It’s a time-honored American tradition: You make resolutions for the new year, then — 48 hours later— you break them. But as a new decade begins, it’s time to mix things up. Your resolve to improve should never be dampened by a judgmental freelance writer writing a topical year-end list,…
Earlier this year, the a cappella sextet Pentatonix announced a Christmas tour. Covering Christmas classics is one of the group’s hallmarks, and fittingly, this tour concluded with two shows in Grand Prairie, a short drive from the band’s hometown of Arlington. Since my wife, a high school choir alum and…
How far can you get by creating with your friends? This is the question that motivates the members of Medicine Man Revival. A belief in each other’s talents and those of their fellow Dallas musicians inspired them to start their eclectic, electrifying band in 2015, and has been driving them to…
If you have yet to see God and learn what it feels like to witness her in all of her preternatural, eternal glory, then presumably you have not listened to a Celine Dion Christmas album. Christmas music is a subgenre so replete with artless drivel, so seeping with sugar-drenched rehashes…
A shaky iPhone camera steadies on a glorious sight: 24-year-old Austin Richard Post, cloaked in black and dripping with jewelry, is vibing to the stylings of Canada’s finest, Shania Twain. While Twain serenades the American Music Awards crowd with the boppiest of bops (“Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”) Post…
Midway through our text chat, drummer JD Beck stops me cold. “Hold on,” he sends. “Let me get you a photo from Paak.” A couple of minutes later, the 16-year-old Dallas musician sends a photo of himself and his bandmate DOMi, a 19-year-old pianist, hanging out in a kitchen. Both…
Pop music has a dirty, not-so-well-kept secret: A lot of songs are often composed of four chords. Even the greats — your Beatles, your Fleetwood Mac — have employed two to four chords to make the timeless hits that will still be around long after we are not. But Carleigh…
Arturo Torres has the best reason for missing my first phone call: His son was asleep on top of him. “Sorry, bro,” the illustrator is quick to say. “I’m a father now, so you know how it goes.” I do not, in fact, know how it goes, but anyone who…
Looking like a burned out Rick Owens, Signals and Alibis guitarist Brian Carter skulks into the building on a bright fall afternoon, flanked by his bandmate, singer Rebecca Jozwiak. Carter’s eyes betrayed a lack of sleep and some kind of rarefied sadness, the sort that only he understands. He, and…
John Belushi was punk rock. Onstage in Chicago or on TV in New York, the doomed but talented comic binged, bellowed and blustered his way into the hearts of an America that recognized the danger of embracing such dangerous habits, but embraced them anyway. His middle finger to respectable behavior…
Tyler, the Creator is late. The clock turns to 9:06, past the five minute grace period, and the legions of fans, mostly young, begin to get anxious. This wait gives a pair of teenagers in front of me enough time to discuss the merits of Igor, Tyler’s latest album, versus…
If she listens closely, Amy Miller can still hear the sound of her friends’ giddy excitement as the disc jockey of the Bay Area’s Live 105 announces the winners of the latest contest. As a teenager, the KXT program director was a “radio junkie” fascinated by the medium, the contests…
Supposing God is a woman and descended to Earth in corporeal form, she would probably look and perform like Lizzo. Equal parts fed-up and friendly, eager to scold fuckboys but yearning to celebrate among her fellow women and all people, Lizzo descended upon South Side Ballroom to a rapturous reception…
Nya Marquez is fond of saying “period,” as in “end of conversation.” She says it when she is giving dating advice to her friends (which she does often) and when she concludes a rehearsal (which she does almost as often). On a sunny Tuesday at a barren shopping center in…
When you walk into the room, their eyes bore into the very core of your soul. The sight of a glass of water dripping with condensation as it sits on the tabletop makes your throat run dry. Sweat beads dance down your forehead, and as you try to think, relax…
Before the curtains parted to a wall of darkness and fog, the crowd had reached that decibel often associated with Beatlemania and Bieber concerts. This audience spanned a wide range of ages, genders and time spent in the performer’s fan club, but everyone — boy, girl, young, old and at…
They arrived after dinner, as the cruel Texas sun was going to sleep in the perfect orange twilight. They carried skateboards, a cooler packed with Modelos and paintbrushes. From 7 p.m. to around 4 a.m., the small team of four friends painted the 4DWN Skatepark a vibrant blue, yellow and…
Lizzi Trumbore walks into a McDonald’s and confronts an internal conflict. “I had to ask myself, ‘Should I buy something?’” she reflects later, sitting in that same Mickey D’s. “On the one hand, McDonald’s is this big corporation. They don’t need my money. On the other hand, I feel weird…
On a blistering late summer night in Dallas, the funk band Electric Tongues has taken refuge in a Starbucks, sipping drinks that foretell the onslaught of seasonal marketing. “These are pumpkin spiced lattes, man,” guitarist Max Ogden says. “You already know.” At this, producer and new Tongues member Sean Dream…
Every morning during high school, esports entrepreneur Danny Martin spent hours running on sun-baked synthetic rubber. As a track athlete and Dallas native, Martin was indoctrinated into a world where athletics was an avenue to personal fame and fortune. “Sports is in our genes in Dallas,” he says. “When you…
Music is frustrating. Some artists toil decades before gaining recognition (if they do at all) while others churn out hit tracks like a sweatshop producing cheap toys. The latter group has cracked the formula: they know what people want to hear, and they ride the radio waves to the bank…
The year was 2015, and America was having a conversation about gender. In Dallas, the emergent press Deep Vellum Publishing partnered with a French author to publish a book all about that very topic. The catch: author Anne Garréta’s book Sphinx first hit shelves in 1986. “It was kind of…
