Ever since The Concert for Bangladesh, albums aimed at benefiting worthy causes have been suspect, either as collections of inferior live versions of songs you already have or material adjudged not good enough for purely commercial purposes. If a Tree Falls–a collection of tunes abundant in chlorophyll and message from…
Attack of the killer indies They come in all colors: purple, yellow, blue, orange, even black vinyl. An assortment of moods and aspirations, these five 7″ singles paint a big part of the local music picture as it expands within the here and now while drawing influences from there and…
“Let me tell you a Dallas story,” says Jon Ginoli, lead singer and guitarist of the San Francisco-based trio Pansy Division. This follows a rather randy observation he called his “San Francisco story” that I promised not to print. “Right now, I’m dating a guy who moved out here from…
I was lucky enough to first see Bill Hicks in a comedy club in Austin in the early ’80s; he was a fresh voice in a medium already going stale and self-indulgent. Nobody else so perfectly captured the rage that came with having a brain during the Reagan years, that…
Slouching toward distinction Equus Plebeian Monarchs Carpe Diem Records Like another band on the local Carpe Diem label, Cafe Noir, Plebeian Monarch’s music is a reconstitution of familiar melodies. But Plebian Monarch’s Equus lacks what Cafe Noir–through its distinctly Old-World sound–presents: a truly new experience. Throughout most of the nine…
The company you keep Few artists move between genres–let alone worlds–with the ease of John Cale. Who else has been featured in a 1963 New York Times article on the performance of an 18-hour-long John Cage avant-classical composition and then, 16 years later, fronted a punk band at CBGB’s, down…
He is the king of non-flash guitar, the guitar man on an estimated 2,500 pop and R&B records of the sort where you don’t necessarily recall the guitar parts. Cornell Dupree himself can’t recall most of his discography, save for some obvious credits: Brook Benton’s “Rainy Night In Georgia,” Aretha’s…
Slacker’s paradise subUrbia Original Soundtrack DGC Records Soundtracks are like Christmas albums: ephemeral, sloppy, overrated. A complete waste of time–plastic and nasty–whereon unknown bands play for unsuspecting moviegoers or established acts unload their leftovers for extra royalty checks. Soundtracks are for the zealous consumer who wants the complete shopping experience:…
We think long and hard about our culture’s infatuation with retro- (both -grade and -spective); it beats thinking about the VISA bill. How much is too much? When does our constant reworking of the past cease to be funny or cute and begin to be genuinely hateful? Where to draw…
“Classical music for the next millennium,” said The New York Times upon the release of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II in the spring of 1994–a hefty label for a young lad from Cornwall who was only 22 at the time. Richard James–aka Aphex Twin–has gotten used to this…
Shed your skin For Those With Contempt Strap Medina Records Word on the street has it that the bright and talented Lone Star Trio committed artistic and commercial suicide by abandoning its roots. Its sudden shift from a bona fide rockabilly band–heir apparent to cat daddy Horton Heat–to a nondescript…
I Got That Feeling Debbie Davies Blind Pig Records Davies’ three-year stint playing guitar for Albert Collins won her blues credibility her otherwise thin gifts would not have gained her. She’s a feisty instrumentalist, but her weak voice and bland material bar her from any measure of greatness. Here she…
“Hey; kids, let’s put on a show!” has been a hallowed pop catchphrase since Mickey Rooney played Judge Hardy’s sincere but trouble-prone son Andy. Rock ‘n’ roll reduced the prerequisites to a few instruments, drums, and electrical outlets, and youngsters across the globe have been cleaving the night with their…
Fifty miles of elbow room The movie Tender Mercies is about as evocative a movie about a place (in this case, Texas) as has yet been made; not so much for the acting or story (both of which are excellent), but for the cinematography–particularly the shots in which the sky…
Last year I did a phone interview with Scott Thompson, the openly gay co-star of The Larry Sanders Show and founding member of the defunct, much-lamented Kids in the Hall. We’d hooked up to discuss the Kids’ celluloid swan song, Brain Candy, but spent more time kvetching about the state…
The concept of the Guitar Hero has left a bad taste in the mouths of critics and music fans ever since punk stressed feeling over technique. America’s appreciation for bigger-faster-harder guitar playing has waned ever since, but Dallas’ Andy Timmons may well change all that. He’s grinning hugely on the…
You don’t know what you’ve been missin’ Popular strummer-about-town Colin Boyd–most recently the author of “Peggy Sue Went Surfin'”–is certainly haunted by Buddy Holly’s ghost, but the former Cricket’s shade also makes it over to Austin to spook around Monte Warden’s house. You could make a case for Warden as…
Pop goes the easel Non Pop-Specific pop poppins Carpe Diem Records It’s probably a disservice to the other guys in pop poppins to focus on Broose Dickinson, but he is the group’s hyper-creative frontman and guiding light. Pop poppins have always been the masters of an emotion-laden sonic flow, and…
Local bluesman Pat Boyack has fully recovered from an unfortunate bit of confusion last summer when longtime Mike Morgan and the Crawl vocalist-harmonica player Lee McBee decided to stick with (actually, rejoin) Morgan & Co. rather than play with Boyack. Although Bruce Bowland, the vocalist he was working with immediately…
Sunshine daydream Bombs & Butterflies Widespread Panic Capricorn Records There was quite a bit of foofraw when Phish released Billy Breathes a few months ago. Much was made of the jam-happy group’s most convincing foray into the realm of accessible song, but that’s a space that Georgia’s Widespread Panic has…
Singer-songwriter Trish Murphy feels a particular warmth for Dallas. “The Dallas music scene really brought me back to life,” she says. “When I was at school [at the University of Dallas], Deep Ellum was in its beautiful early phase, this amazingly fertile, creative environment. I remember living out in Irving…
Knowing where the lions are The Charity of Night Bruce Cockburn Rykodisc If 1994’s Dart to the Heart was Bruce Cockburn flexing the muscles he’d built up since the mid-’70s–his reputation and technique snagging T Bone Burnett as producer and a rocked-up sound heavy on horns–then The Charity of Night…
