Best Local Music Festival 2011 | Homegrown Music & Art Festival | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Local Music Festival

Homegrown Music & Art Festival

The second annual Homegrown Music & Arts Festival saw downtown's Main Street Garden Park full of music fans gathered to hear a uniquely curated concert. Each band that performed had at least one thing in common — they all have strong North Texas ties. From Neon Indian and School of Seven Bells, whose members started here in town, to The O's and Seryn, who are still hanging around Dallas, the festival's lineup served as a showcase for the cream of the local crop. And 2011's installment went over quite well, with attendance more than twice that of 2010's inaugural festival.

Best TV News Show

Inside Texas Politics

It is the only news program on the local airwaves dedicated solely to, you know, issues — current affairs, as the old people say, shit that matters. Politicos stop to stump; you don't run for mayor in Dallas, Fort Worth or points in between without moving into the WFAA studios in Victory Park, otherwise a ghost town. And columnists slink by to opine; more Bud Kennedy, por favor? Brad Watson knows what he's talking about too, which always helps. Because most of the time, his guests don't seem all that sure. You know who else is pretty good? Gromer Jeffers, who's a little more press the meat than Meet the Press, but it'll do. But would it kill you to book Schutze? Scared, aren't you, Channel 8? Gordon Keith's about as cutting as your edge can handle. Admit it. Well, that's OK, then.

Best Radio Station

KNON-FM 89.3

There were a few instrumental voices in our young adulthood: George Gimarc on KZEW, Liza Richardson and Chris Douridas on KERA, Ron Chapman on KVIL and The Voice of the People, otherwise known as KNON since its sign-on July 30, 1983. (Kids today don't have a midnight-Saturday Pajama Party to attend each week, and that's the real problem with kids today.) The station always was, and will forever remain, a wonderfully, willfully eclectic hodgepodge of noise — rockabilly, metal (and, like, some out-there shit), blues, jazz, country, Tejano, Native-American, polka, Jewish ... the whole "sonic burrito," as Weird Warren would say. Something for everyone. No, like, literally. Makes KXT sound like KZPS. No — KVIL, circa 1982.

Best Radio DJ

Big Gus

We will forever have a soft spot for the late-night disc jockey, The Midnight Hour-man who rocks us to not-sleep while we polish off this one last drink and finish off this one last smoke and try like hell to nod off but just can't so you might as well play some Sonny James. Big Gus hosts Lonestar Underground, which is already the best six hours of music (real goddamned country) on local radio in a single stretch. He doesn't say much (the best ones never do), and when he does he drawls us through the wee small hours in a raspy how-y'all-doin' that reminds us to tump the ashtray and crack another cold one (sponsored by Shiner!) and that tonight might be the night when we see the sunrise if we're lucky.

Best Radio Talk Show

The Janine Turner Show

Really, you have not celebrated July Fourth Weekend till you've spent a Saturday night by the radio listening to Maggie from Northern Exposure read from the Declaration of Independence before welcoming on to the show Ann Coulter and Gary Sinise. "Gather family, gather friends," she beckoned on that magical eve, before y'all-ing her way through the doc while bells of freedom chimed in the background. Best Not Christmas Eve Ever! She's so right she's around the bend and says things like "I'm a Texan, but I'm also an American" and considers herself a Constitutional historian ("History is fascinating," she once said) and welcomes the likes of Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain and Peter Guber — a regular Tom Snyder, ladies and gentlemen. Like recent guest Kinky Friedman told her, when speaking of Governor Rick Perry and his presidential run, "You don't know where greatness will come from." Here, it comes from here.

Best Film Advocates

Aviation Cinemas Inc.

It hasn't been a long time since Aviation Cinemas took flight. In 2010, the group comprising Eric Steele, Jason Reimer and Adam Donaghey took over operations at Oak Cliff's newly reopened Texas Theatre. In doing so, the trio has brought life to the once-abandoned cinema by screening a wide variety of indie movies, documentaries and decades-old television series that otherwise would not have been seen in Dallas. Their love of film doesn't end with The Texas Theatre; each member has worked in film as an actor, producer or composer.

Best Filmmaker

Jun Kang at YouPlusDallas

Jun Kang is one of the videographers over at YouPlusDallas, and his work can be seen all over the website, where he's helped shoot FC Dallas games, chefs and food at local restaurants and even the Dallas Observer Music Award Showcases. His best work, though, takes place in the beautiful short films he's created, which have included several Dallas landmarks. In the wordless A Christmas Tale, Kang highlights the famous Neiman Marcus window displays and the Children's Medical Center Holiday Parade. He shot Greenwood Cemetery in the historic cemetery of the same name. Each of his films tells a story and explores a deeper meaning while using Dallas as the backdrop.

Best Actress

Emily Scott Banks

She can be a fiery vixen or a bubbly comedienne. Or, in the case of her recent starring role in the hit comedy Five Women Wearing the Same Dress at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, both in one play. Emily Scott Banks launched her acting career in 2002 after studying the Meisner method with acting teacher Terry Martin (his class is a must for serious thesps). In shows at WaterTower Theatre, Stage West, CTD and Echo, where she recently played the author George Eliot in A Most Dangerous Woman, she's grown into one of this area's most interesting, versatile, dangerously talented theater stars.

Best Concert Promoter

Parade Of Flesh

There are concert promoters who do what they do for a living, and then there's Parade Of Flesh's John Iskander, a DISD middle-school math teacher who counts himself as little more than a music fan. But that's what makes him such a good promoter: He only books bands that he loves. Since he has a broad musical palate, ranging from metal to indie-rock, that means he has a show at least once a week. This year, highlights include Those Darlin's and Why?, but his biggest event this year was the third annual Bro-Fest, a music festival that featured some of the world's best up-and-coming indie-rock and metal acts.

Best Live Music Venue

The Kessler Theater

Mike Brooks
For decades, people have traveled northbound over the Trinity River to hear live music in Dallas, and rarely was it the opposite. But in 2010, the year Edwin Cabaniss reopened the 70-year-old Kessler Theater in North Oak Cliff, all that started to change. The shows being booked at The Kessler rivaled and often trumped shows happening elsewhere in town. The key ingredient was in hiring one of the founding fathers of Deep Ellum, Jeff Liles, to manage the place. Thanks to his booking, a healthy mix of local bands and legendary national artists including the likes of St. Vincent have graced the stage, as well as some reunited Dallas rock alumni like Chomsky, Earl Harvin and Mike Dillon.

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