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…
Sam Smith With Gavin James Verizon Theatre, Grand Prairie Monday, August 17, 2015 If there’s a soft spot that exists near the heart of Texas, Sam Smith found it Monday night at the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie. With his dashing style and graceful vocals, you’d think some genetically engineered…
There are some things you just don’t do in Deep Ellum. You don’t mess with Keyboard Bob, you don’t harass the bar staffs and you sure as hell don’t fuck up any of the artwork. Those are the sorts of things that were supposed to have been confined to the…
On her 24th birthday, Samantha Rios was at a house watching a performance of a 20-minute play she wrote called No Guts. Rios sat in the back, visibly nervous and staring at the ground. At the same time over at SMU, another play she wrote was being performed, one of…
Oh, college. How we yearn for those carefree days of mooching off our parents and drinking unhealthy amounts of alcohol. Well okay, maybe not a lot has changed, but sometimes that lack of change is a good thing. Take Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios’ Free Week: Each year for the past…
.45 with Seis Pistos, the Assassins, and Hello Lover Three Links Saturday, August 15, 2015 There were four bands on the bill at Three Links on Saturday night, but the night was all about the third act, .45. For 80 minutes, the sold-out venue celebrated the music of Spector 45 with…
Snow Tha Product Trees, Dallas Saturday, August 15, 2015 Snow Tha Product deserves to be a star. That much has been beyond doubt since she released the video for “Holy Shit” in 2011, a video that was so impressive it got her a contract with Atlantic Records. In the 90-second black-and-white…
What’s it take to get music fans out to concerts in the dead of Texas summer? Based on the lineup of bands hitting the Dallas area this week, the resounding answer would appear to be “throwbacks.” Those throwbacks come in all shapes and sizes, too: They could have a retro…
METZ With Big Ups and Sealion Trees, Dallas Thursday, August 13, 2015 What makes a good punk rock show? Many would agree that the essential elements include, but are not limited to: high energy, mosh pits, sweat, stage diving, more sweat, cheap beer, black clothing and music so loud your ears…
When Chris Johnson and his band Telegraph Canyon wrapped up their last album, he decided to hit the road — but his real travels didn’t have anything to do with touring. Johnson hit the road simply to see the world. That last record came out in 2009, and little could…
Back in September, on the set of the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, cameras rolled in the parking lot of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium as actors playing prudish protesters hoisted signs (“Crap Rap N.W.A”) and ran over a pile of the group’s records with a steamroller. A little later,…
As we close in on the weekend, Dallas may be in for a bit of a break from the heat — as in, the highs may only hit 100 rather than 105. Okay, so that’s not much of a relief, but hey, it’s August in Texas so you can’t expect…
Straight Outta Compton, one of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer, drops this week, and Jeffrey Liles can’t wait to see it. But Liles, the Artistic Director at The Kessler Theater, has special reason to want to see the NWA biopic: He knew the group personally. Once upon…
Deep Ellum is most definitely on the upswing. A ghost town a half-decade ago, the neighborhood has seen the return of venues like Club Dada, Trees and The Bomb Factory alongside the emergence of new ones like Three Links and Twilite Lounge. The coming months look set to witness a…
Bad decisions. We all make them, especially when we’re drinking. Sometimes we’re trying to get over that really bad breakup with the person who didn’t understand they were The One, sometimes we think it’s okay to have that extra shot or five, and sometimes we don’t realize that person is…
Plugging an auxiliary cord into a phone is commonplace at a hip-hop studio: Let’s hear what you got. But it’s different when you are standing in Aftermath Studios and Dr. Dre is handing you the cord. You’re about to hear your music like you’ve never heard it before. Dallas producer…
Best known for his epic run hosting the ’80s night at Hailey’s Club in Denton, Jonathan Graham has been a staple DJing as DJG in North Texas for the past few decades. Due to an older brother that was involved with the DJ scene in his younger years, he was…
Shania Twain With Gavin DeGraw American Airlines Center, Dallas Monday, August 10, 2015 She’s baaaaaaack. You love her. You karaoke her songs when you’re blackout drunk. She’s the queen of the country-pop crossover and you and Taylor Swift are forever thankful to her for that. She’s Shania Effin’ Twain and…
When’s the last time you left your house? Was it for a beer run? (If so, c’mon, you can get that shit delivered.) Or maybe it was for a concert (because, nope, you still can’t do that from home). If the latter, we may have just the thing to get…
Denton’s Rubber Gloves is going through a badly-needed facelift. To hear owner Josh Baish tell it, it’s actually more like reconstructive surgery following blunt trauma for the 19-year old venue, which makes it one of Denton’s oldest. “Rubber Gloves is going through something of a rebirth at the moment,” Baish…
Shredding. Slapping. Fingering. Oh my. Three-fifths of the ‘classic’ Deep Purple team that wrote the famous Smoke on the Water descended upon Verizon Theatre Sunday and squeezed every possible solo into the evening. On a purely logistical level, you’ve got to give props to any band that can jam 30…
Raekwon With Ghostface Killah, Dillon Cooper and the Outfit, TX House of Blues, Dallas Friday, August 7, 2015 Let’s face it: Getting a true Wu-Tang Clan reunion is never going to happen. Sure, promises have been made over the years (and tickets have been sold for the “full” line-up), but…
