YG With Sad Boy, RJ, Slim 400 and more South Side Music Hall, Dallas Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016 YG’s Fuck Donald Trump Tour is a battle cry that the West Coast rapper has adopted at the peak of campaign season. But on Tuesday night at South Side Music Hall, politics…
From outlaw country to Western swing to chopped and crewed hip-hop, Texas has long played by its own rules, no matter the genre. But the Texas blues remains one of the Lone Star State’s most enduring contributions, and in many ways Dallas is the cradle of that history. In a past…
The 2016 Dallas Observer Best Of Dallas issue is barely off the presses, but already our sights are set on our next big special issue of the year: the Dallas Observer Music Awards. This year marks the 28th annual for the DOMAs. The DOMAs, of course, are much more than…
Erykah Badu never seems to slow down. In the past week alone she played a benefit show at the Dallas Children’s Theater and a DJ gig under her Lo Down Loretta Brown moniker at Oaktopia festival in Denton. The week before that, she showed up at American Airlines Center to…
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird visits Dallas on Wednesday night, with a show at the Majestic Theatre. His new album, Are you Serious, keeps with Bird’s tradition of unpredictability. His folk-infused music is alt-rock for the cultured listener, and his grandiose projects have included a sound installation at the Guggenheim Museum. He…
With the coming and going of Oaktopia and the beginning of Austin City Limits, it’s busy season for music festivals. But you don’t have to pack up and drive the hours-long journey to Austin for good live music. Rap-ravers Die Antwoord and hard rock alums Thrice are stopping through town…
Oaktopia With Norah Jones, Cat Power, Dr. Dog, Rae Sremmurd and more Denton Thursday to Saturday, Sept. 22-24, 2016 Denton had a lot of reasons to be excited about last weekend’s Oaktopia. Now in its fourth year, the downtown festival has turned into one of the best in North Texas,…
The Dallas synth pop band NEONNOAH have a plan, and releasing a new EP is only just one part of it. Formed in 2013, the trio is now surrounded by a team of people. Brands such as Tyler Amps and clothing company O’Neill have endorsed the band; their latest single “Atlas” is…
Kanye West American Airlines Center, Dallas Thursday, September 22, 2016 Is it possible to review a Kanye West concert without reviewing Kanye West himself? Almost every conversation about the 39-year-old rapper’s work turns into a referendum on his personal character, and those assessments often fall along partisan lines. But with…
Erykah Badu has been lighting up the internet this week. First there were tweets between the Dallas songstress and Nikki Minaj that set off a frenzy of speculation of a collaboration between the two. Then there were selfies of her with Andre 3000 backstage at ONE Musicfest in Atlanta, which…
There were a few ups and downs this week on the Dallas music front. Well, fortunately the main “down” didn’t happen here, and didn’t even involve a Dallas musician, but it did involve a missed appearance. With a celebrated homecoming for Norah Jones leading the week’s other news, though, there…
Do you remember Denton in the ’90s? Okay, so you may not have been around for that (and, if you’re attending UNT right now, you may have only barely been born.) But you almost definitely remember “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the hit song by Denton natives Deep Blue Something — who…
Post Malone With Jazz Cartier and Larry June House of Blues, Dallas Wednesday, September 21, 2016 Moments after stepping off stage at House of Blues Tuesday night, Post Malone tweeted his appreciation to his hometown fans. “Dallas you have my heart,” the former Grapevine resident wrote to his 260,000 followers. “Nights…
This week the Dallas Observer’s annual Best Of Dallas issue goes public, celebrating all that is right with the city. But with so many music venues and bars winning in so many categories, how will you ever take advantage of them all? Well, we have an idea of how to make the…
Chris Penn has spent a decade at the forefront of the vinyl resurgence in Dallas. He co-owns one of the city’s most beloved record stores, Good Records with business partner and Polyphonic Spree frontman Tim Delaughter. When Penn isn’t busy with day-to-day store operations, though, he moonlights as a DJ…
After a lengthy hospital stay sidelined Dallas music scene fixture Wanz Dover, he just didn’t have the strength for rock ’n’ roll. Rest ridden and restless, he turned his attention to more solitary musical pursuits, releasing Music for Hospitals soon after his release from the hospital. Now, a little over…
Carrie Underwood With Easton Corbin and the Swon Brothers American Airlines Center, Dallas Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016 Carrie Underwood is like a Barbie doll but better. There isn’t a note she can’t hit. Her blonde hair bounces with every step, yet never gets messy. Her outfits are made for a…
Alex Johnson is used to having the magic touch. A business owner in his early 20s, he’d enjoyed enough success in the real estate world to all but retire barely 10 years later. Still only 33, Johnson is out looking for a new challenge — which is why he’s opening…
Timing can be everything for a band, as the members of Gammacide know all too well. They hit the North Texas metal scene in the late ’80s, when thrash metal peaked in popularity, and the band disappeared into legend shortly thereafter. The Arlington five-piece left behind a couple of demo cassette tapes and 1989’s Victims of…
RL’s Blues Palace II, in the Fair Park neighborhood, is a stand-alone venue in more ways than one. Its surrounding streets are far from Dallas’ sanctioned nightlife districts. The adjacent strip mall parking lots get crowded with loiterers on hot summer nights, hanging out on the backs of cars or…
Dallas may not be the first city you’d think of as the home of Texas blues, but it should be. Its roots run deep, and can be traced back to Deep Ellum’s earliest incarnation as a musical epicenter, when Blind Lemon Jefferson played on the street corner in the 1930s…
Vanilla Ice’s hometown show at The Bomb Factory on Saturday night was as ’90s as it could get. Dallas’ loved and loathed one-hit-wonder, and still best-selling local hip-hop exponent, pulled out all the nostalgia stops in Deep Ellum. (The review is here.) But one thing was missing from the night:…
