Red Animal War’s debut long-player, Breaking in an Angel, isn’t officially in stores yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t buy a copy of it. Singer-guitarist Justin Wilson delivered a copy of the album last week and said the band had just received its first shipment from Deep Elm Records…
Japancakes Sometimes it’s better when plans fail, when ideas go nowhere, when you don’t get what you want. For instance, if Brant Rackley and Eric Berg had gotten what they wanted when they were starting the band that eventually became Japancakes, the group would have been, as Rackley now says,…
Shannonwright often is compared to Tori Amos, the other red-haired, piano-playing singer-songwriter, but, she points out, only by male rock critics. Perhaps that’s why I don’t understand the comparison. It’s akin to equating Sid Vicious and Eric Clapton on the basis that they were brunet Brits famous in the ’70s…
It may be unfair to say Portland’s The Minders and The Shins are, lumped together, an unentertaining waste of time, and then to blame it on the hometown they share, but, as they say: You can take the insipid pop out of the town, but you can’t take the town…
It takes Jeff Wade awhile to say anything, but that’s not because he’s a slow talker. In fact, he’s just the opposite: Sitting in front of an untouched chicken sandwich at the Angry Dog in Deep Ellum, Wade, who also goes by the handle Skinny Fresh, never lets more than…
Eric Bachmann doesn’t like to think of himself as a singer-songwriter. Ask him about the idea, and he’ll probably rasp himself into a fiery cul-de-sac about how the very idea of singing about your problems is nothing but self-indulgent whining. That if you’re singing in the first place, you are,…
Looking back, May 27, 1995, was the beginning of the end. Shortly after Denton’s Factory Press performed in North Texas for the last time that evening, at the Engine Room in Fort Worth, the band packed up and moved to New York to take on the world. The Factory Press–vocalist…
I won’t cop to it if you ask me tomorrow, but I was not an early supporter of Lucinda Williams. Now, of course, I love her, think she’s great, wish her luck, would stop using Napster if she asked me (OK, I wouldn’t do that, but I would become one…
About 80 years after the Wright brothers figured out how to use their flying machine, another pair of Wright brothers (Rob and John) figured out how to use theirs, when they formed Nomeansno. And Nomeansno’s 14 albums for Alternative Tentacles (beginning with its 1985 debut, Sex Mad) are definitely like…
Ed Hamell doesn’t know about downtime. For years he’s kept a breakneck schedule of weeks on the road–just him, his car, and his guitar–driving from his home in New York to Chicago, and down to Austin, and east to Memphis playing shows at night and traveling days. Last March, after…
Lagwagon, The Vandals Five years ago, Lagwagon and The Vandals were enjoying the first tastes of nationwide fame after releasing their most popular albums: Lagwagon’s 1995 effort Hoss and their Live Fast, Diarrhea in 1996, and The Vandals’ The Quickening in 1996. I had all those albums and I was…
Every year, it seems, the approach of Fry Street Fair is accompanied by a) griping about the annual shindig’s price/lineup/both, which leads to b) a competing fest that attempts to render Fry Street obsolete with free admission and a local-centric lineup. Every year, after the fact, Fry Street Fair organizers…
The memories faded long ago, like old pictures left too long in the unforgiving August sun. The applause turned to echoes; the echoes to silence. Whatever fame she once possessed–and it wasn’t enough to land her in a single history book, which is history’s loss–has vanished, which suits her just…
Songs with meaning were once an occupational requisite for anyone taking the stage; now, they’re restricted to the catalogs of “serious” musicians. Thoughtful storytelling has been eliminated from pop music, and until Jewel’s next album, folk music will continue to be ignored by the masses. This dire state of affairs…
“My hiatus, or whatever you wanna call it, is over,” The Legendary Fritz announced when he stopped by the office a few days ago to drop off a three-song calling card for his forthcoming album, titled You Leave Me No Choice last we checked. (Personally, we still like Fritz’s original…
If you think live albums are “for the fans,” think again: Usually, they’re little more than music industry Pledge, a quick way to get the dust off old songs so people will, you know, buy them again. More often than not, bands–especially older ones–use live albums to wring the last…
Stephen Malkmus doesn’t break any new ground with his first solo release, but then he didn’t have to. Back in the ’90s, when he was fronting Pavement, Malkmus was hailed as an indie-rock legend, his lo-fi arrangements and obtuse, stream-of-conscious lyrics inspiring countless burnouts on college campuses across the nation…
Among Dave Matthews’ charms, quality has never been chief. He traffics in standard-issue folk-pop that occasionally gets confused with something greater–mainly because Matthews, like Sting, has learned that by adding the vaguest suggestion of world music or jazz, he can receive full credit for their influence. His singing style substitutes…
Britt Daniel is stalling for time. He won’t come right out and say it, but yeah, that’s what he’s doing at the moment. A few minutes ago, Daniel was paying his bills, signing checks, sealing envelopes, and now he’s in the middle of giving an interview. Or, taking it, actually:…
“It’s pretty simple. There’s no smoke and mirrors. We’re just a musical group.” John Herndon is looking for a way to make it clearer, to say that all he and the rest of the guys in his band do is plug things into amps and set up microphones and think…
Every band attracts some type. Some draw despondent Goth kids, some draw the fun-loving mod boys, while others attract a Christian audience. Some even draw fun-loving, Christian mod boys, conflicts of interest be damned. But the North Mississippi Allstars–the trio formed by brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson along with bassist…
After kicking around Denton for the last few years, Lo-Fi Chorus is set to release its self-titled debut, and you can tell by the disc’s 23-song track list that Erik Thompson (who’s been performing solo under the Lo-Fi Chorus name since 1998) has been waiting a long time. The band,…
