The Problem With… Ke$ha’s “Your Love Is My Drug”

I think I’m going crazy, folks. Ever since I started this column by reviewing the song “TiK ToK” by Ke$ha, I’ve been haunted by the song every time I step out of the house. On the radio, it’s there. On TV, it’s there. While watching trashy- but-privileged people walking down…

Neon Indian: The Next Big Tween Sensation?

Yesterday afternoon, lead JoBro Joe Jonas, like his Colleyville-bred girlfriend before him, gave Neon Indian an official Twitter endorsement, calling the band “a good listen.”Unsurprisingly, Hipster Runoff sister site The Alt Report is all over the news, asking the important questions, like “Will the Jonas Brothers write a chillwave album…

Bonus MP3: Drawn By Jaymz — “Luck”

James Porter might be the most prolific musician in Dallas. Since 2004, he’s released 12 albums under the moniker of Drawn By Jaymz, and he has another record that should be out sometime this month. He plays all of the instruments (save for female vocals) and engineers all of his…

Turn On Your Television: There’s Local Music Everywhere!

The normal rule of thumb is that you need three examples of something happening before you can call it a trend. Well, how about four? SUPER TREND, DUDES. And, in this case, the super trend is all about your TV. Specifically: Area products and songs on TV. Like, for instance,…

Erykah Badu Pleads Not Guilty to Disorderly Conduct Charge

Yup: After starting off the month being charged by the Dallas Police Department with disorderly conduct for getting nude at Dealey Plaza while shooting her “Window Seat” video, Erykah Badu ended April by filing a not guilty plea to challenge those charges. Happened last Wednesday, as a matter of fact–and…

Last Night: Papa Roach and Hellyeah! at the Palladium Ballroom

Papa Roach, Hellyeah!, 12 Stones, Seasons AfterMay 5 2010Palladium BallroomBetter Than: cutting your lift into pieces, suffocation, and no breathing. There are very few bands on the planet that will beckon the audience with punk chants of “oy, oy” along with hip-hop call outs like “Let me hear you say…

Idol Rich: “Blue Skies” Were Smiling on Casey James

American Idol opened its results show with the Top Five performing a medley of Frank Sinatra classics and the announcement that, next week, the remaining contestants would get the guidance of Jamie Foxx. Genre? Songs of the cinema. With Foxx, I would’ve expected vocal impersonations (what up, Faux Ray Charles!),…

Ben Folds

Ben Folds’ comic approach to songwriting may have won him the adoration of college fans, but his most formidable skill is a Midas touch with people and musical subgenres that, until he has his way with them, are considered way uncool. Six years ago, Folds lent his skills to William…

Centro-matic, Matthew and the Arrogant Sea

There aren’t too many bands that can do what Centro-matic has done in the last 12 years. Where most successful bands ramp up and then burn out, Centro-matic has steadily flown under the radar of the mainstream for the duration of its career. Will Johnson is the obvious driving force…

The Album Leaf, Sea Wolf

The title of The Album Leaf’s first LP in four years, A Chorus of Storytellers, may sound a tad ironic given that lead man Jimmy LaValle has a penchant for lush, dreamy soundscapes that aren’t what one would ever describe as “chatty.” While the fifth album from the Sub Pop…

These United States Earn Their Name

There’s a grand—or not so grand, depending on your tastes—tradition of bands naming themselves after their place of origin. Alabama, Kansas, Boston and many other proud sons have made a point to state their allegiance up front and center. Add These United States to that esteemed list. While using the…

Four Reasons Why An Insane Clown Posse Show Isn’t So Bad.

Detroit natives Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler have come a long way from their humble beginnings in 1991 when they formed gangsta rap duo Inner City Posse. In the ensuing years, the pair metamorphosed themselves into their now familiar wicked clown personas as Insane Clown Posse, developed their more horror-themed…

Hentai Improvising Orchestra

While it’s a loaded word, the ever-evolving Fort Worth experimental combo Hentai Improvising Orchestra claims a neutral and non-pornographic meaning for the Japanese word hentai: metamorphosis or transformation. With no bandleader, refusal to practice and a revolving cast of participants improvising on a wild range of instruments (some of which…

Delmore Pilcrow

If The Strokes are considered a garage-rock band, and Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears are regularly labeled as a garage-soul collective, then Denton’s Delmore Pilcrow must be garage-twang. Keep an Eye, the Denton quartet’s second album, is a rambunctious affair that’s also an effectively non-countrified honky-tonk record. Sure, the…

Local Bands Keep Breaking Up. What Gives?

In the liner notes to his band Big Black’s final studio album, legendary guitarist/producer/journalist Steve Albini wrote, “…breaking up is an idea that has occurred to far too few groups. Sometimes the wrong ones.” And with the glut of local bands calling it quits these days—Oso Closo, The Cut*Off, Odis,…

Hoyotoho’s Flashy and Ambitious Debut

It’s tough to not pay Hoyotoho much mind. For starters, there’s the new Dallas band’s flashy live show—which, last Thursday night at 1111 Studios in the Design District, saw Hoyotoho offering up a “videopera” to an arty crowd typically not in attendance at rock shows around the region. And there’s…