Back when I taught high school, passing period was the most volatile time–the time when girls who seemed perfectly lovely in my English class ended up on the ground with their fists in someone’s hair, screaming about who poked whom with a loose-leaf binder. This actually happened once. It’s so…
Whether you consider her a peddler of precious, pretentious twaddle or an endless font of pure Icelandic genius, you have to give Björk credit for eschewing the safe option. No other platinum-selling diva has had the guts to forge such idiosyncratic paths as this charismatic singer has done over the…
The Beta Band broke up last month? Really? I could’ve sworn they were reborn as a better band, Menomena, whose debut album, I Am the Fun Blame Monster (self-released in 2003 but now being distributed nationally), is the kind of no-genre genius that would fit just as well in a…
The long-awaited third EP in piano man Ben Folds’ mini-album trilogy–available only online at www.attackedbyplastic.com or by download–is a polarizing disc. Those unable to stomach his ivory-tickled smirk and ’70s rock impersonations will find Super D a painful listen. The somber introspection of “Kalamazoo” contains such lines as “How many…
Unlike Nashville or Brooklyn, Dallas doesn’t have a distinctive musical style. Breakout bands from the 214 are a mishmash of genres with little in common besides an area code. If the city were to have a trademark sound, however, it might be something like the Sparrows, who built their rep…
Max Cady is a rock band. It’s not punk, glam or emo. There are no prefixes here. It’s just rock and roll. It takes the standard rock format–one singer, two guitarists, one bass player and one drummer–and makes the kind of straightforward music that, these days, would be considered a…
Last year’s breakup of locals LCC broke my heart. Sure, any band’s split can be tough for its fans, but what cut me the deepest was the idea that a great album would never come out. See, LCC had debuted amazing songs in concert before calling it quits, and after…
Let’s face it. There is a hollow pocket of woe somewhere in your chest, a sharp pang that takes you to task three times a week for missing that Cure show. Of course, the boss man, your brain, reminds you that $40 for a lawn seat means you did the…
There’s no drummer in Guster. Instead, a standing percussionist hits skins and even cymbals with just his taped-up fingers. It may not make a huge difference in the band’s sound–there’s still a kick drum after all–but it’s the first clue that the band is a little out of the ordinary…
Though front man Brandon Boyd’s lyrics on current album A Crow Left of the Murder leave something to be desired–you know, sense–I wouldn’t mind at all if California’s Incubus becomes a model for the modern alt-metal band: They muster muscular daybreak guitar fuzz without forgoing pretty parts or roses on…
Blue October is about a decade late. The Houston band now signed to Brando/Universal Records would have been a perfect match with the mid-’90s (fleeting) success of Better Than Ezra and Deep Blue Something, their brothers in white, college-age, men-unafraid-to-show-their-emotions rock. In fact, Blue October’s hit, “Calling You,” is this…
These days, everyone’s a DJ, right? The iPod, not to mention the sheer availability of all kinds of music, has transformed everyone’s bulky CD and album collection into one tiny portable party mix. If, perhaps, you long for more discipline, schools offering classes in DJing are cropping up all over…
At first glance, Clay Aiken seems innocuous enough. Thin and boyish, the American Idol crooner looks like a cross between Thom Yorke and Opie Taylor. A native of North Carolina, he’s all Southern charm, forever donning a goofy grin like an infant who just passed gas. Aiken’s flaws are part…
Wild on E! is a travel show on E! Entertainment Television known for its exhaustive portraits of pole-dancing women and neck-licking drunks. On Friday, August 27, the crew filmed a segment on Dallas, visiting the Denton rodeo that afternoon and at night, three clubs: Firewater, Suede and the newly opened…
Apparently I’m not the only one who’s secretly listening to the new free-format 100.3 Jack FM. On Sunday, a horribly unscientific poll of Lower Greenville stores unearthed three (three!) businesses with their radio dials tuned to 100.3. Though the playlist does veer toward cheese, it’s accommodating enough for most tastes,…
It’s that time of year again: another Drive-By Truckers album, another wad of lyrically incisive, liberally rocking Southern-fried swamp-rock. Last year’s Decoration Day saw the Truckers selling their local morality tales to an increasingly universal audience hungry for “authenticity” accented by uplift and hope. The Dirty South, as the title…
I can already hear Gibby Haynes fans bitching about how his new band, His Problem, sounds nothing like The Butthole Surfers’ insane psychedelia of yore. It’s not that I don’t agree; I, too, miss the crazy days of Locust Abortion Technician. But come on. The Surfers lost their acid-drenched edge…
In 1996, when Norah Jones was still singing for her supper in Preston Royal, Madeleine Peyroux came from nowhere (New York, actually, by way of Paris by way of Georgia) and disappeared just as quickly, so fazed by critical acclaim she discovered she preferred street-corner anonymity. Her Atlantic debut, Dreamland,…
Five mothers tuck in their kids at night, sneak out to bars and play garage-rock. Sounds like an Archie comic rip-off, but Frump really exists, and I had to see what the band sounded like. Too bad I stupidly overestimated their start time on Friday. When I walked into Bar…
As Rhino’s long-running reissue campaign winds down, it’s fitting that three of Elvis Costello’s most misunderstood and unappreciated albums are among the last to be chosen, like awkward, chubby kids waiting to get picked for kickball. It’s a testament to Costello’s commitment to the project and Rhino’s skill at repackaging…
If the fate of cowboy swing rested solely on singer-guitarist Wayne Hancock’s shoulders, there’d be nothing to worry about for a good long while. Many artists embrace a musical style, but Wayne “The Train” seems to have internalized his. A nasal vocal twang just this side of Hank Sr.’s and…
Paris, Texas shouldn’t be playing the Gypsy Tea Room. In fact, there shouldn’t be any tour dates booked anywhere. Paris, Texas has broken up, fallen down and cheated death so many times that the members stopped believing. But other people didn’t–bookers, clubs, friends who passed around demos and the labels…
