In the five year gap since MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident, Michael Penn has kept busy producing albums for Liz Phair and wife Aimee Mann and scoring a movie or two. He’s also apparently reminisced about the decade before his birth, as the setting of his awkwardly titled…
Now here’s an interesting cross-section of American indie-hood. Yes, the Oxford Collapse are from Brooklyn, and yes, they are dancy enough to name-drop electro-clashy Williamsburg alongside the nuevo No Wave of the Rapture and Les Savy Fav. Luckily, that background is immaterial to the crux of this taut trio and…
Everyone goes through a phase where they wish they’d lived in the ’60s. You know, the world roils outside, but in the bedroom, the record player is turned up to the latest thing–musical bliss. Well, guess what? We’ve got soldiers slogging through a dead-end war, and now we’ve got Dungen,…
Standing out in the Dallas rap game is already difficult enough, but for local artist Cainam, a bad break at the Gypsy Tea Room didn’t help matters. Sound trouble and a half-empty crowd meant he lost the hype built up by other performers at Saturday’s oddly-named Final Friday hip-hop concert…
Dance Disaster Movement is one of the countless “post-punk-funk” bands in recent years that blazes a new trail in the swallowing forest that is Rock Influence. Yeah, they’re a MySpace peer of The Faint or !!! and reach for a Gang of Four-meets-DNA balance of synthesizer schizophrenia, but revisionism isn’t…
Ten years after leaving Thee Headcoatees behind for her first solo album, British garage-rock queen Holly Golightly seduces Dallas with songs that stretch beyond her roots in three-chord rock. Why, she’s a critic’s Wal-Mart, with country, jazz, a bit of folk and some acoustic blues numbers that stick your heart…
Just when it seemed Chicago’s Pelican had reached a creative impasse, they took the strong, if weird, step forward that an album titled The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw might imply. These four atmospheric riff-meisters have found a home on progressive hardcore stronghold Hydrahead Records, creeping ever…
Last week, when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer released documents that linked record label Sony/BMG to a payola scandal, I got excited. Yes, it’s sickening to think about a record label secretly bribing hundreds of radio stations to control airplay (which is illegal if the paid sponsorship isn’t identified…
Last time I saw Hayes Carll, he could have easily been mistaken for a homeless guy who somehow wandered onstage. Even some of his most ardent female fans were heard wishing a shower and shave upon him. Yet a lack of decorum is exactly what makes Carll’s music so right…
From the look on Kris Wheat’s face, he’s been waiting for someone to finally say the words out loud: “The Secret Machines.” He reacts immediately. “I’ll bad blood some shit at those assholes.” The rest of Day of the Double Agent laughs nervously, but Wheat’s not joking. The New York…
Chloe Sevigny, wearing a maid’s outfit, cleans a hotel room in the new Smog video. Her right eye is bandaged. She’s vacuuming. A television’s on in the room, and a newscaster speaks over images of explosions. Sevigny moves in a mournful daze as the clean-cut anchor–played by Smog’s sole member,…
In the hip-hop world, Houston and New York are among the bigger scenes known for mixtapes–CD-Rs in which rappers perform over unlicensed samples to get their name out and make a quick buck. So at last May’s Conspiracy Radio Music Awards, recognizing the best in Dallas rap, I was intrigued…
Good news: This week, Good Records made a formal announcement that surprised no one: They love Pilotdrift. Before, that fondness was hardly unofficial, as the local indie record store pimped the hell out of the Texarkana synth-rock band’s self-released debut, Iter Facere, and hooked the group up with a sweet…
Make no mistake–Grey DeLisle loves the hell out of Dolly Parton, and as female country artists go, it’s hard to find a better model to follow. Like Parton, DeLisle has a voice as pure and fragile as a mountain stream, and her story-based songs are equal parts lovin’, lustin’ and…
Bob Mould’s latest album, Body of Song, comes with a blurb advertising the disc as a “return to his signature guitar sound.” Though there’s some honesty to the PR, as he plays the ol’ six-string on every track, take it with a grain of salt, because the album doesn’t sound…
Besides the White Stripes, the Volebeats might be the best band the Motor City has to offer. Like the Jayhawks drenched in reverb, they make classic folk-rock that’s part Everly Brothers harmonies and part Byrdsian 12-string jangle. Firm believers in quality over quantity, the Volebeats have released only six proper…
When a rock star blames his dad for something, it’s usually pretty bad. You know, scarring-horror-that-created-the-dark-place-in-my-heart-from-which-oozes-the-anger-and-hurt-that-fuel-my-songwriting-and-need-for-attention bad. On Friday at the Double Wide, though, Fort Worth’s Collin Herring only blamed his father for forgetting the merch table’s CDs. The elder Herring, Ben Roi, certainly couldn’t be faulted for his mesmerizing…
When Bob Dylan’s most favored axman handles your album, you have to be doing something right. On her new album, Geronimo, produced by Austinite Charlie Sexton, singer-songwriter Shannon McNally explores the same crossroads of country, soul and rock frequented by sisters Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer, singing in a voice…
When you look for Need New Body’s album at a music store, don’t browse through the rock section. While you’re at it, skip the jazz, metal, hip-hop, polka, folk and experimental sections, too, and go straight to the “what the hell is going on?” card. Albums like UFO and the…
Ever been to a local festival and waded through countless crappy bands to hear a few unknown gems? Wouldn’t it be great if someone plucked out some great new acts for a simpler show with no excess hype, booths or coupons? Consider Friday’s show at Sons of Hermann Hall a…
If you stray into the world of sincere, gut-busting songcraft via folks like Jay Farrar and Slobberbone’s Brent Best, you ought to step in the direction of Adam Carroll. He comes from the old storytelling lineage of Townes Van Zandt and John Prine, but his outlook is fresh, and the…
When you think neo-soul, chances are Fort Worth doesn’t come to mind. Nuwamba, a soulful singer with an eclectic take on R&B standards, destroys Cowtown stereotypes with his debut album, Above the Water. He croons on mellow ballads in a raspy alto, sounding like a mix of Seal and D’Angelo,…
