Neil Diamond American Airlines Center, Dallas Thursday, May 28, 2015 “Who opens for Neil Diamond?” I wondered all day before last night’s show at American Airlines Center. My best guess was The Antiques Road Show. My second best guess was Nilla Wafers. But both of those guesses were wrong. As…
This weekend looks pleasant. Aside from the final string of Dallas Week happenings like Friday’s Free Wifi party, 16.Bas.XXX, and Post Malone’s homecoming show, there are a great deal of good shows as well. For instance, a God of funk, George Clinton, is performing at the House of Blues. RL…
How do you make a music festival stick out from the crowd in 2015? Organizers have tried all sorts of ideas, from putting them in arenas to spreading them among clubs and even, uh, having them in the suburbs. A new music festival announced earlier this week, Timescape Music and…
Watch out, Dallas. It’s about to get hot. Real hot. Any day now. This summer, as you’re on the patio getting burned to a crisp by the sun, think about going to a concert. There will be plenty of them to check out in the high heat months to come,…
Fun Fun Fun Fest ain’t nothin’ to fuck with. The Austin festival is getting ready to celebrate its 10th year in 2015, and this morning they made things all official-like by announcing this year’s lineup, headlined by none other than the Wu-Tang Clan. We’ve been burned by these “full Wu-Tang…
Chris Parkinson DJs as the Experiment, a holdout from the better days of dubstep. Believe it or not, there were better days before the obnoxious drops and insidious wobbles took over the genre and it completely jumped the shark. Before cringeworthy pop vocals and money grabs, dubstep was as underground…
The thing about music, especially popular music, is that it’s very youth driven. The thing about being youth driven, of course, is you need to make it possible for the youth culture to fully immerse itself via live performance. That’s how fans grow from being little caterpillar iTunes song buyers…
Panels are more or less uninteresting to a person not directly invested in a trade. If you attended last night’s Dallas rap panel at Off The Record, then you’re probably invested in the trade (and business) of rap in Dallas. In fact, your livelihood may even depend on some of…
As far as gigs a Dallas electronic musician go, it simply does not get bigger than this. On Tuesday, influential “Intelligent Dance Music” duo Autechre announced their first North American tour in a decade, in support of their 2013 album Exai. Support for the tour comes from Rob Hall and,…
Last year we lost two. First went The Loon, the bar Uptown forgot, an against-all-odds dive that finally succumbed to the weight of reality and was plowed in favor of a CVS. Next went Club Schmitz, the working-class bar on Old Denton Road, replaced by a RaceTrac. It’s impossible to…
Player’s ball is a hell of a theme for a party. Imagine a room full of hundreds of young people — we’re talking early 20s, even teenagers — dressed in fur coats, suits so loud they could light up a winter’s sky and stilettos that defy the laws of physics…
Slash With Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators and Fozzy South Side Ballroom, Dallas Sunday, May 24, 2015 Through no fault of my own, I’ve now seen Slash play guitar live on three occasions in the past year. This should be a big deal for me; Guns ‘N Roses were my…
Earl Sweatshirt South Side Music Hall, Dallas Friday, May 22, 2015 He’s come a long way, that Earl. Out from under the wing of Odd Future head Tyler, the Creator, distanced from the macabre braggadocio and marauding sadism of his early Eminem worship, and out the other side of a…
Sad Cops are a band of two different worlds. They’re teenagers who are about to strike out on their own as adults. They’re based in the upper middle-class suburb of Coppell, but they’ll soon be in the college music haven of Denton. And depending on the night of the week,…
Purity Ring The Bomb Factory, Dallas Frida, May 22, 2015 It’s easy to forget the members of Purity Ring are human (at least, as far as we know). Between valkyrie-winged Megan James’ fey vocals and Corin Roddick’s construction of a cybernetic horde at her back, the guise of reality becomes…
Pro tip: Google searches beginning with the words ‘Is Paul Wall’ will get auto-filled to ask the inquisitive mind manning the keyboard, ‘Is Paul Wall dead?’ Hailey’s received a firm answer in the negative Thursday when Wall — Da Iceman, The People’s Champ the Po-Up Poet — descended upon Little…
Welcome to the end of the working week. Seems as though the rain will never end so we’ll have to just get used to Dallas being Seattle. I n the mean time, while you adjust to this, check out a few shows around town. Buffalo Black, Tru Def, and Jenny Robinson…
So what we have learned is that if you want to boost the visibility of your spanking new venue, all you have to do is label something a VIP party, give away free tickets, and not tell anyone who’s playing the show. Because sweet mother of all wristbands was every…
Chris Pickering has spent his last weeks sliding around the pieces for Austin-based band Beth Israel’s winding tour through the Southwest. But when it came time to book the band in North Texas, there was no question: It would be at Rubber Gloves, the venue he frequently played alongside Parquet…
The Latino demographics are booming in North Texas, and nowhere is that clearer than in the thriving selection of Latin clubs to be found in and around Dallas. Here you’ll find music bursting with drums and accordion that you’ll just instinctively have to dance to. So it’s high time we…
Built to Spill, Wooden Indian Burial Ground Granada Theater Wednesday, May 20, 2015 In this age where reunions are commonplace for notable bands of the 1990’s, Idaho’s Built to Spill offer a different take on Generation X’s need for nostalgia-replenishment. Unlike fellow so-called “Indie” acts Pavement, the Pixies and even…
Something’s been brewing up in Denton over the last few months and it’s got North Texas’ aspiring MC’s all worked up. For those paying attention to D-FW’s hip-hop scene, it’s hard to deny the talent this area has been cultivating over the years. The only problem is the lack of…
