The Old 97’s have been the darlings of South by Southwest since their first appearance, playing high-profile gigs every year at packed venues–including last year’s festival-ending performance with X’s John Doe at the see-and-be-seen Spin party, traditionally the toughest invite in town. The festival has been good to the band,…
From March 17 to 21, they came from all over the country–all over the world–to piss and moan. The complaints reverberated so loudly that, at times, you could barely hear the music. To refer to the mood at this year’s annual South by Southwest Music Conference as grim is an…
thursday march 18 When we were young, we were deathly afraid of roller coasters, so a trip to Six Flags Over Texas was, understandably, a nightmare. Our parents, God bless ’em, made us go on every single ride. Judge Roy Scream, the Shockwave, all of them. It wasn’t just that…
If you’re Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch, you can have it both ways: Sign with a major label and keep your indie-rock credibility; maintain a successful band and a happy family without disrupting either; live in relative isolation in the cultural hinterland of Boise, Idaho, and still be one of…
Country feedback Welcome to… Eleven Hundred Springs 13 Recordings Matt Hillyer was country before he wasn’t cool, before Lone Star Trio degenerated into a bad Reverend Horton Heat impression, before he formed Strap and trotted out an even worse imitation of ZZ Top–or was it Pantera? Back then, at the…
What follows are brief reviews of some highlights from the Dallas Video Festival, arranged chronologically. The festival runs from Thursday, March 25, through Sunday, March 28, in four different areas–the Electronic Theater, Video Cabaret, Video Lounge, and Video Box–at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Boulevard. Installations of video…
thursday march 11 If a comedian is described as a “comic’s comic,” it means only one thing: No one has a clue who he is. Sure, you’ve probably seen his act a half-dozen times, and maybe even dug it, but you couldn’t remember his name even if you were spotted…
Lately, it’s been kind of a crapshoot when the Flaming Lips come to town–like last July, when the band staged one of its infamous experiments at Galaxy Club. The event involved 30 boom-boxes, hundreds of tapes, and audience volunteers. It also apparently required singer-guitarist-weirdo Wayne Coyne to wear a tight…
Thank you for tuning in this morning to the B.P. radio show! Soul 73 KKDA! You turn me on, and I’ll turn you on. I got my mojo working this morning. In other words, there’s some fever in the funkhouse. There’s a skunk in the skillet. Thank you for joining…
For a long time, Jimmy Eat World singer-guitarist Jim Adkins didn’t believe Capitol Records was really going to release his band’s new album, Clarity. Even after the album was added to the label’s official release schedule and the masters had been sent to the pressing plant, Adkins wasn’t convinced. Why…
thursday march 4 Most of the time, reading a humor book is about as entertaining as running through a crowded mall wearing nothing but a few strategically placed pats of butter and a smile. (Well, that’s actually pretty amusing, so long as you’re not the one doing it.) The reason:…
If you turn your back for a minute, maybe to grab a beer from the bar or go upstairs to shoot a quick game of pool, you can almost fool yourself into believing there’s a different band up there onstage, headlining a Friday-night bill at Trees. Even if you face…
Will Cullen Hart answers the phone out of breath, stopping our interview before it starts by asking whether I could please call him right back and let the phone ring until the answering machine picks up to give him a chance to find his temporarily misplaced cordless phone. As the…
thursday february 25 When you talk to Fury III singer-guitarist Stephen Nutt, you get the feeling that one day, as he’s being led away in handcuffs, his neighbors will be standing in their front yards saying to reporters, “He seemed like such a nice guy.” And he does. But it’s…
thursday february 18 Dallas-bred screenwriter Owen Wilson and his Houston bud director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, Bottle Rocket) may have beat a path out of Texas you could lay a Supercollider in, but two other Dallas-raised University of Texas brats may be hot on their heels in terms of national exposure–but…
Listen to the music The Sebadoh Sebadoh Sub Pop/Sire Records Lou Barlow became important without meaning to. He impressed others by recording his fragile, angry songs on whatever happened to be lying around, whether it was a four-track recorder or a busted Walkman. It didn’t matter, because at first, it…
Apparently, during the planning stages of Disneyland, Walt Disney referred to the castle–the one that’s become synonymous with not only the amusement park, but Disney itself–as a wienie. That’s right, a wienie. Maybe our minds are permanent occupants of the gutter, but we can’t help but notice the phallic connotations…
This past year hasn’t produced much quality television. FOX, for one, seems to have completely abandoned ship, with its incessant airing of those When the World’s Most Dangerous Animals Attack Before They Were Stars specials. But the year has produced some memorable commercials, and some we wish we could forget…
thursday february 11 Sitcom star is the comedian’s equivalent of a Mafia no-show job: They’re easy to get, and you get paid a lot for doing very little. Like every other semi-successful comedian in the past decade, Mark Curry had his own sitcom for a few years, ABC’s Hangin’ with…
Josh Baish has hardly begun to tell his story–how he recently bought half of Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton, how he wants to turn it from an occasional performance space into a full-time club, how he feels his adopted hometown of Denton is on the verge of something big–when…
thursday february 4 How do you choose between an Asian film festival (see sidebar) and a French film festival? We’ll leave that one up to you. All we’ll say is that if French films are anything like French people, the choice should be fairly simple. We’ve never been to France–traveling…
The secret to Asian action films’ superiority to their American counterparts over the past 10 or 15 years is simple: Would you rather watch Bruce Willis huffing and puffing his way through a fight sequence–mostly just shooting everyone in sight and squinting too much–or Jackie Chan using any and every…
