It happens all the time; one day you’re looking into entering a float in Dallas’ annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and the next you end up with a liquor-store-slash-neighborhood-hangout on your hands instead. At least that’s what the folks at Lower G Spirits & Cigars hope they’ve gotten themselves into…
Two of the most incomparable promoters in Dallas have joined forces. On Halloween, the Coathangers will perform at Pariah Arts, a semicircular steel structure in The Cedars. Vice Palace is Arthur Peña’s roving venue that has played a role in bringing the art and music scenes together. Parade of Flesh…
Taylor Swift has been sharing the stage with a lot of her BFFs recently on her 1989 World Tour. Everyone from Alanis Morissette to Nick Jon es to Fetty Wap and Ellen DeGeneres have popped up at her shows so far, and last night she added another name to that…
John Baugh is a staple in the Dallas house and techno community, best known for his affiliation with the Soundslike crew and as one half of the DJ duo Dragonlazer. Baugh dives into some deep but floor-friendly territory for this week’s Mixtape, complete with a nod to Dallas’ own Brett…
Michelle Neat could hardly believe the advertisement when she found it. The posting from Icon Studios in Dallas, which she came across early last week, asked for dancers who could put on a cheerleader outfit and shake a pair of pom-poms to the loud, satiric sounds of “Smells Like Nirvana.” The three-minute…
For Matthew Smith, owning his own record label wasn’t always part of his game plan. A lot of things had to happen before her got there. There were his stints in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he survived almost a decade of combat. Then there was the motorcycle accident, in which…
It’s scientifically proven that the best tasting drinks are the ones that someone else has purchased for you. Even a PBR tastes like Champagne when you didn’t have to shell out a single nickel for the refreshment, but a well-mixed drink is heaven in a glass when someone else is…
There is no more controversial piece of property (except for those Trinity River plains) in Dallas right now than the historic Lakewood Theater. Beloved by residents for years for its iconic tower and theatre seats that were apparently worth dumpster-diving for, this Dallas icon appears to be teetering on the…
J. Cole With YG, Jeremih and Big Sean Gexa Energy Pavilion, Dallas Sunday, August 23, 2015 The hip-hop hierarchy is being shaken up, and J. Cole is doing the shaking. The North Carolina rapper returned to Dallas on Sunday night — barely two months after fans flocked to his surprise…
Lone Star Texas Heritage Festival With Old 97’s, Black Angels, Grupo Fantasma, Dale Watson, LaTasha Lee and the Blackties and the Deathray Davies Gilley’s Dallas Saturday, August 22, 2015 If a festival is thrown, but nobody goes is it still a festival? The answer is, “Yes…but,” and that “but” is…
Remember when the weather got comfortable for a minute last week? Yeah, that was kinda cool (no pun intended — although, probably). Last week featured a plethora of outdoor shows that, over the weekend, left all to roast in 100-degree heat — because oh right, Texas. Fortunately, there are just…
It’s that time of year again, folks: No, not time for school and no, not time for football season. (Well, both of those, too.) It’s time for the Dallas Observer’s annual Best Of Dallas issue, which rolls out this year on September 24. This year’s issue celebrates the 20th anniversary…
Death With Street Arabs Club Dada, Dallas Saturday, August 22, 2015 Rock ‘n’ roll’s sordid history is littered with rejects. Not just those who were rejects in spirit, but also those who were the might-have-beens, the almost-made-its and the gone-too-soons. Some get validation years later for being ahead of their…
Where do you go after Skrillex? That would seem to be the big, soul-searching question for EDM these days, amidst all the talk that the genre is already on the decline. It’s also a question that a festival like the Mad Decent Block Party is soon to be asking itself,…
Dallas’ only locally-owned community radio station has had a difficult month. With news that it was going to be forced to leave its current home on Maple Ave. to make way for storage units, KNON 89.3 FM was facing an uncertain future — and not for the first time. But…
Incubus With the Deftones and Death From Above 1979 Gexa Energy Pavillon, Dallas Thursday, August 20 Thursday night Gexa Energy Pavilion hosted ’90s alt gods Incubus and Deftones, just the sort of dual-headlining bill that it was built to host. A crowd near the 20,000 capacity stormed into Fair Park…
Throughout its long and storied history as perhaps Dallas’ most famous entertainment district, Deep Ellum has seen a tremendous amount of change. Its existence has been a series of ebb and flow circles, massive booms and even bigger busts. In the neighborhood’s most recent major heydey, the 1990s, Deep Ellum,…
The title of the new record from the Hundred Inevitables, Decade of Downtime, is beyond misleading. Even if My Bloody Valentine’s brain-crushingly loud Loveless had been named Super Quiet, it wouldn’t have been has as misleading a title as Downtime. Over the course of the past decade plus, in fact,…
It’s mid-August in Texas, which means we’ve entered the waning days of summer, which also means we’ve entered the last stretch of truly hot days. Let’s all be honest: It sucks to be outside. Okay, so the heat has broken a bit this week, but don’t be the fool who…
Alabama Shakes With Drive-By Truckers Verizon Theatre, Grand Prairie Tuesday, August 18 Brittney Howard is everything right now. On Tuesday night at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, she led her Alabama Shakes in a chilling show that was more lounge than garage, more Nina Simone than Betty Davis and more…
Kleptik is a recent transplant from Puerto Rico to Dallas who brings a different perspective to techno and tech house musings on the dance floor. He style features an extra emphasis on layered polyrhythms that are informed by original stomping grounds without being derivative. After hooking up with the Motif…
When Dezman Lehman was a teenager, his grandmother decided to stage an intervention for him. Lehman, at the time a 15-year-old freshman at Lincoln High School in Oak Cliff, is gay, and his grandmother, a religious woman, called in God to fix him. She brought her pastor, her deacon and…
