Abby Goldstein is likely the only person who would take the news that she was being fired from her job as an endorsement. But that’s just how the former music director at KKZN-FM (93.3) felt after Scott Strong and Dan Haliburton — the new bosses at the station now known…
The invitation for the reception and special performances happening at the Gypsy Tea Room this evening promised “the debut of an astonishing new voice,” but that claim is at least a couple of months too late, maybe more. Jessica Simpson, the 19-year-old Richardson native who belongs to that voice, has…
Hillsboro-based author Ace Collins isn’t the first writer to tackle the Dixie Chicks’ story: Scott Gray and Cathy Repetti’s Chicks Rule: The Story of the Dixie Chicks was in stores just a few weeks before Collins’ tome, All About the Dixie Chicks, will be on September 18. And he surely…
The first paragraph in the bio for Silver Scooter’s latest album, this year’s Orleans Parish, instructs you to “take your favorite record, set it on fire, and chuck it out the window” because “this is the only record you’ll need.” Yeah, and while you’re at it, get rid of every…
Chris Savage didn’t sell his soul for rock and roll, but he did quit his job for it. He enjoyed his work for the most part, training to be a veterinary technician at the Highland Park Animal Clinic. Well, he liked it much as anyone can take pleasure in being…
David Deweese makes sure the coast is clear before he tells a secret about Jerry James, his musical partner in The Foxymorons, even though it’s not really necessary. James is, after all, halfway across the country — in Mesquite. But Deweese, on the phone from his home in Nashville, lowers…
When Matt Barnhart moved back to Denton earlier this year, he found himself facing a big decision, the kind of choice that can change your life no matter what the answer is. It had already been a year filled with tough choices for Barnhart, from deciding to leave St. Louis…
The Muffs’ singer-guitarist Kim Shattuck is careful not to sound too arrogant when discussing how big a part she’s played in the recording of her band’s four albums, including the recent Alert Today Alive Tomorrow, released in June on Fat Wreck Chords offshot Honest Don’s Recordings. While Alert Today is…
There is a strong possibility that all the quotes below are the fabrications of an impostor. The man who answered the phone claimed his name was Moby, but after speaking with him, it’s difficult to believe he was telling the truth. For one thing, he didn’t seem to know much…
During a conversation with the Dallas Observer last year about the Bad Livers’ soundtrack for Richard Linklater’s The Newton Boys, which he produced and performed on, Mark Rubin said he and longtime musical partner Danny Barnes were not really a band, but more like banjo-wielding Dust Brothers. Of course, he’s…
Centro-matic The Static vs. The Strings (Quality Park Records) In the hands of any other band, an album like The Static vs. The Strings would merely be something to fill the gap between real records, a way to buy a little more time until the group could come up with…
DJ Merritt doesn’t sound much like the life of the party at the moment, sleepily answering questions in a voice that sounds as if it’s still hitting the snooze bar. As the afternoon creeps toward the evening, he is just now recovering from the previous night’s activities, a trek to…
Wilco There are times when you can listen to Wilco’s latest, Summer Teeth, and hear only Jeff Tweedy’s peculiar songwriting genius, the way he can turn a thousand familiar melodies into one perfectly imperfect song that manages to sound like everything and nothing that came before it. It’s a mess…
No Limit Tour If Master P’s No Limit empire ever crumbles — and one day it will — the shooting guard formerly known as Percy Miller has quite a future in the mail-order business. He’s been designing catalogs since 1990, when he turned No Limit Records from a store into…
Ben Yeager laughs a bit when asked about the differences between the setup he worked with for four years in the studio at the Last Beat Records complex on Commerce Street and the newly remodeled version, which he has been using for the past month or so. It’s the kind…
Playing in front of a crowd that fire marshals only read about in training manuals, in a club with no air-conditioning, a faulty P.A., and one bathroom for about 500 people is kind of hard to forget, even if you’ve seen the inside of more clubs than bottles of Budweiser…
The Light Crust Doughboys are more legend than band now — the longest-running Western swing outfit around, old men playing old music. Together since the 1920s, The Light Crust Doughboys are practically just a name at this point, a ghost of Christmas dances past, even though some members of the…
Before his gig later that night at Deep Ellum Live as part of the Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue — which features half-hour sets by The Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Sonic Boom’s E.A.R., and IQU — Robyn Hitchcock will perform at Bill’s Records on Sunday at 3 p.m. And considering the…
Buck Jones Bliss (One Ton Records) You can’t love or hate Buck Jones — there’s nothing but middle ground with the band. There’s just not enough on the band’s latest, Bliss — or 1997’s Shimmer, for that matter — to inspire such strong feelings…or any feelings, really. Sure, the band…
Stephen Kennedy, president and founder of iSong.com, is a little sheepish when discussing his company’s origins. Nervous laughs replace the periods at the end of his sentences. At first, it’s difficult to discern what he’s so skittish about. Maybe he’s embarrassed by the fact that iSong.com, a Dallas-based Web site,…
errortype:11 World’s Fastest Car was doomed from the beginning. The band was founded by Quicksand frontman Walter Schreifels and singer-guitarist Arty Shepherd after Schreifels’ former outfit dissolved on an ill-fated 1995 tour. And just like any relationship formed on the rebound, it was never meant to last. After two years…
George Gimarc hasn’t had any real contact with the radio station he helped found, KDGE-FM (94.5), in about three years, since he released the 11th, and most likely last, installment of his Tales From the Edge series. As a group, the Tales From the Edge compilations are like portable histories…
