The last time we saw Shawn Francis he was walking around the streets of Austin during South by Southwest wearing a badge around his neck that identified him as “DJ Muppetfucker.” (The badge actually belonged to his friend and fellow DJ Noah Lee, who now goes by the moniker DJ…
Or, this year’s fresh Brit hit (so the NME tells us, anyway), meaning those of us who purchased January’s I Heard Myself in You last February from Amazon’s U.K. site, figuring them as the next Coldplay, can now file it away with the rest of London’s letdowns. Seeing as how…
Recorded in front man Darren Haymen’s bedroom, Dead Media brings hope to all home recorders who believe thousands of dollars spent on recording time in studios can be better spent on self-indulgent and outdated synthesizers. Taking a departure from last year’s brilliant homage to urban romance, We Love the City,…
A week before his show at the Gypsy Tea Room, Nate Fowler said he was finally “ready to get back in the park and play ball,” and many of his fellow players had turned up for his return to the field. Most of them, after all, had suited up with…
Haymarket Riot is a lot like a new restaurant–not the new chain that just moved into the strip mall down the street but more like an upstart hipster greasy spoon, which is exactly what the hard-working Chicago four-piece should start if its members ever change their career path. Right now,…
El Gato will celebrate the release of its first full-length, We’re Birds, on January 18 at the Gypsy Tea Room, with a shindig featuring performances by Hi-Fi Drowning and French Touch. (The disc hit stores January 15.) The group will also toast to its own accomplishment on February 2 at…
It was a strange year, no doubt about it. Think about it: 2001 began with word of the first Toadies release in some seven years. By August, the album was here (March’s Hell Below/Stars Above), but the band wasn’t anymore. At the end of December, word began spreading that the…
For the past few years, we’ve polled the Dallas Observer’s stable of music writers to determine how full of shit the bottom of the barrel was over the past 12 months in an effort to arrive at the 10 most pointless uses of studio time and jewel cases. Below, you’ll…
Best sign that program director Scott Strong and the gents over at Susquehanna Radio Corp. have given up on the station located at 93.3 on your FM dial: 93.3 The Bone Classic Texas Rock that ROCKS. OK, so maybe it’s a little early to declare the new incarnation of the…
To these ears, at least, the best album of 2001 is the best album of 2000: U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, released on Halloween last year though every song sounds as though it were written and recorded on September 12 of this one. The album that set out…
A year ago I didn’t know Napster from Quicken. Today, with Napster kaput, I don’t know LimeWire from Morpheus from AIMster. The Web’s flush with Napster replacements, and though I can’t really figure out any of them, I’ve tried out a lot of them and even made a few work…
This isn’t as easy as it should be–as it would have been, say, four months ago. I listen to records for a living–that’s how my folks see it, anyway–so ticking off a list of the music that moved me in 2001 shouldn’t be a big deal. Piece of cake, could…
1. Explosions in the Sky, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever (Temporary Residence): This young Austin quartet finally cracked the code. They managed to inject so much life and melody into the epic instrumental drama of Mogwai and Godspeed You Black…
Centro-matic, Distance and Clime (Idol): A year with only one album release from Centro-matic may not sound like a good year at all, unless that album is Distance and Clime. And it’s more than enough to tide us over until someone can find a way to keep up Will Johnson…
1. I made a tape of Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott’s …So Addictive and Peaches’ The Teaches of Peaches and measured the entire summer by it. (I coaxed myself onto a plane at Christmas with this tape in my Walkman.) There’s something confident, coy and real–almost grade-school–in the rapping-about-your-tits genre, and it…
Best live album by a band you didn’t expect to be good live anymore: Radiohead, I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (Capitol): An essential reinterpretation of Kid A and Amnesiac’s best songs, featuring the most unlikely singalong in music history, “Idioteque.” Best album by a band you didn’t know still…
1. Lambchop, Tools in the Dryer (Merge): A meaty cross section of B-sides, singles, alternate or live takes, demos and suchlike, spanning the life of one of Nashville’s most progressive musical collectives. Since a great deal of Lambchop’s work is scattered over singles, contributions to one-off projects and cassette-only releases,…
In a perfect world, the club would have been full of fans. There would have been a line out the door, snaking into the street. The first notes of each song would have been greeted with enthusiastic, knowing applause, each chorus met with a sea of closed eyes and a…
The front man and songwriter for a popular West Coast pop-punk band is asked whether his group has considered releasing a single-disc collection of career highlights. (In 15 years, the band in question has released about 10 albums and EPs with several different lineups.) His face clouds, as if the…
Well, this is disappointing. There are better synth-pop songwriters than Richard James. (Stage name: Aphex Twin.) There are better electronic-music composers, better drum ‘n’ bass programmers, better ambient musicians, better found-sound collectors. But none has combined these elements as well as Aphex Twin did on 1997’s Richard D. James Album…
Recently, there have been scattered reports that the Old 97’s were splitting up, after an eight-year run of fight songs and satellite rides. Some say the truth is this: The Old 97’s have been dropped from the Elektra Records roster, even though it was reported as recently as a couple…
What makes the Wu-Tang Clan so distinctive is that it embraces confusion in a genre that normally ducks it like the reefer-mad Method Man ducks urine tests. After all, hip-hop has long taken pride in being direct. “I don’t rhyme for the sake of riddlin’,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D spat…
