Michal Menert is one of today’s most original electronic producers. Besides the fact that he has the Pretty Lights Music logo stamped on his reputation, Menert spends an unusual amount of time putting feeling and emotion into every tune he writes. Sure, he wants to have the biggest bass in…
As we’ve already discussed a bit this week, A Place To Bury Strangers have about as much a problem turning up the volume knob as Rick Perry does seeking hair product. Which makes this recent, surprise announcement all the more awesome: Oliver Ackermann and his strobe-loving, death-obsessed crew will be…
A little bonus to last night’s Horrors’ show at The Prophet Bar: Keyboardist Tom Cowan was nice enough to share some of his first show experiences. The very first show he remembers seeing is a little different from the ones we normally hear about. For starters, he wasn’t taken to…
The Horrors, StepkidsProphet Bar — Big RoomSeptember 20, 2011Better than: unpleasant surprises. The Horror’s new, third album, Skying, is hardly revelatory. But it’s decent enough. The same can be said of their live show, which came to the Prophet Bar’s big room in Deep Ellum last night…
The five members of Midlake are revered recording artists, MOJO award-winners for best live act and, now, bar owners.Less than a month from now — sometime in early October — the Midlake boys will open up shop on the third floor of the building that currently houses Andy’s Bar in Denton…
On the heels of an incredible performance at Austin City Limits Music Festival last weekend, My Morning Jacket have announced that they’ll be taking their show on the road. And, thankfully, since they skipped North Texas on the first leg of their Circuital album tour, they’ll be at the Verizon…
For nearly two decades, cinematic Manchester act Elbow have been fairly silent in the U.S., despite drawing comparisons to Coldplay, Doves, and Radiohead. Meanwhile, their five records have earned critical acclaim back in the U.K. Their last two — Build A Rocket Boys! and The Seldom Seen Kid, were both…
Ume might be an Austin-based trio, but they play Dallas enough that it would be easy to think they’re based here. They last came through in late July, opening for Mission of Burma. They’ll be back on Thursday, September 29, at Trees in support of their recent album, Phantoms. Bassist…
In an episode of 30 Rock from last year’s fifth season, Tina Fey’s alter-ego Liz Lemon walks the street, moping about the end of writing as career path. (I feel you, sister.) (Fistbump.)Eventually, she runs into a group of other bygone careerists living in a subway, ready to adopt her. These careers included…
I’ve never been into bluesy piano rock played by guys wearing fedoras over casual clothing. It just seems like something made specifically for impressionable young women or those married couples that spoon at concerts. I’m neither of those, so that’s probably why I never heard of Gavin DeGraw until now…
New York’s A Place to Bury Strangers has been around for nearly a decade, and, in that time, the band has garnered a solid fan base for its unrelentingly loud slabs of noise. The band’s sophomore record, 2009’s Exploding Head, which the band is still touring behind, found APTBS exploring…
Gotta admit it: We just thought he was being confident and awesome when he said it. Turns out, though, there may have been something of merit behind Kanye West’s out-of-nowhere banter about the Black Eyed Peas from Friday night at the 2011 Austin City Limits festival.”Rest in peace to the Black…
The band, you may recall, did something similar last year, releasing for one night only a film combining footage taken at the band’s 1972 stops in Fort Worth and Houston. This one, however, is all Fort Worth. And there’s a reason for the film’s release beyond simple nostalgia: It’s arriving in…
Stephanie Schumacher balks a little when admitting that, yes, she is putting La Grange up for sale less than two years after opening her Deep Ellum music venue, restaurant and bar.”Well,” she says with a sigh, “it’s kind of been for sale since Day One. That’s what I like to…
The hot sun from the morning of Day Three at the 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival persisted well into the afternoon and evening at Zilker Park. But with the festival end looming and plenty of anticipated sets remaining, no one seemed to mind. In fact, most of the stage…
Before this weekend, I’d never been to Austin City Limits Music Festival. Actually, I’d never been to any outdoor music festivals the scale of ACL. I’ve probably been to eight or nine South By Southwests, and, before heading down to Austin this weekend, I hypothesized that ACL wouldn’t be my…
Billy Joe ShaverBilly Bob’s Texas in Fort WorthSeptember 17, 2011Better than: many of the overly polished country whippersnappers who like to throw around the word “outlaw” these days. Calling Billy Joe Shaver a character is a bit of an understatement. The country legend’s life reads like one of the outlaw-themed…
TV on the Radio & Broken Social Scene House of Blues September 16, 2011 Better than: having a ticket with a “rain or shine” guarantee from the box office, only to have it cancelled at the last minute. As a general rule, when two bands with large fan bases of…
Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Fox & The Bird, Mikldrive Granada Theater September 16, 2011 Better than: having my concert hopes dashed due to rain (Sorry, Explosions in the Sky ticket-holders). When at their best, concerts are far more than a simple equation of an artist performing while people watch them…
Now that Austin City Limits Music Festival is in the rear view mirror, all we have are the memories. That is, unless you spent the weekend drunk and high, in which case you might not even remember who performed, let alone what they said between the songs.Lucky for you, we…
This week back in 1997, Texas blues man Robert Ealey was already a legend. He had worked with the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, T Bone Burnett, and Jim Suhler, and when this story was written, he had just released a most masterfully titled record, I Like Music When I…
Agnostic Front, The Hoodrats, The Mongoloids, Naysayer, Powertrip Trees September 18th, 2011 Better than: driving home hungover, sunburnt, and dehydrated from a long weekend at ACL. If you needed a reminder of how old school hardcore hasn’t been tainted by pandering, last night’s Agnostic Front show was just that. The…
