Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock A friend of mine — the sort of Robyn Hitchcock fan who hits his Web sites every few days — has been keeping up with the fans’ online reviews of the current tour their cult hero is on with The Flaming Lips and Sebadoh. “They…
Brian Setzer Orchestra With the exception of just a few — Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and the Tonight Show Orchestra — big bands went out of fashion after World War II. Almost no one could afford the upkeep of a big band, and no one wanted anyone to try to…
The Rough Guide to Music USA, a new book by former Option editor Ritchie Unterberger, purports to be “a tour through the most important and interesting varieties of American popular music.” And it is, sort of. We just don’t understand how Unterberger’s musical trek from sea to shining sea could…
In a move that should surprise exactly two people, bassist Angelique Congleton recently quit The Darlingtons to concentrate on the other bands she plays with, which include The Meat Helmets and, occasionally, The Secret Machines of Captain Audio. (Whoever had July in the pool can come collect their $10.) Guitarist…
Detroit Rock City Detroit Rock City (Island/Def Jam) The only thing worse than Ted Nugent is Pantera covering Ted Nugent; Phil Anselmo can cure a boy of “Cat Scratch Fever” real quick (though it does beat his band’s titty-bar Dallas Stars anthem). The only thing worse than Thin Lizzy is…
Regent Sound Studios, at 24 W. 57th St. in Manhattan, was my alma mater. What began as a lucky summer job when I was fresh out of high school became a two-year hitch. I dropped out of NYU that fall to maintain the job. It was my entrée into the…
One might imagine that Doug Sahm came up with the idea of forming the Texas Tornados — his Tex-Mex supergroup with Chicano country crooner Freddy Fender, conjunto music legend Flaco Jimenez, and Sahm’s Sir Douglas Quintet compadre Augie Meyers — while sipping Corona con lima in a rustic cantina down…
Stephen Kennedy, president and founder of iSong.com, is a little sheepish when discussing his company’s origins. Nervous laughs replace the periods at the end of his sentences. At first, it’s difficult to discern what he’s so skittish about. Maybe he’s embarrassed by the fact that iSong.com, a Dallas-based Web site,…
Buck Jones Bliss (One Ton Records) You can’t love or hate Buck Jones — there’s nothing but middle ground with the band. There’s just not enough on the band’s latest, Bliss — or 1997’s Shimmer, for that matter — to inspire such strong feelings…or any feelings, really. Sure, the band…
There is perhaps no man in the music business as smart as Dwight Yoakam — not necessarily biz smart (not a wise move wearing out “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” in a Gap ad before it surfaced on the recent best-of), not even book smart (never gave him a pop…
The standard for bands these days seems to be release an album and tour, then record and release another album as quickly as possible to cash in before the craze winds down and the band becomes one more in a holding pattern on the VH1 Where Are They Now? runway…
Listening to Soul Coughing songwriter-guitarist Michael Doughty sing is like cranking up the garbage disposal just for fun. No, wait — it actually sounds as if Doughty has already swallowed the garbage disposal whole. His choppy, nearly spoken-word mode of singing only serves to reinforce the analogy. But that’s not…
Vibrolux, at last Kim Pendleton is pondering the question of why she and Paul Quigg moved back to Dallas last February, waving farewell to Los Angeles and the corpse of a record deal. “Why? Why?” she repeats, giggling in a high, hoarse voice. For a moment, she seems to be…
For several months, Paul Burch had planned to host a free punk festival at Arlington’s Veterans Park. Burch intended the festival, Acts of Defiance, as a way for people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area “to get to know one another so that they can see that skin color and clothing…
Ride with Ray There is perhaps no better friend to the memory of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys than Ray Benson. Benson and his band, Asleep at the Wheel, have been playing Wills’ music almost longer than he did over the course of their three-decade career. Benson’s love for…
Scene, heard Rockville Music officially called it quits on July 14, closing up shop after more than half a decade in business. The store, located at 2811 N. Henderson, will remain open for a few days a week for a while, but only so customers can pick up any instruments…
Even at his “funkiest” — and just try using that word with a straight face when talking about David Byrne — the former art-schooler has as much rhythm as an anthropologist lost in the bush with a tape recorder in one hand and a notepad in the other. He knows…
You can’t say that Denton’s Clutch Cargo doesn’t take care of business on its debut, Colon Bruising Sounds, blitzing through 11 tracks in less than 28 minutes. Produced by ex-Hagfish bassist Doni Blair, the disc is a constant sprint to the finish line, almost ending before it begins; the album…
Chris Hillman knew Gram Parsons perhaps better than anyone, or at least as well as anyone could know a wealthy young man dedicated to living fast, loving hard, dying young, and leaving a beautiful memory. It was Hillman who brought Parsons into the Byrds in 1968; and it was Hillman…
George Gimarc hasn’t had any real contact with the radio station he helped found, KDGE-FM (94.5), in about three years, since he released the 11th, and most likely last, installment of his Tales From the Edge series. As a group, the Tales From the Edge compilations are like portable histories…
Journey, Foreigner Easy targets, both of these bands — you can smell the bull’s-eyes on their foreheads from a thousand miles away. So get your e-mails ready, you old farts out there with your blood boiling, as we sharpen our butter knives and prepare for a little rock-and-roll tumor-removal. Yeah,…
errortype:11 World’s Fastest Car was doomed from the beginning. The band was founded by Quicksand frontman Walter Schreifels and singer-guitarist Arty Shepherd after Schreifels’ former outfit dissolved on an ill-fated 1995 tour. And just like any relationship formed on the rebound, it was never meant to last. After two years…
