I can understand listening to Jessica Simpson’s music: “Sweetest Sin” manages to be simultaneously trashy and classy, and the saccharine in her new version of “Take My Breath Away” could rot Tom Cruise’s teeth. (Incidentally, consider how much effort it would require to actually take away Simpson’s breath. I mean,…
Hip-hop wasn’t always about Pimp My Ride antics and paint-by-numbers hit singles. Back in the day, some rappers had shit to say about racism, police harassment and growing up dead broke in the ghetto. This list of my personal Top 10 Most Radical Hip-Hop Discs Ever includes some of the…
With 2001’s Miss Kittin & the Hacker, namesake Miss K became an important figure in the “electroclash” movement that set hipsters’ hearts aflutter with punkish attitude, sparse synthetic rhythms and rough, sex-charged lyrics. On “Frank Sinatra,” Miss K demanded fellatio in broken English and a German accent, simultaneously spawning a…
Screaming may be as standard in rock and roll as the four-bar guitar solo, but after listening to D.C.’s Black Eyes, I felt like I’d never heard genuine blood-and-guts howling before. Two drummers, two bassists and one guitarist play on this album, although they’re rather overshadowed by the paint-peeling, butt-clenching,…
It was more like a house party than a rock show. The beer was so cheap it was almost free. A big wooden spool used as a table was dotted with beanbag ashtrays just like Grandma had. Mismatched plastic lawn furniture baked in the sun. The only thing missing was…
Folk surrealist Devendra Banhart makes another visit to Dallas and brings a traveling cavalcade of minstrels and harpists with him. His second full-length album, Rejoicing in the Hands, abounds in the rustic, antiquated sentiments usually found only on archival recordings such as Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music but…
As D’Angelo, the neo-soul Harry Houdini, looks less and less likely to get around to making a follow-up to his 2000 genre benchmark Voodoo, prudent R&B fans might do well to undertake a search for some other slow-burning stud with a honey-baked croon. This North Carolina native’s résumé is as…
Longtime listeners of KNTU’s Sunday night Frequency Down program are surely salivating at the opportunity to check out this upcoming live show by their favorite artist, mellowdrone. On the debut EP, a demonstration of intellectual property, 21-year-old solo artist Jonathan Bates (aka mellowdrone) showed amazing chops as both a singer…
Judging by looks, Vue could be mistaken for any other MTV-friendly yet still-kinda-indie band with dirty denim and mussed hair. By sound, they could be, too, with singer/guitarist Rex Shelverton’s full-bodied drawl sounding very Julian Casablancas-esque, while the rest of the five-piece fills in the Stooges-meets-the Rolling Stones blanks behind…
It turns out the funniest Onion-esque fake news story penned so far this year did not spring from The Onion. No, Sub Pop Records–a concern not ordinarily known for its forays into satire and comedy writing–deserves full credit for “Pitchfork Staff Member Says ‘Hi’ to Real-Life Woman.” “This marks the…
Among the things flying through the air just before the Bad Religion show at last Saturday’s Vans Warped Tour were these: a sopping-wet newspaper, an old flip-flop, a black bra and one economy-size Old Spice deodorant can, which landed with a clatter next to the tattooed guy beside me. He…
It seemed too good to be true–a two-day dream concert with The Flaming Lips and Wilco and Sonic Youth and Morrissey–and in the end, it was. Despite its best lineup, perhaps ever, Lollapalooza went splat, canceled because of poor ticket sales. What the hell happened? Theories abounded: Perry Farrell blamed…
What does your daydream look like? Does it have beautiful colors? Does it shine like the sun? Does it involve you and Johnny Depp in a hot-dog-eating contest? Really?! Me, too. Well, here’s the point: Dallas’ favorite rock-choral group, the Polyphonic Spree, hosts the “Film Your Daydream” contest to find…
On their last album, 2002’s Jennie Bomb, Sahara Hotnights were a badass girl gang, switchblade sisters whose game plan was summed up by “Alright, Alright (Here’s My Fist Where’s the Fight?)” and its two minutes of sweaty swagger. Basically, they were everything the Donnas and their major-label debut, Spend the…
Experimental rock outfit Black Dice has a tendency to make short work of listener expectations. Previous releases have run the gamut from brutal, abrasive noise to electronically enhanced tropical impressionism to mutant disco, but the Brooklyn trio still manages to surprise via striking exercises in electro-acoustic frenzy and the uncompromising…
“You let me know when we’ve made it,” says drummer Josh Garza, a passenger in a van headed for Cleveland, where his band Secret Machines will perform tonight before a cross-country haul to Seattle. He’s not talking about arriving at their destination but rather about the feeling of success that…
If any band was supposed to stay broken up, it was the MC5. After all, neither their political controversy at events like the 1968 Democratic Convention riots nor their pioneering fusion of blue-collar rock with Motown soul managed to make superstars out of the guys who tore through “Kick Out…
Interesting thing about the current media fawn-fest surrounding our cover boys, the Secret Machines: Almost every national article about the rock band mentions their Dallas heritage. Spin, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone. I’ve never met the guys, and suspect I never will, but it still gives me a little hometown thrill…
Oh, no! The band OHNO is (oh)no more. As reported last Thursday in the new Dallas ‘zine Sample Press, www.samplepress.com, the Dallas band is splitsville. For the past month or so, Rahim Quazi has been playing around town as Rahim the Band and now come reports that lead singer Steven…
Things didn’t quite work out for Rooney the way they’d probably hoped. The ultra-hyped L.A. power-pop outfit’s self-titled debut was supposed to put them in the same celeb-tested, fan-approved orbit as singer Robert Carmine’s brother Jason Schwartzman’s old band Phantom Planet. Instead, they’ve been touring the peppy-if-not-adequately-poppy record incessantly since…
Bad Religion has been together since New Found Glory was in diapers, which may make them the grandpas of the Vans Warped Tour. But Bad Religion isn’t just rehashing the SoCal hardcore punk they perfected on Against the Grain and Recipe for Hate. The just-released album The Empire Strikes First…
On her new In Exile Deo, professional indie babe Juliana Hatfield makes a serious move away from the scrappy guitar-pop of her college-radio past toward the mature songcraft of the Aimee Mann set. You know what this means: slower tempos, lots of keyboards, a handful of metaphors so painful I’ll…
