Thursday, January 27 It’s a one-night-only, going-out-in-style all-nighter for one of Dallas’ biggest rock stars. OK, so it’s a reception and book signing for Jesús Moroles, a granite sculptor with an exhibit closing at the Dallas Museum of Art. But that intro is so much better. “Rock star” may sound…
Clair de Lune is a study in contrasts. Controlled fury. Beautiful cacophony. Sentimental anger. All of which proves that bands can draw from punk, emo and hardcore without falling prey to old stereotypes. Clair de Lune may have two voices screaming over each other, but it doesn’t sound unnecessary. It…
Bill Komodore. Linnea Glatt. Vincent Falsetta. Allison V. Smith. Frank Tolbert. Benito Huerta. Pamela Nelson. Brian Fridge. Ann Stautberg. Greg Metz. It’s an impressive list of artists that any gallery would fight for. But Barry Whistler Gallery didn’t have to fight. They just had to ask. And in some cases,…
Thursday, January 13 Like cats and babies, we have a fascination with sparkly things. A healthy one, though; there’s been no hiding in our closet hot gluing rhinestones to a vest or telling ourselves that we do need four types of cubic zirconia wrist cuffs (we have a strict limit…
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is a book that everyone is supposed to love–women and men, little and big, bookworms and those who get their classic literature on the screen (there have been more than a dozen versions filmed or animated). Even Joey, the Friends character who is not known…
Here’s a New Year’s shindig suitable for the whole family–Hank Williams, Hank Williams Jr. and Hank III, that is. Speedtrucker, Slick 57, The Dogkickers and Spector 45 have it all covered: Senior’s honky-tonk roots, Junior’s outlaw spirit and The Third’s punk-rock rearing. Expect the soul and twang of country with…
Back when women were dames and men were gents, people knew how to do New Year’s Eve right. Watch the black and white movies, and you’ll see what I mean: women in circle skirts poofy with crinoline, men in tuxedos with cummerbunds and matching bow ties, flutes of champagne, a…
Thursday, December 23 In Christmas movies, the redeeming ending is the big gift. The rest of the plot is just stocking filler. Take It’s a Wonderful Life, for example: While being Christmas’ most hackneyed film, it is also perhaps the saddest–until the joyful conclusion. Then there’s A Christmas Story, a…
Thursday, December 9 The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has caught the Christmas fever. Screw peace on earth and good will to men. They want bigger; they want better. And they want it now. Just Christmas isn’t good enough; this year it’s Christmas–around the world. Of course, bigger can be better. This…
We used to literally wear our religion on our sleeves–the bright red knit ones of our St. Andrew’s Catholic School cardigan sweater. And we wore it even when we weren’t in uniform, so proud were we–nyah nyah–that we got to attend parochial school and were one with God. Then one…
Thursday, November 25 This holiday season, we’re launching a new dieting fad we’re calling The Charitable Diet. The theory is that if you do all the walks and fun runs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, you’ll burn enough calories to counter all the extra ones you’re eating this season…
Sondre Lerche has the pop sensibility of someone composing in the 1960s, not a young man who’s been alive barely two decades and admits to an obsession with A-Ha. His songs sound like they come from a musician weaned on Tin Pan Alley and rock and roll, both influences funneled…
Thursday, November 11 No matter how people voted last week–Bush or Kerry, moral values or war in Iraq, marriage is between a man and woman or between anyone willing to promise “till death do us part”–most will say they support the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan even if they don’t…
“Random lost souls have asked me what’s the future of rock and roll,” sings front man Conrad Keely on “Worlds Apart.” “I don’t know, does it matter?” Maybe not to some, but …Trail of Dead knows what the future of rock and roll shouldn’t be. For inspiration, Keely turned to…
The final evening of the three-night Rock ‘N’ Roll Ramjob, critic Mike Keller’s annual musical birthday party, felt a little like the last hours of, well, a birthday party. Only the most dedicated partygoers stuck around, with crowds peaking at about 50 or so throughout the night. And, like other…
Stray Cats’ first official live recording isn’t a greatest-hits collection. Though all the big tracks are here, the deep cuts are, too, so even the most ardent fans will be pleased by the offerings on this two-disc album and companion DVD, recorded at London’s Brixton Academy. More than 20 years…
Many bands sing about love. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players sing about eggs. They also sing about cheese fondue, fast-food chains, old ladies, public executions, board meetings, company reports and trips to Japan. But wait, it gets weirder. The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, unlike the Ramones, are a real family…
“Everyone thinks that life is going on somewhere else, that you have to move to New York or–in Canadians’ case–Toronto or Vancouver. I’ve never felt that was necessary,” says John K. Samson, singer-guitarist for the Weakerthans and former member of political punk band Propagandhi. While other bands grapple with the…
Thursday, October 28 Want to see Dallas, we brag, then rent Office Space. From the stop-and-go traffic to the rows of chain restaurants offering “American food” to blocks and blocks of identical beige apartments, there Dallas is. That’s probably most cities, but, hey, Office Space was inspired by Dallas and…
The Pointy Shoe Factory’s new album takes off like a sinister steam engine. The guitar and bass create a train rhythm, with ooohhh-ing vocals, spazzy saxophone sounds and demonic screams riding the rails to the end of the line on this seven-minute, 38-second silent film soundtrack appropriately titled “The Horror…
We imagine dead celebrities are granted VIP access to some big postmortem party. In this afterlife Green Room, Julia Child is serving hors d’oeuvres. Richard Avedon is taking candid photographs of Christopher Reeve, Janet Leigh and Rodney Dangerfield. Marlon Brando is hiding out, not wanting to be photographed. In the…
Rilo Kiley’s new album More Adventurous doesn’t have the unexpected punch of 2002’s The Execution of All Things, but they’re not the new kids anymore. The quartet’s been in every music magazine and played here half a dozen times, and More Adventurous reflects that maturity, incorporating strings, samples and new…
