Tim Booth’s first solo album (but really mostly the work of an ad-hoc trio) lies somewhere between the snappiness of his former band James’ 1993 quirky-sexy single “Laid” and the otherworldly English pop that dominated the rest of the band’s catalog. Marred by an unflattering cover photo (the uncensored version…
Until her “O.G. Bitch” joint last year, Esthero was best known for her appearances on other people’s songs, including some by Ian Pooley (“Balmes [A Better Life]”) and Black Eyed Peas (“Weekends”). We R in Need of a Musical Revolution, a 30-minute teaser for an album scheduled for release this…
Is it any wonder that today’s biggest emo lyricists–Eminem, Anticon’s Dose One and Atmosphere’s Slug–began their careers as battle rappers? After all, the constant personal needling at the hands of opposing MCs had to make them acutely self-conscious of each and every one of their flaws. Headshots: Se7en compiles a…
Last Friday night at Double Wide looked more like the biker bar Reno’s Chop Shop Saloon. That’s because Dallas’ Maltoro, featuring members of the now-defunct country-metal band Ghoultown, headlined the evening and brought their favorite roughnecks and rockabilly babes along for the ride. Sadly, those fans weren’t much of an…
They may sing about Mustangs and Bel Airs, but as a live band, the Old 97’s are the sonic equivalent of a stripped-down Honda Accord. No fancy set pieces, no instrumental esoterica, no ironic covers–just their songs, played hard and loud and well. I’ve probably seen the 97’s in concert…
Their home is the beer-soaked dives of Austin, but Okkervil River is just as comfortable in the rustic woods of New Hampshire or on a train to post-Reconstruction Kansas City. They’ve been known to belt out Appalachian murder ballads, but more often the songs are Will Sheff’s coming-of-age confessionals rife…
Here’s a family affair for indie rockers looking for proof that “settling down” doesn’t necessarily equal a creative death. Cex is Rjyan Kidwell, a young, smart guy who has played satirical glitch-techno, earnest emo-glitch, wry art-techno, menacing goth-rock and whatever he’ll give you tonight. He recently married Roby Newton, formerly…
Clair de Lune is a study in contrasts. Controlled fury. Beautiful cacophony. Sentimental anger. All of which proves that bands can draw from punk, emo and hardcore without falling prey to old stereotypes. Clair de Lune may have two voices screaming over each other, but it doesn’t sound unnecessary. It…
Something Corporate rose to mall-rock prominence with “If You C Jordan,” a spiteful piano-pop ditty about an annoying kid at school whom singer Andrew McMahon branded a “little redhead bitch.” If there’s one thing worse than a bully, it’s a bully pretending to be a sensitive guy in order to…
As she turns and saunters toward the back of the stage, giving all the tables in the front row a good long look, Paris steals a glance at the garter snug against her tanned left thigh. It’s plenty of time for her to add up the cash folded neatly under…
Portland’s Thermals remember a time when indie rock meant plugging in and making a noise as loud as your anger, or as vibrant as your excitement, or as jittery as your anxiety. Fuckin A, their second album, sounds like Superchunk back before the strings came in: short, sharp blasts of…
Any idiot with a Spin magazine and an afternoon to kill can tell you what was popular in 2004. The real trick is to predict what will be hot in the upcoming year. Although, if anything, it’s even easier than retrospection. Think of the pop-culture timeline as a telephone cord–a…
Despite the award’s legendary meaninglessness, being nominated for a Grammy can throw anyone for a loop. Suddenly, folks who would never give your record a look give it multiple listens; music-biz creeps start sniffing around, hungry for opportunity; forgotten high school chums emerge from the woodwork in search of a…
One day last September, the Curtain Club’s Doug Simmons received a call from his banker, who delivered the following news: His bank account had been frozen; the company he helped start seven years ago, Congress Street Nights (which owns Curtain Club, as well as several other Deep Ellum nightspots), was…
Last week, Scott Beggs quit his job at the Entertainment Collaborative, the company that owns and operates several Deep Ellum businesses. Beggs has been a respected and well-known member of the EC for years, most recently as a talent buyer for Trees and the Gypsy Tea Room. At press time,…
If comparing Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst to Bob Dylan seemed like a stretch before, then take a look at his latest two-album release, which may be the LP equivalent of Dylan’s infamous “Royal Albert Hall” concert. Omaha’s 24-year-old musical savant has ridden waves of praise for heartfelt, Americana-filled albums, but…
It is, without exception, bad form when a group sings about MTV on a single that will actually find its way onto the network’s rotation. This is something you’d expect from Jay-Z or late-period Duran Duran, not from Austin’s Trail of Dead, kings of the volume-crackling mayhem and violent instrument…
To be taken under the wing of Nic Harcourt, the mastermind behind the tastemaking L.A. public-radio show Morning Becomes Eclectic, you need do one of three things: 1. Write gently melodic songs about moral uplift and the triumph of the human spirit. 2. Fold into your music mild hints of…
It’s kind of absurd that the Fiery Furnaces, a brother-and-sister duo with only two albums to their name, are already releasing a collection of singles, B-sides and other ephemera. But in this pair’s warped world, where eight-minute songs pile as many disparate styles together as clothes at the local Goodwill,…
It’s hard to say which was the high point of the Granada’s Tsunami Benefit: the spine-chilling Pleasant Grove set, which lasted a mere 20 minutes but ended with an instrumental climax somewhere in the stratosphere; the piano-pounding, punch-drunk Centro-matic finale, which placed the perfect exclamation point on the evening; or…
Dallas, what is wrong with you? As of press time, tickets are still on sale for Saturday’s Arcade Fire show; other cities would murder for a chance to see the boisterous, symphonic band behind Pitchfork’s top-rated album of 2004, Funeral. “We booked a show [in San Francisco] and it sold…
The post-Radiohead saturation of grandly emotional English guitar-rock bands has pretty much been defined by a trend toward ever-greater wimpiness: Technophobic Radiohead begat rain-phobic Travis begat girl-phobic Coldplay begat Keane, who are actually afraid of guitars themselves and so therefore made Hopes and Fears, their debut, with a piano instead…
