Once again the Mosquitos prove themselves to be today’s version of Getz, Jobim and Gilberto. Their sassy samba is as perfect for car drives with the windows down as it is for chi-chi cocktail parties. Brazilian singer Juju Stulbach is still as captivating as she was on the band’s self-titled…
At first vaguely reminiscent of Duncan Sheik and Ben Folds, Paul Brill shakes off such god-awful comparisons and blissfully heads into Sparklehorse, Robyn Hitchcock and even Aphex Twin territory on New Pagan Love Song, a beautiful set of strikingly unpopular-sounding pop. Odd plunking of banjo and double bass collide with…
The Booker T. Washington high school kids in Spector 45 don’t need to be graded on a curve. The quartet’s EP release Girls, Cars & Rock n’ Roll is wise beyond the band’s almost 18 months together. The boys call themselves greaser punks and cite influences from the founding fathers…
Split the Difference, the fourth album by trippy English roots-rockers Gomez, doesn’t feature much in the way of songs. Holed up in the studio with master producer Tchad Blake (of Los Lobos side project Latin Playboys), they seemed to have placed a bigger emphasis on texture than tune, tricking out…
Unquestionably the reunion story of the year–unless Siegfried & Roy pull one out before Christmas–the return of the Pixies will, if we’re lucky, convince Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago and David Lovering to put their heads together and write new songs that don’t suck, picking up where the sorely…
Once upon a time there was nobody scarier than Skinny Puppy. Their demonic soundscapes made them a one-of-a-kind proposition among the ’80s underground club crowd. There were (mostly unfounded) whispers of them maiming animals onstage. The band’s mid-’90s implosion was similarly lurid, following the nightmarish scripts of disaster, death, trauma…
All hail 1988’s Operation: Mindcrime, the last great prog-rock concept album! Sure, Mindcrime bridged the gap between role-playing Rush nerds and Maiden-worshiping cock rockers while eating up the tense Cold War atmosphere of the Reagan years. But this Seattle group also set the trend for any number of futuristic conspiracy…
Last Valentine’s Day, Chicago band Chin Up Chin Up became famous for the wrong reason. Bass player Chris Saathoff was killed when a speeding car hit him crossing the street on his way home from the Empty Bottle. But the John Congleton-produced We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were…
Brian Wilson’s story is one of creativity and commerce, about trying to make the most innovative, even divine, music in the world. It’s also about dysfunctional family, about a tyrannical father who beat him so hard he went deaf in one ear, about brothers who lent him the voices he…
As one-half of the Canadian electro-pop duo the Junior Boys, singer Jeremy Greenspan hardly lives a debauched rock-and-roll lifestyle. “I’m actually quite even-tempered,” he says on the phone from his home in Hamilton, Ontario. A joint major in computer sciences and comparative literature, Greenspan says, “I thought I’d have a…
The biggest buzz at the North Texas New Music Festival was the free parking. Concerned about Deep Ellum’s tanking reputation and business, the city–along with the Deep Ellum Bar and Restaurant Association–has implemented much-needed safety measures and switched off those merciless meters on nights and weekends (see Zac Crain’s “Deep…
For those of you who missed Wild On when they filmed their Dallas episode, do not worry: You have another chance to humiliate yourself on basic cable! Club TV USA, a show that will debut October 10 at 1 a.m. on E!, is filming every Friday in 10 clubs across…
American Idiot–widely described as a “punk-rock opera”–comes full circle, back to Green Day’s 1994 mainstream breakthrough Dookie. That album detailed the raging, Generation X boredom of teen punks; Idiot is ostensibly a chronicle of one of those burnouts 10 years later–still frustrated and angry, but this time having a quarter-life…
Texan Jesse Dayton’s fourth solo effort is just shy of a revelation. Since disbanding the Road Kings, he has proven to be a competent, if nondescript, purveyor of Joe Ely-style Texana, playing solid roots music to those folks wanting more brains than Toby Keith can supply. With Country Soul Brother,…
The only thing I don’t mind about the annoying low-carb craze is the rise of Splenda. It’s a quick way to add punch to sweets without being too heavy. You could say I like Futureheads’ debut for the same reasons: Futureheads is crammed with sweet, poppy sounds that bounce off…
Judging by its recent sales figures, R.E.M. doesn’t matter much anymore–but members Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills hope to prove otherwise. They’re part of Vote for Change, a pro-Dem tour that finds them teaming with Bruce Springsteen and other veteran lefties. On Around the Sun, meanwhile, they tackle…
Twelve shots of Singapore Sling ain’t bad going down, but man, it packs a bad aftertaste. The Icelandic band’s sophomore album, Life Is Killing My Rock ‘N’ Roll, is a little bit noise rock, a little bit psychedelic trip, but mostly, it’s a series of songs I swear I’ve heard…
In former Housemartin Norman Cook’s career as dance music’s most successful exponent, Fatboy Slim, he’s never come this close to acknowledging his guitar-toting past. Maybe it’s a result of his turning 40 or nearly splitting with his wife, or of what he’s recognized as the stagnant state of dance and…
The Gypsy Tea Room opted out of Friday night’s New Music Festival, choosing instead to feature three non-Dallas acts, and the gamble mostly paid off. Then again, a lineup this good isn’t exactly a “gamble.” North Carolina’s Rosebuds opened with an unexpected indie-rock recipe: three parts Britt Daniel and two…
Hers are torch songs but on slow-burn, which may explain why some 16 years after ditching the Christian bookstore circuit for the pop-rock bins, Sam Phillips still doesn’t ship in bulk. This longtime fan, who discovered her around the time she made The Indescribable Wow (which still defies description), occasionally…
Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Snow Patrol, an alternative for those of you put off by Chris Martin’s floppy Muppet histrionics and questionable baby-naming skills. This Scotland-via-Ireland quartet is led by Gary Lightbody, who is also known in indie circles for leading the low-key supergroup Reindeer Section, which comprises members of…
You gotta love Jay-Z’s logic: When he and R. Kelly released their not-inaccurately titled collaborative album The Best of Both Worlds in 2002, Jay declined to tour with the R&B singer after the surfacing of child-pornography charges that have threatened to eclipse Kelly’s musical activities for the last two years…
