A few months ago, we started hearing rumors. As we do. Happens all the time and, usually, nothing much comes of it. At least not the version of the story that comes across our desk: By the time we hear something, it’s gone through at least three or four people,…
You’re never free, not really, not if you are Chan Marshall, otherwise known as Cat Power. Not if you’re covered in the fragments of a shattered relationship; Marshall wants to be a “Good Woman,” so she leaves her good man, who just happens to be Eddie Vedder. Not if you’re…
The D.O.C. had his comeback set up just right. Starting over with a new label (his own, Silverback Records) and a talented crew of local MCs (6Two, U.p.t.i.g.h.t., Cadillac Seville), he recorded a new album and titled it Deuce, because he considered it his real second album, his official follow-up…
We’re not big fans of Valentine’s Day. OK, so we despise it with all the hate we can churn out of our tiny black heart, which rests comfortably just above our tinier, blacker lungs. (In laymen’s terms, our lungs look like miniature boxing gloves. Like the kind you’d find on,…
Bryce Avary twists in his seat after every question, staring down at the cell phone he’s cupping in his hands as though it will give him the answer if he watches it long enough. Can’t really blame him for hoping someone will give him the answers. He’s been trying to…
Unknown, or at least underrated, Ted Leo swivels his hips like a young Elvis P. and sneers like a younger Elvis C. on Hearts of Oak, pounding the pulpit and sounding the alarm. Flipping through a history book while rocketing into the future, he still can’t quite escape what’s going…
Here’s the most significant way having a baby has changed Kasey Chambers’ life: “I used to, as soon as I walked off stage, I would go straight to the back room and have a cigarette. And soon as I got pregnant, I gave up smoking. And now, I walk straight…
Every year around this time, we start complaining about the fact that the annual South by Southwest is in Austin and why can’t it be in Dallas and we just want to drink a lot and sleep in our own bed. Blah blah blah. Gotten plenty of mileage out of…
Sherri DuPree blows a bubble with her chewing gum, because that’s all she can do right now. The gear has already been loaded in from the trailer, and another group is onstage, running through its sound check. Her brother Weston kneels in the corner, tuning his drums, and her sisters,…
January 31 was supposed to be a big night for the local hip-hop community. That was when Final Friday, the monthly urban music showcase put together by The A-Teem Alumni (Brian “Viz” Walker and Jonathan “Fatz” Dangerfield), would debut at its new home, Gypsy Tea Room, after a three-year run…
Pardon Western Keys’ Ben Dickey if the Damage done on the Austin band’s seven-song debut has the same Bright Eyes and dark thoughts as Conor Oberst’s Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ears to the Ground. The singer-songwriter can’t help that he and Oberst both happen…
Never understood why the Hives were the ones tagged as Your New Favourite Band (from Sweden, anyway), when The (International) Noise Conspiracy does virtually the same thing, only better. Actually, I do: The Hives play it Swede and lowbrow, hoping to move heads (but definitely not brains) by mimicking Mick…
So here’s some news: South FM has signed with MCA Records. Apparently. See, one of the members of the band told someone on the Dallas Observer staff a week or so ago. But when we tried to verify the information with him, we got this: “Unfortunately, I will neither confirm…
You get one disc “for those of us who prefer singles to albums.” (Titled, naturally, “Pop,” and selected by journalist Miranda Sawyer.) Another put together by a man who believes the group to be “touched by the hand of God–not once but twice.” (“Fan,” assembled by journalist John McCready.) A…
For a long time, the only hip-hop in Deep Ellum was the odd Young MC or Tone Loc song that would sneak into rotation on The Bone’s roof deck. And, yeah, that didn’t really count. Always been pretty hard to find hip-hop or R&B or even a DJ set between…
Steve Earle is a political role model to some now, but that wasn’t always the case. Sure, he looked like he was doing something, appearing at rallies with guitar in hand, but he didn’t really care. Back then, this was Earle’s version of Getting Involved: “I rolled up in the…
The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) announced its nominees for the 45th annual Grammy Awards on Tuesday, and it was a pretty sweet day for Dallas acts. Well, kind of. See, Norah Jones and the Dixie Chicks both are up for a handful of awards, and both…
They’ve arrived like Cubans on the Miami Beach shoreline, those cover-cum-tribute bands that clog the local concert calendar each weekend and push “original” acts further to the sidelines. Not quite sure what it says about the local rock scene when the best new band is the best old band–Queen for…
BLACK We hear someone softly speaking in Italian, then… FADE IN: A HOTEL ROOM–EARLY EVENING The room is in slight disarray. Whoever is staying in the room has been here awhile. A few room-service trays are stacked on a table. The bed is made, but rumpled. A lit cigarette rests…
Slobberbone, Slippage (New West): The best bar band in America–not just Denton or Dallas or Fort Worth–delivers a rock record (“Springfield, IL.” and “Write Me Off”) that knows it doesn’t always have to (“Sister Beams” and “Back”). It’s “classic rock” if you mean “timeless,” “modern rock” if you mean “now.”…
1. Christina Aguilera, Stripped (RCA): Last year was Christina Aguilera’s for the taking: Stripped, the long-awaited follow-up to her smash 1999 debut, arrived just as teen-pop took its first steps into a delicate post-pubescence, with artists making bolder creative statements and listeners actually taking them seriously. But instead of delivering…
A roundtable discussion of music in 2002, featuring me and two people I made up: Zac Crain: Many have compared these rock-and-roll days to the beginning of the 1990s, when youths in revolt found nirvana in Nirvana. I don’t buy that. Sure, yeah, whatever, the White Stripes and the Strokes…
