“So here’s how it works,” says Chris Holt, sitting with a guitar across his lap and sipping the first of several drinks. “You request the songs, and I play ’em.” Within minutes, the crowd is lining up to hand him titles scribbled on cocktail napkins or simply shouting out the…

Frequently asked questions: Dallas Observer Music Awards 2005 Where did these nominees come from again? In February we asked readers to fill out an online-only ballot to nominate their favorite artists for the Dallas Observer Music Awards. (Because it was online, we were able to spot ballot-stuffing easier. Long story…

Nominations for the Dallas Observer Music Awards will be announced in next week’s issue. Originally, I planned to unveil the list at the end of March, but apparently, I keep secrets about as well as Linda Tripp. Until next week, I’m taping my mouth shut, which should at least please…

Few stories have rattled the music community like that of David Cunniff. Even people who don’t follow local bands know about the Lakewood father beaten bloody last July after an Old 97’s show at the Gypsy Tea Room. It was just the kind of cautionary tale Deep Ellum didn’t need:…

We mean well. It’s just that sometimes we get confused. To boot: Last week, in a preview for the Falkon show at Hailey’s and Double Wide, Sam Machkovech wrote that the longtime Denton band was headed to New York. Not exactly. “It’s actually the last Falkon show ever,” explained the…

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the Dallas Music Fest was the city’s best-organized and least interesting festival. Well, I was right on one count. In only its second year, the Cleveland-owned DMF proved to be a disaster of confusion and mediocre music, with bands playing to empty houses…

Congratulations to Brave Combo, who won Grammy No. 2 on Sunday night for Let’s Kiss, their 25th anniversary album, thus answering the question “How do you follow up a cameo on The Simpsons?” This calls for ein chicken dance! Drum machine, please: It’s time to announce the top five finalists…

Andy Warhol famously said everyone would be famous for 15 minutes; these days, it seems everyone is famous for 15 episodes. The reality-show bandwagon was back in Dallas last Saturday, holding auditions for UPN’s R U the Girl? at the Dallas Convention Center. The show will track R&B superstars T-Boz…

Last Thursday, the nomination ballot for the 2005 Dallas Observer Music Awards went online. Since then, I’ve had several conversations like this: Me: Have you voted yet? Them: What are you talking about? Me: This year, we’re letting readers pick the nominations for the Observer Music Awards. Them: That’s interesting…

It takes a special kind of artist to be a karaoke superstar. It is not enough to sing well, although that helps. A karaoke superstar must own the stage; he must brand it with his name, make the crowd forget they have heard this song a gazillion times even as…

With around 200 bands playing 18 stages over four days, the Dallas Music Fest may be the best organized and least interesting music festival around. That’s no surprise: The festival is the brainchild of John Michalak and Dan Bliss, the same out-of-town promoters who began the Cleveland Music Fest and…

When I taught high school English, I was shocked at the number of students who planned to be rappers, singers and various other celebutantes. They imagined a future of limousines, backstage orgies and Cristal, free of nagging homework and grammar lessons. They did not question this fate, much as they…

When he got the phone call, Salim Nourallah was not getting along with his brother–again. “You gotta read the paper,” his friend told him, and the blood drained from Salim’s face. In those days, news about the Nourallah brothers was generally bad news. More than a decade earlier, he and…

They may sing about Mustangs and Bel Airs, but as a live band, the Old 97’s are the sonic equivalent of a stripped-down Honda Accord. No fancy set pieces, no instrumental esoterica, no ironic covers–just their songs, played hard and loud and well. I’ve probably seen the 97’s in concert…

So far, 2005 hasn’t been the best of times for Dallas musicians. Last week, we reported on a legal tangle that has the fate of the Curtain Club hanging in the balance. Next came news that before the Camper Van Beethoven concert at the Gypsy Tea Room on January 18,…

In one memorable moment of Nick Hornby’s collection of confessional rock essays, Songbook, he gushes about Nelly Furtado’s “I’m Like a Bird.” It’s a surprising choice, not only because that song is better suited to Wet Seal customers than a middle-aged scribe but also because Hornby is the author of…

It’s hard to say which was the high point of the Granada’s Tsunami Benefit: the spine-chilling Pleasant Grove set, which lasted a mere 20 minutes but ended with an instrumental climax somewhere in the stratosphere; the piano-pounding, punch-drunk Centro-matic finale, which placed the perfect exclamation point on the evening; or…

Last week, Scott Beggs quit his job at the Entertainment Collaborative, the company that owns and operates several Deep Ellum businesses. Beggs has been a respected and well-known member of the EC for years, most recently as a talent buyer for Trees and the Gypsy Tea Room. At press time,…

One day last September, the Curtain Club’s Doug Simmons received a call from his banker, who delivered the following news: His bank account had been frozen; the company he helped start seven years ago, Congress Street Nights (which owns Curtain Club, as well as several other Deep Ellum nightspots), was…

Dallas has some new reality show kings. A Dozen Furies has won The Battle for Ozzfest, a contest whose spoils include $60,000, a slew of new gear from Guitar Center, a spot on next year’s Ozzfest and a recording contract with Sanctuary Records (home to Black Sabbath). The winners were…

The tsunami reports were overwhelming–an endless wash of carnage and devastation–and in the days following the disaster, Jayme Nourallah had no idea what to do. “I just kept crying about it,” says Nourallah, a freelance photographer who had visited Indonesia a month before the disaster. She couldn’t stop looking at…

Last year, I wrote more than 37,000 words in this column space–that’s the better part of a novel or, at least, one long-winded blog entry. Skimming over those columns is like watching the year in fast-forward: From the opening of Deep Ellum Blues to the closing of XPO Lounge, from…