Normally, we stay away from writing about an album in the, ah, concept stage; it’s a little bit like critiquing a building from an artist’s rendering. But we couldn’t help butting our noses in where they don’t belong when we received a copy of a letter One Ton Records big…
It should have been a disaster, the kind of performance bands talk about later as the beginning of the end, the exact moment things started to go all wrong. Even now, as they sit around a table at The Cavern with the moment long behind them, four-fifths of The Gospel…
At a June 18 performance at Fort Worth’s Ridglea Theater, The Commercials announced that they have indeed officially changed their name to Jet, as was reported in Street Beat two weeks ago. The group will perform under the new name for the first time on July 30 at Bar of…
Nation of Ulysses wasn’t around long — only two albums, 1991’s 13-Point Program to Destroy America and 1992’s Plays Pretty for Baby — but the quintet remains one of the best bands Ian MacKaye’s Dischord Records ever produced. The Washington, D.C.-based group wasn’t as influential as MacKaye’s own outfits, especially…
Pavement pissed me off four years ago during an outdoor show on the University of Chicago campus. From start to finish, they played with their backs turned to the audience, and Miles Davis they ain’t. It was just prior to the band’s stint with Lollapalooza, and Pavement had already been…
By now, you’d assume that country musicians would know it’s easier to sell your soul in Nashville than it is to sell a song there. Yet every year, dozens of people like Houston Marchman head off to Nashville to make it as singers and songwriters, and the only thing they…
Ask for James Baldwin. That’s how you get Chris Rock on the phone this morning, by telling the hotel operator in Philadelphia you want to talk to the author of Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Fire Next Time, and Blues for Mr. Charlie. The operator chuckles slightly when…
There is no good way to interview Mike Ness. He dodges questions by answering different ones, then answers them again. It’s like having a conversation with a press release, as he reads through a series of quotes that don’t necessarily even match the questions asked; you get the feeling that…
Here’s the greatest thing about being in a band signed to a major label: There’s always someone around — a publicist, a manager, some underpaid lackey — willing to take care of anything you need. Are you hungry? Get the manager to fetch you some lunch, even if that just…
No one in the living room of Clutch Cargo guitarist Ted Wood’s Denton house is paying attention to much of anything except what’s happening on the television screen nestled in the corner. The rest of the group — singer Alex Karchevsky, drummer Jeremy Shelby, and bassist Chris Ott — is…
Graham Parker Hard to overrate a guy who’s always been underrated, especially by no less than Graham Parker himself. One need only read his introduction to the 1993 double-disc Passion is No Ordinary Word collection to discover an artist who turns self-deprecation into the art of self-hatred; it’s difficult to…
Warped Tour Lollapalooza, it seems, didn’t die after all. Instead, it became the Warped Tour, taking its disparate lineups and carnival atmosphere with it. And looking at the bands participating in this year’s installment of the skateboard-competition-with-a-soundtrack, you’d swear that’s what happened. After five years in business, it’s not an…
Will Oldham Palace, Palace Music, Palace Brothers, Bonnie “Prince” Billy — any way you slice it, it all comes up with the ever-troubled Will Oldham, constant traveler of sepia-toned folkways and lonesome byways. By now, with his sixth album — I See a Darkness — under his belt, Oldham has…
Get spiritualized Surrender The Chemical Brothers Astralwerks Play Moby V2 Records Wondering what happened to the Rave New World? The Chemical Brothers answer the question three songs into Surrender, when Bernard Sumner shows up to sing “Out of Control,” a brilliant seven-minute summation of his entire career with New Order…
There’s an anecdote that Red Krayola singer-guitarist Mayo Thompson likes to tell about philosopher of science Sydney Morgenbesser. “He’s at some philosophical conference,” Thompson begins, “and some linguist is up there saying, ‘A double negative is always a positive, but there’s no language where a double positive is a negative,’…
He said, he said — it seems everyone wants, if not deserves, credit for the rise of Deep Ellum from the dust of old warehouses long ago abandoned. Time has a funny way of skewing our perceptions of history; even those who were there don’t know exactly what happened, perhaps…
Irony doesn’t seem to exist for Jon “Corn Mo” Cunningham when he’s onstage, in the moment, looking like he just got back from a photo shoot for Styx’s Grand Illusion as he dramatically delivers his silly songs about Gary Busey and bananas. Imagine Tommy Shaw with an accordion and “Weird…
Go long! Marijuana Beach The Tomorrowpeople Olivia Records Counting Breaths Mazinga Phaser Idol Records Last week, Fox-TV gave The Tomorrowpeople some national distribution when the band’s shiny redo of its 1997 song “Mercitron” could be heard during the final period of the first Dallas Stars-Buffalo Sabres game. Hey, who needs…
Nothing too unusual about what The Tight Bro’s From Way Back When do: metal masquerading as punk performed by five guys who can’t decide if they want to be AC/DC or the Ramones, but only because they can’t all be Chuck Berry. If you happened to be at Trees when…
About two years ago, I wrote three tunes with a sister by the name of Sandra St. Victor, who was formerly the lead singer of the group The Family Stand in the late ’80s and early ’90s. She’s originally from Dallas and an Arts Magnet alumnus; we met through my…
Over the course of his first few albums (Shuffletown and Fireman’s Wedding being the best), Joe Henry produced an exemplary take on the whole New South/New Sincerity thing — you know, unreliable narrators singing about faith and loss and departure, a short-fiction M.F.A.’s eye for telling detail, and a whole…
Chris Plavidal is raving about the view from the windows of his new apartment. Over the phone, he sounds positively joyous. “On one side, I can see the Empire State Building,” he nearly shouts, “and out this way is the Statue of Liberty!” So much for Denton’s glowing “Corn-kits” sign…
