When you're in a band with, like, 24 other people, you're not going to get rich anytime soon. Probably not ever. You can, however, be famous--sort of--if that band happens to be The Polyphonic Spree. You'll tour with David Bowie, travel around the world for free, see your face in magazines and on TV, hear your voice or flute or French horn or whatever on the radio, maybe even be detained by the FBI from time to time. And as soon as you take off your choir robe, not a single person will know who you are. It's the best of both worlds, getting all the cool stuff with none of the hassle. Only downside: Anyone under the age of 40 who owns a white choir robe and can sway in a rhythmic fashion can pretend to be you. But that's pretty cool, too, right?
This chunk of concrete and steel on Skillman Street near Northwest Highway was a Don Carter's All Star Lanes, with peewee leagues where kids would win tiny trophies and learn the thrill of victory and the agony of an ill-timed gutter ball. Now--nearly $10 million and two and a half years of construction later--you'd barely recognize it. Renamed the Rosewood Center for Family Arts, it's the home of the Dallas Children's Theater, where kids take classes on being tiny Laurence Oliviers and learn the thrill of professionally produced drama starring adult actors, some of whom also teach at the facility, which houses two theaters (one seats 400; the other, 140), classrooms, DCT's offices, a scene shop, a prop studio and a costume warehouse. The fund raising has been mostly grassroots, donated by fans of children's theater--both individual and professional--and the renovations continue as money comes available. Gone are the Oscar Mayer hot dogs. It's time for some Oscar-aspiring performances.
While all the other talk jocks seem to be collapsing into a single personality and voice, Mark Davis gets more distinctive. First of all, he actually knows some stuff and appears to have a life, something beyond skimming the front page and then trying to channel Rush Limbaugh. Some of his tangents are arcane, like his passionate interest in the sport of curling, but at least you know he gets out of the sound booth once in a while. His callers are often an intriguing lot, like the woman who, while calling, was being attacked by a basset hound, a toy poodle and a dachshund/Chihuahua mix but wanted to keep talking to Davis anyway. That's animal magnetism! Generally speaking, Mark Davis provides a uniquely engaging perspective on the city's everyday life.
Readers' Pick
Russ Martin Show
Live 105.3
Overheard at Best Buy last year: "I'm into all kinds of music. I listen to Nelly and Limp Bizkit." Right, buddy. Now, granted, everyone winds up claiming musical impartiality at some point in his life, but there's no way a person can like every single genre in the world. Do your tastes honestly jump from Tejano to punk rock, from mainstream rap to lo-fi folk, from electroclash to country? If so, you must be one of the five fortunate souls in Dallas who can actually hear KTCU 88.7's The Good Show on Sunday nights. Tom Urquhart's wholeheartedly anti-commercial blast of musical variety will test both your claims of musical appreciation and your radio's antenna, but if you can pick up an effin' signal without driving west on Interstate 30, you're in for a sonic range unavailable on any other frequency in town. Watch out for the DJ banter, though, because when Tom, Chris and Tony aren't interviewing local musicians, they're wasting precious minutes on debates as odd as, say, the superiority of Nelly over Limp Bizkit.
Here's yet another reason to feel guilty about not pledging, or not paying your pledge, to public radio. Glenn Mitchell's noon-to-2 p.m. show on Dallas' public radio station, KERA-FM, is not only wildly entertaining, dastardly informative and harpooningly to the point, it's the local intelligentsia's preferred manner of intercourse. It's conveniently scheduled as well, while we're mad-dashing around town at lunchtime trying to find any parking space on Commerce or Elm. Content of the show defies categorization or even adequate description, but Mitchell's first hour is usually programmed for audience call-in or e-mail participation with a celebrity, notable, topical or otherwise interesting guest in the Dallas studio. The second hour is often one-on-one interviews he conducts with authors, poets, politicos, historians and others with something to share. The variety of the guests and topics makes Mitchell's show the best; and we like the soft, Jimmy Stewart-like Everyman quality of his voice, too.
Readers' Pick
Kidd Kraddick