Thursday, July 22 We’re too lazy to stop at the grocery store and buy a burrito we can microwave for 90 seconds. So we’re probably not the target audience for Benihana’s Roll Your Own Sushi Dinner. Or maybe we are. Perhaps it’s a nefarious plan: Invite the well-intentioned to a…
The rock-and-roll adage is to burn out, not fade away. Braid did that, breaking up in August 1999 after playing 200 shows and touring for eight months the year before. There was no fading, either: Three post-breakup albums were released (a live one and the two volumes of Movie Music,…
A quick and easy way to silence a table of 20-something creative types performing the sharing-our-intellectual-opinions mating ritual in a chic bar: Start gushing about how your absolute favorite new thing is a public television show called History Detectives, in which four historians use archives, forensics and other sources to…
Rarely does a band’s name perfectly sum up what it does. But Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s music is exactly as it sounds: songs about loneliness and heartbreak performed on Casiotone keyboards by Owen Ashworth, possibly the saddest man in the world. But these songs–with words such as “And the…
Thursday, July 8 Cafe Izmir’s hummus is a work of art. This perfect chickpea creation is deserving of sonnets, gallery exhibits and Kennedy Center honors. But mostly, it should just be eaten. The cafe’s downtown restaurant, Izmir Mediterranean Tapas in the Stone Street Gardens, takes the hummus one step further,…
Hagfish held weekly rock-and-roll revivals, packing young, mostly male fans into the Galaxy Club, the Orbit Room and Trees, inciting mosh pits close to the stage and middle fingers from the front to back at the bar. The crowds knew every word of their sexy and (kinda) sexist songs, sometimes…
This one time, at band camp, we wore black bike shorts under ripped jean shorts and participated in a dance contest. So, it’s definitely a good thing our parents stopped shipping us off to camp right before puberty kicked in. Who knows what further embarrassments awaited us. Not that we…
Judging by looks, Vue could be mistaken for any other MTV-friendly yet still-kinda-indie band with dirty denim and mussed hair. By sound, they could be, too, with singer/guitarist Rex Shelverton’s full-bodied drawl sounding very Julian Casablancas-esque, while the rest of the five-piece fills in the Stooges-meets-the Rolling Stones blanks behind…
It was more like a house party than a rock show. The beer was so cheap it was almost free. A big wooden spool used as a table was dotted with beanbag ashtrays just like Grandma had. Mismatched plastic lawn furniture baked in the sun. The only thing missing was…
Thursday, June 24 Jazz is chaos. Jazz is flashing red. Jazz is shocking yellow. Jazz is shadowy blue. It’s colorful, sometimes dark, sometimes vivid and occasionally a well-constructed mess. Romare Bearden’s art is all of that. He grew during the Harlem Renaissance, was raised around family friends Duke Ellington and…
Jonathan Richman has always been like that geeky, art-loving, shy, witty, multilingual, politically active teacher you have a crush on. Or he’s been like the only person who really understands how you feel and puts it into pop songs. Either way, Not So Much to be Loved as to Love…
Bad Religion has been together since New Found Glory was in diapers, which may make them the grandpas of the Vans Warped Tour. But Bad Religion isn’t just rehashing the SoCal hardcore punk they perfected on Against the Grain and Recipe for Hate. The just-released album The Empire Strikes First…
The Magnetic Fields’ i is no 69 Love Songs. Keep that in mind, and you’ll enjoy it more. Like that magnificent three-disc album, i is a concept record with 14 songs whose titles begin with the letter “I.” Front man Stephin Merritt relishes this kind of challenge and restraint, which…
We participated in our personal Fear Factor today. There were no plates of sheep testicles or coffins full of rats. We didn’t jump from a tall building or climb giant monkey bars far above a body of water. We did, however, pick up a phone and call a clown. And…
Compilation CDs are like mix tapes. Some have themes; others are just the greatest hits of what one person can get his hands on. The first song should catch the listener’s attention. The last should leave the audience wanting more. But each song must stand on its own, a perfect,…
Thursday, May 27 We see the homeless every day, but we don’t really see them. We avoid eye contact, walking to lunch downtown, trying to find our cars in Deep Ellum, pumping our tanks full with $24 of gas. We play a game of keep away. It’s time to take…
I was just 5 years old that day my mother took me to the zoo. We headed to the petting zoo, where we bought pellets for feeding the animals. My favorite was the llama that looked like a dusty cotton ball with legs. I wanted to have my picture taken…
You could assume a lot of things about a Dallas band that takes its name from a Waylon Jennings song–but you shouldn’t. This Wurlitzer Prize has little to do with Jennings other than a standard vocals/guitars/keyboards/drums setup and some good, clean, simple songs about love and frustration. There’s nothing fancy…
Thursday, May 13 You’d have to pay us to see New York Minute. But it would cost you only 15 bucks or so, enough to cover a ticket, soda and popcorn. We’re cheap. And the yard work can wait. So here’s a deal we can’t pass up. For the cost…
Our introduction to la lotería, the Latin American game of chance, was a very American one. We purchased a set from the toy section of a dollar store and took it home to try to decipher the rules using our high school Spanish lessons. Eventually we had to ask for…
A quick survey of the aftermath of a Little Grizzly show. Singer/ guitarist George Neal is hunched at center stage, face red, veins still throbbing in his forehead from screaming. His knuckles are white from beating his chest in time to the bass drum. Bassist Jacob Barnhart is lying on…
Thursday, April 29 Dear John Grisham: We had you all wrong. We thought you were a writer whose only gimmick was suspense/action stories featuring lawyers and/or government agencies. Your role in writing and producing Mickey, the tale of a widower whose son shows great talent in Little League Baseball, really…
