In this year’s Dallas Observer Music Awards nominees for DJ/Electronic, one of these things was not like the other: DJ Merritt, DJ Jayson Gould, DJ Wild in the Streets, DJ Whiz T…and Tree Wave. That’s right–only one (one!) nominee fell under the “electronic” category: Tree Wave, the duo of Paul…

They say in order to truly appreciate something, you have to let it go. That may be the case for lush, charismatic pop-rockers Mur, who left Big D last year for the temperate climes of Southern California. Each time they visit, they put together a show that is bigger and…

There is a scene in Almost Famous in which young William Miller, a stand-in for the director and former Rolling Stone scribe Cameron Crowe, discovers a secret stash of LPs. In a different film, it could have been a stack of Playboys–the way William caresses each cover, reveling at the…

Unlike other awards shows, you don’t need anything special to host the Dallas Observer Music Awards–talent, experience, Tony Danza. Nope, there’s really only one requirement for this job: You have to be me. I was the perfect candidate. The following is a condensed diary of the 2005 DOMAs that took…

Last year, this free weekly downtown series was one of those things I always talked about doing but never did–like going to the gym or paying my credit card bill on time. It just sounded so terrific, the perfect urban late afternoon: me, a beer, a breeze and some of…

Fine, fine, fine: You got to vote for everything this year–nominations, winners, the whole shebang–and I’m stuck here in my office with this lousy column and a 12-pack of Diet Dr Pepper. But two can play that game. (Well, technically, about 5,200 people can play that game, since that’s how…

Whatever and Ever Amen, Ben Folds Five’s breakout album, was filled with the snarky, stoned, hilarious observations of a man who didn’t know whether to cry or write a musical satire about it. It’s almost a decade later now–Folds is solo, married (happily, for a change) and he’s a father,…

It was as unexpected as tax season. A little more than a week after Jesse Chaddock received a sentence of 19 years for organized crime in the July 26 beating of David Cunniff at the Gypsy Tea Room, the Cunniff family (including daughters Courtney and Caitlen and son Ryan) filed…

One Tree Hill is not a show I’ve ever seen. I know it’s on the WB and it’s popular with preteens and it stars some dudes named James Lafferty and Chad Michael Murray, who is, according to one particularly breathless posting, “like the hottest guy on t.v., movies, anywhere!” I…

My boyfriend has a line about seeing Tori Amos live: “Every man in the audience wanted to be her piano bench that night.” Now, considering her gay male fanbase, I sort of doubt that. But there’s no denying that in concert, Tori Amos can appear to be a sexual she-beast…

Fire marshals were the surprise guests at last Friday night’s Gypsy Tea Room show, a Ronald McDonald House fundraiser. Their appearance started rumors that the centerpiece Deep Ellum club was delinquent in its payments to the fire marshal. “Not that I’m aware of,” said Whit Meyers of The EC, which…

Even the name of the place speaks of another generation–Bill’s Records. I mean: What’s a record, Mommy? And though owner and namesake Bill Wisener’s famously cluttered store on Spring Valley Road once typified the record-clerk culture of the ’80s and ’90s, captured in films like High Fidelity (which Bill has…

It took the jury less than three hours to deliberate, and that included lunch. Defendant Jesse Chaddock, 28, was declared guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity for his part in a July 26 beating at the Gypsy Tea Room. It came as no surprise. That morning, during closing arguments,…

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s first of three Dallas episodes aired last week with a surprise cameo–by Chomsky! “That guy’s hot!” exclaimed Carson Kressley as guitarist Glen Reynolds shook it for the camera during a sweat-soaked rendition of “15 Minutes to Rock,” performed for the Sigma Chi fraternity at…

Colin Meloy wanted to be a novelist. His songs have an antique literary quality, as if they should arrive in a bound tome, smelling sweetly of dust and mold. With the Decemberists’ first two albums, Castaways and Cutouts and Her Majesty the Decemberists, Meloy placed tales of chimney sweeps and…

The time has come: The 2005 Dallas Observer Music Awards ballot can be found in this issue, on page 70. Vote with your heart–and your pen. You may also vote online, of course, but however you choose to vote, do so only once. Ballot stuffers will be publicly mocked. The…

The Tah-Dahs’ Web site once offered the following philosophy: “If you don’t like to dance, you’re going to die alone.” Hard science has yet to hold this out, but you have to admit they’ve got something there. Dancing is that liberating, all-too-rare event in local pop-rock music, an oppressively self-conscious…

“I could have died Thursday night and been a happy man,” said Deathray Davies’ John Dufilho, who found himself arm in arm at the Guided By Voices hoot with no less than GBV’s Bob Pollard, who told him–and this is a direct quote–“I love the Deathray Davies.” “I didn’t even…

In a city that values luxury and exclusivity, the Barley House offered neither. Casual as its motto–“Where beer is a way of life”–the Barley House existed for 12 years as a regular hang for musicians and music lovers, poised on a once-bleak stretch of Henderson Avenue now bustling with such…

“This is like The Apprentice for indie rock bands,” said Stars lead singer Torquil Campbell at the band’s afternoon showcase at Emo’s. It’s probably an apt description of how it felt to be onstage, one of roughly a gajillion bands, screaming your vocal cords raw at 3 p.m. for a…