Probably the only positive thing that can be said about the “new” Bob Marley album, Chant Down Babylon, is that it doesn’t include yet another version of “Buffalo Soldier.” Assembled by Bob’s son Stephen Marley, the disc features digital-age duets between the late Marley and Busta Rhymes, Rakim, Lauryn Hill…

Joe King — the frontman better known as Joe Queer — has been at it for almost 20 years, and the only thing that’s really changed in that time is the amount of beer he ingests each night (currently leveled off at, uh, none) and who he’s playing with this…

Wes Berggren and his older brother Andy didn’t grow up with many rules and restrictions placed on them. Wes and Andy didn’t really need that kind of discipline, and their parents didn’t believe in it anyway. Don and Joan Berggren let their sons run around naked for the first few…

Earlier this year, Arlie Carstens was enjoying the kind of life he always dreamed of having when he was growing up in Seattle, spending all of his time snowboarding and listening to Jawbox records. He had just finished recording his debut album with his band Juno, This is the Way…

Most record labels are populated with frustrated musicians, people who didn’t have the talent or the guts to stick it out over the long haul. Some just got tired of being screwed over by labels and decided to switch positions. Others never got further than their bedrooms, but they all…

Shelton Williams was just another face in another crowd, an anonymous punk with safety pins in his clothes — and occasionally, his skin — playing in unknown bands with names like Buzzkill and worse. He was onstage from the time he was 15, yet rarely at the front, usually playing…

Atom and His Package Atom is Adam Goren, a slightly nerdy 24-year-old Philadelphian with an affinity for the metric system and a master’s degree in neuroscience. His Package is a Yamaha QY700 sequencer, a computer-keyboard arrangement programmed with more than 500 musical intruments, only a few of which Goren seems…

Beck Midnite Vultures (Interscope Records) Beck Hansen’s latest personality is his best joke yet, as this gawky-yet-funky white boy makes himself over as a smooth-talking, hard-partying sex machine, accompanied by the live equivalent of the Dust Brothers’ waxploitation soundtracks. Hiding behind gibberish less often than on previous releases, Beck tries…

Scene, heard As was previously reported, the pair of shows Tripping Daisy was supposed to play at the Curtain Club on November 12 and 13 will not happen. Instead, both nights have been changed to benefits for the family of guitarist Wes Berggren, who died on October 27. According to…

Dan “The Automator” Nakamura laughs when he recalls how his DJ career ended before it really began. The memory’s probably funnier now than it was then, especially since his latest album So…How’s Your Girl? — a partnership with another reformed DJ, Prince Paul, under the name Handsome Boy Modeling School…

After coordinating countless benefits for Denton’s Good/Bad Art Collective, Chris Weber is used to dealing with unique situations, controlling them as much as possible. For example, Inflicted Music — the benefit that partly inspired Weber’s best-known creation, Rock Lottery, three years ago — featured Centro-matic’s Will Johnson playing his songs…

Unity Church of Christianity is, perhaps, situated in an odd location for a place of worship: a few blocks north of most of the bars on Lower Greenville, directly across the street from a nondescript gas station, a few hundred feet south of another conglomerate of bars and restaurants. It’s…

The Gloria Record, Antarctica Almost two years down the line, The Gloria Record is still having trouble convincing audiences it’s not merely a diluted version of Mineral, the Austin band singer-guitarist Chris Simpson and bassist Jeremy Gomez used to be in that had more fans visit its grave than attended…

Kevin Deal Honky Tonks-N-Churches (Blind Nello Records) Kevin Deal has already supplied the only thing that really needs to be said about his follow-up to last year’s debut, Lovin’ Shootin’ Cryin’ and Dyin’; the title of the disc tidily sums up the songs contained on it, from the “blessed old…

Foo Fighters There Is Nothing Left to Lose (Roswell/RCA) It’s not hard to imagine that Dave Grohl was happiest recording the Foo Fighters’ self-titled 1995 debut, if only because he was allowed to do almost everything himself. Two albums later, he’s still trying to do it all, or at least…

By now, the members of Ghetto Fame-Us thought that they’d be putting the finishing touches on their second album, taking care of all the details that crop up between the recording sessions and the CD-release party. And that’s what they are doing now, except they haven’t graduated to their sophomore…

It is late August, less than a month before his band The Promise Ring is set to release its third album, Very Emergency, and guitarist Jason Gnewikow is doing his best to remain calm. Not surprising considering the disc’s impending arrival and all of the anticipation surrounding it, all of…

The rumors began making the rounds late Wednesday; they were the kind of whispers that lead to screams. And unfortunately, they were all true: Tripping Daisy guitarist Wes Berggren died Wednesday evening at his Dallas home. No cause of death had been confirmed by Thursday afternoon. According to the police…

Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios will host its second annual chili cook-off on October 30, an all-day bash featuring many pots of Denton’s finest chili (well…) and a ton (give or take a few pounds) of bands, including The Baptist Generals, Jetscreamer, Little Grizzly, Mandarin, Stumptone, Coals to Newcastle, Union Camp,…

Steve Dirkx’s Beatles in a Blender project is pretty much just what the name implied, or as close as the law and modern technology would allow. Last August, while learning how to use his recently purchased sampling equipment, the former Telefones bassist liberally cut and pasted his way through the…

When it comes to rumors involving John Freeman, just assume it’s true until you hear otherwise. Usually, no matter how strange or inexplicable it appears to be, any story that includes his name doesn’t need to be checked out very thoroughly. By now, hearing that he has landed a gig…