center this week, now’s as good a time as any to take a listen to Doo Wop Vocal Group Greats, the umpteenth doo-wop box set (which happens to feature both touring groups) to hit stores in time…

Abbott anniversary: On December 8, 2004, metal fans the world over lost an icon in “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott at a Columbus, Ohio, nightclub shooting at a Damageplan concert that took three other lives, including Damageplan security guard Jeff “Mayhem” Thompson. To honor and remember Dimebag’s years of performing in Dallas…

Who are the biggest tastemakers in local music? A decade ago the answer might have been clearer–a radio DJ, a newspaper writer, a person who booked for any given concert venue in town. But with the proliferation of Internet bulletin boards, podcasts, MP3 blogs, webzines and other cheap, easy means…

Conspiracy theory: If you’ve flipped through our Night & Day section this week, you’ve already seen a jumbo-sized item about Saturday’s Art Conspiracy show at the historic Texas Theater–artists create works in only 24 hours, bands play, proceeds go to charity. Interesting stuff, sure. But music fans should take an…

It’s time to be frank: Everything I’ve written about Dallas hip-hop has been inadequate. The columns, the previews, the Dallas Observer Music Awards blurbs–chump change. I thought I was doing service to an ever-growing scene of performers around town, but on Friday night, I was forced to look the metroplex…

Talk about jumping the holiday gun–on Thanksgiving Day, Drams lead singer Brent Best was already impersonating Santa. The Dentonite had hitched his horse up to eBay (username: brentbest) to sell a few gems from now-defunct country-rock legends Slobberbone; highlights included a 1979 Guild S-300D electric guitar used on Barrel Chested…

Leaving town to visit family on Thanksgiving? If so, you should rethink hanging out with Aunt Ethel, because this week finds Dallas gravy-deep in can’t-miss concerts–particularly the ones plugged in B-Sides (page 67). But best of all, hands-down, has to be the Earlies, the 11-member trans-Atlantic supergroup that has overwhelmed…

Thanks a lot, Jet, the Vines and the Hives. You had to go and burn the country out on garage rock a year before the Strange Boys recorded the most incendiary, exciting Nuggets-appreciative music to come out of Texas, if not the entire freaking United States, in a long time…

What is Dallas hip-hop like? Depending on where you hung out this weekend, your answer to that question could go in one of two directions–positive and exciting, or scary as hell. You would have reached the latter conclusion if you were standing anywhere near Club Hush on Friday night around…